In reply to Edradour:
> (In reply to Graeme Alderson)
>
> Or, to be less dramatic, job centres will have computers in, use libraries, phones or the computer that the vast majority of people have since internet access can be had for less than £5 a month. An additional benefit is that it means claimants will have to become, at least at a basic level, computer literate which is essential for the vast majority of jobs now. You will also now have to have a bank account and it will be paid monthly meaning you will have to budget. Is this a bad thing? Of course not, it's what people with jobs have to do, why should it be different if you are living on benefits?
I have tried to teach my dad basic computer literacy, but with little succes. He has also taken lessons at the library. This has not worked that well either. He's 65, he's got poor close range eyesight, and poor fine motion control. The fine motion control might be improvable if he practiced; the eyesight, not so much. His handwriting is appalling, so he writes everything in block capitals, in order to ensure readability (for him as much as anyone else). He managed to use an iPad at a very basic level, but certainly not to type anything, or use a website. A computer is a whole world more complex to use than an iPad.
He can, and does, pay National Insurance, Income Tax, and file tax returns offline, so why should benefits not be claimable offline?
There are people out there who are housebound, and whose sole contact with the outside world is a council provided carer who comes to their house once or twice a day. How do you propose they file their claims.
> It must be incredibly frustrating for the government when every single thing they introduce, however trivial, is met with such vitriolic and unnecessary opposition.
Ministers (pretty much all of them, ever) have a long and distinguished history of shooting their mouths off saying they are going to do something without worry about the implementation details. Vitriolic opposition is a necessary way of ensuring the details are sorted out.