Last week Sandwell Council deservedly got a lot of flack from us by advertising for two positions in their welfare rights department. This week, Nottingham City Council is advertising for ten positions in its welfare rights department. Top City firms may be handing out redundancies, but the welfare rights industry is clearly booming.
Think about that contrast for a minute. The profit making sector is showing signs of weakness but week on week the state sector continues to swell its ranks. Who is going to pay for these jobs? We are. But what if, as some suggest, there’s an economic slowdown on the horizon. Fewer people working in the profit making private sector will be subsidising the growing gut of the state. How do they pay for it? Through high taxes, of course. And for what? For bureaucrats in Sandwell and Nottingham and every other council to go and hand out more and more of your money to more and more people ‘entitled’ to it.
This isn’t a perfect world; there are winners and losers. But look at the alternatives to spending taxpayers’ money inviting bureaucrats to hand out more and more benefits. Charles Murray’s plan would give everyone a national minimum to look after their own welfare, dramatically shrinking the state as a result. You could raise the income tax threshold to allow hard-working, less well off families to keep more of their money. Instead, the government are taxing the poorest to pay for big government, a state raking in even more when the 10% income tax band doubles in April, hitting the poorest hard and trapping them in a system of complex benefits. And yes, they are complex. Government gives with one hand from the welfare rights directorate, and takes with another from the overpayments bureau. Ronald Reagan said “government isn’t the solution, it’s the problem”. Who now thinks he was wrong?
So, we present to you our ten-in-one non-job of the week, from Nottingham City Council:
“The Welfare Rights Service
Team Manager - £28,221 - £30, 843
Welfare Rights Officers x5 - £18,450 - £24,708
Administration Assistant - £14,778 - £15,825
Senior Welfare Rights Officers x3 - £25,437 - £26,928
The Welfare Rights Service is committed to addressing poverty and social exclusion, through the provision of specialist benefit and debt advice, targeted take-up campaigns and by addressing social policy issues.
A community based advice service delivering welfare benefit and debt advice, casework and representation to residents in the North and West of the city via advice sessions at the Bulwell Advice Centre and community outreach venues and targeted take-up campaigns.
An advice service delivering Welfare Benefit advice, casework and representation to some of the most vulnerable residents known to the authority, via referral from Social Care professionals, and awareness raising via the provision of planned training programmes.”
So please feel free to tell Nottingham’s taxpayers where their money is going and the crisis our country faces if the public sector keeps expanding like this:
Letters Editor
Nottingham Evening Post
Castle Wharf House,
Nottingham,
NG1 7EU,
United Kingdom
Email: [email protected] (the editor)