Social welfare privatisation

Dr. Kenneth Noisewater · 22-02-2018 01:01AM

Your statement that essentially you'd find it "poetic" for Social Welfare employees to end up on the brew themselves undermines what threatened to be an interesting post.

doolox · 22-02-2018 01:02AM

I thought it was a good idea when applied to various types of enterprises such as transport and Health care but drew the line when British wanted to apply it to prisons.

There is a limit to what can be achieved by a private company on a competitive tender subject to a limited term and all the insecurity that entails. I could foresee prison break outs increasing and also prisoner abuse and violence by staff against prisoners and violence between inadequately supervised prisoners increasing as the private companies would try to cut corners to cut costs and keep their contracts and also to get more profit from the setup.

A similar thing would happen if social welfare provision was privatised. Social Welfare is not simply about providing money to a certain category of people but is also about providing ancillary supports to those who need them, and liaising with various bodies such as health, education and training and job seeking bodies to reach certain goals. A social welfare officer also needs to be able to deal with police and prison officials when dealing with some of their clients and need to be able to tell when they are being lied to or defrauded by members of the general public. On the other hand, compassion and skill are needed to identify and empathise with the genuine cases.

Other areas where public and private organisations interface tend to work out in favour of the private organisation and the public organisation has to repair the damage done and pick up the pieces when the bad things happen.

Private prisons in the US, for example had to call in the Police when things went pear shaped and riots occurred, no compensation was ever paid for their negligence and having to be bailed out by the police for work they should have been able to handle with their own internal staff.

A similar thing could happen with a privatised Social Welfare system if the government were to pay over a giant premium to some corporation to cover the risk of unemployment etc in the general population, the company might pocket an inordinate amount of money and the government may have to pay up again for the same risk.

Dank Janniels · 22-02-2018 01:04AM

Roger Hassenforder wrote: »

most of the admin monkeys you're dealing with at a front counter would be Clerical Officer grade, paid a lot less than the average industrial wage.
When did we privatise water?

Get off your ars3 and get a job, just because th made life difficult for you in the dole office doesnt mean they're all on a sinecure.

*googles sinecure*

Ah a Sinecure!!!!

endacl · 22-02-2018 01:06AM

Ajsoprano wrote: »

But surely a discussion involves more than one side giving an opinion and one man shouting bollox followed by all his friends shouting bollox

But you chose to post on After Hours. The home of Bollox Shouting. Sure folks here shout bollocks just because they like the way it sounds. I'm actually shouting bollocks as I type this, believe it or not.

Hitman3000 · 22-02-2018 01:13AM

Ajsoprano wrote:

The more I think of it the more I like it.

But you'll never be in a position to implement your fantasy. Anyway shouldn't you be in bed, isn't it a school night?

Ajsoprano · 22-02-2018 01:14AM

Birneybau wrote: »

Here's what's bollox. You're talking (and I think you may be on a wind up) about putting a critical, tax funded service into the hands of private entities and you expect to be taken seriously?

But it’s already happening. Jobbridge tuas nua skillsteam. It’s privatising looking for work. Will they stop at that or will the people on the front desk be privatized too.
A minister for social protection could oversee a few interns to watch over the private companies.

Ajsoprano · 22-02-2018 01:54AM

doolox wrote: »

I thought it was a good idea when applied to various types of enterprises such as transport and Health care but drew the line when British wanted to apply it to prisons.

There is a limit to what can be achieved by a private company on a competitive tender subject to a limited term and all the insecurity that entails. I could foresee prison break outs increasing and also prisoner abuse and violence by staff against prisoners and violence between inadequately supervised prisoners increasing as the private companies would try to cut corners to cut costs and keep their contracts and also to get more profit from the setup.

A similar thing would happen if social welfare provision was privatised. Social Welfare is not simply about providing money to a certain category of people but is also about providing ancillary supports to those who need them, and liaising with various bodies such as health, education and training and job seeking bodies to reach certain goals. A social welfare officer also needs to be able to deal with police and prison officials when dealing with some of their clients and need to be able to tell when they are being lied to or defrauded by members of the general public. On the other hand, compassion and skill are needed to identify and empathise with the genuine cases.

Other areas where public and private organisations interface tend to work out in favour of the private organisation and the public organisation has to repair the damage done and pick up the pieces when the bad things happen.

Private prisons in the US, for example had to call in the Police when things went pear shaped and riots occurred, no compensation was ever paid for their negligence and having to be bailed out by the police for work they should have been able to handle with their own internal staff.

A similar thing could happen with a privatised Social Welfare system if the government were to pay over a giant premium to some corporation to cover the risk of unemployment etc in the general population, the company might pocket an inordinate amount of money and the government may have to pay up again for the same risk.

