Common sense and bureaucracy

It is also true that any social security system must have rules. Those rules, however, must be fair and must allow claimants access to funds when, manifestly, they deserve help.

It is by no means clear that the Island’s system has dealt fairly with Stephen Coleman, who is unable to work because of the horrific injuries he received when he crashed his motorcycle and was then run over by a car. He is receiving no sickness benefit because he failed to pay one contribution when, he says, clients of his curtain and blind fitting business failed to pay him at Christmas, leaving him critically short of cash.

The rules mean that the single missed payment disqualifies him from receiving benefit. But the rules also disregard the rest of his social security payment record, which he says is unblemished over a period of 30 years.

Provided that Mr Coleman’s assertion about having made contributions for so many years without making significant benefit claims is accurate, can the present situation be described as equitable? If the prime purpose of the Island’s social security apparatus is to ease hardship rather than to penalise people who fail to comply precisely with all the rules, it cannot.

Basing entitlement on the two most recent quarters of a person’s payment record is at best arbitrary and at worst absurd.

There should be room for discretion on the part of the authorities in cases of this nature. If, however, the letter of the law does not allow such a common sense approach, the law should be examined.

This may now happen thanks to the intervention of at least one lawyer who has offered his services free of charge. This might well fail to help Mr Coleman and his family because of the speed at which legislative change generally proceeds, but it could eventually lead to a state of affairs which more realistically links a claimant’s full payment record with the benefits to which they are entitled.