Benefit sanctions

[Fide]

I don't know what depresses me more, Kevthdee's outright blatant stupidity and failure to grasp facts or Ad Lib's educated skewing of the truth and resultant stupidity.

Probably both.

The fact that Libbers gets more and more Tory every day is particularly depressing.

[Addie]

1. And here we have it, Ladies & Gentlemen. Ad Lib could be an MP by now....

[invergowrie arab]

This all good mooting society fun but I still can't believe anyone seriously thinks the Tories haven't identified the " bloated public sector" as a target for massive cuts.

It was explicitly set out by Gideon at the start of the last parliament that public sector spend would be slashed to reduce the deficit. He certainly managed the first bit.

If someone wants to argue that Council grants are the Scottish governments responsibility and it's up to us what we spend our pocket money on then fine.

But it's a nonsense to suggest the tory/Liz dem cuts are not ideologically motivated. I don't even mind if it is, politics should be informed by ideology. But people should own the decisions they make

[Addie]

I think the Tory way of thinking (I exclude the Lib Dems from the last Parliament as they were irrelevant and put to the sword as a result) is to live within means. The money in the biscuit tin should be used and that only and if the public sector takes a hit, then fine. That is their ideology IMO and if there is more in the tin, then the PS will benefit.

I don't agree with this personally as the practicalities involved mean that that the divide between rich and poor becomes worse and we as a society fail to get the basics right - feeding folk for a start.

An ideology? Nah, not by the true definition of the word in my opinion, but the end result always shits on the Public Sector from a great height. Another reason why the Tories piss me off, is that they can't even keep to their own beliefs and ended up borrowing more anyway. Utter clowns.

[lichtgilphead]

So just to be clear, you are saying that because of an issue that the SNP's MPs didn't think even so remotely important as to be worthy of comment (they of course have no Lords) this Act is so heinous that it amounts to evidence of "Westminster waging a war on the public sector"?

I'm not the SNP. I've never stood for election under an SNP ticket. You object when your views are ascribed to the Lib Dems or vice versa, yet you appear to be using exactly the same tactic that you deplore in others. Shame.

However, as far as I'm aware, the SNP MP's all voted against the bill. I also understand that a detailed written submission on powers was made by an SNP MSP during the consultation period

Point 3 is purely semantic, in the sense that it relates to the meaning of the words that you said. Are you saying you didn't mean the meaning of the words that you said?

Yes, I said these words. You tried to twist them into meaning that I said that there was a grand conspiracy to make small business owners hate enforcement staff. I said no such thing

Point 4 is not "playing the man and not the ball". It is passing comment that your point is ridiculous. I consider you to be a man of sufficient intelligence that for you to have arrived at your conclusion there must be something wrong with you. If you genuinely believe that the purpose or intention of this legislation was to trigger events, including Daily Mail articles, that would "demoralise public sector workers" then I think you need to be seen by a psychiatrist.

And now you're inventing quotes! It's only you that has used the word demoralise in this thread. I used the word "demonize".

Yes. I believe that the right-wing press demonizes public sector workers. So do many others on this forum. Should we all take your advice to visit psychiatrists because you appear to disagree?

On point 5 I am not plain wrong. The primary purposes are contained in the long-title to the Act. They include specific powers which were designed to assist with law enforcement in particular in relation to the investigation of suspected terrorist activity. It was passed alongside the Terrorism Act 2000 as part of a multi-pronged approach. As with almost all developments in this area, the Labour Government in particular attempted to knit those powers together with general investigatory powers, but the primary intent, purpose and justification for these powers was, both at the time and in the legislation, stipulated as being connected with terrorism and related serious organised crime. If it were not intended to deal with terrorism and security related offences, the Act would not have made reference to the Security Services or GCHQ. The Act's subsequent use and abuse is a matter of public record, but again, I fail to see how it relates to the question of whether or not "Westminster" is "waging a war" on "the public sector".

Yes, the act includes provisions relating to intelligence services. I accept that point. You, however, stated that this was the primary purpose. It isn't.