Thanks for your reasoned response. The way I see it there will be a few necessary jobs that are public in the social welfare system. Initially I said 1 job but you are right maybe 1 in each constituency. These staff members would look after checking on the private services making sure the genuine cases are looked after.

We have a bloated service full of job for lifers offering the same courses that were offered in the 70s.

There was a self employed fella on a scheme the other day charging minimum wage minus cleaning products wondering why his business wasn’t working. He was told to take on more staff.

It’s not good enough.

end of the road · 22-02-2018 02:23AM

Ajsoprano wrote: »

Thanks for your reasoned response. The way I see it there will be a few necessary jobs that are public in the social welfare system. Initially I said 1 job but you are right maybe 1 in each constituency. These staff members would look after checking on the private services making sure the genuine cases are looked after.

not worth the hassle or the huge costs. the current system with it's faults is the better, cheaper option.

Ajsoprano wrote: »

We have a bloated service full of job for lifers offering the same courses that were offered in the 70s.

nope, not anymore. that hasn't been the case for 20 years.

Ajsoprano wrote: »

There was a self employed fella on a scheme the other day charging minimum wage minus cleaning products wondering why his business wasn’t working. He was told to take on more staff.

It’s not good enough.

that is mild compared to some of the nonsense that happens in the uk where there are private companies involved in parts of the wellfare system. i agree it was a ridiculous thing to tell him but that definitely won't be solved by privatization.

Roger Hassenforder · 22-02-2018 03:03AM

Ajsoprano wrote: »

A minister for social protection could oversee a few interns to watch over the private companies.

You havent really thought this through...

mikemac2 · 22-02-2018 05:32AM

Ajsoprano wrote: »

As much as an opposer I am to these schemes would it be kind of poetic if the staff that backed these schemes ended up on them.
I think this dept being privatized would save the tax payer a fortune.

The spitefulness just drooling from your post OP

The counter staff are clerical officers and and not highly paid.

They don’t back any schemes, they just follow the instructions. You make it sound like Mary at Tullamores welfare office counter makes the decisions and you want her terms and conditions slashed to get your own miserable level.

If you have a problem with a scheme take it up with the minister

VinLieger · 22-02-2018 08:54AM

Roger Hassenforder wrote: »

You havent really thought this through...

Check their thread history, its a trend with this poster, a lot of their ideas are supported by the logic of "it will just work"

Wanderer78 · 22-02-2018 09:04AM

Op has a lot of reading to do about the failures of things such as neoliberalism and it's butt buddy neoclassical theory, but anyway....

Ajsoprano · 22-02-2018 06:17PM

mikemac2 wrote: »

The spitefulness just drooling from your post OP

The counter staff are clerical officers and and not highly paid.

They don’t back any schemes, they just follow the instructions. You make it sound like Mary at Tullamores welfare office counter makes the decisions and you want her terms and conditions slashed to get your own miserable level.

If you have a problem with a scheme take it up with the minister

I’m the spiteful one? Did you read your post?

I have an idea to sort out a service. Clerical civil service staff get pay rises every year like all the other staff. We have Tus nua a great success. Why not roll it out across the whole department?

billyhead · 22-02-2018 07:13PM

Ajsoprano wrote: »

I’m the spiteful one? Did you read your post?

I have an idea to sort out a service. Clerical civil service staff get pay rises every year like all the other staff. We have Tus nua a great success. Why not roll it out across the whole department?

Stop while your ahead mate. Your talking rubbish and doing a lot of generalizing.

Wanderer78 · 22-02-2018 07:14PM

Ajsoprano wrote: »

I’m the spiteful one? Did you read your post?

I have an idea to sort out a service. Clerical civil service staff get pay rises every year like all the other staff. We have Tus nua a great success. Why not roll it out across the whole department?

piss take thread!:rolleyes:

ytpe2r5bxkn0c1 · 22-02-2018 07:22PM

Ajsoprano wrote: »

It’s a discussion site. I’m finding nobody has an opinion.
Anytime I try start a discussion srameen disrupts the thread then a few lads turn up telling me my discussion is stupid.
Nobody ever says why.
It’s a bizarre place. Facebook is meant to be for the people who don’t reason.

OK, two things. Firstly, I never posted a single syllable in this thread and deliberately so, so quit your accusations.
Secondly, just because you don't hear agreement with your whacky ideas doesn't mean it's not a discussion. This is After Hours. Try some of these notions in the Politics forum and see what the response and level of discussion is.
Plenty of posters have an opinion on the matter and they all seem to be likeminded.

