The committee wants to hear your views. We welcome submissions from anyone with answers to the questions in the call for evidence. You can submit evidence until Friday 17 April 2020.
Universal Credit Is Not Working – House of Lords Report.
After having posted about mass unemployment looming people have been speaking more and more about redundancies and the prospect of being out of work. You don’t have to have family or friends who are affected, just look on the Web, and here (one of our contributors excepted).
It is seriously worrying when secure jobs are under threat.
These things tend to work out in ever-expanding rings.
Now people face the prospect of joining the inner circle of hell, the dole, and specifically Universal Credit.
Their Lordships have produced this report which is making a splash.
The reason is obvious, as this Sky headline underlines,
Universal credit ‘harms the most vulnerable’, says major report amid surge in claimsSome 3.2 million people made new Universal Credit claims between the start of the lockdown in March and mid-June.
The BBC covers the story
Universal Credit ‘failing millions of people’, say peers
Universal Credit is “failing millions of people”, especially the vulnerable, according to a new report from peers.
The Lords’ Economic Affairs Committee said it agreed with the government’s aim for the scheme – to bring together multiple benefits into one payment.
But it criticised its design, blaming Universal Credit for “soaring rent arrears and the use of food banks”.
Welfare delivery minister Will Quince said the government was “committed to supporting the most vulnerable”.
But he said the scheme had “defied its critics in unprecedented and unforeseeable circumstances” during the coronavirus pandemic, adding: “The case for Universal Credit has never been stronger.”
Reactions are beginning to tumble in.
One poverty charity, the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, said the report “reinforced the scale and urgency of reforms needed”.
And Labour said the system was “simply not working”, instead “pushing people further into poverty and debt”.
Note well this bit.
The Lords’ report said cuts to social security budgets over the last 10 years had caused “widespread poverty and hardship”.
As a result, the committee said Universal Credit needed “urgent investment just to catch up and provide claimants with adequate income”.
The peers called on the government to make the rise in payments due to the coronavirus crisis permanent.
They also called for a non-repayable two-week grant to be introduced to cut the current five-week wait for a claimant’s first payment.
The government said urgent payments were already available, but peers said the standard five weeks “entrenches debt, increases extreme poverty and harms vulnerable groups disproportionately”.
So, Universal Credit is a problem.
Let’s begin with the beginning, with the money you have to live on.
Coming up to my Pension I notice that even the increased UC payment is far below Pension Credit.
It would also perhaps be better if this report came from other people than those who Daily Allowance (£150) alone (excluding their other revenues, paid in guineas or gold sovereigns) is nearly the JSA rate for a fortnight.
This is what their Lordlyships say,
Lords Select Committee.
“Most people, including our Committee, broadly agree with the original aims and objectives of Universal Credit. However, in its current form it fails to provide a dependable safety net. It has led to an unprecedented number of people relying on foodbanks and not being able to pay their rent.
“The mechanics of Universal Credit do not reflect the reality of people’s lives. It is designed around an idealised claimant and rigid, inflexible features of the system are harming a range of claimant groups, including women, disabled people and the vulnerable.
“Universal Credit needs more money to catch up after 10 years of cuts to the social security budget. It requires substantial reform to its design and implementation, the adequacy of its awards, and how it supports claimants to navigate the system and find work.
“The five-week wait for a first payment must be replaced by a non-repayable two-week grant to all claimants. The monthly payment calculations which can result in big fluctuations to claimants’ incomes should be fixed for three months. Historical tax credit debt needs to be written off.
“The punitive nature of Universal Credit has not worked. It punishes the poorest by taking away their sole source of income for minor infractions. It needs rebalancing, with more carrot and less stick, particularly as large numbers of claimants will have ended up on it because of events completely out of their control.”
Other findings
The Committee’s other key findings and recommendations include:
- The Government must prioritise helping people into work, particularly with the increase in unemployment that the Covid-19 pandemic is causing. All claimants should have a work allowance, at a higher rate than now, to allow them to keep more of their award as they move into work.
- The Government should consider reducing the taper rate to ensure that the poorest in society do not pay higher marginal effective tax rates compared to the richest in society.
- The conditionality requirements on claimants who can look for, or prepare for work, has been increased significantly over recent years. Less emphasis should be placed on obligations and sanctions. Instead, there should be more support to help coach and train claimants to find jobs or to progress in their current roles. Conditionality should be adapted to accommodate changing labour market conditions, including at the local level, particularly in the light of the economic impact of the Covid-19 pandemic.
- The UK has some of the most punitive sanctions in the world, but there is limited evidence that they have a positive effect. Removing people’s main source of support for extended periods risks pushing them further into poverty, indebtedness and reliance on food banks. There is a substantial body of evidence which shows that sanctions harm people’s mental health. The Government should evaluate the current length and level of sanctions. It should also expedite its work on introducing a written warning system before the application of a sanction. Sanctions must be a last resort.
- The Government is doubling the number of work coaches in response to potential levels of high unemployment. This may not be enough to support people to find work in a stagnant labour market with high levels of competition for jobs. A cap should be introduced on the number of cases for which each work coach can be responsible.
- Paying awards on a monthly basis does not reflect the way many claimants live. It causes unnecessary budget and cash flow problems. All claimants should be able to choose whether to have Universal Credit paid monthly or twice monthly.
- Including childcare support in Universal Credit was a mistake. Paying costs in arrears has been a barrier to in-work progression and in some cases, it has been a disincentive to work. The Government should remove childcare support from Universal Credit and be made into a new standalone benefit paid in advance.
ITN carried this story a couple of days ago,
Food banks experienced their “busiest month ever” during the coronavirus crisis as families faced a loss of income due to job losses or furlough schemes, the Trussell Trust has said.
The food bank network saw an 89% increase in demand for emergency food parcels in April compared to the same period in 2019.
The figures included a 107% increase in food parcels sent to children with the number of families seeking help almost doubling since last year.
The Independent Food Aid Network (IFAN) reported similar increases reporting 175% more emergency food parcels given out in the UK during April 2020 compared to last year.
Mass unemployment on the cards.
“Eight people are claiming benefits support for every job opening”.
Two headlines in the Guardian.
Today: Eight people claiming employment support for every vacancy, says thinktank
Richard Partigan.
Analysis comes as some new vacancies in UK are receiving hundreds of applicants each
The number of people claiming unemployment benefits per job vacancy in Britain has increased fivefold since the onset of the coronavirus pandemic, according to an employment thinktank.
The Institute for Employment Studies (IES) said approximately eight people are claiming benefits support for every job opening, up from 1.5 people per job before the crisis began in March.
The number of job vacancies in Britain has plunged by almost half a million since January to 333,000 in June, hitting the lowest levels since comparable records began in 2001. With companies making redundancies, putting hiring plans on hold or furloughing their workers, the numbers of people claiming unemployment-related benefits has climbed by 112% since March to reach more than 2.6 million – resulting in an average of 7.8 benefit claimants per vacancy.
…
Last week it emerged a restaurant in Manchester had nearly 1,000 applications for a receptionist post within 24 hours, while pubs in London have also pulled in hundreds of applicant despite offering very few jobs.
As many as 9.5 million people – a third of the UK’s workforce – have been been placed on the government furlough scheme, which covers 80% of workers’ wages. However, economists fear that the Treasury closing the scheme at the end of October could trigger mass unemployment unparalleled since the 1980s.
Office for National Statistics:
Labour market overview, UK: July 2020
Estimates of employment, unemployment, economic inactivity and other employment-related statistics for the UK.
Also today: Recruiters inundated as virus takes toll on UK labour market
The jobseeker
‘I can see my mental health declining massively’
Ellie, based in Devon, has applied for 100 jobs since she was made redundant from a food service company the day before lockdown. She had been in the job for less than a month but with cafes and pubs closing, the business went downhill “really rapidly”. Ineligible for the government’s furlough scheme Ellie, 25, found herself out of work for the first time.
“I had a good few weeks of being really down and depressed. I didn’t have the strength to job hunt,” says Ellie. She eventually landed a temporary contract with a call centre in May but knows that the work could end at any time. “It’s really stressful not knowing if I could be let go tomorrow,” she says.
Our Boss is on the job immediately!
https://twitter.com/theresecoffey/status/1287855223495634945?s=20
Claimants Moving to Universal Credit to Get Bonus.
More Money for Some on Benefits as Unemployment Set to Soar.
This looks a fishy.
The DWP has announced that thousands of benefit recipients moving on to Universal Credit will receive up to two weeks of additional cash to provide them with extra support
Is there a catch?
Ah….
This one-time payment, known as a run-on, will help people during their first assessment period, and will not have to be paid back.
It’s been in place for housing benefit claimants for more than two years – and has benefited around 2.3million people so far according to DWP figures.
However, from this month, it will also be paid to those who join from child tax credit, income support, jobseeker’s allowance, employment and support allowance and working tax credit.
In total, it could help an estimated 1.1million households, according to one report seen by Birmingham Live.
What about those who remain on Legacy Benefits?
From Wednesday, July 22, if someone’s existing claim of income-based jobseeker’s allowance (JSA), income-related employment and support allowance (ESA) or income support ends due to them applying for universal credit, they will be eligible for a payment worth up to two weeks of their former benefit.
Anyone on the legacy benefits being replaced by Universal Credit is moved across when their circumstances change, such as moving home, losing their job or having a baby.
But….
Everyone else on the legacy benefits is expected to be moved across by September 24. This date is much later than originally forecast and will increase the cost of implementing Universal Credit to £4.6 billion.
So, it’s nothing for those on legacy benefits, who will remain deprived of the extra £20 a week Universal Credit claimants get.
In the meantime the mess that is Universal Credit was shown up in Court today.
Universal credit earnings calculations unlawful, judge says
Guardian
Single mother lost up to £463 a month due to four-weekly pay cycle not fitting rules
A working single parent who was benefit-capped and left up to £463 a month worse off because of the “irrational” way universal credit calculated her monthly earnings has won a high court victory against the Department for Work and Pensions.
The ruling – the second in less than a month in which the DWP’s guidelines for assessing universal credit earnings have been ruled unlawful – found the system was unreasonable and placed absurd conditions on benefit claimants who fell foul of it.
Universal Credit: Mum wins High Court fight against DWP
BBC.
A single working mother has won a High Court challenge against the Department for Work and Pensions over its “irrational” Universal Credit system.
Sharon Pantellerisco, from Merseyside, had her benefits cut as her employer paid her salary on a four-week basis.
However, if she had been paid a monthly salary, the reduction of up to £463 per month would not have been applied.
The High Court said the DWP’s method when calculating earnings in this case had been “irrational and unlawful”.
The DWP has been contacted for a comment.
The court heard how Ms Pantellerisco, from Southport, is the sole carer of her three dependent children who all live together along with her eldest child, who is now aged 19.
The 41-year-old is employed for 16 hours a week at the national living wage rate but, because she was paid on a four-week basis, this resulted in her falling short of the income threshold to avoid the benefit cap.
Watch out for this – seriously worrying for many people.
Looks like Coffey is thinking about her holidays (tweet with 3 likes!)
Court Rules Against “No DSS” Discrimination.
Many of us know people affected by this discrimination, and others who are terrified at losing their jobs because their landlords say they will not keep on tenants who are receive Housing Benefit (It’s being replaced by Universal Credit.)
A judge has ruled that blanket bans on renting properties to people on housing benefit are unlawful and discriminatory.
The “momentous” court ruling found a single mother-of-two had experienced indirect discrimination when a letting agent refused to rent to her.
She ended up homeless with her two children, when her case was taken on by housing charity Shelter.
The judge ruled “No DSS” rental bans are against equality laws.
Previously cases backed by Shelter – and first reported by BBC News – have established that “No DSS” landlords and agents are guilty of indirect discrimination, but the cases were settled before any court heard them in full.
In February 2018, single mother Rosie Keogh won compensation for sex discrimination from a lettings agency that refused to consider her as a tenant because she was on state benefit, but the case was settled out of court.
The ruling was welcomed by the housing charity Shelter as a “nail in the coffin” of the No DSS rule – an archaic reference to the former Department for Social Security – used by some landlords to describe the vetting of a class of tenants they regard as unsuitable.
Rose Arnall, the Shelter solicitor who fought the case, said: “It finally clarifies that discriminating against people in need of housing benefits is not just morally wrong, it is against the law.”
But….
Although the ruling, made in a virtual hearing on 1 July, does not set a legal precedent, Shelter said it sent a warning to landlords and letting agents that they should end the practice. Five similar cases brought by the charity in recent years were settled out of court in Shelter’s favour.
This is a welcome decision. But but apart from not creating a new law, or right to housing, it will not end accommodation problems for people on Benefit, the fact that benefits do not always cover rents, or housing problems in general.
Such as this:
Foodbanks and homelessness charities fear ‘huge storm’ of demand this autumn
FOODBANKS and charities working with the homeless are fearful of a “huge storm” of demand this autumn, as the effect of redundancies are felt and hunger mounts.
Already, volunteers are looking ahead with “fear and trepidation at what is coming down the road at us”, one foodbank manager reported.
Charities fear that, as government support tails off in the autumn, the demands on charities will increase to unsustainable levels, and that a new wave of homelessness will be unleashed. Those most at risk of destitution are those already vulnerable, including migrants who are have no access to government support.
(Just as a note, I am about to reach retirement – this will mean this Blog will not continue in its present form).
Job Search Proof Returns as Mass Unemployment Predicted.
Job Search Returns.
Contributors have been talking about signing-on and sanctions.
Job Search, and the proof, by UC Diary, print outs, or completed form, is at the centre of the Sanctions Regime:
Here is the research link:
Meanwhile:
UK unemployment rate could hit 15 per cent with second Covid wave, says OECD
The UK unemployment rate could soar to 15 per cent if there is a second wave of coronavirus infections, the OECD has said.
Even without a second wave, the global economic organisation reckons unemployment could hit 11.7 per cent, a level not seen since the 1980s.
It comes as the UK gradually reopens its economies after lengthy coronavirus lockdowns. As it does so, the government plans to gradually wind down its support for the economy.
The OECD today added to fears that the removal of support will lead to a surge in unemployment when it published a report into jobs markets around the world.
By the end of the year, the UK unemployment rate will have jumped to 11.7 per cent from the current level of 3.9 per cent, it said.
The labour market will take time to recover, the report predicted, with unemployment only dropping to 7.2 per cent in 2021.
However, the OECD said that a second wave of infections and the subsequent lockdown could send unemployment soaring to 14.8 per cent as millions lose their jobs. That would be well above anything seen in recent memory.
Our Boss is gearing up!
Benefit Sanctions Return.
Labour condemns move to restore claimant conditionality rules as ‘incomprehensible’
The Guardian reports,
The work and pensions secretary, Thérèse Coffey, has indicated benefit sanctions will be reintroduced this week as jobcentres in England start to reopen after lockdown, saying it is important claimant rules are reinstated.
Face-to-face meetings in jobcentres were suspended in March, and with them the system of “claimant conditionality” – a set of rules that require people to agree to carry out job search activities as a condition of claiming benefits.
Speaking in the House of Commons, Coffey refused to extend the arrangements after the three-month period finished on Tuesday. “It’s important that as the jobcentres fully reopen this week, we do reinstate the need for having a claimant commitment,” she said.
In the New Statesman Stephen Bush writes,
The return of benefit sanctions is a risky, painful and dangerous bet by the government
Against a potential backdrop of mass layoffs, the cruelty of the old system is going to feel a lot sharper.
Benefit sanctions will return to the United Kingdom from 1 July, the government has confirmed. The requirement that people claiming Universal Credit demonstrate they are actively seeking work was suspended during the lockdown, but will resume on Wednesday, when Job Centres reopen and in-person meetings there return.
The academic evidence on sanctions is that they don’t work, which led the work and pensions select committee, then-chaired by Frank Field, to declare them “pointlessly cruel” in 2018. The counter-argument in government circles is that the story of the last decade has been record employment growth – and that without the changes to unemployment and in-work benefits, including sanctions, that job growth wouldn’t have happened.
More reactions:
Here is another report, from the Mirror,
Equal Benefits for Claimants! Raise Legacy Benefits in Line with Universal Credit Rates!
Around £20 a Week Less for Single ‘Legacy Benefit’ Claimants, “The DWP has blamed operational difficulties for the disparity.”
As our contributors raise concerns about the re-opening of Jobcentres for signing on, and the resumption of the fortnightly proof of ‘job search’ or the daily Diary record for Work Coaches,this issue still rankles.
Coronavirus: DWP ‘must not ignore’ people claiming legacy benefits after Universal Credit boost
This week Civil Service News carried the following story.
A new report by the Work and Pensions Committee says the pandemic is leaving “huge numbers” of people “struggling to cover the cost of essentials.
The government has already raised Universal Credit and working tax credit payments by £20 a week for 12 months.