What you (and the right wing press) fail to appreciate is that before RIPA, investigatory powers were already used by enforcement bodies. The act regulated these powers (the clue is in the short title)

Yes, the Act has unequivocally been used and abused by other government bodies. Poole Council's activities on several matters were heavily criticised by the Information Commissioners' Office back in 2008 and the police have attempted to use it to obtain journalists' sources. This most notably happened after the police sought to retaliate against those undermining their accounts of Plebgate only a few years ago. It is also unquestionably true that the Secret Services and GCHQ themselves have been rampantly abusing the extent of their powers under RIPA, concerns that have been raised frequently by those in the legal profession and human rights advocacy.

What you fail to appreciate is that the act regulates powers. It doesn't set these powers out. For example, Poole Council used powers contained in other legislation inappropriately. This was uncovered when records they were required to keep under RIPA were subject to Audit by the ICO. I have no problem with that decision.

Poole complied with all the record-keeping requirements, but failed to demonstrate the required proportionality to use surveillance techniques.

However, this was reported in the press as abusing powers set out in anti-terrorism legislation. It plainly isn't.

I did not "dismiss their concerns". I specifically acknowledged that the act was "a bit shit" and that it "failed to catch fraudsters". What I "dismissed" were your hysterical attempts to elevate a few small businesses being upset by a letter clearly stating the legal obligations of someone subject to a Trading Standards inspection was somehow evidence of a concerted government act to "demoralise the public sector". Your words. Not mine.

And again, Libby resorts to attributing words I have never used on this thread to me. Pathetic.

[BerwickMad]

Translation: There are deserving poor and undeserving poor.

Are you claiming that every case is exactly the same?

[Ad Lib]

Royal Mail is well under 50% state owned which means private investors have a controlling interest. The Universal Service Obligation is irrelevant. Swathes of private companies have to agree to similar state-dictated terms and conditions every year - especially those doing workj for public bodies.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-23253370

Right, but the mere fact that they've decided that it shouldn't be publicly owned isn't evidence of an ideological agenda to privatise regardless of the consequences right? Otherwise they wouldn't have seen the need to retain the Universal Service Obligation. They'd have just sold it.

Network Rail privatisation is actively being considered by the government after they appointed an executive to look into it.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-34276868

This is actively misleading. They have set up an executive to look into operational failures in recent months, a short-term review of upgrade projects, and a review of NerworkRail's long-term financing requirements and the necessary business structure to go with it. Only the third prong of the investigation relates to possible sale from public ownership and it relates to a remit of a resolution to underfunding, not an ideological question of whether or not it should, in and of itself, be in public ownership. What is abundantly clear is that you were wrong when you said that the railways as a state owned entity was "gone" as it's clearly still here.

I've dealt with the phone network in my previous post because it beggars belief that you can be arrogant enough to dismiss public ownership of something you weren't even born early enough to experience.

It beggars believe that I dismiss public ownership of British Telecom when I know households that literally had to share a telephone line with their neighbours? What about the waiting lists there were for telephones? They don't exist anymore. Prices for line rental? Plummeted with competition. Private sector companies have invested capital in telecommunications structure the government could only have dreamt of and they improved the quality and breadth of the service in the process. Not even Jeremy Corbyn would call for us to renationalise BT and buy-out people like TalkTalk.

As for water? I may be wrong but I believe the SG are bound by law to open it up to private companies.

They were under no obligation to award the contract to Anglia though. The fact that they did rather suggests that private sector involvement in the provision of public services isn't ideological at all but is in fact motivated by what is most likely to deliver the service at value for money for the taxpayer. As long as the Anglia contract does represent that, good on them. But let's drop the pretence that privatisation is a dirty word attributable and only attributable to Westminster.

[Ad Lib]

This all good mooting society fun but I still can't believe anyone seriously thinks the Tories haven't identified the " bloated public sector" as a target for massive cuts.

It was explicitly set out by Gideon at the start of the last parliament that public sector spend would be slashed to reduce the deficit. He certainly managed the first bit.

If someone wants to argue that Council grants are the Scottish governments responsibility and it's up to us what we spend our pocket money on then fine.

