Liberation Welfare

21 April 2010

Few phrases are as synonymous with the last decade or so of social policy than ‘rights and responsibilities’. It has been the dominant frame for the government’s welfare reforms, but like ‘Cool Britannia’, the slogan now sounds incredibly tired and dated.

But, more importantly, the philosophy it encapsulates needs recasting too. In a new collection of essays we’re publishing today we propose a new approach, which we call Liberation Welfare.

The idea of ‘rights and responsibilities’ started off as a good instinct. Making benefits more conditional and investing more in back to work support were good reforms that contributed to record employment prior to the recession.

However, in truth, the concept of ‘right and responsibilities’ covers up a kind of cosy collusion. For all the tough talk, the welfare system offers relatively little to people and asks relatively little of them in return. Welfare also remains a centralised, process driven system, with little power or control for individuals (or frontline employment advisers).

So how would Liberation Welfare be different?

The animating ideas would be power, security and reciprocity – raising expectations on both state and citizen. It would put greater power in the hands of citizens – rather than a passive and paternalistic approach. It would provide stronger security against risks and better incentives for self-protection – rather than accepting market outcomes and regressive incentives. And it would strengthen the reciprocal relationships between citizens and practitioners at the frontline, based around individual needs – rather than a highly prescriptive, rules-based system of support.

In short, the welfare state should be more empowering and more demanding. It should offer more and ask more. Rather than a mutual stand off; mutual engagement and expectations.

Our collection sets out a wide range of ideas to illustrate how Liberation Welfare could work in practice. Here are four big ideas that speak to this new philosophy.

First, anyone at risk of long-term unemployment should be guaranteed decent paid work, and be expected to take it up.

Second, the incentive to self-protect against income shocks should be transformed, by shifting state support for savings to people on low incomes and reducing the penalty for doing so in the benefits system.

Third, we should ensure that no one who works hard ends up in poverty, through a combination of the minimum wage, a living wage in the public sector and campaigns for one in the private sector, and wage supplements (such as through the Working Tax Credit).

Fourth, the package of support and conditions for people looking for, or preparing for, work should be more tailored to their personal circumstances – as set out in the government’s Gregg Review.

Fundamentally, Liberation Welfare rests on a belief that individuals are the central agents in bringing about change in their lives, but also recognises that this agency is conditioned by the structures of power and patterns of opportunity across society.

So are the parties offering anything like this in the election? Well, Labour has been at it’s best when it has championed radical reform of both the market and the state. Its manifesto commitments to a job guarantee for anyone unemployed for two years, a living wage for all Whitehall staff and a rising minimum wage are all great examples of this tradition.

Significantly, the Tories back neither – while proposing a policy that has been law for years.

Welfare is rarely a hot button election issue. But given the linked challenges of unemployment and the deficit, it absolutely should be.

4 Comments

4 Responses to “Liberation Welfare”

  1. links for 2010-04-21 « Rumblegumption
    April 22nd, 2010 @ 1:35 am

    [...] Liberation Welfare : OpenLeft [...]

  2. treborc
    May 19th, 2010 @ 8:06 am

    I normally just say I'm disabled but lets see, I've been told I'm able to work, then was told you will more then likely be left alone, but yes I'm on lower benefits.

    I broke my back in an accident at work, a small piece of bone from my spine went into my spinal cord, I had a bleed within the spinal cord which took away the use of bowel and bladder, but it affected the way I walk, the signals did not go from my brain to my legs, I kept moving my legs but without control. I broke my arm, leg ribs, my nose twice cheek bone eye socket just trying to walk. I had an operation to remove the bone, but sadly I had MRSA in the spine which ran into my legs.

    I now use morphine like most people use sweets to keep the pain down, to stop me abusing the drugs, doctors place a morphine pump below the skin.

    Now then after a few months when writing letters, I noticed my hands and fingers would be very sore painful and I drop the pen, and I could not pick it up. This got worse year after year, until i could not write, so off I go into hospital for tests, doctor said my injury was in fact Paraplegia, and the damage done to my spine was higher up in fact into my neck.

    I use lots of drugs and gadgets to keep me going, but even doing small things can be so tiring, even getting dressed is a massive task for me, I then have to place a catheter into my bladder , and I have to empty my bowel by using my fingers and other gadgets.

    I get called into my medical unlike Tony Blairs lies my GP never gets me benefits you have to be seen by a DWP private doctor.

    So to cut this very short I've just been told yes your disabled yes you need help, but thats not a reason for an employer to say no, your fit to work, under the new ESA rules.

    But I joined Labours New Deal in 1998, I then joined the Pathways to work, and I'm part of workfare, for eighteen years I been looking for work with the job center remploy inter works and the Shaw trust.

    sadly last year the job center told me to stay away, they get in contact with me if they found a job for me, thats twelve months ago.

    I have just been informed it's highly unlikely I will ever get work, because for me to work the company will need to pay for at least two carers.

    Sadly cut backs means i get no help anymore, but I do help out the national debt by getting lower benefits.

  3. Robert
    May 27th, 2010 @ 9:02 pm

    What a load of cobblers, your new deal was a farce, your idea that i could get help do not make me laugh, you even tried to make me pay for training.

    It would be nice also if the people who wrote this crap bothered to answer it now and again.

    I had an accident at work 1990, doctors messed up and for four years i tried to work with a broken back, and serious spinal injuries, i ended up working and taking drugs to keep going for nearly four years. Until one day i saved up enough money to see a Professor, I paid to have an MRI scan, while he was reading this scan in his office he phoned for an ambulance I was rushed to hospital, what i did not know I had a lesion of my spinal cord.

    I spent a year in hospital but I still lost the use of my bowel bladder all sexual function, and the pain for which i took anything and every thing.

    I now have an implanted morphine pump an implanted tens machine.

    But now i mess my self, I wet myself I fight each day to live.

    Tell me people who the hell is going to employ me because I'd love to work.

    perhaps if MP's did not employ family members they might look to employ a disabled person.

    Where i live the council paid one million to a bloke to help people back to work, he employed sixteen people to help the disabled, but he decided he better not employ any disabled because the work might be to hard.

    I have watched Adsa in the last few month laying off it's disabled, Tesco never put the retards to work on the shop floor, B&Q stated they would not employ the disabled ask somebody else.

    So you bunch of Pratt's who the hell wants me, because believe me I've tried so much that not to long ago i tried ending my life.

  4. JM
    September 7th, 2010 @ 12:18 pm

    There's not much use fiddling around with benefits and expecting them to take jobs if the funding to help long-term conditions like depression (real depression, not the “Oh I'm feeling a bit down today” type, but real, grinding, waking-up every morning disappointed you're still alive-type depression). If you are depressed like that, it's hard to find motivation to do anything at all – and the help you get depends on where you live. in some places you'll be offered a variety of talking therapies, other places will only offer anti-depressants and a long waiting-list for CBT (which, contrary to popular belief, is not suitable for everyone). Some places won't even offer talking therapies. Under these circumstances, people with similar conditions are going to get better at different rates, but the DWP doesn't allow for this, nor does ATOS.
    I have long-term depression, and after 3 years am only just starting to make much headway. I do permitted voluntary work, but I know that I couldn't cope with full-time work. To be quite honest, my self-esteem is so low that I don't feel I am worth employing: if I feel like that, how am I expected to persuade an employer that I am?

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