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Imperfect support system
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In some respects it has achieved that aim, but it is by no means certain that, as matters stand, the new arrangements have been tuned anything like finely enough.
Senator Ben Shenton, a politician with a penchant and talent for extracting uncomfortable truths from numbers, says that single parents can be substantially better off by choosing to remain on benefits rather than by going out to work. His analysis suggests that a single parent looking after two children, one of them under five, can receive £26,000 in benefit. When tax, childcare costs and social security are taken into account, this would be equivalent to a salary of over £37,000 a year.
Such figures lend weight to Senator Shenton’s belief that policies intended to be enlightened, more efficient and effective, and more in keeping with 21st century values have had an unintended consequence – the creation of a benefits trap.
If the Senator’s analysis is correct and applies in a sufficient number of cases, Income Support, its designers and its political proponents can be charged with introducing, albeit inadvertently, a social problem which was previously absent from Island society.
There have, meanwhile, been other criticisms of Income Support, though these have come from a different direction. Far from seeing payments as excessive, some States Members assert that some Islanders are, through no fault of their own, still falling through safety net.
Paradoxically, these seemingly contradictory sets of opinion are not necessarily mutually exclusive and both merit thorough examination with a view to refining Income Support in the light of real-world experience to ensure that it is truly fit for purpose – a process that was actually always to be anticipated.
While any such examination is conducted, other areas of the Island’s social security system could also be due for an overhaul. For example, can we be certain that the payments required of self-employed people are structured in a way which encourages – rather than inhibiting – enterprise? At a time when the creation of new enterprises great and small is being encouraged to revitalise the economy, this is a pressing issue.
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