But the committee warns that those on benefits that have not yet been replaced by Universal Credit — including jobseekers’ allowance, employment support allowance and child tax credits — have not received the same help.
The cross-party group says it is “unacceptable that people have been left facing hardship through no fault of their own, simply because of the outdated and complex way in which so-called legacy benefits are administered”.
And they call on the DWP to increase rates for legacy benefits by an equivalent amount, with the payment backdated to April.
It continues,
Committee chairman Stephen Timms said: “DWP’s frontline staff have worked hard to get support to millions of people. Without their actions, the impact of the pandemic could have been much worse.
“But the coronavirus pandemic has highlighted weaknesses in a social security system which at times is too inflexible and slow to adapt to support people in times of crisis.”
He added: “The focus has mostly been on the unprecedented numbers of new claims for Universal Credit. But in the background, people on legacy benefits – including disabled people, carers and people with young families – have slipped down the list of priorities.
“It’s now time for the government to redress that balance and increase legacy benefits too. It’s simply not right for people to miss out on support just because they happen, through no fault of their own, to be claiming the ‘wrong’ kind of benefit.”
Work and Health Programme’s Dire Results and Latest on Universal Credit.
Programme that’s Not Working.
The Work and Health Programme (WHP) aims to provide support to help people find and keep a job. It is
available to the following groups:
- The Disability group is voluntary for disabled people as defined in the Equality Act 2010. This is the
main group that the WHP is aimed at.- The Early Access group is voluntary and aimed at people who may need additional support to move
into employment and are in one of a number of priority groups (e.g. homeless, ex-armed forces, care, leavers, refugees).- The Long-term unemployed group is mandatory and is for Jobseeker’s Allowance or Universal Credit claimants who have reached 24 months of unemployment
Disability Rights noted in 2019,
9 out of 10 of Work and Health Programme participants do not have a job outcome
31 May 20199 out of 10 of Work and Health Programme (WHP) participants (88%) have not obtained a ‘job outcome’.
A ‘job outcome’ is work with earning above a threshold of 16 hours per week for 26 weeks at the National Living Wage, London Living Wage or Real Living Wage) or having completed six months in self-employment.
This week’s Private Eye, under the title, “Doleful Result” carries the story’s latest turns.
They state that 15% of the people who began the welfare to work scheme, the Work and Health Programme from its start in late 2017 till February 2019 (the latest available figures) found a job. That is “at least six months of self-employment of employment of 16 hours a week at, at least, the minimum wage.
They conclude, “Around two-thirds of participants haven’t earned a penny within a year of joining the scheme, and half never do.”
This is from the latest DWP statement and figures (next release of statistics in August 2020).
Work and Health Programme statistics to February 2020
The WHP predominantly helps disabled people, as well as the Long-Term Unemployed and the Early Access group (which is made up of certain priority groups) to enter into and stay in work.
People are referred by jobcentres to work with organisations known as providers, from the public, private and voluntary sectors. The providers are paid a service delivery fee as well as outcome-related payments when a person reaches either:
Here are the outcomes:
Since the WHP began there have been:
- 166,160 referrals for 138,330 individuals
- 103,300 starts
- 13,710 job outcomes
Note: those starting more recently have had shorter time to achieve a job outcome, therefore it is not meaningful to divide the number of job outcomes by the number of starts or referrals.
Note how low the job outcomes look in this table:
Another statistic:
69% of all individuals referred by August 2019 have started the programme, and of these, so far 15% have reached the job outcomes earnings threshold or 6 months of being in self-employment by February 2020.
If you wish to, you can read the list of failure in the rest of the document.
Meanwhile the Civil Service News reports,
Nearly two-thirds of families on Universal Credit forced to borrow money during pandemic
The Department for Work and Pensions is facing calls to give an “urgent lifeline” to recipients of Universal Credit, after a study found six in ten families claiming the benefir have been forced to borrow money since the beginning of the coronavirus crisis.
The latest study from the Joseph Rowntree Foundation and Save The Children found families have been increasingly forced to rely on payday loans or credit cards to ensure they can afford food and pay bills during the pandemic.
It came as the latest official figures released on Monday showed the UK’s “claimant count” – including both those on Jobseeker’s Allowance and Universal Credit – had soared to 2.8 million in May.
Don’t forget!
More on the reports:
Universal Credit Claims Double in Two Months.
Online Only.
The Mirror has just reported.
3million people have now made a Universal Credit claim since coronavirus hit
Total claims between March 16 and June 2 are 2,976,140 individuals, in 2.3million households.
The milestone suggests the number of people on the six-in-one benefit has almost doubled in just a few months.
In mid-February there were 2.6million households on Universal Credit as part of a decade-long rollout set to last until 2024.
But the number of people being forced onto the welfare state for the first time has soared amid the pandemic.
Not all those who put in a claim will receive money under UC.
The Mirror revealed that of the first 800,000 post-coronavirus UC claims in late March, 264,000 had not yet resulted in a payment.
Of those, half had an award of £0 in their first month due to their earnings being deemed too high. The other half were either deemed ineligible for Universal Credit or withdrew their claim.
DWP officials insisted large numbers of those people will have joined other government support packages like the furlough scheme.
Not to mention:
And,
And,
‘Legacy Benefit’ payments have still not been upgraded to include the extra £20 a week that Universal Credit claimants get (if they get it).
The scandal of this discrimination against the poor continues to fester.
Our contributors have commented that Job Search on Universal Credit or the much lower ‘legacy benefit’ JSA, is hard.
But those kind folks at the DWP think of everything:
Looking for work? jobhelp is a good place to start.
Despite the disruption caused by the coronavirus outbreak, there are still jobs out there to apply to. We’re here to help you get started.
In the meantime this rumour is rife:
Government Prepares for Big Rise in Unemployment; Plans to Double Work ‘Coach’ Numbers.
More Work ‘Coaches…’
DWP draws up plans to double the number of work coaches for Universal Credit
The Mirror seems to be the first with this news.
Congratulations to them!
The government is braced for a rise in unemployment and millions more on benefits due to the economic fallout of Covid-19.
Benefit chiefs have drawn up plans to double the number of frontline staff working on Universal Credit.
The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) is looking at several “scenarios” to grapple with a longer-term rise in unemployment from the pandemic.
One of those would be to double the current 13,500 ‘work coaches’ – a staff member assigned to help claimants find work.
Revealing the plans today, Work and Pensions Secretary Therese Coffey said “hopefully” the economy will “bounce back”.
But she told the Lords Economic Affairs Committee: “We do anticipate the interactions with Universal Credit claimants may be somewhat different from an era where we’ve had very low levels of unemployment.”
Background: The economics of Universal Credit
This was a “virtual meeting”, as listed here.
Another report:
Government ‘may need to double’ part of DWP workforce to deal with coronavirus fallout
The Mirror continues:
She said the recruitment “recognises the larger number of people who will need our services” in the “wider labour market”.
She added it will reflect the “changing situation we have for our economy as a consequence of the recent coronavirus public health emergency.”
Universal Credit director-general Neil Couling told peers he is already “actively recruiting” 2,500 new work coaches, but it is “highly dependent on the volumes we will have to face.”
Double Plus Congratulations to the Mirror for this item:
Universal Credit was boosted by £20 a week from April 2020 to March 2021 in a helping hand to those hit by coronavirus.
This week the government’s Social Security Advisory Committee demanded the same boost is handed to more than 2million people on ‘legacy’ benefits – most of them sick or disabled.
Universal Credit “Very Unlikely” to Survive Covid-19 Pandemic.
‘Very unlikely’ Universal Credit will survive the Covid-19 pandemic
Welfare Weekly reports,
Redefining the State of Welfare argues it is very probable that Coronavirus will bring to a head discontent with the existing system that has been growing for some time and will lay bare its weaknesses, particularly that of its central element: Universal Credit.
As such, a major public debate or conversation over our welfare state is imminent and inevitable. One idea bound to garner support – and which has a “head start” – is a Guaranteed Minimum Income (GMI) and, in particular, one version of that: a Universal Basic Income (UBI).
Read the full article.
But bear this in mind.
Welfare Weekly is shy about saying too directly that the report, from the Institute of Economic Affairs (an ‘ultra’ free-market body funded by tax-dodging off-shore companies and various chancers, tobacco firms . is by a right-wing free-market academic. The author, Steven Davis, is “co-editor with Nigel Ashford of The Dictionary of Conservative and Libertarian Thought (Routledge, 1991).
“The IEA supports privatising the National Health Service (NHS); campaigns against controls on junk food; attacks trades unions; and defends zero-hour contracts, unpaid internships and tax havens.” They were also pro-Brexit, as were all business groups that rely on dodgy money moving around the world with as little regulation and taxation as possible (Right-wing think tank Institute of Economic Affairs issued with formal warning after Brexit report ‘breached charity law’.)
That said, it is clear that there will be calls for wholesale change in the benefit system, including a replacement to Universal Credit.
There are many reasons: the delays, the inability to deal with changing incomes, and the (so far) temporary effort to cover rents, which is unlikely to continue, the injustice of having one rate for UC claimants, and a lower one for those on ‘legacy benefits’, the injustice of claimants paying wildly different percentages of Council Tax across the country, and the Sanctions Regime, which may return with a vengeance. Not to mention that the very problematic future of the Welfare-to-work schemes and the private ‘Unemployment Business’ involved in ‘training’….
Our contributors could add to this list…
In case anybody wants a guide to applying for UC,all its traps and pitfalls, and the present waivers for Job Search and the rest this is good.
Note this (which of course only applies to those getting the higher rate):
“concerns have been raised about the £1,000 boost (about £90 a month) only being in place for 12 months.
Shadow work and pensions secretary Jonathan Reynolds said: “If the Government believes this level of support is necessary during lockdown, why do they believe people will need less money when the (lockdown) ends and the normal cost of living would apply?”
Welfare Weekly continues,
Redefining the State of Welfare outlines two possible partial measures that could be introduced, that would be followed by a “recovery basic income” in which more substantive reforms would be made as part of a process of recovering from the pandemic and which would start the process of moving the system towards a GMI.
The main alternative, as outlined in the briefing, is that of Universal Basic Services: the state owns productive assets and uses them to provide a range of essential services either free of charge to the end user or for a flat rate and nominal fee (designed to regulate demand rather than fund the service).
That’s true, but nobody had solved the simple problem that any Universal Income faces: we do not universal equal expenses, rents are not the same, disabled people do not have the same costs, and, frankly, why should the well-off get even more money?
By contrast, apparently this is the more typical IEA supporters’concern:
Many free-market liberals sceptical of a UBI are even more alarmed by the idea of UBS, on civil liberties grounds.
Hard to get that one. I suppose they mean the liberty of private companies to live off the public purse by drawing money from contracting out, or the freedom of people to get better health care if they can pay for it. Universal Basic Services would have to – at least its supporters think – mean upgrading, not downgrading. UBS would mean an end to privileged access, or would it? It could equally mean a ‘basic’ provision, and a better one for the better off…
But there’s also plenty of problems for those who cherish equality. If everybody gets free access to basic services, including housing, does this include food, drink, transport? Most people would think that different needs still exist, not everybody is ever going to get them satisfied, until we have a society where “from each according to her/his abilities to each according to their needs”. Anybody with greater resources to start with is bound to get more services. Not just fine wines and meals, but the rest of a better life-style.
The IEA report does make some sense if we look it as “blue skies thinking” without much regard to practical issues, not to mention the whole structure of the DWP/Job Centres….
We can perhaps only agree on this:
Moving to a UBI is not simply a matter of practicalities such as cost. It also raises fundamental questions about the way we live, how we as a society see ourselves, our institutions, and the relations between us – which again cut across conventional ideological divides.
The Coronavirus crisis therefore will almost certainly trigger a debate that will have an uncertain outcome. What seems very unlikely is that the status quo will survive the experience of the pandemic.
The report itself, Redefining the State of Welfare, ends by saying,
Major crises and interruptions to the regular course of events are always both a cause of and opportunity for reflection on how things might change.They have historically been the occasion for systematic welfare reform.
The Covid-19 epidemic has already begun a conversation, which is certainly going to continue, and with the idea of a GMI or UBI as one of its major elements. It is almost certain that the status quo in welfare will not survive this test, so this is a conversation that will have effect. What should not happen is for foundational questions to go unexamined or for one agenda to win by default.
Why would right-wing loony-bins back UBI?
Not for loony reasons.
Indeed the IEA are far from the kind of wild alt-right ranter against ‘Globalism’ some might across.
This looks like one possible explanation (the article is about the Adam Smith Institute in 2018 but applies to the IEA and now).
A right-wing think tank is now supporting Universal Basic Income – but they’ve missed the point
Once implemented, for example, it is easy to imagine a scenario in which leading conservative politicians and think tanks would argue that individuals will now have the “economic autonomy” with which to meet their own individual health care needs, resulting in a rapid withdrawal of funding for the NHS and social welfare, and the implementation of a US-style healthcare system. While a “basic” individual health care insurance policy might be affordable and calculated into a UBI payment, a traumatic life-changing injury or disease would push the burden of responsibility back onto the individual with no social safety net for protection beyond their personal payments.
Left-wingers have their own answers:
Thus, we should welcome the proposal for “Universal Basic Services“ that researchers at UCL put out a few months ago. Generally much cheaper than a UBI, UBS offers something different: free housing, food, transport, education, forms of communication, healthcare and legal aid for all. Creating free, essential services – and not just distributing free money – could be the way forward.
We await our new Beveridge Report…
Coronavirus and Benefits: Low Income Families Hit.
System Already Starting to Fail.
As the pandemic continues, and furtive Dominic Cummings is trying to brazen out his lock-down breaking, this story may get passed over.
Upper limit on benefits remains static, and research shows thousands of families are losing out on £185 a month
Tens of thousands of poor households are being denied extra support designed to ease the impact of the coronavirus pandemic, after being hit by the government’s benefit cap.
The number of low-income households affected by the cap in London has doubled since the crisis started, according to analysis seen by the Observer. Households already at the cap when the crisis hit have been missing out on £320 a month in additional support. For private renters with children, this is £532 a month. A further 22,000 households are now at the cap and are missing out on an average of £185 a month.
It has led to an outcry that there is now a two-tier system, in which workers on the government’s furlough scheme have access to far more support than some of those reliant on welfare. Sadiq Khan, the London mayor, is calling for the cap to be increased during the pandemic.
The government introduced new help for those claiming universal credit, however, the cap was not increased or suspended.
New research by the Policy in Practice consultancy, commissioned by City Hall, found that there were 44,300 households affected by the cap in April. This could rise to 63,700 by next year as more people are forced to make a claim.
This from the research paper by Policy In Practice.
Policy in Practice has been commissioned by the Greater London Authority to analyse the interaction between the COVID-19 increase in benefits introduced in April 2020 as part of the COVID-19 response and the benefit cap. Our findings show that benefit capped households are set to double.
Read The interaction of COVID-19 measures and the Benefit Cap on low-income Londoners
In March 2020, the government announced a series of financial measures in response to the COVID-19 pandemic and increased the level of support available to households receiving means-tested state benefits. The government increased support for those in receipt of Universal Credit or Tax Credits by increasing the personal allowances by £20 per week. It also raised the maximum support available to private renters by aligning Local Housing Allowance (LHA) rates to the cheapest 30% of market rents.
This is worth looking at:
One could add, as our contributors have underlined, the failure to upgrade all benefits, that is, from JSA onwards, to the £20 increase offered to Universal Credit claimants, is another injustice.
Huge rise in claims for “unfit for purpose” Universal Credit.
Thérèse Coffey: Defends Universal Credit by Crook and by Hook.
“Heaps of entangled weeds that slowly float….”
Ancient prophecy foretelling Universal Credit.
Peter Grimes. George Crabbe – national poet of Suffolk Coastal, Therese Coffey’s constituency.
Yesterday, if you watched the BBC, television heard the radio, or glanced at other media outlets, you could hardly avoid the Work and Pensions Secretary.
Therese Coffey talked about the glories of Universal Credit and how well the benefit system is dealing with the avalanche of new claims.
And a lot more.
She made this gaff,
Thérèse Coffey has suggested “wrong” scientific advice could have led to blunders in the Government’s response to the pandemic.
The Suffolk Coastal MP did not get an easy ride from Piers Morgan on GMB on the assertions about her mates’ response to the pandemic.
The TV presenter, ungentlemanly, said she had come our with a “pack of lies”.
Her ‘it’s everybody’s fault but ours” burbling was quickly repudiated by the government.
But what of the Suffolk Coastal MP’s tangled weed, Universal Credit?
This is what this Blog is concerned about – after all!
The New Statesman publishes an excellent article on the sea wrack dragging many people down below water.
