In order to help meet the costs of social care rlWorcestershire County Council proposes charging for children taken into carerl

It looks like anyone and everyone is looking to abdicate any shred of social responsibility, all in the name of "reducing cost"

The only people I could see this affecting is good parents / carers of ill / disabled children who simply cannot cope any longer. Given the government's stated objective of protecting the most vulnerable then we should all sleep easy.

It is of course a vile suggestion which makes your sig ring ever more true.

However there is a simple way for the vulnerable children of Worcestershire to avoid any costs. Throw a brick through the council offices window and become a young offender. From the article:

"....the council will still pay for statutory child protection, adoption services and for services for young offenders and those involved in anti-social behaviour. "

If parenting is so bad that the kid needs taking into care, I don't think it is unreasonable for the family in question to make some contribution to the kid's upbringing, finances permitting.

If someone has made a lifestyle choice to have a child, why should the rest of us fund that child if they have the means to do so themselves but, for whatever reason, cannot?

Yeah, stupid child. Stupid, stupid child who had the temerity to be born. What a chancer that child must be. It must be punished.

I love this "lifestyle choice" bollox. To me a lifestyle choice involves whether to keep my hair short or grow it, or what type of car I'd like to drive. I certainly never made a lifestyle choice to spend two years wiping [is[/ihit from my daughter's a[ir[/ise or milky spew off my newly dry-cleaned suit

Yeah you did. You should have left that to the mother.

Do you have any?

Lots ta

You should have kept your cock in your pants then!

Nothing to get too worked up about, its just the Workhouse making a welcome return, a couple of hours inside the treadmill will be all that is required to pay for a small childs bed and gruel.

Who said it's down to bad parenting?


In addition to Cod'ead's reply about the phrase "lifestyle choice", do you not think that there can be many instances where unforeseen circumstances change the "lifestyle choice"?

You need to read the small print. Parents would be charged for things like the involvement of a social worker. We have a social worker who deals with issues relating to our Autistic son. Most people in the same situation do and they don't pay for it in the same way they don't pay for other council provided services they avail themselves of other than via their contribution from their council tax.

I have never had call to consult the local council planning office. Should I object to any of my council tax going toward that? I hope the planning department will prevent nutty schemes going ahead and I also hope the social services department will take appropriate action on taking children into care not only to protect them but to protect others myself included.

The scheme is nothing other than a privatisation of a particular aspect of social care which would put the costs solely on the parents of even worse, the child. It would result in either it being profitable to take more kids into care which is a conflict of interest or it will prevent kids who need it going into care because the parents or child can't afford it.

Social service departments run by councils dealing with care issues and funded as they are is the most sensible way to organise this and any form of means tested alternative is utterly stupid.

You can see the cost of everything and the value of nothing.

So when you decided to have a child - how did you think it's was going to get cleaned?

Here we go again.

Having children is far, very far from being a lifestyle choice