The Guardian: Unfit DWP should be axed, says thinktank

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2019/jan/19/abolish-work-and-pensions-department-demos-thinktank

Link to Demos report hosting page, https://demos.co.uk/project/pathways-from-poverty/

and directly to the report, https://demos.co.uk/wp-content/uplo...m-Poverty-a-case-for-institutional-reform.pdf

 

I'm old enough to remember when jobcentres got people jobs. You found something you liked, took them the details, they'd ring up, get you an interview, even pay for transport, trainfares etc.

I'm not sure what they are these days but they are not jobcentres in any meaningful sense of the words.

The DWP is unfit for purpose and always has been.

 

My feeling is that the problems in the UK are not with the structures in Whithall but the politically generated culture that has developed in a number of departments over a number of years.

It has been centrally decided that anyone claiming any form of benefit should be treated with hostility and contempt. Just as the Home Office has become a malignant Kafkaesque bureauracy in relation to anyone perceived as an immigrant, the DWP and its subcontractors have a culture designed to discourage and disbelieve applicants, I suspect even their inefficiency and incompetence is a deliberately accepted consequence of this disrespect towards the people they are meant to help.

 

I wonder if the system was designed by people that are out of touch. They might have lived a life with no problems that couldn't be overcome with some optimism and determination, and therefore expect others to solve their problems in this manner. Life is complex, one strategy does not work for all problems, and some problems are not solvable.

 

This appears to be the case with most British institutions, it probably always has been.
The ethos is work hard, you will be rewarded. Therefore anyone who is not reaping the rewards must , practically by definition, be undeserving. The people who end up at the top are the ones where that ethos worked, therefore the system remains.
Simplistic but not generally far off the mark.

 

The political masters have been informed over and over again of the real life the consequences of their policies. In relation to the DWP the government seems to believe that people can be bullied into work or can be ignored into health. They may believe lack of work and ill health are lifestyle choices, but they also have actively chosen to ignore the evidence to the contrary.

 

i agree re absurd assumptions about unemployment and inability to work

even if this change was agreed upon (moving employment & welfare into a different govt dept)
the Tories would find a new way to siphon the funds to their rich mates, while depriving everyone else