ON Tuesday Shona Craven highlighted the unclaimed benefits that amount to billions while the emphasis is on “benefit fraud” (Tories seem content with benefit going unclaimed, May 24). I wonder if many readers know that many local authorities employ Benefit Maximisation Teams to aid the vulnerable to access the benefits for which they qualify.
The DWP seem to be a benefit minimisation organisation in my experience. When trying to help vulnerable young adults claim the benefits due to them I have met outright hostility towards those who ask questions. One young man was forcibly removed from the benefit office for losing his temper when rebuffed – he had ADHD, was profoundly deaf and diabetic.
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We, the famous taxpayer, pay two sets of civil servants to manage the benefits system. One team tries to stop people getting benefits and the other works to maximise access. We should be asking why this is so. We also have Universal Credit paid to those in work. This is a direct subsidy to employers who game the system to reduce their costs by giving short hours and low hourly rates. This is another burden on the taxpayer which indicates what the government agenda is towards “business”.
No-one wishes poverty on any person or family but the way we structure our benefit system makes a disgraceful game that claimants must play without knowing the rules. This requires considerable reform.
David Neilson
Dumfries
CAN anyone help me understand why, because I retired before 2016, I am entitled to the old basic state pension? This will equate to £7922 a year. This is £2418 LESS per year than those who retired after that date.
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I have worked all my life since leaving school at 15, only taking time from work to care for my children for eight years in the 1970s, followed by periods in teacher training and nursing training. I am now 75 years old and feel that my contribution to my society over the years counts for very little.
I can find the cut-off date, but not the REASON for this cut-off. Do we older people deserve to be so disregarded?
Anne Campbell
Edinburgh
WHY is it that no matter what price fuel is, it is always one pound something point nine or seven at best. It’s never point one, three or five! Could it be our own petrol stations are also profiteering at our expense?
Steve Cunningham
Aberdeen
IT is pleasing to note that African-born slave Joseph Knight is to feature in one of the specially commissioned banners which will be hung at Perth City Hall when it reopens in May 2024.
Transported to Jamaica as a child from Guinea, Knight was sold to John Wedderburn of Ballindean, who brought him to Scotland in 1769 to work as a domestic servant. While in Scotland, Knight was baptised and married Ann Thompson, a family servant, with whom he had at least one child. He was, however, refused permission by Wedderburn to live with his wife and family.
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Given this refusal, Knight then left his service but Wedderburn had him arrested. In 1774 Knight brought a claim before the justices of the peace court in Perth and when they found in favour of Wedderburn, Knight appealed to the Sheriff of Perth. The latter found that the state of slavery was not recognised by “the laws of the kingdom”.
In 1777 Wedderburn appealed to the Court of Session in Edinburgh, Scotland’s supreme civil court, arguing that Knight still owed him perpetual service and might be taken and sent back to Jamaica by force. The court sustained the sheriff’s decision, holding that in effect slavery was not recognised by Scots law. Fugitive slaves could therefore be protected by the courts if they wished to leave domestic service or were resisting attempts to return them to slavery in the colonies.
It is fantastic to see that this lesser-known but highly significant episode in Scotland’s history is to be recognised in this manner.
Alex Orr
Edinburgh
WITH regard all the recent kerfuffle over the formation of councils made up of apparent toxic groups, one might wonder how these are possible. The answer, I believe, is not a pleasant one for our democracy. The major player of the minor parties seeking to take control of the council enter into an agreement to share positions of power and influence on boards of committees and arm’s-length organisations which carry with them additional payment.
They are effectively induced to join in coalition; perhaps bribed might be a more apt description. This is the fundamental flaw in the voting system, which makes it almost impossible for any one party to achieve a majority. Until a change is made so that the elected majority party must be in joint control, this affront to democracy will continue where the will of the majority is not carried out but subverted by this type of behaviour.
A Jaap
via email
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