Coronavirus is introducing the pitfalls of Universal Credit to many new claimants
Universal Credit is a reformed benefits system introduced under the coalition government, designed to mimic salaried employment via monthly payments into one household bank account, with the stated aim to “make work pay”.
This design jars with a period of rising unemployment, when it is even harder to transition back into work after a brief stint on benefits during a blip in your working life. The jobs and hours just aren’t there. In the last two weeks of March, the total number of weekly hours worked saw the largest drop in a decade, and a quarter fewer hours were worked in the last week of that month than in any other weeks in the same quarter.
Plus, the new welfare system is already beset with problems. A five-week wait for the first payment is built into the system – a design that has caused rising foodbank use, and now leaves people for over a month
There’s another point.
Coffey talked, on one of her many, many, respectful interviews, of an extra £20 for Universal Credit claimants.
This is what she was referring to:
The Government has introduced another increase in response to the coronavirus outbreak, which has forced more people to apply for Universal Credit. From April, for 12 months, the Universal Credit standard allowance is increasing by £20 a week.
Some Benefit Claimants (UC) get the extra money; others don’t.
Legacy Benefits (such as JSA) remain at this kind of rate: JSA, single person basic rate: £74.35 a week
UC single person basic rate: £ 409.89 a month.
Do the maths…
We assume that JSA and other non-UC claimants don’t need the money and are happy as they are…
Or not, as a top IUA contributor , Sire Sedley, says:
Hath not a Legacy JSA Claimant hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions; fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases, healed by the same means, warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer as a Universal Credit claimant is ? If you prick us, do we not bleed ? If you tickle us, do we not laugh ?
Therefore Mistress Coffey I prithee, renounce this cruel delay and make haste to right the great wrong that hath been performed unto the legacy claimants. Revoke this intemperate withdrawal of twenty English pounds and give it in all justice to claimants, each alike unto another.
These demands should be pushed and pushed!
The New Universal Credit Claimants.
DWP Picture with Tasteless Cartoon Images of the Virus.
Our contributors, campaigners, including this Blog, have been critical of Universal Credit from its creation.
However careful and sensitive we wish to be it’s impossible not to see ways in which UC has created difficulties for the enormous numbers of people now having to claim the benefit.
It’s no good trying to cover this up.
The BBC reports,
Some people applying for universal credit for the first time have found themselves worse off after losing their existing benefit payments.
The system means legacy benefits such as tax credits are stopped at the point of application, even if the claim proves to be unsuccessful.
One applicant said his family was worse off “at the click of a button”.Universal credit claims have soared amid the coronavirus outbreak, with the next figures published on Tuesday.
It is obvious that these kind of difficulties are the tip of a giant iceberg of problems facing the new Universal Credit claimants.
The numbers claiming are set to rise and rise.
Faced with the crisis the DWP Minister, Therese Coffey, seems, on her twitter feed, to be more concerned with scoring political points against Keir Starmer and Sadiq Khan, and a “nice weekend on Suffolk Coast” than doing her job sorting out these kind of problems.
This, suitably grim Opera, based on an even grimmer poem about a cruel fisherman, a miserable tale located in a hamlet just next to Suffolk seaside town, Aldburgh, is our Minister’s night-time entertainment.
She re-tweeted this…
“Peter Grimes is part of a collection of rural poems published by George Crabbe in 1810 called ‘The Borough’. This poem explores the criminal psyche.”
Old Peter Grimes made fishing his employ,
His wife he cabin’d with him and his boy,
And seem’d that life laborious to enjoy:
To town came quiet Peter with his fish,
And had of all a civil word and wish.
He left his trade upon the sabbath-day,
And took young Peter in his hand to pray:
But soon the stubborn boy from care broke loose,
At first refused, then added his abuse:
His father’s love he scorn’d, his power defied,
But being drunk, wept sorely when he died.
I did this poem for ‘O’ level English literature…..
Outrage as Homeless to be thrown back into the streets.
This story has been developing all morning.
There is plenty more in the pipeline as evictions are set to start again in June.
More information from contributors, and is more than likely that we know people affected by the above, welcome.
But what we need is to stop this now!
Coronavirus Ireland: emergency unemployment payment of €203.
Bold Measures in Ireland.
The Government has introduced an unemployment payment of €203 per week for anyone whose employer can’t pay them during the coronavirus pandemic.
Any employees who have lost their jobs or any self-employed people will be eligible to get the payment for up to six weeks.
The Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection said: “COVID-19 Pandemic Unemployment Payment has been introduced for anyone whose employer is unable to continue to pay them.
“The payment is available to all employees and the self-employed who have lost employment due to the pandemic.
“You will get a payment of €203 per work for up to six weeks (as applicable).”
I am pretty aware that the Irish welfare system is far from perfect, and the health service is part privatised and requires, expensive, individual insurance.
But this is a good move.
Here:
This is what our boss is tweeting about:
The DWP could at least start by ending the sanctions regime.
Ireland:
COVID-19 (coronavirus) and social welfare payments
COVID-19, also known as coronavirus, is a new illness that can affect your lungs and airways. Ireland is trying to reduce transmission of the virus by implementing a range of measures.
The following measures are in effect until Sunday 29 March 2020:
- Schools, colleges and childcare facilities are closed from the evening of 12 March
- Indoor mass gatherings of 100 people or more and outdoor mass gatherings of more than 500 people should be cancelled
- All State-run cultural institutions are closed
- All pubs have been advised to close from midnight on 15 March
- People have also been asked not to have house parties.
Back in the UK:
Budget Fails to offer anything to Fix Universal Credit Mess Facing New Coronavirus Strains.
Response to Government “Hype and Hot Air”.
Before the Budget there were calls, from no less a figure than Ian Duncan Smith, for more money to be put into Universal Credit, to clean up the mess he’d helped create.
The former welfare slasher said despite years of compromises, the six-in-one benefit still needs more money – and the five-week wait for payment should be cut.
In case you’d thought he’d gone soft the Mirror report adds,
Defending his system overall, he told the House of Lords Economic Affairs Committee: “There is no question in my mind that Universal Credit is better than the benefits that went before.”
And he condemned political rivals for “using the most vulnerable” to “stir up an argument”.
But he added: “I resigned over the fact that the government withdrew money at the time we were trying to roll it out, which was a big mistake.
“Now the government has sought to put most of that money back – there’s still some more to go.”
The central Budget measure affecting Claimants is this.
Make of it what you will.
Rishi Sunak Announces People Can Get Benefits A Week Sooner Amid Coronavirus Outbreak.
Huff Post.
But what is this?
It’s the following,
Chancellor Rishi Sunak has announced people on contributory employment and support allowance will be able to claim from day one instead of day eight, in anticipation of workers having to self-isolate as a result of the coronavirus outbreak.
..
Unveiling his Budget in the Commons on Wednesday, Sunak announced a series of “temporary, timely and targeted” measures including a “strengthened safety net”.
In total the chancellor announced a £30bn fiscal stimulus to “support British people”.
The government has already said people will be able to claim statutory sick pay from day one instead of day four.
“But of course, not everyone is eligible for statutory sick pay. There are millions of people working hard, who are self-employed or in the gig economy,” Sunak said today.
“They will need our help too. So to support them, during this period, we’ll make it quicker and easier to get benefits.”
Sunak also announced statutory sick pay will also be available for all those who are advised to self-isolate – even if they haven’t yet presented with symptoms.
And he said rather than having to go to the doctors, people would soon be able to obtain a sick note by contacting 111.
In fact there’s a complete failure to deal with the crisis of Universal Credit.
Johnsonism’s first budget is floating on hype and hot air
Homing into two issues the Guardian commentator writes.
Johnson declared last week that workers who isolate themselves to protect others from the virus should not be “penalised for doing the right thing”. But the grand sum of £94.25 sick pay a week is just not enough to live on, and the coverage for workers in the gig economy looks very patchy.
..
Yet Johnson’s first budget was devoid of either redistribution or predistribution. There was nothing to fix the debacle that is universal credit, nor a single extra penny for social care.
There are reports that Food Banks have new problems getting donations, with supplies down because of panic buying.
Charities struggling for supplies urge people to think before coronavirus stockpiling.
Food banks in Britain are running out of staples including milk and cereal as a result of panic-buying and are urging shoppers to think twice before hoarding as donations fall in the coronavirus outbreak.
Donations from shoppers at branches of Sainsbury’s and Waitrose slumped to 25% of their normal volume at one food bank in London, while they have fallen by a third at a Kirkcaldy food bank – where UHT milk has run out. Some facilities have warned they may close because of concerns about cross-infection, and a food bank in Stonebridge, a deprived area of north-west London, will cut the size of its food parcels by a third from Wednesday, with larger families facing the biggest reductions.
Then there is this:
Others note the problems:
The Minister for Work and Pensions gets her priorities right!
Other Tories have reasons to be cheerful:
DWP Statement on Coronavirus as Inquiry into Universal Credit Begins.
The seriousness of the Coronavirus pandemic is beginning to hit home.
Coronavirus: UK tactics defended as cases expected to rise
The decision to delay closing schools and introduce other strict measures to combat coronavirus has been defended by England’s deputy chief medical officer.
Dr Jenny Harries said experts are assessing new cases on an hourly basis to achieve a “balanced response”.
She told BBC Breakfast new measures could follow as UK cases begin to rise rapidly over the next two weeks.
In the UK, five people with the virus have died. There were 319 confirmed cases as of 09:00 GMT on Monday.
Dr Harries said the vast majority of those diagnosed with coronavirus in Britain are “pretty well” but that they may “feel a bit rough for a few days”.
She added: “Within 10-14 days we will be likely to advise people with symptoms to self-isolate and we are expecting that start of the peak [of coronavirus cases] to come during that period.”
Dr Harries said cancelling big outdoor events like football matches would not necessarily be a decision supported by science.
“The virus will not survive very long outside,” she said. “Many outdoor events, particularly, are relatively safe.”
Thérèse Coffey, the Secretary of State for the Department for Work and Pensions, has made an oral statement to Parliament about the coronavirus (COVID-19).
The department is fully prepared for all eventualities and has conducted extensive planning against reasonable worst case scenarios. I have been in discussions with the chancellor and will continue to work across government to prepare.
If claimants cannot attend their jobcentre appointment in person because of self-isolation, work coaches can exercise discretion, so claimants should engage with them and they will not be sanctioned – as long they let us know before the appointment.
And as my Rt Hon Friend the Prime Minister set out last week ‘nobody should be penalised for doing the right thing’.
That’s why the government’s safety net also extends to those who are self-employed or who work in the gig-economy. They can apply for Universal Credit or new-style ESA. Advances are available for Universal Credit immediately.
Madame Deputy Speaker, these are exceptional circumstances and we will support workers to do the right thing for their health and the protection of public health.
Published 9 March 2020
The DWP statement leaves open some important issues.
- If people are self-isolating, and they are able to contact their Work Coaches in time, (an ‘if’), what kind of “discretion” can they rely on?
- If people working in the “gig economy” or are self-employed, have to apply for Universal Credit will be able to manage on the meagre “advance loan” they will be eligible for?
- Will they have to undergo constant “Job Search”?
- What sanctions regime will they face?
- What are the plans for Job Centres to avoid people catching the virus?
On the second issue this has also taken place to less publicity.
Universal Credit has a “baked in” wait for the first payment. After completing all of the stages of their application, claimants must then wait for at least five weeks to receive their award. They can ask for an Advance payment if they need money more urgently, which they then pay back out of their future Universal Credit payments.
Many organisations have concluded that the five week wait for a first Universal Credit payment must be reduced or eliminated entirely. There is, however, a lack of agreement about how this might be most effectively—and affordably—achieved. Some of the options suggested include:
- Scrapping the five week wait for all claimants: for example, by making the Advance non-repayable;
- Offering non-repayable Advances to some claimants: for example, those considered vulnerable;
- Allowing more flexibility for the start of a claim to be backdated;
- Extending run on payments to cover all legacy benefits;
- Substantially reducing the rate at which Advance Payments—the main existing mitigation measure—are paid back, to help claimants better manage their money;
- Paying UC two-weekly, like many legacy benefits, rather than monthly.
The Committee wants to help the Government to better understand the upsides and downsides of these options, and explore other possible solutions.
What does the Committee want to hear about?
The Committee would like to hear your views on the following questions about the wait for a first payment of Universal Credit.
You can respond as an individual, a group or an organisation. You don’t need to answer all of the questions. The deadline for sending your views is Friday 17 April 2020.
- To what extent have the mitigations the Government has introduced so far (e.g. Advance payments) helped to reduce the negative impact of the five week wait for UC claimants?
- What problems do claimants still experience during the five week wait?
- What is the best way of offsetting the impact of the five week wait?
- Is it possible to estimate how much this would cost the Department?
- Is it possible to estimate any costs or savings to third parties (for example, support organisations)?
- Are different mitigating options needed for different groups of claimants?
- Are there barriers or potential unintended consequences to removing the five week wait—either for claimants or the Department? How can they be overcome?
Coronavirus and Universal Credit Claimants.
Devon Live reports today,
Families in receipt of DWP benefits are being urged to contact their local jobcentre if they suspect they have come down with associated COVID-19 symptoms
They continue,
One of those is how those in receipt of DWP welfare benefits would be affected should they show worrying signs.
Families in receipt of Universal Credit already know cash penalties are imposed if they fail to meet a range of critera. That could be failing to turn up to interviews, not applying for work or claiming more than they’re entitled to (i.e. their medical needs are not as serious as what they have documented).
Claimants who fall ill with suspected coronavirus could be prevented from doing any one of those things.
So here’s a crucial guide outlining in full what welfare recipients need to do in order to avoid benefit sanctions.
Important – contact your local Jobcentre
Some claimants could have their payout docked if they fail to properly notify job centres, experts warn.
The new welfare system requires most claimants to fulfil a set number of hours of paid work or job hunting in order to receive the monthly payment.
Concerns have been raised about payments being docked if claimants fail to properly notify job centres about being unable to work due to restrictions on public transport or having to look after a child in the event of a school closure related to the coronavirus spread.
Charities are urging the government to ensure Universal Credit is “flexible enough to accommodate situations like this”.
If you’re claiming benefits or asked to go to a medical assessment
You should still go to your usual appointments, for example at the Jobcentre Plus. You should also still go to any medical assessments – for example for ESA or PIP.
If you don’t, you might not get the money you’re entitled to.
If you’re ill and can’t go to your appointment, phone the office paying your benefit to explain why you can’t go.
If you’re claiming Universal Credit, you’ll need to use your online journal to explain why you can’t go to your appointment.
You can find out more about getting Universal Credit if you’re sick.
Coronavirus: Calls for emergency legislation to protect Universal Credit claimants
Welfare Weekly.
Both Labour and the SNP have called on the Prime Minister to provide emergency legislation to protect workers’ rights and ensure people receiving Universal Credit do not face sanctions if they are unable to make an appointment due to the coronavirus outbreak.
In Prime Minister’s Questions, Ian Blackford MP asked that while the Governor of the Bank of England suggested a ‘financial bridge’ may be available to assist markets through any economic volatility, would there will also be a ‘financial bridge’ for ordinary workers and those on social security.
He said statutory pay must be in line with the Living Wage, and Universal Credit claimants must not face sanctions.
Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn also urged the Prime Minister to ensure that workers and benefit claimants are protected from hardship, should they need to self-isolate and are unable to work or attend Jobcentre appointments.
The Prime Minister announced during PMQ’s that rules on statutory sickpay will be changed to allow Coronavirus patients to claim from the first day of their sickness.
But with many workers such as freelancers and the self-employed ineligible for sick-pay, opposition parties warned that those affected may be forced to choose between their health and financial security.
Commenting, SNP Westminster Leader Ian Blackford MP said: “All of us must provide clear, calm and practical leadership in the days ahead.
Update:
This appeared a couple of days ago, and is becoming more and more worth considering:
Johnny Void: With Coronavirus Around The Corner It’s Time To Scrap Sanctions And Brutal Benefit Assessments
More:
DWP Minister, “no doubt that Universal Credit has contributed to the increased use of food banks”.
DWP to Recognise Facts?
DWP minister says there’s ‘no doubt’ Universal Credit has driven people to foodbanks
The Mirror.
This is worth noting just in its own right.
How long ago (29th of January 2020) this seems!
The Tory Minister made the controversial comment replying to a question from Labour MP Zarah Sultana.
Work and Pensions Secretary Therese Coffey has described food banks as the “perfect way” to help the poor.
Now….
Tory minister Baroness Stedman-Scott, who led a youth unemployment charity, said the six-in-one benefit has “contributed” to a rise in people seeking help
DWP Bosses get over £1 Million in “Performance Bonuses.”
Welfare Weekly.
“It beggars belief that DWP chiefs are taking big handouts while families across the country are struggling.”