Ajsoprano · 22-02-2018 08:07PM

Izaiah Salmon Egg wrote: »

OK, two things. Firstly, I never posted a single syllable in this thread and deliberately so, so quit your accusations.
Secondly, just because you don't hear agreement with your whacky ideas doesn't mean it's not a discussion. This is After Hours. Try some of these notions in the Politics forum and see what the response and level of discussion is.
Plenty of posters have an opinion on the matter and they all seem to be likeminded.

I’m sorry bud but I shall no longer be discussing things with you.

splinter65 · 22-02-2018 08:12PM

Ajsoprano wrote: »

With all these jobbridge type schemes popping up it got me thinking.
Are we slowly privatizing the dept of social welfare?

How many people in this dept are employed?

As much as an opposer I am to these schemes would it be kind of poetic if the staff that backed these schemes ended up on them.
I think this dept being privatized would save the tax payer a fortune.
Most of the jobs are simple form filling type jobs a bit of basic training could give yet the people have Union public sector jobs which pay well.
A private company could come in and take staff off the social welfare give them basic training in form filling and get 10000 euro just for employing these people.
So then you would have the person forced to work filling out the form with the person who wants to work.
This newly out of work ex civil servant hold then have to wait 2 years (because of the 10000 grant requirements) to get their old job back but on minimum wage.

Bizarre wouldn’t it be. Surely the water charge freeloaders with their iPhones would be out in the streets protesting this.

Staff in SW don’t fill forms, they process the information in the form the customer has completed.
It’s a good bit more complicated then you seem to think.
I can’t imagine the public service unions allowing any of your suggestions either.

splinter65 · 22-02-2018 08:14PM

Ajsoprano wrote: »

But it’s already happening. Jobbridge tuas nua skillsteam. It’s privatising looking for work. Will they stop at that or will the people on the front desk be privatized too.
A minister for social protection could oversee a few interns to watch over the private companies.

Jobbridge doesn’t exist any more . Lots of things are privatized now. The whole world of drivers licences and driver testing and road safety is privatized.
I can’t see your point?

end of the road · 22-02-2018 08:14PM

Ajsoprano wrote: »

I have an idea to sort out a service.

it's not a viable idea due to the hugely higher cost for lesser return compared to what we currently have.

Ajsoprano wrote: »

Clerical civil service staff get pay rises every year like all the other staff.

they actually don't. their pay is quite low anyway.

Ajsoprano wrote: »

We have Tus nua a great success. Why not roll it out across the whole department?

it's success is actually very debatible, so it wouldn't really be viable to roll it out further. all though it very well may be rolled out in the future regardless, but i'd hope not.

Wanderer78 · 22-02-2018 08:16PM

end of the road wrote: »

it's success is actually very debatible, so it wouldn't really be viable to roll it out further. all though it very well may be rolled out in the future regardless, but i'd hope not.

complete failure in my view

Ajsoprano · 22-02-2018 08:17PM

splinter65 wrote: »

Staff in SW don’t fill forms, they process the information in the form the customer has completed.
It’s a good bit more complicated then you seem to think.
I can’t imagine the public service unions allowing any of your suggestions either.

You spend your time on the tuas nua forum saying how splendid it is.

You give a lot of advice on the welfare thread.

But you only agree to partial privatisation of the welfare system.

The part that doesn’t apply to you?

splinter65 · 22-02-2018 08:22PM

Ajsoprano wrote: »

I’m the spiteful one? Did you read your post?

I have an idea to sort out a service. Clerical civil service staff get pay rises every year like all the other staff. We have Tus nua a great success. Why not roll it out across the whole department?

Your not as much spiteful as completely wrong about how the DSP operates.
Your quoting jobridge which no longer exists.
Your under the impression that SW staff fill in forms. Which forms?
You don’t seem to know that there are desk clerks, deciding officers , SW inspectors, CWOs, fraud investigators etc all doing entirely different jobs, with differing grades of responsibilty.
I think you’ve had your feelings hurt or felt insulted or slighted or something by DSP and you’ve decided that someone needs to be taken down a peg or two or possibly be put back in their box?

splinter65 · 22-02-2018 08:30PM

Ajsoprano wrote: »

You spend your time on the tuas nua forum saying how splendid it is.

You give a lot of advice on the welfare thread.

But you only agree to partial privatisation of the welfare system.

The part that doesn’t apply to you?

None of it applies to me either as a customer or a staff member thank God.
What do you think is broken about the current DSP that it needs to be privatized?
The 140000 who were stuck in a rut on Jobseekers payments needed to be either moved to a more suitable payment for them (TN have proved invaluable in facilitating this ) or off the payment altogether or helped to find work.
There was no one in SW doing this so they got a couple of firms who could.
You dont really know very much about SW either, do you?