But it's a nonsense to suggest the tory/Liz dem cuts are not ideologically motivated. I don't even mind if it is, politics should be informed by ideology. But people should own the decisions they make

Look there is a huge leap between saying "The Tories identified the "bloated public sector" as one target for cuts in the context of an £82 billion fiscal consolidation plan, and saying it is an "ideological war". You seem totally closed off to the possibility that other people just genuinely and substantially disagree with you as to what the real choices were in terms of how to close the deficit. Bear in mind that almost every major economy that had a sizeable deficit, whether they had a left or a right wing government, made significant cuts to public spending. And whether you like it or not, George Osborne did in fact cut the deficit in half. He did so while our primary export market faced a worse than expected recession and when global market confidence was sluggish, and while keeping unemployment a lot lower than estimates suggested. There are big parts of that fiscal plan you can criticise but it wasn't a gratuitous attack on budgets motivated by an ideological desire to destroy the public sector. Osborne in practice did almost exactly what Darling pledged to do at the 2010 election.

Your final sentence makes the adjective "ideological" devoid of any meaning whatsoever. Of course all decisions in government are to some extent informed by ideological assumptions about what is effective and what is in the interests of the people as a whole. But to use ideological as you did originally is clearly intended to suggest something more. It suggests that in the face of overwhelming contrary evidence to the contrary as to the efficacy of his approach Osborne carried on specifically out of a desire to break the public sector. I have made the modest suggestion that that is unrealistic.

The opposition in politics almost never acts in a deliberately malicious way. More often than not they just see the evidence in a different way that you do and interpret its consequences in a way that advocates different policy positions. The more we see genuine disagreement as a source of evil, the worse our politics becomes. People should in gauge with the Tories for the very real problems with their policy prescriptions which show that they genuinely do not understand the full consequences of their actions and show them that alternatives are credible, workable and better. A public discourse which calls them warmongers has the opposite effect.

[Ad Lib]

Licthie:

I am not ascribing the SNP's views to you. I am suggesting that if even the party you support doesn't appear to think that this Act is ideological warfare to demonise public sector workers, that is a good indication that it is not.

Interestingly enough, here is how The National reported the new Act coming into effect: www.thenational.scot/business/new-consumer-law-strengthens-rights-and-protections-for-all-shoppers.8259

Overwhelmingly positive review, I'm sure you'll agree. Maybe they didn't get the memo from tin-foil HQ.

I also see no evidence that the SNP voted against the bill. Indeed what evidence I can see suggests they were absent or abstained on some amendments in the Commons that went to a division. Perhaps you can direct us to the public record of the SNP voting against this bill as a whole at Second Reading or Third Reading or at consequential stages?

It's probably useful at this stage to point out in relation to your complaint about the 48 hour notice period that it does not stop spot inspections by Trading Standards where illegal activity is suspected. Brodies partner Neil Burgess notes this in his piece for The Herald http://heraldscotland.com/business/13412280.Brodies_LLP__Consumer_Rights_Act/

If, when you said that "this legislation has actually increased "red tape" in an attempt to further demonize public servants" what did you mean by it if not that it was a deliberate Act to stoke-up resentment against public servants using the powers, first and foremost by those who are affected by them, namely the shop-owners whose complains you painstakingly referred to in your original post? I am at a loss as to how the demonisation is supposed to be happening over such innocuous day-to-day Trading Standards Actions.

On RIPA you are simply wrong. The Act does not merely regulate powers that already exist. It substantially redefines the nature of the powers themselves and the circumstances in which they are to be used, and the justifications for their use. That is what disproportionality relates to and was why councils were misusing those powers.

It is also plainly a piece of anti-terrorism legislation. That doesn't mean it cannot do other things. The Patriot Act in the US isn't just a piece of anti-terror legislation.

I really do not understand why you think the Daily Mail's critique is relevant here. The last time I checked they're not the government.

Quibbling over "demonising" versus "demoralising" is pathetic even by my standards by the way.

[BerwickMad]

nope. why would you possibly think i meant that?

iam saying that whenyou use imply that there are deserving poor and undeserving poor, you are doing the tories work for them by delivberately

t trying to sow division. and resentment.

