Most of the articles you’ll find on this blog are about housing, council estates and the poor quality of new housing design but now and again you’ll find another type of article under the category of Thoughts and this is one such.\u00a0 It relates to housing in as much as council estates are often cited as being the source of individuals causing trouble through being unemployed.<\/p>\n
With all the talk of NEETs (Not in Employment, Education or Training) whenever the subject of unemployed young people comes up, the ASBO culture, sink estates etc I thought it would be time to revisit an article from some years ago that I came across while at sea in a newspaper onboard one of the ships on which I worked at the time.\u00a0 I have reproduced the article in full below:-<\/p>\n
Sunday Express September 15th 1991<\/p>\n
———————————-<\/p>\n
From Sunday Money<\/p>\n
Why is unemployment so high in Britain and the rest of the EC, when it isn’t in America or Scandinavia?<\/p>\n
The mistake in Britain, according to Layard, has been to depart from Lord Beveridge’s prescription that the state should provide work or training for all, and that the payment of unemployment benefit should be “conditional on attendance at a work or training centre.”\u00a0 He was insistent that “complete idleness, even on an income, demoralizes.”<\/p>\n
Instead, benefits have been open-ended and for an unlimited period.\u00a0 And training and work opportunities have not been made available on a scale sufficient for the authorities to insist decently that, after a period the unemployed should accept either a training place or a job offer – or forgo benefit.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
In America, benefits have been paid for only a short period, and little assistance provided in the form of training or help in finding jobs.\u00a0 The result has been low unemployment but at the expense of grinding poverty, huge cuts in living standards during downturns, and a culture dominated by crime and drugs in the urban ghetto.<\/p>\n
Sweden, by contrast, has applied both halves of the Beveridge formula, and kept unemployment low while avoiding the creation of a U.S. style underclass.<\/p>\n
An employment policy modelled on Sweden’s would look like this:<\/p>\n
*Each Job Centre would be given the duty to secure offers of work or provide quality training for every unemployed person within 12 months.\u00a0 Job Centres would be computerised and each unemployed person allocated a personal placement officer with access to on-line information about all vacancies in the country.<\/p>\n
*People unemployed after six months would be sent on a training course leading to a recognized qualification.\u00a0 Employers would control the courses to maximize the chances of a job.<\/p>\n
*Those unable to benefit from training would, after nine months, join a special job club where their capabilities would be assessed.\u00a0 Employers hiring from the club would get a subsidy.<\/p>\n
*Finally, anyone still unemployed after a year would be offered a proper six-month job at a regular workplace – in hospitals, social services, public works or voluntary organisation.<\/p>\n
This sort of approach is not just common sense, say Layard and Philpott.\u00a0 It would actually be stupid not to make the effort.<\/p>\n
For every unemployed person, taxpayers lose \u00a38000 a year.\u00a0 If, as they say, a determined drive of training, counseling and placing could cut long-term unemployment by half a million, this would save the Exchequer \u00a34 billion a year.<\/p>\n
The scheme itself would cost no more than half this.\u00a0 So income tax could be cut by a penny in the pound.<\/p>\n
It sounds good to me.<\/p>\n
Christopher Smallwood is Director of Strategic Planning.\u00a0 TSB Group.\u00a0 His column expresses a personal view.<\/p>\n
Source: A new book by Professor Richard Layard of the LSE, and Dr John Philpott, of the Employment Institute.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Bear in mind that since 1991 the rules have changed considerably but what Beveridge said has not and I think it is worth revisiting the idea that anybody in receipt of Government financial assistance ought to be employed in some daily activity for their own benefit and that of society.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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