Winter fuel Payments.

[Blackswanwood]

Loosing those personal costs of working won't have meant they "did very well".
Maybe try working from home and see how difficult it is.

Do you seriously suggest civil servants should have had their wages cut because they had to work from Home ?

I doubt agreement will ever be reached on this.

Three quarters of the people working for me worked from home during the pandemic and a quarter had to come into work. Both categories felt the other had a better deal.

Having got bored of listening to arguments on the topicI concluded it was a score draw!

 

[Spectric]

Do you seriously suggest civil servants should have had their wages cut because they had to work from Home ?

They should look at it from an HMRC perspective where you will be taxed on things like a company car or other perks and working from home is a perk as you save money on the commute and for others they cannot work from home so do not have the choice.

 

[Rhossydd]

working from home is a perk as you save money on the commute

I lot of people didn't think working from home was a perk, it was disruptive and difficult, sometimes even costly.
You wouldn't have saved anything on commuting if you'd bought a season ticket, you'd still be paying car overheads like insurance & VED.
Any actual savings would be difficult and possibly unjust to assess, as it would be different for each individual dependant on where they chose to live and how, and how far, they commuted.

 

[John Brown]

I lot of people didn't think working from home was a perk, it was disruptive and difficult, sometimes even costly.
You wouldn't have saved anything on commuting if you'd bought a season ticket, you'd still be paying car overheads like insurance & VED.
Any actual savings would be difficult and possibly unjust to assess, as it would be different for each individual dependant on where they chose to live and how, and how far, they commuted.

Also, a lot of people had to have their heating on all day.

 

[Geoff_S]

Yeh but no but yeh but ….. people who walked or cycled to work saved nothing on their commute. Not fair!

 

[Blackswanwood]

They should look at it from an HMRC perspective where you will be taxed on things like a company car or other perks and working from home is a perk as you save money on the commute and for others they cannot work from home so do not have the choice.

And then the counter argument is that when working from home I have to keep the heating on, don’t get free tea and coffee, work longer hours, I walked to work anyway and now give up space in my house to do my job, have bought a desk etc etc.

I genuinely think it’s a score draw.

 

[Rhossydd]

I genuinely think it’s a score draw.

Agreed. It seems deeply petty to start trying to make out a few civil servants might have benefited from working from home. Especially so when many were being paid to do nothing at all with furlough.
Worse, those that had their work stopped dead, were unable to continue working in their industry and got no support AT ALL.

 

[Terry - Somerset]

Agreed. It seems deeply petty to start trying to make out a few civil servants might have benefited from working from home. Especially so when many were being paid to do nothing at all with furlough.
Worse, those that had their work stopped dead, were unable to continue working in their industry and got no support AT ALL.

The work from home experience was very mixed.

For those with a home office, spare bedroom, house empty all day it was easy. No time or money wasted on commuting. Cheap lunch from fridge etc.

For younger folk it could be difficult. Two adults sharing a one bed flat, family in small house with small children etc - no where to work properly, make confidential phone calls, noise from kids etc.

Although retired when the pandemic struck, the option to home work for at least part of the week was a very positive change. Two daughters + 2 son in laws, all professional types now have the option of planning and/or flexing their working week.

For the moderately well paid many saved substantially. Less so from commuting costs avoided, more from difficulty in actually spending - eating out, theatre, holidays, socialising etc. Even household improvements went on hold - workers not available and raw materials inflation.

Those who lost out big time:

• those who fell through the cracks in the financial support packages due to untimely change of job or status
• self employed, particularly those who had taken advantage of the tax benefits to draw dividends rather than pay

 

[Rhossydd]

Those who lost out big time:

• those who fell through the cracks in the financial support packages due to untimely change of job or status
• self employed, particularly those who had taken advantage of the tax benefits to draw dividends rather than pay

Might be worth pointing out that the way IR35 was applied in some industries, freelancers didn't have a choice and had to create limited companies if they wanted to continue to work in them. Also the tax "advantages" had been severely eroded by 2020 to the point it often didn't give any financial gain at all.