Senior officials at the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) have been gifted with eye-watering bonuses despite rising poverty and record numbers of people turning to food banks to feed themselves and their families, it has been revealed.
Information published by the DWP reveals that DWP bosses were handed £595,392 in “end of year” bonuses in 2017/18 and further £544,745 in the following year.
The shocking revelation has sparked anger and disbelief at the bonanza of bonuses awarded to DWP officials, who together have helped to implement some of the harshest cuts to social security benefits in living memory.
This happened a a few days ago but, unfortunately, I did not notice much of this reaction:
Poverty has soared under the Tory Government but DWP civil servants have pocketed extra cash.
So it continues:
And,
Still she’d got time for a good feed while tackling the really important issues:
The Saga of Universal Credit Destitution Continues.
The Saga of Universal Credit Destitution Continues,
Nothing escapes our newshounds.
As Krankie noted,
A former North Lanarkshire councillor has revealed he was forced to turn to foodbanks after the benefits system plunged him into poverty.
Paul Delaney got stuck in minimum wage jobs where employers failed to pay on time and, after ending up on Universal Credit, debts and stresses began to pile up.
The 51-year-old turned to Motherwell and Wishaw MP Marion Fellows for support, who helped resolve issues regarding failed payment from previous employers.
However, Paul revealed that he ended up in a crisis situation from last October until January this year because of the benefits system, and had to rely on foodbanks during that period to survive.
“The benefits system exists to accelerate people into poverty,” said Paul. “It’s the only thing it excels at.
“It’s a bare minimum, life supporting system – and it doesn’t even do that properly.
Then, as people also saw, there is this:
Boris Johnson admits £111 a month Universal Credit is not enough to live on
The Mirror reports,
The Prime Minister said ‘in a word, no’ after being asked if the paltry sum was enough for a woman who was eight and a half months pregnant.
Boris Johnson has admitted £111 a month of Universal Credit is not enough to live on after being confronted with the shocking case of a pregnant woman.
The Tory leader – who once described his £250,000 newspaper salary as “chicken feed” – made the confession at Prime Minister’s Questions after he was quizzed by SNP MP Mhairi Black.
Ms Black raised the case of a constituent who is eight-and-a-half months pregnant and on the new six-in-one benefit – which includes a five-week wait for the first payment.
That wait leads many families to take out advances, paid back out of their future benefits, to cover the gap. But they’re then hit by the repayments, which totalled £50 million in one month alone last year.
She said: “After deductions, including an advance, she is left with the grand sum of £111 a month to feed herself, to heat her home and care for her child.
The Care Bear of a PM replied,
Ms Black said she would be happy to give the PM more details so he could help, but added: “I want to ask him in principle.
“As the Prime Minister, does he think that £111 a month is enough for anyone to live on?”
Further details of the case – including the woman’s name or details of why she only ended up with £111 – were not immediately available.
DWP statistics say the average Universal Credit payment is £720 a month, though the advice on deductions is less clear.
Mr Johnson replied to Ms Black: “I am of course very happy indeed to look at the case and to do whatever we can to help with the individual case.
“But I must say to her that in the round, Universal Credit has helped and is helping 200,000 people into work.
“As I’ve said to her before I am more than happy to look at the case.
And the answer to her question, in a word, is no.”
The Mirror underlines this point:
Johnson worded his answer carefully just weeks after being slapped down by the official statistics watchdog for making a false claim about Universal Credit.
In January the Prime Minister told PMQs the six-in-one benefit “has in fact succeeded in getting 200,000 people into jobs.” But the UK Statistics Authority said his claim was inaccurate – because the figure is only predicted once the benefit is fully rolled out in 2024.
Coffey, meanwhile, is still bathing in this glory..
“I need Loans for Basics” – Universal Credit in Action.
Thérèse Coffey Secretary of State for Work and Pensions.
The Eastern Daily Press reports (23rd of February),
‘I need loans for basics’ – number of people claiming Universal Credit nearly doubles
Universal Credit is ‘plunging people into debt’, campaign groups say, as figures show the number of claimants in the east has risen to 214,000.
Just 12 months ago 24,933 people in the region were claiming UC, showing an increase of 178pc year-on-year.
Will Quince, minister for welfare delivery, said this shows the scheme “is helping to support thousands of people across the east of England as they look for work”.
…
“The number of claimants has doubled, and food banks in the region have also seen twice as many people this year,” said Mark Harrison, chairman of Norfolk Against Universal Credit.
“UC plunges you into debt which you are forced to repay back at an unreasonable rate further compounding the debt.”
Launched in 2016, UC merged six benefits in a rework of the benefits system that sees payments reduced as you earn more.
The scheme was criticised after former chancellor George Osborne made it so those on the scheme and working would pay the government 63p of every £1 earned.
Mr Harrison said: “It’s indicative that we live in a region where wages are below the national average, people can’t live on slave wages.
“People have less to live on, and this has a knock on effect on the NHS and mental health services.”
The Mirror reports, (22nd of February),
Sheila Shepherd has been told by social housing provider Plymouth Community Homes she must pay more than £12,000 towards the renovation of her home in Plymouth
Shrinking value of Universal Credit payments
New figures published by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) reveal the shrinking value of social security benefits in the UK, as a leading charity calls for urgent improvements to the widely condemned Universal Credit system.
Figures published today (Tuesday) show that the value of Universal Credit payments have reduced in real-terms since the new benefit was introduced in 2013.
Data shows that the monthly payment for a single person in April 2019 was worth 88% of what it was in April 2013, according to the Retail Price Index (RPI).
In April 2013 the Universal Credit rate was £246.81 for under 25s and £311.55 for those aged 25 or over. By April 2019 the Universal Credit rate was £251.77 for under 25s and £317.82 for those aged 25 or over.
However, when considering RPI, the real value of Universal Credit has dropped since April 2013 from £285.09 for under 25s and from £359.87 for those aged 25.
Lords daily allowance more than monthly Universal Credit payment
The new daily allowance for the “unelected and unaccountable” House of Lords is set to rise to £323. The monthly allowance for a single person over 25 on Universal Credit is £317.82.
Universal Credit: Inside the Welfare State. Hats off to the BBC!
The BBC documentary on Universal Credit showed a side of life a lot people know about, and yet some do not.
I thought it was a fine investigation.
The investigation showed ordinary people, people you could know, grappling with a system that, for many, makes their lives worse.
Debt, on the pitiful level of benefits, is a major problem.
They programme makers could have showed a lot worse…..
They did run the smug, no doubt richly rewarded, git at the DWP head office who thinks that UC is the shining future…
Hats off to the BBC for Universal Credit: Inside The Welfare State
The thread in the programme last night that struck me was how hard it is to juggle working on a zero hour contract and any kind of decent life.
Universal Credit clearly did not help.
This is how some people saw it,
Bolton News.
Viewers hit out at Universal Credit ‘vultures’ after BBC show centres on Bolton
VIEWERS of a BBC show have hit out at the government after an episode set in Bolton showed people struggling to deal with the Universal Credit system.
The final episode of Universal Credit: Inside the Welfare State was aired last night and showed two struggling women, Jenny and Paula, who are trying to navigate the new rules around benefits.
20 year-old Jenny finds a waitressing job which appeals to her. However, she quickly realises that the zero-hour contract makes her shift pattern unpredictable.
As Universal Credit is paid a month in arrears it can leave her with very little to live off and confused about how much money she will get on a monthly basis.
Paula takes advantage of an advanced payment system to get her money earlier. But, she is not used to receiving this amount of money in one payment, and spends much of it quickly leaving her struggling to survive on what’s left.
The show drew a strong reaction from viewers and many were angry at the way the system works.
Twitter user MidBoss wrote: “Saw trending, was reminded that the vultures at DWP once tried to sanction me for attending a doctor’s appointment to alleviate a serious health concern.
“Meanwhile, the landed gentry sleep in the House of Lords and get paid to do so.”
Others had even more difficult battles with the system.
One Twitter user wrote: “I was unemployed for 5 years on JSA under the job centre’s boot, do you have any idea how it feels to be rejected for every single job interview for 5 years without feedback?
“I was close to suicide before I got into university, lucky really.”
Another Twitter user Sean Michael said: “A huge portion of people on UC are hard working people who want to do the most they can.”
Mirror:
People were disgusted at the problems in Universal Credit where claimants end up in debt, in the last episode of BBC show Inside the Welfare State.
Twitter user Martyn G said: “Just watching the BBC programme on Universal Credit and these Middle Class Morons who have been running the DWP have been hiding their fat heads in the sand with regards to the Delay in payments having a direct effect on hardship and foodbank use!”
Amongst many comments this stands out:
Twitter user Thomas Hemingford said: “With Universal Credit and work, the system leaves people constantly chasing their tails, not knowing if they’ll have money for bills. It’s no way to live, you can’t plan, and you can’t build a life like that.”
And then later: “Universal Credit crushes people. It causes severe anxiety and mental health problems. Not just amongst adults, but children, too. It pushes people into a debt spiral. That does not help anyone.”
One viewer tweeted that they had worked in finance and analysis for 21 years before they “became unable to work” and went onto Universal Credit after moving towns.
They said they “keep meticulous budgeting spreadsheets for myself and even I came unstuck during the 5-week wait”.
This is Coffey’s latest Tweet..
The ‘Claimant Commitment’ Minefield.
Keeping Track of Your Life for Work Coach Nosey Parkers.
For reasons that escape this Blog the far-right Express has been publishing about the ‘Claimant Commitment’.
You’d get a better idea of how this operates by watching the 3 part BBC documentary on Universal Credit.
But here it is their story,
Universal Credit: What is a ‘claimant commitment’ and how can it affect payments?
Universal Credit applicants will need to submit their claim within 28 days of creating an account. From here, most interactions with the Universal Credit system will take place through a local Jobcentre Plus. At these Jobcentre sites, applicants will be paired with a work coach. This work coach will support applicants throughout their Universal Credit tenure, providing support, information on various job search programmes and answering any questions regarding the system. It will be the work coach who creates the claimant commitment, usually in the first meeting with the applicant.
..
The claimant commitment will be updated as individual situations evolve. The specifics of how it will change will vary from person to person. However, the government has provided some examples of circumstances which will have a corresponding effect on claimant commitments:
- If the claimant is earning as much can be expected – financial support will be given without any other conditions to increase earnings
- If the claimant is able and available for work – the individual will need to do everything they reasonably can to give themselves the best chance of finding work. Preparing for and getting a job must be the full time focus
- If the claimant has limited capability for work, related to a disability or health condition, but this is expected to change over time – support will be given until the circumstanced improve and they claimant can work. The individual will be expected to prepare for work so far as they are able
- If the claimant has a disability or health condition which prevents them from working – the applicant will not be asked to work, they will be supported fully through Universal Credit.
This is the sting,
The assigned work coach will focus entirely on helping applicants ensure they meet their commitments.
They will keep track of certain targets such as job goals and regular work search activity levels.
The government details that, for those able to work, job seeking should be viewed as a full-time job. Looking or preparing for work is expected to take up a minimum of 35 hours a week of the applicants time.
People on Universal Credit get a ‘journal’.
Some people – I have just asked one who does – fill in their journal every day.
Universal Credit: Your Online Journal
In your journal, you’ll:
• Complete To Do’s
• Record your job search
• Keep in touch with your work coach
• Report any changes
More:
To Do’s.
- A To Do is a task left for you by your work coach. You’ll need to complete these as soon as possible to continue to get Universal Credit.
- Top Tip: Log in to your Universal Credit account every day to check for To Do’s.
- Recording your job search If you’re expected to look for a job you will need to record your work related activity. Record every job that you apply for in your Online Journal. It’s a useful
record of what you’ve applied for. - Examples of work related activity to record in your journal:
o Accept your commitments in your claimant commitments
o Attend your work search review
o Prepare for you claimant commitment meeting
Examples of work related activity to record in your journal:
- Accept your commitments in your claimant commitments
- Attend your work search review
- Prepare for you claimant commitment meeting
Yet more:
Examples of a To Do:
- Writing a CV, or spending time adapting your CV for a particular job
- Completing a job application form
- Contacting employers to follow up from applications.
- Travelling to job interviews
A pretty complete record of your daily life!
It takes no imagination whatsoever to see the problems this can create for these people:
Exclusive: Salvation Army calls on government to make it easier for people to access the benefit
Thousands of vulnerable people on low incomes – particularly those with mental illness – are at risk of destitution because they do not have the skills or support to apply for and maintain a universal credit benefit claim, the Salvation Army has warned.
The Christian church and charity said there was “overwhelming evidence” that many people found it a struggle to engage with the mainly digital benefit, leaving them unable to pay rent or buy food and effectively locking them out of employment support.
It called on the government to increase the level of support to make it simpler for vulnerable people to make a claim before the next phase of the universal credit programme later this year, when about 750,000 ill and disabled benefit claimants start to be moved on to the benefit.
“Rolling out universal credit in its current form will steamroll vulnerable people into poverty, but the government has time to turn this around by accepting our recommendations and making it easier to apply,” said Rebecca Keating, the Salvation Army’s employment director said.
Still these people are well-chuffed with their jobs:
Thérèse Coffey Rewarded for Failure – Stays as Secretary of State for DWP.
Thérèse Coffey Stays as Chief of DWP.
Our hope for Coffey’s exile in a Hermitage on this desolate marsland are dashed:
Here is the News nobody else was waiting for.
Just to rub it in:
And again,
Latest Failure, retching….
Newshounds Report Celebrations by Suffolk Coastal Pub Owners.
Benefit Freeze Ends: Spend Your £1·25 pence a Week Wisely!
End of the Benefit Freeze Still Leaves Us in the Cold.
Like the rest of us I am on tenterhooks waiting for the Benefit raise this year.
For standard benefits it’s 1.7 per cent.
I shall be counting the days waiting for the happy event.
Some extra cuppas of Rosey Lea, a pack of (4) apples and a tin of baked beans a week will make all the difference to my life.
Hold on !
At £1.25 pence a week (Jobseekers’ Allowance: £74.35 (from £73.10) or Standard allowance, Universal Credit, single: (monthly, £323.22 (from £317.82) ) it won’t stretch that far!
Citizens Advice, cold-hearted that they are, raise the point that this increase means even less for those in serious difficulties.
Making Ends Meet: The impact of the benefits freeze on people in debt [ 350 kb]
Since the benefits freeze began, we’ve seen an increase in the proportion of people we help with debt who have no money left at the end of the month once they’ve covered their living costs. These households are deemed to have a negative budget.
Our new report, Making Ends Meet: The impact of the benefits freeze on people in debt, shows that from April to August 2019, 40% of people we helped with debt who claim income-related benefits had a negative budget.
We have developed a model that explores what the impact would be on people we help with debt through different benefit uprating scenarios over the next four years. We found that:
- Ending the benefits freeze and uprating income-related benefits by the Consumer Prices Index (CPI) would still leave 38% of households with a negative budget by 2024.
- Ending the benefits freeze and uprating income-related benefits by CPI +2%, as well as recalculating the Local Housing Allowance to the 30th percentile of local rents, would mean the proportion of households with a negative budget would fall to 28% by 2024.
That’s why Citizens Advice is calling for the Government to:
- Uprate the value of frozen benefits by the Consumer Prices Index (CPI) plus 2% for four years.
- Recalculate the Local Housing Allowance to at least the 30th percentile of local rents to re-establish the link with rental prices.
- Ensure Universal Credit provides people with enough to live on, by reviewing areas such as the amount of money retained by working claimants and deductions for those faced with debts
Our report Negative Budgets – A new perspective on poverty and household finances contains further information about the experiences of people we help with debt who have a negative budget.
Welfare Weekly runs the story.
Here is the story:
Ending the four-year freeze to working age social security benefits will do little to help households who are forced to choose between heating their homes and feeding their families, says Citizens Advice.
While the move to finally put an end to the benefits freeze has been welcomed, new analysis by Citizens Advice suggests suggests that four in ten households who approach the charity for help and advice would still struggle to make ends meet.
The charity warns that a growing number of people still do not have enough income to cover basic bills and household essentials, such as groceries and energy costs.
….
According to Citizens Advice, the number of people who are unable to cover basic living costs has increased since the benefits freeze came into force in 2016.
In the first five months of the current financial year, 40% of the people the charity helped with debt who claim income-related benefits didn’t have enough money to cover their living costs – an increase of 25% since the freeze came into effect.
However, the charity argues that ending the freeze won’t be enough to help people like Sheila and are calling for wider reforms to the benefits system to ensure that payments cover day-to-day living costs.
This includes ensuring Universal Credit gives people enough to live on by reviewing areas such as the amount of money retained by working claimants, and deductions for those dealing with debts or repaying advance payments.
…
Dame Gillian Guy, Chief Executive of Citizens Advice, said: “Our evidence shows that increasing numbers of people simply don’t have enough money to make ends meet.
