HARD work, it has been said, spotlights the character of people: some turn up their sleeves, some turn up their noses, and some don't turn up at all.
Many are capable of turning up at the dole office to sign on for their benefit, but are completely incapable of turning up for a regular eight hours of decent, hard graft.
We all know you can lead a horse to water but you can't make it drink. By t
he same token, you can offer someone who is unemployed a job but you can't make him or her take it. Or can you?
Apparently, according to new Government proposals revealed last week, unemployed people could soon be forced to work for their dole money. How novel; that would be just like having a real job.
James Purnell, the Work and Pensions Secretary, has said quite simply that no one has a right to benefits. If there is work, he insists, people should take it or face the consequences. Full-time community service, such as tidying parks, cleaning graffiti or helping in nursing homes, is on the cards for those who refuse to find a job or seek training after two years on benefit.
The new measures – including a proposal to stop benefits for up to six months for those who don't cooperate in looking for a job – are aimed at moving people off benefit and back to work. Sick and disabled people will be expected to work if they are physically able to do so, single parents will be required to find a job when their children turn seven, as opposed to the current 16 years of age, and drug addicts will lose all welfare support if they refuse treatment.
But it's the work-for-dole initiative, similar to schemes in the US, which is undoubtedly the one that's raising the most eyebrows. I, for one, don't understand why. If the Government's aim is for 80% employment by 2015, a goal that includes moving a million people off incapacity benefit and into gainful employment, then radical methods will be essential. And what's so wrong about expecting able-bodied individuals to work for their money anyway? The rest of us manage just fine.
In January, the Tories unveiled a new "three strikes and you're out" rule for unemployed people who turn down offers of work. Under their proposals, benefit claimants would lose a month's worth of state handouts for the first job they turn down, three month's of payments for the second "reasonable offer" and a third employment refusal would be punished with a bar on unemployment benefits for up to three years. They, too, have based many of their new welfare proposals on successful US schemes.
Clearly, devising tougher tactics to tackle the country's welfare challenges will be a key strategy in the next election battleground. The tougher the better in my view.
I'm not talking here about harsh penalties for the genuinely sick and disabled, those who are clearly unable to work in any capacity. They should be supported fairly, generously even, by the state and by the taxpayer.
However, there are some people who are unable to fulfil their previous role but could actually be fit enough to do something else. The focus needs to be on ability, not disability; just look at Dame Carol Black's proposal for a "fit note" instead of a "sick note" and you'll see where I'm coming from. These people should be moved off benefit and helped to find the kind of job that suits their abilities.
Ultimately, though, we all know that there are those who just can't be bothered. And why should they? If you and I are prepared to pay for them to sit at home watching Sky on their 42in widescreen HDTV and playing with their PS2s and Wiis, what incentive is there, in our something-for-nothing culture, to go out and find a job?
According to four-times Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Robert Frost: "The world is full of willing people; some willing to work, the rest willing to let them." Well, the Government – and business – are now moving to a position where they are willing no longer.
One successful example is the current Local Employment Partnerships (LEP) initiative launched in March last year, which is aiming to help 250,000 people into work by December 2010.
Big companies have, so far, warmed to the LEP initiative, which sets out to offer firms job-ready applicants in return for employers giving the candidates a "fair chance", including work trials. Right now, several thousand people a month are taking up gainful employment in companies such as RBS, Asda and John Lewis across the UK. Tesco in Rutherglen, Glasgow, employed 106 new members of staff through the scheme. The focus now is on encouraging smaller firms to follow suit and use the LEPs to fill gaps in their workforce.
There is debate and petty squabbling – why should we be surprised? – over who came up with the best ideas first, and controversy about how left wing some of these new proposals appear to be. Trade unions are apparently furious with the Government on the grounds that the work for the dole proposal will be nothing more than cheap labour.
I couldn't care less. Take the politics – and the politicians – completely out of the equation, and consider for a moment the facts, rationally, unemotionally, and without leaning to the right or the left as you do so.
Overall, the welfare budget costs a massive £100bn every year – that's the equivalent of the NHS budget. Benefit fraud costs £4bn a year and human errors in the system another £2bn. Looking closer to home, incapacity benefit alone costs Scotland £12bn a year.
But did you also know that being out of work causes more deaths than traditional Scottish killers, such as cancer or heart disease? Or that being unemployed has the equivalent effect on your health of smoking 10 packets of cigarettes a day?
Getting tough and getting people back to work will reduce unemployment figures and address the skills shortage, without doubt. But it will save money, and more importantly, save lives.
Tough actions, compassionate results. It gets my vote.
