Thanet's unemployed could soon be used as semi-forced labour to clean up the area if a new Green Paper makes it into law. In this article I explore the history of similar laws and the potential implications for the area. Does Thanet really need a new era of workhouses?

In British history, a workhouse, colloquially known as a 'spike', was a place where people who were unable to support themselves could go to live and work. The earliest recorded example of a workhouse dates to 1652 in Exeter although there is some written evidence that workhouses existed before this date. Records mention a workhouse in 1631 in Abingdon.

In 1697 an Act came into play that among other things required the "badging of the poor". Anyone in receipt of the so called "poor relief" (not unakin to the dole) were required to wear a red or blue cloth on their right shoulder. On this cloth would be two letters the first was the initial letter of the parish supporting the "poor person" and the second being a letter "P" (for poor). It was not until some 113 years later when, in 1810, an new Act ended this practice was ended.

This formed part of what was called the "poor law" which saw the creation of "workhouses" where "inmates" would be placed for vagrancy, illegitimate pregnancy or other side effects of poverty. This lasted over 260 years and only came to a final end in 1960's (arround 40 years ago).

In 1832 a report was made called the Royal Commission into the Operation of the Poor Laws 1832 of which the following findings are key to the understanding of workhouses:

1. The principle of "less eligibility": that the position of the pauper should have to enter a workhouse with conditions worse than that of the poorest 'free' labourer outside of the workhouse.
2. The "workhouse test", that relief should only be available in the workhouse. The reformed workhouses were to be uninviting, so that anyone capable of coping outside them would choose not to be in one.

It is with this in mind that I recall in horror at the proposal I have read on the BBC website today:

The Welfare Green Paper is expected to include proposals to force those unemployed for more than two years to work full-time in the community.

This proposal addresses the poor, the ill, the mentally lacking and the drug addict (comparable to the vagrant of 1690). The parallels between this green paper and the aims of the "poor law" are so stark that you would have to try quite hard not to see them.

Much like the administrations of today's councils and local parishes the actual work was often outsourced to providers. We do this today with back to work training schemes and other "new deal" elements. Likewise the running of local "workhouses" was not necessarily undertaken by the parish but might be "contracted out" to some third party. This third party to whom the workhouse operation had been outsourced [...] would undertake to feed and house the poor, charging the parish a weekly rate for each inmate. The contractor would also provide the inmates with work and could keep any income generated. This system was known as 'farming' the poor. The contract was usually awarded to the bidder offering the best price for the job which might take a variety of forms, for example maintaining all the paupers in a parish, or just managing the workhouse, or just a particular group of paupers such as infants and children, or lunatics, or providing medical relief. (workhouses.org.uk))

The privatisation of this "Twenty First Century Poor Law" is no mere conjecture but based solidly on the reported facts Private companies will also be enlisted to help steer people into jobs and will receive payment by results.

The National Health Service Act of 1946 came into force on 5th July 1948. Even the sweeping changes that came with this had less impact than might be imagined. Institutions now came under the control of Hospital Management Committees under Regional hospital Boards but many still carried the stigma from their workhouse days. Many of these new "hospitals" also maintained "Reception Centres for Wayfarers", i.e. casual wards for vagrants, until the 1960s.

This was a policy that once implemented became a way for the well placed to make money out of the poor. It was implemented speedily, abused human rights in a way that we should rightly be ashamed of as British Citizens and then took a lot of time to get rid of again as it finally became the NHS. The idea is to go forwards not backwards with the establishment of better policies and a better standard of living for all.

The national seasonally adjusted level of unemployment is 2.5% but the Thanet (in Kent, UK) level of unemployment is 3.9% in 2001 there were officially 126,702 people in Thanet. That's just under 5,000 unemployed in Thanet assuming that the number of people here has not increased in the last seven years and that the credit crunch has not made things worse than reported.

What could a council like ours do with such a work force?

To start with the "overly expensive" refuse collection, road sweeping and beach cleaning could be carried out for free by the not-so-voluntary labour of the unemployed. Many of whom would love to working if there were jobs they could do available in Thanet but let's face facts - Thanet is currently struggling to keep from outright recession.

With the currently paid road sweepers, beach cleaners, refuse collectors and related workers no longer needed (unemployed) the council would be able to save a considerable amount on it's budget. With that saving it could address the next problem - chronic shortfall in housing stock at a time when needed is on the increase. We are talking of course about the question of what to do with the people that find themselves repossessed and on the street.

Sooner or later a bright spark is going to suggest that the council purchase some large buildings and use them to lodge the not-so-voluntary workers between shifts. If work dries up they could always make a deal with temping agencies and send the unemployed to factories to work. That would be a nice little earner for a council would it not. Yes, it would eat up all the temping work making it harder still to find work but I'm sure we could blame the now unemploied temp workers for not getting a job...

Better yet we could pay people like Jimmy Godden to build big properties where unskilled ad-hoc production lines could be established. Dreamland and other spaces (such as the dead area of Westwood Cross) are currently not doing much and the price of houses seems to have fallen too far to be profitable. Jimmy could always blend the two and create "dorm areas" and working areas where the repossessed and homeless could be housed and given "something productive to do" while they look for work. Businesses that can not afford to hire workers could always "let them go" and out source to these big complexes where the poor are "farmed" by the rich...

Oh wait didn't we already abolish the workhouse in the Victorian era?