I wish that some political power in the UK, be it in Westminster or one of the devolved governments would make it easier to do what work you can when you can without a whole load of hassle. It used to be possible. A few years back, I stopped being willing to do even voluntary work because I got so much paperwork hassle from the DWP over it. They wanted letters and allsorts from each place I volunteered, even if it was just a few weeks helping out a community group by drafting policies and applying for funding for them.
To put that in perspective, I always volunteered when I was in paid work and continued in between paid jobs. I'm not talking about workfare or similar: none of my voluntary work has ever been anything other than genuinely voluntary. Over the years, unpaid, I've put in thousands of hours coaching children, thousands of hours on quangos, thousands of hours as trustee/director of various charities, hundreds of hours drafting policies, applications etc. for groups and projects. I've done everything from litter picking to doing a significant chunk of the paperwork to set up a new community centre. I calculated that hour for hour I'd given the equivalent of over a year's full-time work to one charity as a director.
And now I do no voluntary work. For some time now, I'd been put off by the prospect of being migrated from DLA to PIP if doing new voluntary work was regarded as a change of circumstances, but now I'm on PIP, I'm re-evaluating.
I can't see myself even considering voluntary work. All I can do is to work towards at some point doing paid work, supplemented by a very small private pension.
Once upon a time, I'd have hesitated to say this lest I be thought a scrounger. On here, though, I'm confident that no one would think that and that you all understand.
But in general, I think the likes of me are portrayed as scroungers anyway, so what have I to lose? And if people like me don't speak out, who will?
I looked at some paperwork the other day and thought how if things ever got really, really nasty in this country, the way some of us that tend to picture the worst worry about, I've got a severe mental impairment exemption on my council tax anyway, so that's me for the high jump, and unless and until it ever gets as nasty as that, it's still worth telling people what's going on.
But it's so utterly ridiculous. I find myself wondering whether anyone could possibly sell to the Tories the notion that some genuine flexibility could be beneficial to them. You never know your luck, there might be some sort of argument.
