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Benefit test is a cause for concern
LIKE John Knight (Interview, Feb 8), we too are concerned about the Government’s plans to abolish incapacity benefit. In future, for all but the most severely disabled people, there will be a medical test followed by a regime of compulsory work-focused interviews and work-related activity. Those who fail to engage with these activities face sanctions and could be left to survive on £55 a week.
We are extremely worried about the amount of power being given to Jobcentre staff, who will decide whether someone with depression is ready to look for work, how many employers the person undergoing chemotherapy should ring up a week and when to penalise those deemed not to be “engaging” with the compulsory work-focused activities.
Most sick and disabled people do want to return to work but need support and a changed attitude from employers, not sanctions and poverty-level benefits.
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Lorna Reith,
chief executive,
Disability Alliance
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IN THE final part of the interview that I gave to Public Agenda recently (Interview, Feb 8), it is important that readers appreciate that my reported optimism was for the Strategy Unit’s report, Improving Disabled People’s Life Chances, rather than the Government’s planned reforms of incapacity benefit — my concerns regarding the latter being well illustrated earlier in the article.
John Knight,
head of external policy,
Leonard Cheshire Foundation
24-hour delivery people
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NOW that we live in a 24-hour society, many of us fail to see what concerns the Freight Transport Association about the congestion charge (Over to you, Feb 1).
Being in show business I am often driving home from Central London after midnight and wonder where all the delivery vans are in the almost empty streets.
Restaurants catering for our evening meals are always saying that their deliveries of supplies and laundry are delayed in the crowded streets at midday when they would welcome deliveries at 10.30pm. The trouble is that many years ago someone coined the phrase “unsocial hours” — now there is no such thing.
Everyone should be paid the same rate for a job whenever it is performed, seven days a week, 24 hours a day. In most international cities there is a workforce large enough to take on this work if present workers refuse to.
I am sure this argument is anathema to many delivering or receiving foods but if I put my head in the sand and continued to work “social hours”, opening theatres and cinemas at 9.30am, I’d quickly go bankrupt.
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Anthony Field CBE FCA,
London WC2
Beware equity release plans
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INDEPENDENT AGE would recommend caution when considering equity release schemes as a means of generating income in retirement, (Age concerns eased by loans, Feb 1). So-called “home reversion” schemes, which allow older people to sell off part of their home in return for a lump sum, and “lifetime mortgages” in which the interest is rolled up until death or until the borrower enters a care home, are often not appropriate for older people. The problem with all such schemes is that they bring home owners back into the debt and borrowing cycle at a time when they may well need to be released from such burdens.
At the very least, we strongly recommend that people seek the services of an independent financial adviser.
Jonathan Powell,
chief executive,
IndependentAge, London W14
Literacy in perspective
IN REPLY to Don Barton (Over to you, Feb 8) only a small percentage of diaries and letters written by teenagers in the world wars have been published, in contrast to the hundreds of thousands taking part, and should not be used as a measure of past literacy.
Illiteracy today remains because of known difficulties such as dyslexia or others that impact on the ability to learn. The crime is that so many students struggling with specific learning difficulties remain undetected in the education system. That some of them reach university level and beyond without a full grasp of literacy skills should be applauded. They give a small snapshot of those not lucky enough to make it that far.
Sharon Tringham,
Tonbridge, Kent
Collective responsibility
I WELCOME the support from Ruth Kelly for head teachers taking a firm line on school discipline (Kelly’s speech . . . in 75 words, Feb 8).
Only where there is good discipline can effective learning take place. In recent years, schools have put in an immense amount of work on improving behaviour and the chief inspector’s annual report stated that most schools are well disciplined, even though the headlines in the following day’s newspapers told a different story.
School admission rules have caused a disproportionate number of excluded pupils to be placed in certain schools, which then have an almost impossible job to produce good examination results.
That is why I support Kelly’s plea that schools should take collective responsibility for excluded pupils.
John Dunford,
general secretary,
Secondary Heads Association
agenda@thetimes.co.uk
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