Tag: Social Policy

Youth unemployment

The trend is clear in much of Europe: young people are much more vulnerable to exclusion from the labour market than older people, and as economies have faltered the differential is growing. The response has often been interpreted in terms of ‘activation’, emphasising the preparation of unemployed people, and at a discussion I was at yesterday, considerable emphasis was put on employability. But employability is not the problem. The preparation of young people for the labour market is not worse than it was ten years ago; in many places it is better. The fundamental problem is that there are not enough jobs. No amount of preparation is going to change that.

Changing young people is not the way; we have to change the job market, or employers, or the economy. There are arguments for all of those, but I’d argue that the core problem rests in the job market. Entry-level jobs are limited; middle-grade opportunities, that make it possible for people to develop their experience and opportunities, are disappearing. This is not going to improve spontaneously; it implies that governments have to act to develop jobs for people to do. That implies some expense, but as Keynes argued, long ago, it is better to waste some money doing something useful than to waste a lot doing nothing.

The arguments for free services

Hard on the heels of the Liberal Democrats, the Scottish Labour Party has announced its opposition to services which are free at the point of delivery, including free prescriptions and personal care. Part of this is in a speech by Johann Lamont, part in comments by Arthur Midwinter.

There are many arguments in favour of universal services – services that are available to all, and free at the point of delivery. Here are some of the main ones.

    Principle

  • People have, or should have, a right to welfare. They do not lose that right if they earn more.
  • Societies which offer equal rights are better to live in for everyone; societies that are less equal are worse to live in for everyone. (See The Spirit Level.)

    • Politics

  • Richer people will not be content to pay for services they cannot benefit from.
  • Separating out services for the better-off means there must be at least a two-tier service. “Services for the poor will always be poor services.” See e.g. T Horton, J Gregory, The Solidarity Society.

    • Practice

  • If entitlement has to be policed, there has to be a mechanism for doing it. Means tests are intrusive, burdensome and expensive.
  • The administration of testing inevitably includes some people who should not be included, and excludes others who should be.
  • Multiple means tests are wasteful and unnecessary; there are better ways of controlling the finance.

It’s difficult to know at what point a shower becomes a rainstorm, but the Labour Party’s shift may indicate the emergence of a new consensus, where the three main parties are all opposed to the principles of the welfare state.

Universality: a simple point

In reports from today’s Liberal Democratic conference, both Nick Clegg and Don Johnson have queried why the Winter Fuel Payment should be available to rich pensioners. The same argument is frequently heard about other benefits, including Child Benefit, and it could be extended to any non-means-tested benefit – health care, pensions, social care and so forth.

There are several arguments for universality – social inclusion, avoiding deterrents and so forth – but the simplest one is this. At present, everyone is already subject to one test of income: the tax system. The easiest way to manage any benefit is to pay a fixed sum and then to claw it back from tax. If there was to be a separate test for benefits like Winter Fuel Payment, everyone who might qualify would then be subject to a further test of income. Testing people’s income repeatedly is a recipe for unnecessary administration and intrusion. Why would anyone want there to be more tests than we need?

Scottish travellers

Gypsy/travellers are the minority group most discriminated against in Scotland. In a report published today by the Scottish Parliament, the Equalities Committee describes the findings as ‘deeply shocking’ and describes its reaction as ‘horrified’ and ‘appalled’. The work I do doesn’t often bring me into direct contact with travellers, but I did do some work in Aberdeenshire in 2004 which gave me the opportunity to talk directly with travellers about their situation. One of the women said what it’s like: “you’re a floor they can dance on.” The travellers talked about rampant racism, discrimination in services, harassment and lack of protection by the police – “we’re just a puckle of tinkers to them”. It’s good to see some public attention, but depressing to see so little progress.

Asia’s next revolution

The Economist devotes this week’s cover, and its main leader, to a story about the expansion of social protection in Asia. One of the main unsung tales of the last ten years has been the massive development of social protection in developing economies like South Africa, Mexico, India, Indonesia, China and Brazil – Barrientos and Hulme call it a “quiet revolution”. The Economist article focuses mainly on health care, and Asia has come late to the party. The Economist is probably right to argue that “every country that can afford to build a welfare state will come under mounting pressure to do so.” But then, I would say that: I have argued the case in The Welfare State (Sage, 2000) and some other papers.

The Economist’s leader does, however, make a common mistake. They write: “Europe’s welfare states began as basic safety nets. But over time they turned into cushions.” They didn’t begin that way, and they haven’t finished that way either. The origins of many welfare states lie in the development of solidarity and the mutuals; the state became involved much later. See Peter Baldwin’s book, The politics of social solidarity, Cambridge University Press 1990. The extension of health care, which they focus on, is essential to the maintenance of any modern labour force.