“While a step in the right direction, increasing benefits by inflation will not go far enough to help solve this problem.
“The benefits system was created to support people in times of need.
“The government should show it’s serious about meeting this ambition by properly investing in working-age benefits, and making sure fewer families are left in a downward spiral with no way to pay their bills.”
Still, somebody’s doing nicely!
Boris Johnson Goes Trump, Makes False Claim that 200,000 are in work thanks to Universal Credit.
Uproar over Latest Johnson Lies.
As Universal Credit takes hit after hit its supporters are resorting to desperate tactics.
The UK Statistics Authority has confirmed Boris Johnson’s assertion 200,000 people are now in jobs because of the benefit was incorrect.
A comment made by the Prime Minister about the number of people who are in employment as a result of Universal Credit has been confirmed to be incorrect by the UK Statistics Authority.
Boris Johnson claimed in January that 200,000 people had already found jobs because of the benefit during a session of Prime Minister’s Questions after being challenged over its its effect on poverty.
The shadow work and pensions secretary Margaret Greenwood, who sought to fact-check the statement, has now called on the Prime Minister to apologise for his claim which she said was “simply wrong”.
The BBC says,
In a letter to the prime minister, the watchdog’s chairman Sir David Norgrove confirmed the figure was an estimate, rather than for “the effect so far”.
The jobs figure, estimated to be achieved by 2024/25, was made by the Department for Work and Pensions in its 2018 business case for universal credit.
It has already been questioned by the National Audit Office, which concluded the department would “never be able to measure” the impact on employment.
“It cannot isolate the effect of universal credit from other economic factors in increasing employment,” the NAO concluded in a 2018 review.
This is not the first time the chairman of the UK Statistics Authority has clashed with Mr Johnson over his use of statistics.
In 2017, Sir David criticised him for his claims during the EU referendum campaign that Brexit would save the UK £350m a week.
He added that the figure, used by Mr Johnson whilst he was foreign secretary, constituted a “clear misuse of official statistics”.
Not only is Boris Johnson an admirer of Donald Trump’s politics of brazen lies but he was until not long ago a dual British and US citizen.
This is why he dropped his US nationality.
Boris Johnson among record number to renounce American citizenship in 2016
Boris Johnson has renounced his US citizenship, ending years of ambiguous loyalties and probably ridding himself of a hefty tax bill.
A list released by the US Treasury department showed the UK foreign secretary was one of 5,411 individuals to renounce his American citizenship in 2016.
Johnson was born in New York when his parents worked there, but has not lived there since he was five years old. His decision does not appear to be an attempt to distance himself from the politics of Donald Trump, but may instead be a move to ensure he is out of reach of America’s Internal Revenue Service (IRS).
In 2014 he publicly said that the US was trying to hit him for tax on the sale of his home in Islington, north London, something he said he regarded as “absolutely outrageous”, although he later reportedly paid the demand. The US tax authorities have been mounting a campaign to crack down on the earnings of dual nationals.
As she squirms at the prospect of losing her job Electric Dog Collar Thérèse Coffey tweets this.
It looks like a return to a full blown Workfare programme.
Inside The Welfare State documentary on Universal Credit sparks anger.
I watched the programme and the above is one of the strong messages I got from it.
That, and the geezer (who could be somebody I know, though his previous drug habit looked as if it had been worse than most) sat in front of a computer for 8 days a Day doing ‘Job search’ – he finally ended up cleaning light railway trains for a pittance.
The Food Bank looked a horror, like the cheap end of B & M, and the handout was miserly.
Then there was the woman caught in the difficulties the Tweet above talks about.
And the homeless Irish bloke…
This is well true:
These are some of the reports and reviews.
Universal Credit system slammed by ‘heartbroken’ BBC benefits documentary viewers
Mirror.
Viewers have branded a new BBC documentary about the struggles of relying on Universal Credit as “heartbreaking” while slamming the “broken” system which allowed it to come about.
One launched a tirade at the perceived lack of empathy shown by some staff at a Job Centre, after it was suggested claimants need to budget better.
Three-part BBC Two series Universal Credit: Inside the Welfare State launched on Tuesday evening, with episode one focusing on Peckham Jobcentre in London, visited by more than 1,000 people each day, including former NHS worker Rachel and homeless man Declan.
Job Centre employee Karen, meanwhile, finds herself faced with similar difficulties to her clients, and has to take a second job to support herself.
…
Taking to Twitter during the initial broadcast at 9pm last night, viewers were shocked at the difficulty of accessing benefits and distressing backgrounds of the claimants featured, as well as the way they are treated.
Evening Standard.
A new BBC documentary series explores the benefits system
The true story of this benefits revolution is on the shop floor where the job centre staff must accommodate the demands of the claimants, many of whom are ill-equipped to understand the beautiful simplicity of the benefits revolution.
Rachel, a single mother who left her NHS job after 27 years to care for her parents, struggles with anxiety. Job centre worker Karen does a second job in a pound store after absorbing the anger of claimants all day. And there’s grumpy, articulate Phil, with track marks on his arm and a lost dream of becoming a photojournalist, weighing up the value of a job cleaning trains for the minimum wage.
As Universal Credit Documentary Airs Tonight, System “completion not expected until 2024”.
Tonight.
Latest news…
Universal Credit: Welfare system to be delayed again with completion not expected until 2024
The Independent reports,
Late implementation will cost taxpayer a further £500 million over five years.
The completion of the government’s troubled Universal Credit welfare scheme has been put back yet again, at a cost of £500 million.
Slower-than-expected transfers of claimants from existing benefits mean the date of completion of the roll-out has been put back by nine months to 2024.
When first announced by Iain Duncan Smith as a replacement for a range of benefits in 2010, Universal Credit was due to be fully implemented by 2017.
But it has been beset by a series of delays, and welfare delivery minister Will Quince today announced that more time was needed to transfer the final 900,000 claimants.
Universal Credit was implemented first with new claimants, or those whose circumstances had changed, with the more complicated transfer of individuals from existing benefits left until later.
The Department of Work and Pensions attributed the latest delay in part to the robustness of the labour market, which has meant that fewer people than expected experienced a change in circumstances, leaving 900,000 more people than expected claiming the old benefits.
Mr Quince said: “Universal Credit is the biggest change to the welfare system in a generation, bringing together six overlapping benefits into one monthly payment and offering support to some of the most vulnerable people in society.
Here is one reaction:
And another:
All eyes will be on this tonight:
Episode 1
Episode 1 of 3
At Peckham Jobcentre in London, Rachel has recently moved onto Universal Credit after leaving her 27-year NHS career to become a carer for her ill parents.
The Guardian preview:
Universal Credit: Inside the Welfare State
9pm, BBC TwoDesigned to streamline benefits payments and make them easier to navigate, universal credit has met with fierce opposition since its protracted and troubled rollout. This three-part series opens in Peckham Jobcentre, where more than 1,000 people visit each day, including former NHS worker Rachel, who is living precariously during the five-week wait for her first universal credit payment. It is a humanising look into the real-life consequences of political choices. Ammar Kalia
The Shocking Reality Of Living On Universal Credit
……a harrowing three-part BBC documentary series which puts universal credit under a magnifying glass. Universal Credit: Inside The Welfare State focuses on Jobcentres in Peckham, Toxteth and Bolton. As well as senior civil servants and MPs, we hear from those directly affected by the most controversial change to the benefits system in a generation. Some of the most powerful stories involve women dealing with mental health issues, redundancy, raising their children alone and working under temporary contracts, all while adapting to universal credit.
Somebody has other things on her mind:
House of Lords Launch Inquiry, Headed by Thatcherite Lord Forsyth, into Universal Credit.
This Blog, and contributors, have lost count of the inquiries into Universal Credit.
About the only time I took any interest in a House of Lords debate was when this one happened,
Now we have this:
Peers to probe Universal Credit
Lords committee launches inquiry on how the ‘reform’ might be reformed.
Peers are probing Universal Credit, with a key Lords committee calling for evidence on how the ‘reform’ might be reformed.
The House of Lords Economic Affairs Committee will make recommendations to government on its findings.
But the inquiry is reserved to England and Wales with Universal Credit a partially devolved matter in Scotland and Northern Ireland.
“Our Committee will consider if the original objectives of Universal Credit are still fit for purpose and able to provide adequate and fair social security – we will then make our recommendations to Government in due course,” said committee chair Lord Forsyth.
Overall, the Committee will examine whether Universal Credit is meeting its original objectives and whether the policy assumptions reflected in its design are appropriate for different groups of claimants.
“To inform our work we want to hear from as broad a range of people as possible – we encourage anyone with experience or expertise on the issue under investigation to share their views,” said Lord Forsyth.
His Lordship is a close associate of the hard right Adam Smith Institute.
And,
Chairman of Secure Trust Bank, and a Director of J&J Denholm and of Denholm Logistics Ltd. He was a director and Chairman of Hyperion Insurance Group until its merger with RKH Group in 2015. A former Deputy Chairman of JPMorgan UK and Evercore Partners International, he was knighted in 1997 and appointed to the House of Lords in 1999. He is a member of the Privy Council and served on the Development Boards of the Royal Society and the National Portrait Gallery. He is also a past President of the Royal Highland and Agricultural Society of Scotland.
Michael Forsyth, Baron Forsyth of Drumlean
More background,
Lord Forsyth: Thatcherite who rose through the Tory ranks
The Montrose-born politician was one of the key right-wing members of the Tory governments of the late 1980s and early 1990s. No stranger to controversy, he once said that Margaret Thatcher was one of the most compassionate people he had ever met.
Before his election as MP for Stirling during the Tory landslide of 1983, he worked as a public relations executive in London. It was during this period that the then Mr Forsyth, an early, enthusiastic advocate of Thatcherism, was elected as a Tory member of the City of Westminster Council.
Economic Affairs Committee
The economics of Universal Credit inquiry
Scope of inquiry
This inquiry investigates the economic impacts of Universal Credit. The inquiry will investigate whether Universal Credit is meeting its original objectives, whether the policy assumptions reflected in its design are appropriate for different groups of claimants and the extent to which Universal Credit meets the needs of claimants in today’s labour market and changing world of work. The Committee will make recommendations to the Government.
Focus of the inquiry
The Committee will examine whether Universal Credit is meeting its original objectives and whether the policy assumptions reflected in its design are appropriate for different groups of claimants. It will also examine the extent to which Universal Credit meets the needs of claimants in today’s labour market and changing world of work.
The Committee is seeking answers to the following questions:
- How well has Universal Credit met its original objectives?
- Were the original objectives and assumptions the right ones? How should they change?
- What have been the positive and negative economic effects of Universal Credit?
- What effect has fiscal retrenchment had on the ability of Universal Credit to successfully deliver its objectives?
- Which claimants have benefited most from the Universal Credit reforms and which have lost out?
- How has the world of work changed since the introduction of Universal Credit? Does Universal Credit’s design adequately reflect the reality of low-paid work?
- If Universal Credit does not adequately reflect the lived experiences of low-paid workers, how should it be reformed?
We are looking to hear from as diverse a range of views as possible because hearing from a range of different perspectives means Committees are better informed and can more effectively scrutinise public policy and legislation. We encourage anyone with experience or expertise on the issue under investigation to share their views with the Committee, with the full knowledge that their views have value and are welcome.
Chair’s comments
Lord Forsyth, Chairman of the Committee, comments:
“Our Committee will consider if the original objectives of Universal Credit are still fit for purpose and able to provide adequate and fair social security. We will then make our recommendations to Government in due course.
“To inform our work we want to hear from as broad a range of people as possible. If you have a view on Universal Credit, look at our call for evidence and let us know what you think.”
Here’s some evidence.
Meanwhile back from her latest UFO trip and safely landed in Rendlesham Forest Therese Coffey has time to tweet this (her latest in fact).
Thérèse Coffey “Food Banks” are the “perfect way” to help “vulnerable people”.
Elizabeth Truss and Dr Therese Coffey, to |Spend more time at Blythburgh Pork in Suffolk?
This Blog sometimes wonder about the Work and Pensions Secretary.
Thérèse Coffey is the MP for the Constituency next to Ipswich, Suffolk Coastal.
She seems happiest when, like her predecessor in the place, John Gummer, she’s pottering around the quaint by-ways of rural life, or visiting the big town, Felixstowe, to bestow her airs and graces on a local event.
Coffey’s spent most of her time recently slavering over the prospect that Brexit offers to her mates to make a pretty penny.
You wonder if she likes the Blue Nun style white wine from Bruisyard in the county.
Well -wishers hope that in the near future she will be spending more time in Suffolk.
Perhaps she could share some of that tasty pork an crackling with those fortunate than herself….
The East Anglian Daily Times reported on January the 27th (yesterday).
Work and Pensions Secretary and Suffolk Coastal MP Dr Therese Coffey and International Trade Secretary and South West Norfolk MP Elizabeth Truss are both thought to be vulnerable in any reshuffle.
…
Dr Coffey would be particularly disappointed to lose her department only five months after being promoted to the cabinet after the sudden departure of Amber Rudd. She has been a loyal supporter of the Prime Minister, but is seen by some as an “accidental cabinet minister” who reached the top table unexpectedly.
Another accident waiting to happen just did:
Minister says food banks are a “perfect way” to meet challenges of “difficult times”
Food bank use has increased by around 2,800% since the Tories came to power.
…
McDonalds has just paid off its British boss with a £30m payout so Sultana asked: “Does the Minister accept that it is a gross injustice that nurses are forced to use food banks while fat-cat bosses receive obscene pay-outs?”
Work and Pensions Secretary Therese Coffey replied that food banks are a “perfect way to try and marry the challenges that people do face at difficult times in their lives”.
A further report,
In 2017, then-backbencher Jacob Rees-Mogg sparked uproar when he said “the real reason for the rise in numbers is that people know that they are there”.
Earlier this month, in a blog about food bank use, New Forest West MP Desmond Swayne said people who receive benefits need “help” with how to spend their money.
The Trussel Trust, who run a nationwide network of food banks, gave out a record number of food parcels in the last year.
The organisation recorded a 23% increase in the number of emergency food parcels given out compared to the previous year.
Here are few responses:
More.
And more will come!
The Daily Misery of Universal Credit – Rent Short-Falls, Draconian Sanctions, Waits for already Miserly Payments.
“If they wanted to set up something to defeat the objectives it was meant to deliver, Universal Credit couldn’t have done a better job…”
Every day there are people in Ipswich Library with problems about Universal Credit.
A major difficulty is rent.
Local Housing Allowance, set up under Labour in 2008, with a number of objectives, including ” inciting” people to find cheaper accommodation, was never meant to cover the rent for all properties.
Now it’s created out of control problems.
I can’t imagine people I know in London, in work, paying £200 a week (this, believe me, in not made up) for a room in a shared flat could if they became unemployed and reliant on Local Housing Allowance and Universal Credit.
We all know that people end up cutting back on food and heating to pay for a place to live in – if they can manage that.
Or end up homeless.
Now the triumphant Tories intend to make things worse.
if you wade through the details of this announcement you’ll find that one layer of -meagre – support is about to end.
Apparently it’s because a 1,7% increase means it’s no longer needed.
Targeted Affordability Funding ends as LHA freeze thaws
24Housing.
DWP Minister says the 1.7% increase to the LHA rate negated the need for the funding scheme.
Targeted Affordability Funding (TAF) is over – ending with thehawing of the LHA (Local Housing Allowance) freeze to be replaced by Discretionary Housing Payments.
DWP Minister Will Quince confirmed the end in responding to a written Commons question from Shadow Housing Secretary John Healey.
TAF was introduced in 2014 to shore up LHA rates that had shifted furthest from real local market rents.
Four years on, a report from CIH said TAF had a negligible impact in reducing the number of LHA rates with a gap – being capped at 3% of current rate regardless of the size of the gap.
Healey asked if the DWP was going to maintain TAF for local housing allowance from April this year, when the LHA freeze ends.
Quince said the 1.7% increase to the LHA rate negated the need for TAF.
“For individuals who may require more support, Discretionary Housing Payments are available,” he said.
TAF typically covered 10% – 30% of the gap with the 30th percentile rent before the award was made.
The replacement rates were higher for the shared rate and slightly higher for the four-bed rate – intended to partly reflect the fact that the 30th percentile for both was more volatile in being likely to fall back in years subsequent to an award.
To the CIH, the low replacement rates meant that, on its own, TAF was incapable of keeping LHA rates reasonably well aligned to local (30th percentile) rents.
Last year, a report from Shelter said that as the freeze thawed additional TAF must be made available – with changes made to the way it is administered to ensure those most at risk of homelessness received adequate amounts.
That’s just one part of the welfare regime under Universal Credit.
in the Huffington Post does a brilliant job in looking at it on the ground.