 

[MikeJhn]

I hope labour keep the removal of benefits going, may I suggest we stop paying people to have children.

 

[Billy_wizz]

I hope labour keep the removal of benefits going, may I suggest we stop paying people to have children.

Unfortunately I can see popping out kids going back to Being a career choice!

 

[Diver Fred]

I worked from home for 6 years. Worked longer hours than when I was in the office - 7:30 through to 18:30 and sometimes later. What I saved on transport costs was eaten up and exceeded by the increased energy costs. About the only benefit was I could have a longer lunch hour when I would cycle from and to work for fitness purposes. A real PIA when the in-laws visited.

 

[Keith Cocker]

I hope labour keep the removal of benefits going, may I suggest we stop paying people to have children.

What a throughly unpleasant view. There are many decent people on this forum and I have learned a great deal about woodworking but I've had enough of the small minded, ignorant bigots who, although in a minority, I'm fed up of hearing from. Its people like this who fuel prejudice and stupidity in our society and we see what the result of their actions are in what is happening in the last few days. I'm cancelling my membership of the forum with regret but I've had enough.

 

[Phil Pascoe]

A perfectly sensible view - why should we subsidise other people to have children they can't afford? Bye.

 

[niall Y]

Because they are the generation who will wipe your a*'e when you are in a care home.

 

[Cobbs]

What a throughly unpleasant view. There are many decent people on this forum and I have learned a great deal about woodworking but I've had enough of the small minded, ignorant bigots who, although in a minority, I'm fed up of hearing from. Its people like this who fuel prejudice and stupidity in our society and we see what the result of their actions are in what is happening in the last few days. I'm cancelling my membership of the forum with regret but I've had enough.

That would be a shame - we need all the voices of reason we can get, to counteract the small minded right wingers that are doing their best to shut down reasonable debate.

 

[Jacob]

That would be a shame - we need all the voices of reason we can get, to counteract the small minded right wingers that are doing their best to shut down reasonable debate.

I agree.
But I don't mind the "unwoke"* - better out than in IMHO.
We all need the exercise of talking about issues. It's what democracy is all about and and the general disapproval about talking about politics is basically anti-democratic and unhealthy!
The MSM and the social media bombard us with opinion and misinformation - an embargo on discussing these things lets them get away with it.
* I wouldn't use the term "unwoke" if it wasn't for the way the word "wokery" is bandied about. I blame Cruella! This always makes me laugh:
https://www.theguardian.com/politic...eating-wokerati-for-disruptive-protests-video
Just off to get some more tofu before the shops shut!

 

[Fergie 307]

Because they are the generation who will wipe your a*'e when you are in a care home.

I must have misunderstood, I thought it was about people having kids in the UK, not Lithuania etc

 

[Fergie 307]

That would be a shame - we need all the voices of reason we can get, to counteract the small minded right wingers that are doing their best to shut down reasonable debate.

It has always seemed to me that the tendency to shut down reasonable debate, by cancelling any person whose views were not in accordance with their own, was predominantly practiced by those on the left.
The point of a debate is for those of opposing views to argue the case for their position on a particular issue. If you start out by excluding anyone who disagrees with you then you have essentially an echo chamber, not a debate.
Likewise Kieth equated the views expressed by the poster who upset him with those of the EDL.
So perhaps someone can tell me how making an observation about child benefit justifies a link to a bunch of racist, islamaphobic knuckle draggers like the EDL, and similarly motivated scum?
Bit of a stretch of you ask me.

 

[Jacob]

It has always seemed to me that the tendency to shut down reasonable debate, by cancelling any person whose views were not in accordance with their own, was predominantly practiced by those on the left.

Completely untrue, who is being "cancelled" and where? What does being "cancelled" actually mean, if anything?
What the left do is exactly the opposite; they attempt to draw people in to the public conversation and always have.
Nearer home: anybody who finds it too much is free to drop out, but in fact nearly all the objections to the continuity of threads like this come from the right.