It was the English Poor Law that began as a safety net. The accusations that the British system had become excessively generous can be dated back to the criticisms of the monasteries before the Reformation, but it became a regular part of complaints about welfare from the mid-18th century onwards; it continued in the accusations that workhouses had become ‘pauper places’; and it continues now in the assertion, contrary to all the evidence, of generations who have ‘never worked’. The system is neither generous at an individual level, nor collectively unaffordable. There is extensive evidence of the relationship of welfare to economic performance: there isn’t one. See A B Atkinson, 1995, The welfare state and economic performance, in Incomes and the welfare state, Cambridge University Press, and the entry on my website.

Using median income as a measure of poverty

Earlier this year I had a paper published about the use of 60% of the median income as a measure of poverty (Why refer to poverty as a proportion of median income?, Journal of Poverty and Social Justice, Volume 20, Number 2, June 2012 , pp. 163-175.) I suggested it would be simpler, and easier to justify, if the reference figure was 50% of median earnings instead. According to recent figures in the HBAI series, 60% of median income fell from £259 in 2010 to £251 pw in 2011. By contrast, 50% of median earnings fell from £250pw to £249 pw.

Promoting GP competition

Reform Scotland has published a pamphlet arguing that since GP practices are insufficiently sensitive to patients’ needs, the answer must be to promote competition between providers. That doesn’t follow. When markets are based on ‘choice’, the choices that are made are not just the choices of consumers; they are also the choices of providers. Competition works because providers refine and select what they do. They choose who their customers are. They choose their location. Making the right choices cut costs; that is why competitive markets tend to be efficient (and why public services aims for ‘cost-effectiveness’ instead of efficiency – the aims are very different). The selective decisions of providers, within the current system, are precisely the reasons why patients do not get what they need. Which practices are going to cover people in isolated rural locations? Who is going to provide services to drug users, who use GP services at ten times the rate of other people? Who is going to provide services to very elderly people, who cost practices seven times the resource of other patients? Competition is not the way to a universal service; it is the opposite of what is called for.

London Metropolitan University

I have signed a petition to the UK Border Agency at http://www.gopetition.com/petitions/amnesty-for-international-students-at-london-metropolit.html. It reads as follows:

We believe that it is completely contrary to natural justice that students should be punished for problems emanating from their University.
We therefore demand that the UK Border Agency agree to an immediate amnesty for the international students at London Metropolitan University affected by the Agency’s decision to revoke the University’s ‘Highly Trusted Status’. This would enable them to continue their studies while the problems at London Met were addressed.
We believe that the UKBA’s decision is a disproportionate reaction to a situation that could be addressed without the recourse to such drastic action. The UKBA’s decision punishes thousands of students who are entirely innocent of any alleged immigration breaches and sends a disastrous message to the rest of the world that UK higher education is not accessible to international students. Its actions threaten the immediate futures of thousands of London Metropolitan students, as well as the future of the University, and casts a huge shadow over the very valuable contribution that international students make to the culture and sustainability of UK higher education.

Tuition fees

Joan McAlpine writes in today’s Daily Record that the Scottish Government’s actions to remove fees from Scottish students has been “well and truly vindicated” by improved recruitment. However, the story is not yet complete. Undergraduate fees have not been abolished; they are charged and reimbursed by the Students Awards Agency to Scotland, which makes a payment direct to the university. The fees which are being charged and reimbursed to Scottish students by this process are different from, and signficantly lower than, the fees charged to students from the rest of the UK. Expect the court cases to blossom. There is probably a very simple solution, which is to charge all students the same nominal fee and then reimburse it to Scottish-based students. It’s been done in Further Education for years.

The base of the pyramid

There is more than one road to excellence. Six weeks ago, I went to an open-air concert performed by the Simon Bolivar Orchestra, the product of Venezuela’s El Sistema (try this clip on Youtube.) This is one of the world’s greatest orchestras, but they didn’t get there by selecting elite musicians. El Sistema is also a major project for social inclusion. It has achieved a small miracle through a mass programme of musical education, drawing in hundreds of thousands of children. The orchestra is only the apex of a large pyramid. That, as much as the performance, is what makes it special.

This week, in Britain, we are having success in sport at the Olympics. The media are buzzing with claims that the success of elite sportsmen and women will trickle down; they will be role models; they will encourage children to participate in physical exercise; they will “inspire a generation”. I see no evidence to support any of these claims. Success has been achieved – as it was formerly achieved in East Germany – by selecting elite athletes and giving them elite resources (such as the individually engineered bicycles that have helped the British to dominate in the velodrome). Britain’s tally of medals is approaching that of the USA – another country which, like us, suffers from social exclusion and an obesity epidemic. If we built a pyramid from the base, it will be possible to identify people at the heights. If we start at the top instead, that is all we will ever see.