Oldham Piloted Universal Credit 7 Years Ago. Here’s The Grim Reality Of What Happened Since.
Oldham was one of the areas that volunteered to be a pilot site for Universal Credit in 2013 in the hope it would simplify the benefits system and encourage more people back into work.
But seven years on, those hit by the benefits change tell a different story.
One housing association told HuffPost UK that it lost in the region of £400,000 in rent during the first year of Universal Credit – money which it won’t recover. Unlike housing benefit, which was paid direct to the association, Universal Credit is handed direct to the claimant. Currently, 41% of the housing association’s tenants are in arrears.
The social landlord says some of its customers are struggling so much due to the wait for Universal Credit and the problems they experience applying for it, in the last 12 months, they referred an unprecedented 199 people to food banks.
Speaking to Vinny Roche, chief executive of First Choice Homes, we find,
“The safety net for the most vulnerable in society has been completely eroded.” he said: “If they wanted to set up something to defeat the objectives it was meant to deliver, Universal Credit couldn’t have done a better job.”
…
His major criticism of Universal Credit is the five-week wait when people are having to borrow to survive. “You have some of the poorest people in the country having to wait weeks for their money.
“When they finally get their payment, they already owe a fortune to other people, or worse still, to loan sharks.
“The people in real need are now on less money, receive less welfare payments and the support mechanisms that once helped them have gone. Then the systems for applying for benefits and the sanctions are a lot more draconian.
“A combination of all these things is driving people into abject poverty.”
…..
“The current system doesn’t work. We really need radical change if we are serious about fixing the safety net, reducing poverty and inequality and making sure there is a support network in place for the most vulnerable.”
Read the article in full through the link above.
Michel Says,
“Universal Credit stinks.” he said. “It definitely does not make life better for people. I was depressed all the time when I was on it and didn’t have any money and couldn’t do anything.
The ‘I’ has this story today,
A charity for patients said the updated forms were ‘better late than never’
New Resolution Foundation Report Blasts Universal Credit.
New Reports Slams Universal Credit.
The introduction and impact of Universal Credit in Liverpool City Region and the UK
The PCS union has responded.
PCS reaction to Resolution Foundation report on Universal Credit
2.7 million people are thought to be on Universal Credit and due to the complex system, depending on where claimants live, people are worse off in some areas than others.
Metro Mayor of the Liverpool City Region Steve Rotheram said: “Universal Credit has made life miserable for some of the most vulnerable members of our society.”
He called on ministers to heed warnings, adding that they need to, “implement reforms to make our welfare system more humane.”
But PCS General Secretary Mark Serwotka said the system needed to be scrapped and replaced.
He said: “Universal Credit is a disaster for claimants and needs to be scrapped in favour of a more humane system.
“At the moment claimants face immense hardships and barriers accessing UC, causing them to fall into debt homeless and in some cases, even contemplate taking their own lives.
“Our members are passionate about helping those in need and do their utmost under the circumstances. However, they cannot make a system work that is fundamentally hurting those it is supposed to help.”
More media coverage.
24 Housing. Bill Tanner
Report says varying Universal Credit impact UK-wide is being ignored
The very different impact of Universal Credit (UC) across the country is being ignored amid debates about how to level up economic outcomes UK wide, a new report warns.
Already, a metro mayor says its time the government listened to such “frontline warnings” and implement improvements to make UC more humane
Released by the Resolution Foundation, The long and winding road notes that the new parliament will be a critical period for the UC roll-out, with two-thirds per of the six million families who will eventually be on UC moving across during this session.
The final – and most challenging – phase of the roll-out, involving the transfer of existing benefit and tax credit claimants onto UC, is also due to start later this year.
The Foundation notes that following welcome reforms, including the recent £1,000 boost to work allowances, the benefit is set to be slightly more generous than the legacy system it is replacing (as long as take-up gains are achieved), with families receiving £1 a week more an average.
However, this marginal average figure masks sizable groups of families that gain and lose out by large sums, and significant geographical variation across the UK.
Thanks to factors such as local rent and earnings levels, and the characteristics of local populations, some parts of the country will be left significantly worse off as the switch to UC goes ahead.
Laura Gardiner, Research Director, Resolution Foundation, said those recent reforms hid a complex mix of winners and losers, with families in some areas of the UK faring particularly badly.
“As well as making reforms at a national level – such as helping families to overcome the first payment hurdle and offering more flexibility for those with childcare – policy makers across the country need to better understand the effect Universal Credit will have in different places.
“That understanding should be central to policy debates that are rightly focusing on what can be done to close economic gaps between parts of the UK,” she said.
The report references the Liverpool City Region (LCR) – one of the areas that has experienced the biggest UC roll-out so far, and in which a higher proportion of working-age families will end up on UC than across the country 31% compared to 24% – where just 32% of families will be better off under UC, compared to 52% who will be worse off.
This compares to a national average of 46% losing out, and 39% gaining.
The article continues,
The report identifies the difference as largely driven by LCR having a relatively high proportion of single parents, out-of-work single people and disabled people, all of whom fare badly under UC.
In addition, UC’s greater generosity towards working families with high rents has less impact in LCR, which has below-average rent levels.
To help understand the localised impact of the transition to UC, the Foundation carried out in-depth interviews in LCR, focusing on recipients’ experiences of various aspects of the new system. These interviews uncovered a number of areas where further improvements are needed.
While those with IT skills valued UC’s digital focus, many said that the five-week wait for the first payment put them under significant financial and mental stress. Some reported that the wait had forced them to use food banks, and worsened existing mental health issues.
Other reported problems with the childcare element of UC – despite it being more generous than tax credits – with one single parent explaining how paying childcare costs up front was hard, and that reimbursements could be withheld if they forgot to obtain receipts on time.
The interviews revealed a variable understanding among recipients of exactly how taking on more work would affect their incomes.
Most understood they would be better off in work, but many felt that the system’s responsiveness to their earnings meant that taking on more hours wasn’t worth their while financially.
This, says the Foundation, risks weakening one of the central claims of UC, that it will ‘make work pay’.
Steve Rotheram, LCR Metro Mayor, said it was time the government listened to “frontline warnings” and implement serious reforms to make UC more humane.
“Rather than penalising people for finding work and forcing them into crisis with the five week wait for a first payment, it should be reformed to offer a genuine safety net to struggling people,” he said.
The Foundation says that now is the time for the government to make vital improvements.
These improvements, stressed as needing to top be national, should include:
- Helping families overcome the first payment hurdle – the government should increase the proportion of new claims paid on time and in full; help families overcome the first payment hurdle by testing approaches like an interim payment for certain groups and backdating the start of claims; and carry the financial risk from late payments.
- Ensuring UC fits better with the lives of those who need it – in particular, reforms are needed to make the generous childcare support in UC more flexible and easier to navigate.
- Making UC more female-friendly – boosting work allowances for single parents and second-earners would boost their work incentives and increase household incomes.
The Foundation adds that policy makers in Whitehall, and, crucially, across the UK, need to consider the impact of UC at a local level.
At exactly the time that policy debates are rightly focusing on what can be done to close economic gaps between parts of the UK, the reform will be rolled out with very different impacts on those places, the Foundation says.
S,
Data shows areas with high numbers of unemployed and disabled will be worse off, says thinktank.
Therese Coffey is still on a high…
This is an example of Universal Credit “works”.
Universal Credit Monthly Design, “unpredictable and seemingly arbitrary variations in payments.”
From the House of Commons Library.
Surprisingly informative.
Universal Credit: Does the monthly design work for claimants?
The story so far
After an uncertain start to the programme, the full version of UC was finally rolled out to every part of the UK in December 2018. The number of claimants is growing steadily and by the end of 2019 around 2.4 million households will be on UC. The final ‘managed migration’ stage is to start in late 2020 and finish by December 2023. People still getting existing ‘legacy benefits’ will be contacted to claim UC.
“The Universal Credit assessment period and payment structure is a fundamental part of the design… Minimising the difference between paid employment and being on benefit effectively removes a key barrier to moving back into work by helping claimants to budget on a monthly basis.” – Freedom of Information response DWP ref: FoI 1288, DWP, 5 June 2017.
“People in low-paid work are not paid monthly. Yet the system is built around monthly earnings. Likewise, no one in the real world has their wages paid to a partner. Yet the system pays a whole month’s universal credit into a single bank account belonging to one member of the household.” – Frank Field, FT article, 19 October 2018.
“…the ostensibly simple system of monthly assessment periods for all claimants – regardless of their working arrangements and pay cycles – can, in reality, lead to unpredictable and seemingly arbitrary variations in payments which make budgeting extremely difficult.” – Rough Justice, CPAG, August 2018.
UC payment arrangements are not the same across the whole of the UK. Claimants in Scotland can choose to receive their UC payments twice a month and for their landlord to receive the housing element directly. The Scottish Government also plans to split payments of UC to couples, “to increase equality within the welfare system”. In Northern Ireland, twice-monthly payments and direct payments to landlords are the default, and evidence suggests very few claimants have opted out.
In England and Wales, ‘Alternative Payment Arrangements’ (APAs) are possible, but only where claimants can’t manage single monthly UC payments and are at risk of ‘financial harm’. The emphasis is instead on help with monthly budgeting.
In January 2019 the DWP announced new measures to improve access to APAs. These include making it easier for private landlords to request direct payment of rents, and trialling new ways to promote more frequent payments. The DWP also said it was looking at what more might be done to ensure that, for couples with children, household payments go directly to the main carer.
But the DWP is facing calls to go further. CPAG has recommended that APAs should be available on request, arguing that the current criteria are too difficult to meet. Citizens Advice has argued that, in the long term, the Government should make UC payment cycles more flexible so that claimants can choose the schedule that best suits their needs.
Further reading
- The Universal Credit assessment period and earned income, House of Commons Library.
- Managing Money on Universal Credit, Citizens Advice, February 2019.
- Rough Justice: Problems with monthly assessment of pay and circumstances, and what can be done about them, Child Poverty Action Group, August 2018.
You wonder if these villains have read the above:
JobCentres to “Target” Homeless People.
New government scheme will provide rough sleepers with help finding jobs.
Ipswich, like every town and city in the country, has had homeless people on the streets since the Tory government made it almost impossible for people with a variety of problems to get somewhere to live.
Every single day I see people begging in the streets.
There are piles of sleeping bags in the doorways round here and people sat on them.
Every single day the library has people come in and use the computers to help them get a roof over their head, or just somewhere to stay the night.
Now the Job Centre is going to help – no doubt by getting them to fill in Universal Credit (onLine only) applications and do a daily Job Search.
CV tips will be very useful as well.
Jobcentre staff to target homeless people in new £3m government scheme
Welfare Weekly.
Charities say government should focus on the root causes of homelessness and invest in the benefits system.
Jobcentre staff are to take to the streets in a new government scheme designed to provide proactive employment support for homeless people and rough sleepers, the minister for welfare delivery Will Quince has announced.
Teams will work together with charities to locate homeless people who are currently not receiving back to work support from the Jobcentre and Department for Work and Pensions (DWP).
The Sunday Observer reports that new £3 million scheme aims to help homeless people and rough sleepers find and keep secure employment, but it is not without its critics.
Official Government statistics published in December 2019 revealed that the number of households in England who are recognised as being homeless or at risk of becoming homeless rose by 11.4% over the last 12 months.
They continue,
Jon Sparkes, Chief Executive of the homelessness charity Crisis, told inews: “The DWP has an important role in preventing and ending homelessness.
“It’s essential that people forced to live on our streets and in temporary accommodation face no barriers to accessing benefits that can help them into a stable and secure home. We would welcome working with the government on this.
However, he also called on government to tackle the “root causes” of homelessness by investing in housing benefit and in building more affordable homes.
“Without these people will continue to have to choose between food and rent and end up being forced into homelessness”, he said.
This is one of the causes of homelessness.
Families unable to afford food shop due to housing benefit shortfall, Crisis warns
Inside Housing January 2020.
The issue of local housing benefit (housing allowance) , meaning that full rents are often not covered, is a major cause of problems with accommodation.
“The data shows that the housing benefit shortfall, which is the amount of an individual’s rent not covered by housing benefit, equates to families having to give up at least a quarter of the national average weekly food shop for a small family in 70 of the country’s 152 ‘broad rental market areas’.
Broad rental market areas are designated by the government and are used to determine how much housing benefit private renters across the UK receive.
According to Crisis, central London has the highest housing benefit shortfall, as the average rent for the cheapest third of two-bedroom properties is £523.56 compared with a housing benefit rate of £320.74 – leaving a shortfall of £202.82. The average national weekly food shop for a small family (two adults and two children) is calculated at £59, meaning foregoing the weekly food shop will still not cover the shortfall for a London families.”
DWP Rule Change to Block help for Claimants from Elected Representatives.
Trev flagged up this story yesterday.
Tories trying to keep Universal Credit claimants in the dark
Welfare Weekly on the reaction in Scotland.
Outrage at new barriers to Universal Credit appeals process.
The SNP has accused the UK Tory government of trying to block MSPs from supporting Universal Credit claimants through the appeals process.
SNP MSP Linda Fabiani has hit out at new changes imposed by the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) that requires claimants to sign a waiver form explaining why they have approached a politician for support – rather than going directly to the Job Centre.
The new changes also require claimants to state exactly what they have discussed with their elected representative before information can be disclosed regarding an appeal.
Previous figures have shown that 55% of people who were denied Universal Credit support by the DWP had their decisions overturned in court.
Commenting, SNP MSP Linda Fabiani said: “The Tories are making it difficult for constituents to approach their MSPs for support and making MSPs jump through hoops to help their constituents – it’s a disgrace and an insult to devolution.
“The Universal Credit system is fundamentally flawed and needs to be halted.
“With so many loopholes and barriers put in place to stop claimants receiving the support they are entitled to, it’s no wonder people come to their MSP for support.
“Neither the DWP, nor Boris Johnson’s Tory government, has the right to stop people approaching their elected representatives for help and support – that’s what we’re here to do.
“This is just the latest extension of the hostile environment introduced by this right-wing Tory government designed to lock people out from receiving the financial support they are entitled to.
“Our MPs at Westminster will continue to push for this system to be kyboshed [sic].”
As this is happening we hear that the reliably bonkers Minister for Work and Pensions is still enjoying the festive mood of last week.
Iain Duncan Smith’s Honour, “Slap in the Face”.
DWP likes a Larf.
The new year honours list is a reliable source of controversy, with perennial outrage about the worthiness of the recipients.
But the knighthood given to the former work and pensions secretary Iain Duncan Smith has been particularly unpopular, with more than 237,000 people signing a petition objecting to the award for a man “responsible for some of the cruellest, most extreme welfare reforms this country has ever seen”.
One person with decades of experience adjudicating on the benefits system was especially appalled. “As a retired social security commissioner and upper tribunal judge, I spent a lifetime hearing thousands of appeals of decisions made by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP),” wrote Stephen Pacey in a letter to the Guardian.
……
The letter went viral as anger mounted, with at least one former MBE recipient announcing they were going to give their honour back, wanting no association with a system “that rewards social cruelty above social conscience”.
Dad ‘has 30p in coppers to last him a month’ after Universal Credit ‘mix up’
Adrian Keal, 48, claims he is at risk of losing his one-bed flat in Hull and is so broke he can’t turn the heating on – but the DWP says he received an advanced Universal Credit payment in November.
Meanwhile the reliably bonkers Minister for Work and Pensions, wearing her hairshirt, celebrates the beauty of this windswept pile of shingle which hosted a former military station.
(Note, I have visited the place and know Orford well. Perhaps she has plans to get us to clean it up, for our dole..).
Iain Duncan Smith receives knighthood for creating Universal Credit.
This Blog woke up this morning to this news:
Iain Duncan Smith receives knighthood in New Year Honours
Iain Duncan Smith knighthood labelled a reward for ‘legacy of cruelty’
The award of a knighthood to former Conservative Party leader Iain Duncan Smith has been criticised as a reward for a “legacy of cruelty and failure”.
As work and pensions secretary under David Cameron, Sir Iain was the architect of the Government’s controversial Universal Credit welfare reforms.
Opposition parties said it “beggared belief” that someone whose policies had caused so much distress should be honoured in this way.
Labour’s Lisa Nandy lambasted the award, tweeting that it was a “disgraceful decision by Boris Johnson to reward a legacy of cruelty and failure”.
Angry backlash as former Tory leader and Universal Credit architect Iain Duncan Smith is knighted Max Jeffery
An angry backlash has erupted after former Conservative Party leader Iain Duncan Smith was given a knighthood in the New Year Honours list.
Universal Credit: The Struggle Continues!
Contributors have remarked that this Blog has not posted for a short while.
The simple reason is that the issues us lot are interested in have not got much of a mention.
We are not happy that Johnson and Sado Populism now rules this country.
