Benefit change for single parents

I can honestly say I don't have any idea of what is going through the collective mind of this Government.

Their cuts will make nearly a million people unemployed, people who will then struggle to find work.
At the same time they are forcing single parents from Income Support onto Jobseekers Allowance. They talk lots of fluff about flexible working and support, but the reality is that the jobs just aren't there. Those jobs that are being advertised are chased by a disproportionate amount of people.

Last summer I went for a job interview with the local council for a part time library assistant. I had been very surprised to get the invitation as I had applied for the job several months beforehand and heard nothing, which I assumed meant I had not made the cut.
When the interview started, the lady apologised for it having taken so long to contact me but that she had advertised 10 library jobs for which she had received over 700 applications.
None of the jobs was more more than 12 hours.

I was shocked. I had assumed that because the hours were so low, there would be less people applying for them. Clearly this was not the case.

There are so few jobs that this situation was not rare. There are hundreds of thousands of people unemployed, even before these cuts are made.
The local Jobcentre has had to expand it's working area to accommodate the extra people they now have to see.

With all of these people chasing every job going, what hope do single parents, who need flexible hours, who have children that might, and will, commandeer their time, and who don't have recent job experience, have of finding work?

Source

Watch this video

An open letter to Jo Swinson

After a frustrating discussion on Twitter with her MP Jo Swinson, single mum Lisa Ansell has written an open letter to her, published on East Dumbarton's blog.
I don't have permission to republish here so I will just link to it, but it is a brilliant letter which raises some very real concerns about the ability of single mums to work.

According to Ms Swinson, single mums don't need benefit help because the fathers should pay child support. I can hear plenty of people saying that's right, they should.
So answer me this - what about those instances where the father isn't capable? Or the ones where the father is violent so they are better off without him knowing their whereabouts?
What about the fact that this would leave women dependent on a man? We are in the 21st century here right? Not the 1950's?

Read Lisa's letter and then tell me that we don't need benefit help.

Read her letter here