Fortnight Publications Ltd.

After Loans, Now FeesAuthor(s): Peter O'NeillSource: Fortnight, No. 278 (Nov., 1989), p. 9Published by: Fortnight Publications Ltd.Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25552127 .

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activity THE government's latest attempt to reduce the unemployment fig ures without actually creating jobs

was introduced last month. Under

the 1989 Social Security Order, people signing on must demonstrate

that active steps are being taken to

seek work to secure benefit.

Unlike in Britain, however, the

new procedures are not being fully

operated immediately, due to inter

departmental disagreements. Stage one: the Department of Health and

Social Services provides forms to

allow those signing on to record

attempts to find work. There are

increasing periodic checks on

claimants to monitor their search

for jobs. The department aims to

interview up to 1 per cent of those

signing on for benefit each week.

In stage two, to be introduced in

April 1990, 'client advisers' will

help the newly unemployed con

sider options other than claiming benefit. This could involve send

ing them off to pursue a potential

vacancy at the job centre before

allowing a claim for benefit to be

processed?vacancies are to be

supplied to social security officers.

The changes are especially

inappropriate to Northern Ireland.

The latest official figures for job less claimants from the DED reveal

a ratio of registered unemployed to

vacancies advertised in job centres

of 25:1. Taking account of govern ment estimates of the number of

vacancies outside job centres, and

those who are unemployed but not

registered, the ratio of unemployed to all vacancies is still around 11:1.

The active steps the unem

ployed are expected to take include

oral applications for jobs, adver

tised or not, and seeking informa

tion directly from employers on the

availability of employment. These

imply an informality in recruitment

practices which the DED's draft

fair employment code, published last month, seeks to eradicate.

For the opposite reason the rules

hit women particularly hard. A

Department of Employment study in Britain in 1984 showed that for

women the most common method

of hearing about vacancies was on

the grapevine. How a woman can

provide evidence that she is keep

ing an ear to the ground, to satisfy the DHSS that work is being sought, is difficult to imagine.

Unemployment centres and

voluntary organisations have

launched a campaign against the

new regime. The campaigners print ed a sample letter, seeking employ

ment with the DHSS. In the wake

of industrial action in DHSS of

fices?due to inadequate staffing? those letters, and the new rules,

could not be more ironically timed.

The independent Unemployment Unit has produced a booklet on the

issue, Signing On and Actively

Seeking Work, free to claimants

(send 24p stamp), ?1 otherwise

(bulk orders cheaper). Available

from the unit at 9 Poland Street, London W1V3DG.

Les Allamby

After loans, now fees

THE shock statement at the end of

September from the Committee of

Vice-Chancellors and Principals,

proposing full-cost student fees to

fund university expansion, repre sents a dangerous strategy?par

ticularly in Northern Ireland.

Tuition fees ranging from

?4,000 to ? 10,000 a year are hardly an incentive for wider participation in higher education. Yet, having seen what the junior education min

ister Robert Jackson recently called

the "progressive degradation" of

the university system, vice

chancellors are now expected to

increase student numbers dramati

cally, as a central plank of govern ment policy, within existing

resources. Many have timidly given

up hope of ever persuading govern ment to fund universities adequately out of public expenditure and, given the limited resources available from

endowments and industry, view stu

dents (and their parents) as the only source of additional income.

Universities are also perturbed

by the increasingly interventionist

role of the Universities Funding Council. Many vice-chancellors

would dearly like to reduce the role

and influence of government and

the UFC by charging full-cost fees

and gaining greater autonomy. But painful contradictions are

immediately apparent. Full-cost

fees,, not adequately covered by state scholarships, would deter

especially students from disadvan

taged groups?the main target for

expansion. For reasons of cost and

culture, higher education will al

ways be a marginal option for many and raising the cost through fees?

and by dependence on loans (Fort

night 277)?will mean access will

be rationed by price. It is naive too to believe that

full-cost fees will reduce the influ

ence over universities of the UFC

and the Department of Education.

At the end of the day, they will

continue to be the universities'

paymasters?even though public

subsidy would be channelled

through scholarships to students

rather than grants to institutions.

Some vice-chancellors are now

distancing themselves from the pro

posals, but the most damaging

aspect of the announcement was

their failure to stand up for the

open, public-service tradition of

universities. Their opportunistic move has not catapaulted the issue

of funding into the public domain?

but rather provided further encour

agement to a government intent on

making willingness to pay a critical

factor determining access to fur

ther and higher education.

Peter O'Neill

Notes on contributors

ROS FRANEY is a researcher at Yorkshire TV and co-author with

Grant McKee of Time Bomb: Irish Bombers, English Justice and the Guildford Four (Bloomsbury) BOB WOFFINDEN is author of Miscarriages of Justice (Coronet) ED PEARCE is a columnist on the Sunday Times JACK O'SULLIVAN is a reporter on the Independent TOM BRADY is security correspondent of the Irish independent LEONARD DOYLE is New York correspondent of the independent

MICHAEL MEYER is head of the legal and committee services department of the British Red Cross Society CYRIL CUSACK is a leading actor in Irish classical theatre BERNARD CONLON is a freelance journalist in Brussels TIM BLACKMAN is a lecturer m social administration at the

University of Ulster

LEON McAULEY s poetry appeared in Trio 4 (Blackstaff) MARK ROBINSON is managing editor of the Irish visual arts magazine Circa MARK LIEBERMAN is a freelance American journalist and author of Is Northern Ireland Free? (Freedom House, forthcoming)

Fortnight November 9

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