They have a direct effect on us.
Here are some reasons why.
This DWP ‘flaw’ could wipe out Universal Credit claimants’ Christmas payments
The Government has denied claims that there is a flaw in the Universal Credit system which could hit claimants who get paid early in December.
https://twitter.com/DailyMirror/status/1208520383672070149?s=20
Struggling family on Universal Credit left with sandwiches for Christmas dinner
Neil Campbell and Jo Holbrook-Morris run a community farm in Grimsby, Lincolnshire, but after feeding the animals with little support and being crippled by Universal Credit, they’re left struggling.
https://twitter.com/RespectIsVital/status/1208682117342863361?s=20
BBC Panorama Shows Tory Universal Credit Regime “setting up some claimants ‘to fail’ .”
Ipswich Unemployed Action, and many of our contributors, have said that the issues around Universal Credit have not made much of an impact during the election.
Anybody who wants to know what Boris Johnson thinks of people less well-off or protected than himself – from NHS patients to us lot – could see the man himself in action yesterday.
Last night the BBC screened this programme, (originally it was listed for the week before) that went into how Universal Credit (UC) affects people’s lives.
The BBC faces criticisms for allowing the likes of Johnson ample room to spout his opinions. Some say that the media are slanted towards the Tories.
But Universal Credit – One Year On with Catrin Nye is a thorough, moving demolition of the Tory Universal Credit system, from the sanctions regime, to the mess it has left many claimants in.
At the start of the programme we were told that Universal Credit is designed to simplify social security and other benefits.
It intends to “make work pay”.
What Catrin Nye showed is that UC is also made to make those out of work, disabled or unemployed, pay in financial misery.
It is made to make people out of well paid full time employment suffer.
It also illustrated how those in work who still need some help get trapped in a long list of difficulties.
Keith, who has mental health issues, came up with a topic many know all too well – how the all “on line” system is a barrier in itself.
Panorama looked at the reality behind the massive increase in the numbers of people paying off debts (from rent arrears to UC loans).
Case studies of those trapped in its clutches, reduced to scrambling for money, illustrated just how damaging UC is.
One striking thing was that advice agencies, like the CAB and Shelter, are now acting as full-time case workers to help those in need.
Families, not well off themselves, are forced to come to the rescue.
These real life stories are probably more effective than any high-sounding political speech in showing what’s wrong with Universal Credit.
To put it simply, UC is, as many have claimed before, “setting people up to fail”.
The BBC is to be congratulated for this excellent programme.
Universal credit is setting up some claimants “to fail”, charity staff have told BBC’s Panorama.
BBC.
Since October 2017, the Department for Work and Pensions says 60% of eligible new claimants have been given an advance or loan to help them manage the five-week wait for their first payment.
The DWP deducts money from claimants’ monthly benefit payment to repay this, as well as other debts they might have.
But after deductions are made, many say they are “struggling” to cope.
Housing charity Shelter says deductions for rent arrears are now double what they were under the old system.
The DWP says they have put safeguards in place to make sure repayments are affordable.
When universal credit was first announced in 2010, the then Work and Pensions secretary, Iain Duncan Smith, said it would replace a “complex, outdated and wildly expensive system”.
It combined six benefits – child tax credit, housing benefit, income support, jobseekers’ allowance, employment and support allowance and working tax credit – into one.
The government said the new system was designed to make work pay and encourage people, some of them the most vulnerable in society, to manage their own finances.
Flintshire in north Wales was one of the first areas to test the new system.
Last year, BBC Panorama visited the area and found people struggling to adjust.
Since then, the government has made changes and Panorama has returned to see how claimants are managing.
A year ago, Keith, who has mental health problems, was at risk of losing his home.
Universal credit encourages people to manage their own finances – including making their own rent payments – but he was struggling to cope and was behind with the rent on his council house.
Today, Keith has managed to hold onto his home after housing charity Shelter helped him change the way his benefits are paid.
The housing element of his benefit cheque now goes direct to his landlord, the council.
He is one of 2.6 million people on universal credit across the country
By the end of 2023, the Department for Work and Pensions says the system will be fully rolled out
It expects some seven million households to be claiming the new benefit.
Debt Repayment.
To repay the debts Keith built up to cover his rent, he has money deducted from his universal credit payments every month.
As a result, he has less to live on. He told BBC Panorama: “It’s a struggle”.
Victoria Tomlinson, the Shelter advisor who helped Keith with his rent arrears, says the system is routinely taking double the deductions compared to what happened previously.
She told Panorama that tenants with arrears should pay them back, but added, “you can’t make somebody pay something when they don’t have it”. If the repayments are too high “then you’re setting them up to fail”.
The programme met others who say they too are struggling with debt under universal credit.
Helen Barnard, deputy director of policy and partnerships at the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, told the BBC many claimants can be out of pocket from the start because they have to wait for their first payment.
“This all starts really with the fact that there is a minimum five-week wait at the beginning of your claim before your income comes through, so what’s offered is an advance – which is a loan,” she said.
“So what that does is pulls people into debt right at the beginning of their claim.”
Rebecca and her young family moved into a council flat in north Wales in February last year and couldn’t afford a lot of the basics for their new home
Her partner is a chef but his work is irregular so the couple depend on benefits.
Family help
“We needed everything. The only thing we had was a bed and a cot, that was literally it.
“So I reached out to universal credit and I was like, well, I’m going to have to get a loan out,” Rebecca told the BBC.
She secured an advance and now around £90 is deducted from her benefits every month to repay it, and other debts.
The couple say this leaves them without enough money at the end of every month and they have to turn to Rebecca’s family for help.
The DWP says it has put safeguards in place to make sure repayments are affordable, adding that claimants can contact them to negotiate lower payments and have 12 months to pay back any advances.
But Ms Barnard says that unlike financial institutions, “the Department of Work and Pensions doesn’t have any standard affordability assessment” and the system “assumes” that the person applying for an advance understands how it works.
The DWP says that many tenants on universal credit have pre-existing rent arrears, but the proportion of people with arrears reduces over time
Universal Credit System Breakdown, “Civil servants ‘ashamed’ to work for DWP”.
This week there were people begging just near to Suffolk College.
They have moved from the Ipswich central shopping streets outwards.
I don’t want to see a country where people have to depend on the kindness of strangers but get decent benefits.
Generous strangers give £26k to Universal Credit mum with just 14p to her name
Mirror today
Hundreds of Britons have offered to help homeless mum Rachel Finn, from Grimsby, after she pulled 14p out of her pocket and said “that’s all our money”
The 39-year-old, who is staying in temporary accommodation with her 18-year-old son, Bradley, has been backed by the likes of pop star Lily Allen.
Her story captured the nation’s attention after she emptied her pockets and put down four 2p pieces and six 1p coins on a table – tearfully saying “that’s all our money” – for a BBC crew reporting on vulnerable and low-income voters in Grimsby.
This is the I today,
Sporadic Universal Credit payments and nursery fees have landed her in thousands of pounds of debt.
A working single parent has been taking her daughter to friends’ houses to eat to because she can’t afford to meet the family’s living costs.
Ayo, 29, a communications worker, owes money to debtors, her family and friends because she cannot afford to cover nursery costs for her two-year-old daughter’s nursery bills.
Although Ayo returned to work after she gave birth to her daughter in 2017, her debt has been compounded by missed Universal Credit payments, nursery fees and rent arrears, leaving her living pay-cheque to pay-cheque.
The young woman, who lives in Hammersmith, London, told i she fell into debt because of her childcare bills.
“When I fell pregnant, I was in a job for less than 26 weeks, so I was only entitled to statutory maternity pay. Because I was entitled to statutory maternity pay, I couldn’t receive any Universal Credit, so I couldn’t get a sure start grant to cover my childcare costs,” she said.
“I went back to work, so I had to find a nursery to look after my daughter. I had to pay a registration fee. I was lucky to pay just one nursery registration fee, because if there’s a waiting list, a lot of parents have to pay more. On top of that, I had to pay a month’s deposit, and a one month nursery fee in advance.
No wonder this is happening: (5th of December).
Civil servants described to colleagues how they were “ashamed” to work for the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) because of the experiences of their own relatives when claiming universal credit, leaked documents have revealed.
The thoughts of DWP civil servants were shared with colleagues on the department’s intranet earlier this year, and they have now been passed to Disability News Service.
They appear to destroy DWP’s continuing insistence that UC “is a force for good” and that it has overwhelming support from its own staff.
In all, three separate civil servants used the DWP intranet in early May to criticise the way their own relatives had been treated while attempting to claim UC.
It comes as Labour has promised to scrap UC if it wins next week’s general election, as has the Green party, while the Conservatives have pledged to “continue the roll-out”, and the Liberal Democrats have said they would try to improve the system.
A DWP staff member who passed the comments to DNS said he wanted the public to know that many of his colleagues did not share the views of Conservative ministers like work and pensions secretary Therese Coffey, who insists that universal credit (UC) “provides a safeguard for the most vulnerable in our society”.
Instead, he said, many of his colleagues were concerned about the flaws in the system, which is gradually being rolled out by the government and has been described as “toxic” by disabled campaigners and linked to “soaring” rates of sanctions and foodbank use in areas where it has been introduced.
The comments were made on the DWP intranet, which is open to all staff members, in response to an update headlined “Universal Credit – the myth busters get to work”, which was posted by a senior member of staff on 2 May.
Soon after the discussion, a DWP memo was leaked to the media and led to widespread outrage when it revealed that the department was planning a national “myth-busting” campaign aimed at dealing with media “negativity and scaremongering” about UC.
The newly-leaked intranet comments appear to show what DWP members of staff really think about UC.
The update had explained how jobcentres had invited local reporters into their offices to “show the reality of the great service we provide within our community”.
But the post drew a scathing response from several staff members over the following week.
One civil servant told colleagues, less than an hour after the original post, that his brother’s experience on UC was “not made up or exaggerated”.
He added: “I was and still am ashamed to work for [a] department that could treat my Brother so poorly. I am sorry to say ‘myth busting’ is another name for propaganda when it comes to Universal Credit
Meanwhile the extreme-right pro-Brexit Express carries this story:
Universal Credit claimants could get £1,200 bonus money – how to get the tax-free cash
UNIVERSAL CREDIT recipients may be able to get additional help with savings under a government scheme. How does the Help to Save scheme work, and who is eligible for this bonus money?
This is what the Tories really think of those less fortunate than themselves:
Here’s what Labour thinks:
Universal Credit Raises Demand for Help, While Tories Cut, and Will Continue to Cut, Advice Funding.
System that Tories Will Continue Doubles Demand for Advice and Help.
One of the ways the Tories have been running down this country is through cutting back on the money available for essential local services.
Citizens Advice (CAB) is the last port of call for many people.
With Universal Credit, on-line only, you see libraries being used as, unfunded, a a source of help for people who need to apply through the net.
But anybody with more needs usually goes to the Citizens’ Advice Bureaux, other advice services having been run by local government and other cuts in funding over the years.
A couple of years ago the Guardian published this,
More people are turning to Citizens Advice but there are fewer and fewer places I can refer them to and crisis grants from local authorities are disappearing
This year we saw this in Suffolk, a last minute rescue after the rural bigwigs who run Suffolk County Council cut the CAB funding.
Citizens Advice services in Suffolk have been thrown a lifeline after two clinical commissioning groups stepped up to pay the £187,000 that was due to be cut from their funding this year.
Suffolk County Council has proposed the 50 per cent cut to Citizens Advice funding in 2019/20, with a view to cutting it completely next year.
But the joint agreement between the county council, NHS Ipswich and East Suffolk CCG and NHS West Suffolk CCG means that funding to the service for the coming year will total £374,000 – the same as last year.
The cuts are part of Suffolk County Council’s plans to save more than £11 million, with the 2019/20 budget due to be discussed at a full meeting on Thursday.
October saw this,
Colchester Citizens Advice centre has funds cut
AN advice centre says it is business as usual despite council funding cuts.
There are fears Citizens Advice Colchester could be forced to reduce services after cuts in Colchester Council’s Voluntary Welfare Grant funding.
The council announced its grant to the advice bureau year will be £25,000 – half of which has already been received.
Since then trustees have met to discuss future arrangements with volunteers.
However, Jo Blyth, operations manager at Citizens Advice Colchester, said nothing is changing yet.
This is happening across the country.
Yet….
Today the BBC reports that the need for CABs continues to grow.
Citizens Advice Scotland gave guidance 40,000 times in 2018/19, its state of the nation report shows.
It comes as the charity demands the next government helps with the cost of living, especially for low-income households.
Chief executive Derek Mitchell said people were also struggling with debt, social security and energy.
The report also showed the charity gave more than 100,000 pieces of advice issued in relation to debt.
Meanwhile our one time boss is having a merry time:
Why isn’t this a Universal Credit Election?
There are over 2,300,000 (latest figures, July 2019) people on Universal Credit.
There were 20 million people claiming DWP benefits at August 2018 alone (most recent full figures).
Benefits and Universal Credit should be key election issues.
To take two examples:
Housing benefit no longer enough for struggling families to afford any Ipswich rental properties
Ipswich Star, today,
The Bureau of Investigative Journalism could not find a single two bed property in Ipswich that was affordable on Local Housing Allowance (LHA) during a recent snapshot search.
The TBIJ research found that only one in 20 of the two-bed properties advertised for rent nationally were affordable on LHA. Across most Suffolk and Essex just a fraction of the properties advertised for rent would be affordable on LHA.
It means many families are having to make tough decisions to cope.
…
LHA is supposed to cover the cheapest 30% of properties in that area. But it was frozen in 2016 as a cost-cutting measure, intended to save £1.3 billion a year, rising to about £1.7 billion by 2020-21.
Although the number of affordable rent homes created in Suffolk has risen over recent years – reaching 500 for the first time in 2017/18 – councils still rely on private landlords to provide much of the housing for benefit recipients.
The article goes into the problems of renting and Local Housing Allowance – which affects the whole country – in depth.
Read it.
Then there is, something that’s hardly a secret.
Why isn’t this the food bank election?
New Statesman.
In the world’s sixth richest country, a record number of people will be starving at Christmas.
A record number of people will use food banks this Christmas. The busiest month for food banks last year was December, and there has been a general rise in food bank use since then (April to September this year saw a 23 per cent increase compared to the same period in 2018). We’re heading for a record high this winter, according to the Trussell Trust food bank charity.
There will also be people who go without income over the Christmas period. Universal Credit, the new welfare system, has a five-week waiting time for the first payment. This delay has not been reduced by the government, despite it driving up food bank use. People applying for Universal Credit now will go without money over the Christmas period, unless they meet tight criteria for an emergency loan.
Chakelian says that this issue – we could add Benefits as such – have not been talked about in the election.
Why?
Perhaps it’s because the Labour party, which is more sympathetic to these things and has tried to come up with answers, is distracted. Perhaps it’s because the Conservatives don’t accept their manifesto is forecasted to bring about record child poverty, or don’t believe they play a part at all. Perhaps it’s because charities that usually campaign on these things have to submit to extra-strict impartiality rules around election time. Perhaps it’s because media outlets decided this would be the “Brexit election”, once and for all.
Perhaps it’s also because many people, that is many amongst those who vote, are not going to be swayed by talking about the real world of Universal Credit, benefits, and poverty.
Let’s follow this example and bring these unwelcome, difficult, subjects, into the election.
Our contributors have plenty of ideas!
A photo highlighting the huge imbalance between Britain’s richest and poorest people has gone viral on Facebook – and generated awareness of homelessness at Christmas.
Posted in the Facebook group ‘Sh*t London’, Cliff Judson’s breathtaking snapshot shows the plush and extravagant display outside House of Fraser’s flagship store on London’s Oxford Street – while homelessness in is on the increase.
The 43-year-old Londoner was aiming to highlight poverty at Christmas time, when there are more visible signs of inequality.
Over a million households on Universal Credit having benefits cut to repay debts and loans.
From Heartwarming DWP Guide to Universal Credit.
Many of our contributors are familiar with this rule,
How much can be taken from Universal Credit payments? There is an overall maximum percentage rate for all debts and deductions that can be taken from a Universal Credit payment. The maximum amount that can be deducted is an amount equivalent to 30% of the claimant’s Universal Credit standard allowance.
It’s, odd as it seems, an improvement on the previous rate which was 40%.
The new rate came in this October,
The changes mean, from this month, the maximum amount that can be taken out of Universal Credit payments will fall from 40% to 30%.
This means if you’re currently affected by the 40% rate, you will start to see more money coming in every month.
Deductions can be taken out of a person’s Universal Credit entitlement for various reasons, including sanctions and for recovering debts such as arrears on rent and fuel bills.
Universal Credit changes coming into force this month – how they will affect you (Mirror)
But thirty percent is still very stiff, when you realise that the full rate of payment is already the bare minimum to live on.