I disagree. There are some people who try their best and they are poor, for which the government should help them. There are other (in the minority) who don't try their best and expect things to fall on their lap. I totally disagree with the government and the rhetoric, however I also disagree that simply ignoring the minority of people who don't even make an effort to improve their situation is wrong in terms of fairness.

If we're going to constantly go back to how much these people cost the country in the grand scheme of things, then yes, it's tiny, however in terms of fairness, it also needs to be tackled. MPs expenses cost very little in the grand scheme of things too, but it was also an issue that needed addressed.

[Joey Jo Jo Junior Shabadoo]

Whether you believe in public ownership or not, using telecommunications privatisation as an example of why public ownership is a good thing is the reasoning of a fucking imbecile.

[lichtgilphead]

Licthie:

I am not ascribing the SNP's views to you. I am suggesting that if even the party you support doesn't appear to think that this Act is ideological warfare to demonise public sector workers, that is a good indication that it is not.

Interestingly enough, here is how The National reported the new Act coming into effect: www.thenational.scot/business/new-consumer-law-strengthens-rights-and-protections-for-all-shoppers.8259

Overwhelmingly positive review, I'm sure you'll agree. Maybe they didn't get the memo from tin-foil HQ.

The review in the National only addresses the Sale of Goods/ implications. Can you point out where it's "overwhelmingly positive" about the measures relating to enforcement powers?

I also see no evidence that the SNP voted against the bill. Indeed what evidence I can see suggests they were absent or abstained on some amendments in the Commons that went to a division. Perhaps you can direct us to the public record of the SNP voting against this bill as a whole at Second Reading or Third Reading or at consequential stages?

I'm not going to trawl Hansard on your behalf. Maybe I'm wrong. If so, I apologise.

However, I've already told you that an MSP was involved at the Consultation stage, and I know what was in his submission. It was not supportive of the changes.

It's probably useful at this stage to point out in relation to your complaint about the 48 hour notice period that it does not stop spot inspections by Trading Standards where illegal activity is suspected. Brodies partner Neil Burgess notes this in his piece for The Herald http://heraldscotland.com/business/13412280.Brodies_LLP__Consumer_Rights_Act/

If you go back to my original post, you will find that I said "The feedback I've received so far would suggest that legitimate traders are up in arms about the fact that "dodgy" traders will now receive advance notification of routine inspections by enforcement agencies."

(That's a real quotation, by the way, not one that I've made up). Note my use of the word "routine". The situation you describe would not constitute a routine inspection.

However, now you've brought the subject up, I assume that you do realise that if a TSO does enter business premises in the circumstances you describe, he now has to serve a written notice saying why the 48 hour period doesn't apply?

That's just another example of this act introducing more red tape in the guise of reducing regulation!

If, when you said that "this legislation has actually increased "red tape" in an attempt to further demonize public servants" what did you mean by it if not that it was a deliberate Act to stoke-up resentment against public servants using the powers, first and foremost by those who are affected by them, namely the shop-owners whose complains you painstakingly referred to in your original post? I am at a loss as to how the demonisation is supposed to be happening over such innocuous day-to-day Trading Standards Actions.

You appear to consider day-to-day routine Trading Standards inspections as innocuous. At least we agree on something. Why then do you appear to support the necessity of the 48 hour notice requirement and the officious warning required in this notice?

The proof is in the pudding. Legitimate shopkeepers are complaining that they are receiving these letters. Before October 1st, individual Trading Standards departments maybe got one or two complaints a year relating to use of powers.

On RIPA you are simply wrong. The Act does not merely regulate powers that already exist. It substantially redefines the nature of the powers themselves and the circumstances in which they are to be used, and the justifications for their use. That is what disproportionality relates to and was why councils were misusing those powers.

Oh dear. Back to basics here.

Firstly, a council has a duty to enforce certain pieces of legislation. It authorises suitably qualified staff to enforce these pieces of legislation. Most of these pieces of legislation contain powers (a good example would be sections 27 & 28 of the Trade Descriptions Act. That's been in force since 1968.)

Before RIPA/RIP(S)A, the use of these powers was unregulated. If an officer wanted to use an informant or to put premises under observation, the test was whether or not he had used the powers fairly. Look at pre-2000 cases relating to entrapment for examples.

