How to stop the fruitless search for welfare savings

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If you are a new government looking desperately for money, there can be a few attractive goals of the British welfare system. The only points in the history of the United Kingdom that were the spending of social welfare were higher than in the last years of severe economic difficulties-stagnation periods in the early eighties and nineties of the last century, and there was no one who sees that the regime closely searches for something that could be called “or even the recession caused by the closure”, or even, or even that, on an equal footing.

Mature for reform, then? It may not be very simple to reduce – nor find sustainable savings.

The purpose of a good welfare system is to protect people from destitution and help them in some form of work, education or training. However, a contract and a half of the reform attempts have succeeded in providing a largely weak thing compared to 2007 in terms of achieving these goals – with a more cost as a ratio of gross domestic product.

Even before economic conditions in the United Kingdom worsened or the Donald Trump axis in the second term of NATO was an increase in defense spending, Liz Kendall, UK’s Welfare Minister, was a warning to the Kiir Starmer Council. Without major changes, the spending of its ministry “eats” the budgets of its colleagues. There are real opportunities to spend less money and get better results, but only if her ancestors are avoided in this role.

Part of the story of how and why the UK’s welfare system has become a heavy failure that successive governments have given priority to securing the main discounts of expenses on changing the way they work. One aspect of this continuous failure is the least discussion and the largest single line in the social welfare system – state pension.

The triple lock, which protects the increase in pensions from inflation and rose in average profits (with a 2.5 – % hall annually) is the cheapest solution to a problem with twice: the state’s pension in the United Kingdom is less than those in similar countries and clarify the specific benefits pension plans means that the state takes a heavier share of retired poor people.

By using this mechanism to gradually increase the value of the pension over time, the ministers in the last government avoid any significant increase in division. But the mechanism is now risking a constantly increasing responsibility, while it becomes more difficult and difficult in a political point of view.

The amount that a person receives if his job in the UK was incredibly low – which someone demands a job seeker for a job seeker is 4,700 pounds annually. Compared to 2010 or 2015, the number of people who were claiming significantly has not increased. “The number of claims” is higher because comprehensive credit calculates individuals, rather than families as in the old system.

The increase in the benefits bill is operated instead by the high number of people who are demanding health benefits, many of whom are young. This is the product in part of a simple fact: The upper limit that a person receives on the benefits of health may still be far from generous, but it is much more than the use of unemployment.

Incentives, consequences, clear. As Kendall noticed herself, the obsession with a stick (the most compromise and better check) with the success of the only way to deter excessive transport. But changing behavior has reduced people to the list of claims that they are more likely to leave.

It is true that some increase in people who claim health benefits are the result of the real need. And raising government retirement age (which is logical given most of us who live and work for a longer period) has led to a new request: these two or three years under the new retirement age that are claimed by physical diseases.

However, there is no good reason to believe that the increase in working age members that have now been classified in the long run is the product of a health problem that uniquely raises the harm of the United Kingdom (in other advanced economies, levels of health -related benefits have decreased or remained flat) instead of the product of a designer weak system.

There is a clear and sustainable future here: transferring people to a benefit that allows them to strive-or even work-part-time without loss, in addition to finding courses for young people instead of overseeing an increasing number of “Neet” under the age of 25 (those who are not in education, employment or training). In the long run, this can reduce the increasing business benefits bill in the United Kingdom.

An additional problem is that the International Financial Energy Agency, which is the budget responsibility office, tends to believe only in the guaranteed savings by cutting the benefits – although this approach was tested in practice.

Current chaos is in itself the product of the desire to give priority to providing the title for a well -thoughtful interest system design. This is not a result.

The Labor Party has a real opportunity to build a cheaper and better benefits system by the end of this contract. It is unlikely to reach this point if it ends with mobilization in the same search for fake savings that were distinguished by the recent past. But the best result requires the Kendall and Treasury Department to reconcile with an embarrassing fact: this approach has not succeeded in one of the most complex problems in the United Kingdom. Let’s not demand more than the same.

Stephen.bush@ft.com