Ibbit made the point:

“Nothing will change unless there is a fundamental, clear-eyed review of programmes as they exist and the calling on help from those who actually work at the coalface for their ideas and suggestions, in conjunction with theorists in suits and offices.”

Many of the posts to date argue macro level issues to do with society; those exist but what does a debate about them achieve?

Some points that may have been too implicit in my original post:

1. Increasingly those at the coal face are highly trained individuals who argue about society and fail to deliver assistance – the hungry need feeding, the homeless housing, the barefoot shoes,

2. There is an industry in welfare, and as with many industries it is driven by the egos of those involved (a read of Collins “Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap... and Others Don't” may do some of these some good),

3. Many engaged in the debate love humanity but can’t cope with people, and

4. Once an organisation becomes involved in government programs much time and resource is consumed satisfying government accountability and ensuring future funding – a less than satisfactory result.

Let those delivering welfare deliver welfare and leave sociological arguments and government panels alone; let those arguing social issues do so, but not get involved in welfare as they fail to deliver. One should not be blind and stupid in delivering welfare, but one MUST NEVER stray into judgement for humanity’s sake.

lbbit came close, but was not cynical enough.

It comes down to our education system again.

Some have totally incompetent teachers who leave them with not much chance, since we eliminated much manual labour.

Then we have whole departments geared to turning out a flood of social workers every year.

Guess what. Every social worker needs a case book of clients. Yes that's what they call them, clients. So for every new graduate we must find 3 or 4 hardship cases for them to "manage".

It may be an overstatement, but would make an interesting experiment. Close these social worker courses, & watch the number of welfare cases steadily reduce.

Come on, give it a try, nothing else has worked. The greatest problem would be trying to find some form of useful employment for all those welfare workers.