SCOTLAND'S welfare system should abandon its fear-based approach to forcing people into low-paid work, a new report suggests.
'In Place of Anxiety - Social Security for the Common Weal', published by the Jimmy Reid Foundation, puts forward proposals on how Scotland should move towards a new welfare system.
The report was penned by Glasgow Caledonian University's Professor Ailsa McKay - who died days after submitting the report - and Convenor of Compass Scotland, Willie Sullivan.
Robin McAlpine, director of the Jimmy Reid Foundation, said: "We should not be using fear to try and control vulnerable groups like disabled people and the unemployed.
"Using poverty to force people into low-paid work isn't good for our economy or our society. People deserve security and a chance to build a decent life."
Mr McAlpine added that research carried out for the report reveals people see three things as vital to a happy life.
He said: "What people want is meaningful work, somewhere nice to live and the security of knowing that their family is going to be okay."
The report describes two views of how a welfare system should work.
The first, it says, pushes "people towards work by creating an environment of fear, anxiety and insecurity."
It continues: "This view is taken by the UK Government which actively promotes benefit withdrawal, aggressive means-testing and continual downward pressure on levels of benefit payment to 'incentivise' people to work."
It adds that this view ignores the fact that most people in poverty are already working.
The second view, championed by the report, draws from the evidence which shows "that people are better able to participate in the economy from a base of individual security than from collective anxiety."
The Jimmy Reid Foundation is a think tank founded in the late union leader's memory to continue his legacy of radical political thinking.
stef.lach@ eveningtimes.co.uk
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