After RIPA/RIP(S)A, came into force, the situation changed. Before exercising powers, an officer had to consider whether use of these powers was a legitimate use. Obviously, 99% of the time, that's a no-brainer.

However, interpretations & guidance have developed since 2000. Any time an operation is planned, RIPA/RIP(S)A has to be taken into account. Let's use a real-life example here:

Scenario 1 - Trading Standards receive a complaint that a shop sell fags to kids. They decide to use an underage volunteer to take a test purchase. The power to do this is set out in the Tobacco & Primary Medical Services Act 2010. Trading Standards consider whether RIPA/RIP(S)A will apply. No concealed cameras are used and it is considered that no personal information will be obtained. In this case, the decision is that RIP(S)A doesn't apply.

Scenario 2 - Trading Standards receive a complaint that a shop sells fags to kids, but only to kids he knows. The same powers apply, but on this occasion, they realise that multiple visits will have to be made by the volunteer and a relationship built up. Accordingly RIP(S)A will apply in this case, and the relevant assessment undertaken before any further action (if any) is taken.

Accordingly, as I previously said, the powers to enforce are contained in other legislation and use of these powers is subject to RIPA/(RIP(S)A.

If you personally tried to use powers under an act under which you were not authorised, you would be prosecuted under that act, not RIPA/RIP(S)A

It is also plainly a piece of anti-terrorism legislation. That doesn't mean it cannot do other things. The Patriot Act in the US isn't just a piece of anti-terror legislation.

You stated that it was primarily anti-terrorism legislation. I'm still waiting for evidence to back up this claim

Quibbling over "demonising" versus "demoralising" is pathetic even by my standards by the way.

Not when you specifically state that you are quoting me. Your use of "Your words, not mine" to emphasise the fact that you claim to be quoting me, whilst using a word that I had previously not used on the thread just aggravates your lie.

[Ad Lib]

So just to be clear, you don't know whether the SNP MPs actually did support or oppose this bill, despite previously asserting that as far as you were aware, they opposed it. Glad we cleared that one up.

I see nothing especially egregious in the requirement for a retrospective notice explaining why the notice-period did not apply. That's called effective enforcement of a statutory provision. The statutory provision itself may not be a good one, but it's hardly unreasonable in the statutory context. What it does mean is that as long as Trading Standards have reasonable suspicion, they can still catch the bad guys but that they cannot simply pretend they have reasonable suspicion when they don't to get around the requirement for notice.

Given that the overwhelming majority of "routine" inspections will involve people not committing any criminal activity, there is nothing spectacularly egregious about a courtesy letter advising them in advance that their business premises will be disrupted. As far as I can remember, the Food Standards Agency often sends out notices in advance of their coming to restaurants, cafes and take-aways. I suspect the actual presence of those carrying out checks, whether announced or unannounced, causes greater irritation to small-business-owners than a sheet of A4 in among the offers for free broadband and double-glazing.

An at no point have I said that I agree with the 48-hour notice period. Why do you keep assuming I support things I haven't said I support? For the record, I think there is room for reasonable disagreement as to whether that is a good measure for the TSA to have to abide by. My instinct would be against it, but not having been in a position to weigh up all of the submissions and evidence arising from the government's consultation, I'm not going to plump for one over the other. I'm certainly not going to suggest that anyone supporting it is attempting to "demonise" public sector workers by passing it.

What I will say is that it is completely normal for the introduction of any new scheme of interaction between government and third parties to encounter teething problems as both government and the third parties get used to the new expectations and norms of communication and action with respect to one another. I would be very surprised if the TSA, in the long-run, ends up with complaints on a noticeably greater scale under this new scheme than they did under their previous regime.

It is not unreasonable for a statutory notice to (a) be a thing (b) be a thing that people doing the right thing receive or © be a thing that warns people who have no intention of committing wrong-doing as to what their legal obligations and rights are. Statutory notices across a range of fields involve these three components, which are central to the three types of complaint you brought forward in your initial post. Immediately springing to mind are when a bank issues a calling-up notice on a standard security or a landlord issues a notice to quit from a tenancy. I'm sure there are other examples.

