WHEN it comes to public services, it seems to me this Conservative government will do absolutely anything except employ people and reward them properly for their work.
We see it with the refusal to train enough doctors, with the devastating shortages of nurses, midwives, teachers, police, with the current bout of nastiness directed at ‘91,000 unnecessary civil servants’ who can’t answer back …
To which I’d reply: “If you think you can do without 91,000 of your staff, why have you done nothing about it in your last 12 years in power?”
It suggests to me that this is softening up the population for more and more privatisation, enabling ministers to argue that our current systems ‘aren’t working’ and could be ‘more efficiently run by the private sector’ when actually the problems are political incompetence and interference, the creation of unnecessary layers of complex management and regulatory structures, and too little trust in professionals.
We also see it in the nigh-impossibility of actually speaking to an adviser on any of our so-called ‘help lines’.
I’ve been trying (not for the first time) to get through to the Child Benefit number to inform them that the Ukrainian refugee and her young daughter who lived with us for three months or so have now gone back home. Basically because she could see no prospect of them being able to afford to live here independently.
Our former guest is supposed to let them know about her departure, but her computer’s broken (not easy to sort out in wartime) and she can’t get through to a human being on the phone line for callers from abroad. It’s very expensive to spend hours at a time on her mobile in the vain hope of getting an answer.
All she wants to do is stop them paying her money she’s no longer entitled to. UK taxpayers’ money.
She’s increasingly worried that she will be in trouble for not informing them about her change in circumstances. So she asked me to help.
But I can’t get through on the phone either, and I’m not sure ‘data protection’ will allow them to speak to me even if I eventually succeed.
Wiltshire Council’s refugee advisers tell they can’t do anything and she’ll have to contact Child Benefit herself.
The website does give a postal address, so I’ve advised her to write a letter and hope that will do the trick. She’s been told it could take at least a fortnight to arrive.
A few words with an actual person might have saved all this.
‘Just because we can’ isn’t a justification for doing anything and that includes removing the human element from essential public services.
We see it with the refusal to train enough doctors, with the devastating shortages of nurses, midwives, teachers, police, with the current bout of nastiness directed at ‘91,000 unnecessary civil servants’ who can’t answer back …
To which I’d reply: “If you think you can do without 91,000 of your staff, why have you done nothing about it in your last 12 years in power?”
It suggests to me that this is softening up the population for more and more privatisation, enabling ministers to argue that our current systems ‘aren’t working’ and could be ‘more efficiently run by the private sector’ when actually the problems are political incompetence and interference, the creation of unnecessary layers of complex management and regulatory structures, and too little trust in professionals.
We also see it in the nigh-impossibility of actually speaking to an adviser on any of our so-called ‘help lines’.
I’ve been trying (not for the first time) to get through to the Child Benefit number to inform them that the Ukrainian refugee and her young daughter who lived with us for three months or so have now gone back home. Basically because she could see no prospect of them being able to afford to live here independently.
Our former guest is supposed to let them know about her departure, but her computer’s broken (not easy to sort out in wartime) and she can’t get through to a human being on the phone line for callers from abroad. It’s very expensive to spend hours at a time on her mobile in the vain hope of getting an answer.
All she wants to do is stop them paying her money she’s no longer entitled to. UK taxpayers’ money.
She’s increasingly worried that she will be in trouble for not informing them about her change in circumstances. So she asked me to help.
But I can’t get through on the phone either, and I’m not sure ‘data protection’ will allow them to speak to me even if I eventually succeed.
Wiltshire Council’s refugee advisers tell they can’t do anything and she’ll have to contact Child Benefit herself.
The website does give a postal address, so I’ve advised her to write a letter and hope that will do the trick. She’s been told it could take at least a fortnight to arrive.
A few words with an actual person might have saved all this.
‘Just because we can’ isn’t a justification for doing anything and that includes removing the human element from essential public services.
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