Ajsoprano · 22-02-2018 08:31PM

splinter65 wrote: »

Your not as much spiteful as completely wrong about how the DSP operates.
Your quoting jobridge which no longer exists.
Your under the impression that SW staff fill in forms. Which forms?
You don’t seem to know that there are desk clerks, deciding officers , SW inspectors, CWOs, fraud investigators etc all doing entirely different jobs, with differing grades of responsibilty.
I think you’ve had your feelings hurt or felt insulted or slighted or something by DSP and you’ve decided that someone needs to be taken down a peg or two or possibly be put back in their box?

Well when dealing with the dsp or seeing a thread about the new job bridges I was told the only argument is from people who don’t want to work.

I thought maybe you are right and decided to think bigger.

Instead of just privatising the part where the people who are out of work were dealt with let’s privatize the staff too.

Suddenly there was all sorts of arguement against how important the social welfare department is and how important it was to have staff who cared for the unemployed.

It’s making me think again maybe I was right in the first instance and my initial feelings could of been right.

I just dont know what to think anymore.

splinter65 · 22-02-2018 08:47PM

Ajsoprano wrote: »

Well when dealing with the dsp or seeing a thread about the new job bridges I was told the only argument is from people who don’t want to work.

I thought maybe you are right and decided to think bigger.

Instead of just privatising the part where the people who are out of work were dealt with let’s privatize the staff too.

Suddenly there was all sorts of arguement against how important the social welfare department is and how important it was to have staff who cared for the unemployed.

It’s making me think again maybe I was right in the first instance and my initial feelings could of been right.

I just dont know what to think anymore.

I’m not surprised you don’t know what to think anymore.
None of what you’ve written here makes any sense ?
You seem to think that Jobseekers payments are the only ones processed by DSP.
Who did you think processed Carers, Pensions, Widows, SWA, Families, Disabilities, redundancies, Free Travel etc?

wexandproud · 22-02-2018 08:52PM

Izaiah Salmon Egg wrote: »

OK, two things. Firstly, I never posted a single syllable in this thread and deliberately so, so quit your accusations.
Secondly, just because you don't hear agreement with your whacky ideas doesn't mean it's not a discussion. This is After Hours. Try some of these notions in the Politics forum and see what the response and level of discussion is.
Plenty of posters have an opinion on the matter and they all seem to be likeminded.

i would not be that frequent a poster on boards but i actively avoid posting these type of topics that in my opinion are just 'weird' . Also at the risk of being slated on here i would add the remarks about yourself are uncalled for .
In you defence , although you and I had a slight '' run in '' on a thread a while back , i see you name popping up regularly and you strike me as a reasonably enough sort of a guy . cant see what others are complaining about

Ajsoprano · 22-02-2018 08:59PM

splinter65 wrote: »

I’m not surprised you don’t know what to think anymore.
None of what you’ve written here makes any sense ?
You seem to think that Jobseekers payments are the only ones processed by DSP.
Who did you think processed Carers, Pensions, Widows, SWA, Families, Disabilities, redundancies, Free Travel etc?

Nearly all of these payments have a criteria to be met.
Box ticking and form filling.

Are you telling me people in the department decide if somebody below retirement age gets retirement or not.

I thought they had to fill out their forms check their boxes and stamp approved or not. A mobile phone app could do that.

But anyway I have decided it doesn’t need to be privatized just like tuas nua.

It’s just been reported the government paid out 58.5 million to them according to another thread.

They wouldn’t pay 95 euro for my safe pass unless I gaurenteed them I had a job from my future employer.

I asked for rgi training they laughed me out of the place.

I got a job and they rang my phone for weeks trying to get the info on it. I wonder why?

They probably found out anyway and got their commission.

Hitman3000 · 22-02-2018 09:08PM

Ajsoprano wrote:

Iâ€™m sorry bud but I shall no longer be discussing things with you.

Throwing your toys out of the pram when called out on your b.s. is not a discussion in anyone's definition.

Ajsoprano · 22-02-2018 09:08PM

wexandproud wrote: »

i would not be that frequent a poster on boards but i actively avoid posting these type of topics that in my opinion are just 'weird' . Also at the risk of being slated on here i would add the remarks about yourself are uncalled for .
In you defence , although you and I had a slight '' run in '' on a thread a while back , i see you name popping up regularly and you strike me as a reasonably enough sort of a guy . cant see what others are complaining about

I’d say other people posting are talking about background tricks one of which happened me today.

I think it best for my account though that I just stop engaging.

I will speak no more on the subject because I’m afraid there will be a rule broken on some technicality.

Social welfare privatisation

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