GLASGOW looks set to launch a feasibility study on a universal basic income.
The city council's ruling Labour administration has floated the concept – recently pioneered in Finland to a mixed response – as it faces the greatest challenge to its power in decades.
The Glasgow proposal comes after delegates at last year's SNP conference also backed plans to give every citizen a basic income, regardless of whether they work or not.
Matt Kerr, the member of the council's ruling cabinet for social services, has formally proposed a feasibility study but has still to get the proposal through committee.
He said: “Our welfare system is, at heart, a beautiful idea – but it is also, inevitably, now a product of decades of tinkering and tweaks, some of which have been successful and many of which have not.
“It is not what you would set out to design and build from the ground up today.
“I think basic income is an incredibly exciting idea – and it is clear that it is capturing people’s imaginations across the world – but we have to take an objective look at what its potential really is."
He added: “Glasgow is exactly the right place to do that. This is something every part of our community can get involved in."
Basic income ideas have been around for decades. Finland this year became the first country to adopt the scheme, providing an unconditional or universal basic income of 560 euros a month (around £475) for two years to a group of unemployed Finns aged 25 to 58 as a pilot project. The payment will not stop if they get work.
This sparked considerable controversy. Trade unions have been particularly opposed. The country's biggest trade union group has described the scheme as "useless". However, Finland's centre-right government believes the scheme will incentivise the jobless to take up work because they won't lose benefits.
Kerr's proposal comes after community activists and the city's poverty leadership panel received a presentation by the Royal Society of Arts. Labour – currently running on 15 per cent of the vote in national polls – has been widely tipped to lose power in Glasgow, perhaps reduced to third place behind the SNP and Conservatives.
The councillor is proposing to chair a cross-party feasibility study starting in the spring, just as the battle for Labour survival in Glasgow gets under way. Fife council is also exploring basic incomes
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