Policy in Practice

The recent riots have saddened many of those who work in service provision but perhaps have come as less of a shock to them than the incumbent Government. In the last decade, and it continues, a ‘class’ structure has resurfaced but it has now been formed in educational achievement. Education has become the single most important differentiator in this nations social structure; be it voting in elections, finding/applying for a job, reading a contract or applying for assistance for benefits/courses/pensions etc education is creating our segregated society. I fear that this is a hugely misunderstood factor in creating equal opportunities and a continuation of this attitude can only see to further distance our stakeholders. Having worked in education at all levels, in employment, in health and on many community cohesion projects there is a clear lack of ambition throughout communities that begins and ends in learning. We have become a society divided by educational achiev...

In 2009 I worked for an organisation that I will name Inglorious and use the pseudonym DirectWorking or DW when discussing them, I hope this short experience gives a picture of why I decided to share my views. DW provided health related benefit contracts (Pathways to Work) for the Government and supplied support for the hardest to help. I joined DW as I had experienced a fragmented level of service support while working at a residential mental health organisation and felt hugely enthused by an organisation whose motto was ‘Helping the Hardest to Help’ So I set about to do exactly that; having had good experience in a range of services including mental health I was particularly happy to take on any difficult and outstanding clients with mental health barriers. In my first full week I was assigned a catatonic client who at first refused to divulge any information apart from letting me know I was making her health worse; unfortunately for her I revelled in th...

Within a few months Mr Jones attends four mandatory appointments, three workshops and has two sessions with the physiotherapist, all of these are invoiced and when he is shipped to work in a factory has a physical breakdown and re-enters the benefit system for another 6 months. Cynics would perhaps call him a benefit cheat, and many do take this option in returning to benefits but either way he has simply returned back to the system in which we are trying to encourage him to escape from. In some cases it is because the person doesn’t want to return to work but in many cases it is because advisors simply push clients into any employment as soon as possible; failure to do so could see targets missed and pressure mounted. So Mr Jones is pushed into work he doesn’t want to do in a company who only employs temporary staff anyway; Mr Jones could have been better suited to finding a less strenuous job or waiting for his NHS appointment about his back. Mr Jones is very able ...