As for RIPA:

Something can have several primary purposes. Regulation of anti-terrorism surveillance was clearly one of those envisaged by RIPA.

The reason the UK Government introduced the legislation at the time was to coincide with the passage of the Terrorism Act 2000 (I mentioned this as evidence as to the primacy a while back). It was intended to regulate the powers described under RIPA's provisions as used by the police, Secret Services and GCHQ in resolving, principally, terrorism offences, other national security threats, and serious organised crime.

Being a consolidating Act, they also took the opportunity to ensure that the provisions would regulate the exercise of, among other things, surveillance, by other bodies. I do not dispute this. I also do not dispute that specific powers exist in other statutes and that RIPA interacts with the regulation of powers in those statutes.

What I am saying is that the purpose of RIPA is to differentiate between proper and improper uses of those powers, lending legitimacy to the proper use of those powers. When the police, intelligence services and other governmental bodies, such as local authorities and statutory agencies, have maintained that they are abiding by RIPA's constraints, however, they have in fact been pushing the envelope as to the circumstances where it is envisaged special surveillance measures can happen without a judicial warrant. That, to me, constitutes a clear misuse or abuse of the broadness of the provisions of RIPA, whose statutory intentions were not as broad as the uses for which it was subsequently plead as justification.

I was not talking about the "misuse" of RIPA in the sense of breaching the letter of its statutory provisions when I said it had been used and abused. I was talking about the situations in which state actors justified their actions as being procedurally compliant by showing to-the-letter adherence with RIPA while clearly using the surveillance powers it regulates in a way Parliament had not intended that RIPA would permit them to, and would have in fact envisaged the use of less intrusive surveillance methods. I am therefore not talking about the aspects of RIPA where local authorities have to decide whether or not it applies. I am talking about the stage beyond that, the instances where it demonstrably does apply. Like the police trying to get RIPA-compliant approval to seek out journalist sources in Plebgate.

It is not correct to say that the exercise of investigatory powers was "unregulated" before the introduction of RIPA. For one, there were often statutory limits within the specific pieces of legislation in relation to which the power applied. Secondly, they were subject to common-law restrictions and in certain instances a judicial warrant would be required for the more pervasive of investigatory powers. Public actors would have to demonstrate that they were not using their powers, for example, for improper purposes (i.e. those not envisaged by the Act which gave them their power), and they would have to be able to demonstrate that they had acted reasonably in the exercise of that power. Barebones, I will grant you, but not "unregulated".

I have to confess I'm still completely at a loss, notwithstanding all of the above, why it is that this legislation amounts to a deliberate attempt to demonise public sector workers. I'm also not sure how the word "demoralise" substituting "demonise" alters either the sentiment or the core of your central contention, whatever it is.

And for deity's sake man, learn how to use the quote feature.

[HTG]

In the name of f**k

[lichtgilphead]

There are so many factual inaccuracies in Ad Libs post that I can't be bothered responding in detail.

Well done Libby. You've bored me into submission.

The only question I'll ask is why were you composing that pile of pish when the Scotland game was on telly?

[Ad Lib]

There are so many factual inaccuracies in Ad Libs post that I can't be bothered responding in detail.

Well done Libby. You've bored me into submission.

The only question I'll ask is why were you composing that pile of pish when the Scotland game was on telly?

I don't give a f**k about the Scottish national team. I like to see them do well but the extent of my f**k-giving is close to zero.

That and my TV doubles up as my computer. I'm working. This was a bit of procrastination.

[mjw]

Bottle this thread and sell it as a cure for insomnia.

[Fide]

Libbers has now fully morphed into Mr. Logic.

[Fide]

Such rage.

Standard unionist seethe.

[Baxter Parp]

What about the waiting lists there were for telephones? They don't exist anymore. Prices for line rental? Plummeted with competition. Private sector companies have invested capital in telecommunications structure the government could only have dreamt of and they improved the quality and breadth of the service in the process. Not even Jeremy Corbyn would call for us to renationalise BT and buy-out people like TalkTalk.

Usual dishonest pish from Ad Lib. By the time of the privatisation those conditions had largely been eradicated and the improvements could easily have been implemented by any switched on government.