Saturday, October 30, 2010

Well Colour Me Cynical ...

... if I suggest that in (inshallah) twenty or thirty years from now, when I'm likely to need them, proposed Government 'care credits' are likely to be as much use to me as the assorted Woolworths, Index and Thresher gift vouchers somewhere in my desk drawer.

In Japan, the system, called Hureai Kippu, was established in 1991 and has been expanding ever since as a way of helping to manage the country's rapidly ageing population. Literally translated as "Caring Relationship Tickets", it allows a volunteer to "bank" the hours they spend helping an elderly or disabled person in their personal Time Account. Different values apply to different kinds of tasks. For instance, more credit is given for helping at anti-social hours or with personal body care. Household chores and shopping command less.

These healthcare credits are guaranteed to be available to the volunteers themselves later in life, or to someone else in need, within or outside their family. The local and national government has even set up a nationwide electronic clearing network, so that a person can provide help in Tokyo, while their time credits are available to their parents anywhere else in the country.

The clue as to why they'll be useless lies in the phrase 'in Japan'. The UK is not Japan. I think they're a great idea - if they'll be honoured. But just as liberalising drinking hours produced more drunk people, but didn't produce a Continental cafe culture, mechanisms for expressing intergenerational solidarity are likely to be more effective in Japan than here. The UK's post-war history is one long tale of ripping off the frugal, the virtuous, the far-sighted, and supporting the spendthrift, the antisocial, those who take no heed for the morrow - pretty much the exact opposite of the previous two hundred years. The chances of a few hundred 'care hours'* clocked up in the next ten years entitling one to corresponding hours in the year 2035 are minimal, unless some kind of cultural revolution occurs.

Now it could of course be that said cultural revolution has arrived, in the shape of George Osborne and his outrageous plans to reduce Housing Benefit to a maximum of only £20,000 a year, a policy which it is feared will cleanse Kensington and Queen Anne's Gate of all their minimum-wage householders. The Big Society will reward the deserving, and the undeserving will be made to attend frequent interviews with outsourcing companies - or something like that, anyway. That's the theory. Do you believe ?

To paraphrase Apocalypse Now :

"Do you not approve of the Big Society ?"

"Sir, I don't see any society"




(* don't think Laban is a basically selfish chap. I spent fifteen hours one day last week, of which nine were driving, picking up an aunt (who's had a stroke) from Banbury and taking her to Gower for the afternoon to visit her sister. Don't get me started on how much diesel that was. I just can't see a 2035 government sending anyone round to do the same for me.)

7 comments:

JuliaM said...

"But just as liberalising drinking hours produced more drunk people, but didn't produce a Continental cafe culture, mechanisms for expressing intergenerational solidarity are likely to be more effective in Japan than here."

Quite. So why the hell are they bent on making the same mistake as last time?

Brian said...

"In Japan, the system, called Hureai Kippu"
In order to increase the international aid, Celtic and EU jizzyas, the UK government will introduce in England only a similar sounding Japanese system called hari kiri. It won't be compulsory but the additional taxation and form-filling will encourage even Big Society deniers to take the plunge.

Anonymous said...

Our toy government seem to have this strange idea that if they do something that failed in the past, this time it will be different. It won't. Besides which, who would trust his lot to deliver some payback 10 or more years later. No chance.

Derek

Brian, follower of Deornoth said...

If those vouchers are redeemable, they count as benefits in kind and income tax and national insurance contributions must be paid on them.

Foxy Brown said...

Mechanisms for expressing intergenerational solidarity are likely to be more effective in Japan than here.

Japan's social glue is due, in large part, to cultural homogeneity. Remember Robert Putnam's research? More diversity is linked with a lack of trust and general disconnectedness in any given community.

Moriarty said...

I don't know what it is with British governments and these sort of cargo-cult policies, putting some sort of ramshackle infrastructure in place and hoping reality takes the hint and adjusts itself accordingly.

Like Labour's love of building lots of new & expensive schools in the hope it would magicaly improve the quality of education.

dearieme said...

The problem will be the 5 Bs. The old will be British, the young black, brown, Baltic or Balkan. That is what you meant, isn't it?