Hence this story in the Observer.
Million universal credit households ‘do not get full entitlement’
Deductions to cover loans are forcing many to turn to food banks.
More than a million households on universal credit – 60% of everyone receiving the payments –are having their benefits cut to repay debts and loans.
Data sourced under the Freedom of Information Act show that in May – the most recent month for which figures are available – 1,048,000 universal credit claimants had a deduction of their benefit payment out of 1,759,000 claimants who received any universal credit payment that month.
The figures exclude deductions for fraud and sanctions. Nearly a third of all people on the troubled welfare scheme are having more than a fifth of their payment cut, often to repay loans that some claimants received to tide them over during the five-week wait for their first payment to arrive.
Charlotte Hughes, an anti-austerity campaigner who provides support and advice to benefit recipients, said universal credit deductions come up as an issue in her work every day. “Everyone is being hit by deductions in one way, shape or form. I don’t know anybody that actually receives the full amount of money that they’re supposed to get.”
She added that many claimants were having to use food banks as a result. “Your health suffers, your housing situation suffers, you can’t eat properly, you worry, you stress. It’s just never-ending.”
Gillian Guy, chief executive of Citizens Advice, said: “Our evidence shows many people on universal credit are struggling to make ends meet, and that deductions are contributing to this.” She said the government should introduce affordability tests when recouping debts from claimants.
The story continues,
A separate freedom of information request shows that universal credit claimants who are having their benefits deducted to repay debts and loans owe an average of £903. About 570,000 households owe more than £1,000, including 80,000 people owing more than £5,000.
The largest deductions are often due to overpaid tax credits, incurred when claimants earned more than expected under the existing tax credit system. Many of these debts date back many years.
Minutes of a meeting of welfare rights advisers in October 2018 show that Neil Couling, the head of the universal credit programme, “admitted that the government over the last 18 months has demanded a push to recover old debt and has provided UC with extra funds to do this”.
There is plenty of scope for the DWP’s famous ability to get things wrong.
Sarah, from Lancashire, is one claimant affected by this “push”. Unable to work for health reasons, she lives with her partner and daughter. The government has been deducting more than £100 a month from her universal credit payment, mostly to repay tax credit overpayments dating back to 2009. The level of the deduction changes each month, as does the amount of benefit she receives, making it impossible for her to budget.
“If I owe money I’ll pay it back,” she said. “I have no qualms about paying money back that I owe. But my argument is, ‘Why are they taking such a big chunk of my money?’ Over £150 some months – that’s a lot of money. That’s like two weeks’ worth of shopping, that they’re taking off me and we are running out of food.”
She started claiming universal credit in 2017 after leaving full-time work to become a part-time paid carer for her uncle. A car accident and subsequent diagnosis with osteoarthritis and fibromyalgia forced her out of paid work altogether.
The deductions are forcing her to borrow from her family. “We’re robbing Peter to pay Paul. We get our money today, we get our food shopping, we always make sure our bills and everything are paid first, and then we pay back whoever we owe. So we end up with no money left.”
On top of her tax credit debts, she is also having £50 a month deducted for a loan that she never borrowed. After the Observer spoke to the Department for Work and Pensions about Sarah’s case, it accepted that the loan deduction was a mistake and pledged a refund, while agreeing to discuss recovering the tax credit debts at a more affordable rate.
In the meantime DWP MInister Thérèse Coffey re-tweeted this happy little note;
Labour Manifesto: Scrap Universal Credit and “end poverty by guaranteeing a minimum standard of living.”
Labour’s Manifesto is out today.
Here is the section our Contributors will focus on.
Social Security.
While Labour wants a society in which people care for one another, the Tories are trying to pitch us against each other.
Under the Tories, the social security system has lost sight of its purpose. Poverty has become endemic, the glue that binds our society together has come unstuck and, in the words of the United Nations, the UK’s social safety net ‘has been deliberately removed and replaced with a harsh and uncaring ethos’. The cruelty and heartlessess of the Tories has made the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) a symbol of fear. When people feel the DWP is more about harassment than a helping hand, something has gone seriously wrong.
Labour will completely change this culture, replacing the DWP on day one with a Department for Social Security, which will be there to help and support people, not punish and police them.
Universal Credit
The Tories’ flagship social security programme, Universal Credit (UC), has been a catastrophe. It has pushed thousands of people into poverty, caused families to lose their homes and forced parents to visit food banks in order to feed their children.
Labour will scrap UC.
We will immediately stop moving people onto it and design an alternative system that treats people with dignity and respect.
Our ambition in designing this system will be to end poverty by guaranteeing a minimum standard of living.
We will start developing this system immediately. But we have learned the lessons from Tory failure: major policy change can’t be delivered overnight, especially when people’s lives depend
on it.
So we will also implement an emergency package of reforms to mitigate some of the worst features of UC while we develop our replacement system.
- We will end the five-week wait by introducing an interim payment based on half an estimated monthly entitlement.
- We will immediately suspend the Tories’ vicious sanction regime and ensure that employment support is positive not punitive.
- We will stop 300,000 children from being in poverty by scrapping the benefit cap and the two child limit, so ending the immoral and outrageous ‘rape clause’.
- We will pay childcare costs up front so that parents aren’t forced to turn down work or get into debt to pay for childcare.
- Labour will protect women in abusive relationships by splitting payments and paying the child element to the primary carer.
- We will make it easier for people to manage their living costs by introducing fortnightly payments and paying the housing element directly to landlords.
- The Conservative’s ‘digital only’ approach is excluding vulnerable people. Labour will end the digital barrier and offer telephone, face-to-face and outreach support.
- We will recruit 5,000 additional advisors to deliver this.
- Tory cuts are pushing people into rent arrears and leaving them at risk of homelessness. We will stop housing costs running away from benefits by scrapping the bedroom tax and increasing the Local Housing Allowance.
In the meantime:
Priti Patel says poverty “isn’t the government’s fault” while stood in a food bank
“Everybody just says it’s the Government as if it’s this sort of like bland blob that you know, you can just go and blame.”
Priti Patel has been criticised for arrogantly dismissing the government’s role in poverty while stood in a food bank in Barrow.
The Home Secretary attempted to push blame onto local authorities during an interview, even though local government has suffered “enormously from vicious Tory cuts”, Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell said.
When told that four in 10 children in parts of Barrow, Cumbria, are born into poverty, she told BBC North West Tonight: “Well it’s appalling.
“But of course everybody, and it’s not just people in Westminster, it’s not just at a national level it’s at a local level.”
“You can’t blame the Government for poverty.” The Home Secretary has been in #Barrow today where Labour has a margin of just 209. Will she win enough voters over? More with @Ninawarhurst tonight. pic.twitter.com/PXYijxCOmW
— BBC North West (@BBCNWT) November 20, 2019
“Social security allowances have hit their lowest relative levels since the creation of the welfare state.”
Underlying Crisis is Big Drop in Payment Levels.
“This paper will argue that it is time to embrace a more progressive vision of social security in the 21st century. Fundamentally, it would recognise that, in the world’s fifth richest country, a basic minimum standard of living should be a foundation for citizenship. This idea must sit at the heart of the social security system.”
The ‘I’, the paper that many of us buy.
Just out….
Universal Credit payments have fallen to just 12.5 per cent of average earnings, the think tank IPPR has reported.
Social security allowances have hit their lowest relative levels since the creation of the welfare state, according to the group’s report.
Universal Credit payments have fallen to just 12.5 per cent of average earnings, the think tank IPPR has reported.
Social security allowances have hit their lowest relative levels since the creation of the welfare state, according to the group’s report.
Real time spending its lowest since the system began, according to the “Social (in)security” report.
As a share of the gross domestic product (GDP) – the total value of goods produced and services provided in a country during one year – spending has fallen from 47 per cent to 40 per cent, and is set to be 3.9 per cent lower in real terms by 2021/22 than it was in 2010/11, amounting to £37bn less being spent on working-age social security.
The IPPR say the calculations issue a stark warning.
It believes the government needs to invest at least £8.4bn into the system to keep it afloat.
“Social security should offer a safety net, not a tightrope over poverty,” said Clare McNeil, the associate director of the IPPR.
“It is remarkable that in postwar Britain the support for those living in poverty was closer to average earnings than it is today. This is the very simple fact that lies behind the record levels of personal debt, rising use of food banks and increasing destitution that we see in the UK.”
These conclusions will come as no surprise to contributors to this Blog.
The Report from the IPPR.
Social (in)security: Reforming the UK’s social safety net
The UK has experienced a decade of austerity. While this has not resulted in a dramatic decrease in public spending in absolute terms, it does represent the longest pause in real-terms spending growth on record. Moreover, with the UK’s population continuing to grow, spending per head has fallen, and is set to be 3.9 per cent lower in real terms by 2021/22 than it was in 2010/11. Likewise, as a share of GDP, spending has fallen from 47 per cent to 40 per cent.
This reduction in spending on social security has occurred at the same time as fundamental reform to how working age benefits operate in the UK, with the introduction of universal credit, which aimed to encourage more people into work and simplify the system, thereby reducing fraud, error, confusion and administration costs.
However, it is far from clear that this has been the result. Moreover, across a whole host of other metrics, social indicators show that our welfare system is failing to deliver as we would expect it to. Having declined significantly during the first decade of the century, poverty is now growing again, particularly amongst pensioners, children and those in-work.
This paper will argue that it is time to embrace a more progressive vision of social security in the 21st century. Fundamentally, it would recognise that, in the world’s fifth richest country, a basic minimum standard of living should be a foundation for citizenship. This idea must sit at the heart of the social security system.
Steepest Rise in Foodbank Need for 5 Years.
Trussell Trust reveals steepest increase in five years as it hands out 823,000 emergency food parcels in six months
More people than ever are being forced to turn to food banks, after welfare problems over the last six months have led to the steepest increase in emergency food parcel handouts in five years, according to the anti-poverty campaign the Trussell Trust.
The trust, which runs two-thirds of the UK’s food banks, said it distributed a record 823,145 food parcels between April and September, including 301,653 that went to children. This was a 23% increase on the same period last year, representing the steepest rise the charity has witnessed since its network of food banks was fully established.
The Trussell Trust press release says,
As the General Election nears, the Trussell Trust is calling for politicians of all parties to pledge to protect people from hunger by ensuring everyone has enough money for the basics. The charity reports more people than ever before are being forced to food banks, with more than 820,000 emergency food parcels given out in the past six months.
New data released today shows April to September 2019 to be the busiest half-year period for food banks in the Trussell Trust’s network since the charity opened. During the six months, 823,145 three-day emergency food parcels were given to people in crisis in the UK; more than a third of these (301,653) went to children.
This is a 23% increase on the same period in 2018 – the sharpest rate of increase the charity has seen for the past five years.
The main reasons for people needing emergency food are low benefit income (36%), and delays (18%) or changes (16%) to benefits being paid.
The new figures come just a week after the Trussell Trust released State of Hunger, the most in-depth study ever published into hunger and the drivers of food bank use in the UK. The research revealed:
- The average weekly income of households at food banks is only £50 after paying rent
- One in five have no money coming in at all in the month before being referred for emergency food
- 94% of people at food banks are destitute
State of Hunger shows there are three drivers hitting people simultaneously and leaving no protection from hunger and poverty. These drivers are problems with the benefits system, ill health or challenging life experiences, and a lack of local support.
One of the key issues people at food banks face is the five week wait for a first Universal Credit payment. Although Universal Credit is not the only benefit payment people at food banks experience problems with, the majority (65%) of food bank referrals made in April – Sept 2019 due to a delay in benefits being paid in the UK were linked to Universal Credit.
At the moment, people moving onto the government’s new benefits system have to wait at least five weeks – and often longer – with no money. People can get offered an Advance Payment, but this is a loan that must be paid back, often forcing people into debt.
As the election nears, the Trussell Trust is calling for politicians on all sides to pledge to protect people from hunger by ensuring everyone has enough money for the basics. It is asking the next government to start working towards a future where no one needs a food bank by:
- Ending the five week wait for Universal Credit
- Ensuring benefit payments cover the cost of living
- Investing in local emergency support for people in crisis
The Trussell Trust’s chief executive Emma Revie said:
“More people than ever before are being forced to food banks’ doors. Our benefits system is supposed to protect us all from being swept into poverty, but currently thousands of women, men and children are not receiving sufficient protection from destitution.
“This is not right. But we know this situation can be fixed – our benefits system could be the key to unlocking people from poverty. This General Election, all political parties must pledge to protect people from hunger by ensuring everyone has enough money for the basics. We want our next government to start working towards a future where no one needs a food bank by ending the five week wait for Universal Credit; ensuring benefit payments cover the cost of living; and investing in local emergency support for people in crisis.
“Together, these three changes will put money back into the pockets of people who most need our support. It’s in our power as a country to end the need for food banks. This can change.”
This is worth reading.
We’ve missed an important reason why people are going hungry in Britain
Inadequacy, gaps and reductions” of the benefits system are identified as one of three simultaneous factors driving hunger in the UK. The other two reasons are “challenging life experiences and ill health” and “lack of informal support”.
It’s that last reason that is the least explored. The report describes it like this:
“The vast majority of people referred to foodbanks had either exhausted support from family or friends, had a resource-poor social network or could not access support due to social isolation.”
People in Britain report feeling lonelier than ever across age groups, which is often described as a “loneliness epidemic” because of the very real health impacts. Alongside this is the reduction of public spaces where people can commune locally for free: libraries, children’s services and youth clubs have been cut, plus pub closures and the decline of town centres.
“Other support mechanisms, so let’s say being able to go to a library where you can apply for your benefits because there’s a computer there, being able to go to a local advice drop-in, or a mental health support service – all those have seen cutbacks as well,” says the Trussell Trust’s policy and research manager Abby Jitendra.
“Partly it’s because councils are the main funders and they don’t have enough money, but also partly because the national government, austerity has stripped a lot of services back, and that often means that the voluntary crisis support tends to be very, very important to people because there’s nowhere else to turn.”
The loss of traditional state and private support structures can be very isolating, as well as the informal social changes impoverished communities can bring.
“If you are on a very low income, it’s often the case that your family’s also on a very low income, that your local community doesn’t have the resources to be able to support you because it might be deprived as well,” says Jitendra. “Having debts to your family can be really damaging to your relationships, and compound loneliness and isolation – if the financial resilience of your network is also very low, you really have nowhere else to turn [other than foodbanks].”
When reporting on foodbanks, I have not only come across people desperate for support, but also desperate for company. Some come in for a cup of tea when they don’t even need a food parcel. That’s partly why many foodbanks have a sort of front-room café set-up – they’re a last resort for community support, as well as for sustenance.
Feeling hungry is “extremely isolating”, and can fracture your networks further, says Jitendra. “Human interaction completely changes when you can’t afford to even sit down and have a cup of tea with your friend because you can’t afford tea, or to turn the kettle on”.
Grahame Lucas, who has managed Worcester’s foodbank for five years after helping to found it seven years ago, finds foodbanks now provide “an outlet, a place to go” for people who have no other place to turn to.
Thérèse Coffey is out and about doing her bit to help the poor overcome loneliness..
The popular politician gets the Parson’s Nose of mass support.
Universal Credit Lies Slammed But DWP Misinformation Continues.
Resting Place for DWP Fake Information Campaign on Universal Credit.
The Ministry of Truth still says,
It’s come to a sorry pass when even Bunga Bunga Boris’s daily points to the reality behind this porky,
Universal Credit claimants keep less of their pay than millionaires
The Sun.
Those on million pound salaries get to keep 54p from every £1- but if you’re on Universal Credit you are just 37p better off.
That’s because of the way the benefit works. If you’re on Universal Credit you have 53p from every £1 you earn – known as the taper rate – over the work allowance deduced from your benefits payment.
The work allowance you get is based on if you have children, are in a couple or get help with housing costs.
It means that hard-working people on Universal Credit have their payments slashed, effectively paying a tax on earnings, as we’ve highlighted in our Make Universal Credit Work campaign.
We want the government to increase the work allowance and lower the taper rate.
The benefit is leaving hard-working Brits penniless, like Roxy Thobald, who despite working 20 hours a week, fed her seven-year-old daughter Bella leftover party food because she had no cash due to Universal Credit’s harsh taper rate.
Or single mum Gemma Hickman who is studying to be a physiologist and works 20 hours a week but can’t afford present for her kids this Christmas.
Sara Willcocks, from poverty charity Turn2us, said: “Universal credit just isn’t working for low income families. How can it be when people earning low wages have more deducted from their incomes than millionaires?
The same story appears in the Mirror, suggesting that the Currant Bun has not gone further than a keyboard and the net to write their article.
Universal Credit claimants keep less of their pay than millionaires
People with jobs but still claiming Universal Credit see a bigger chunk of their incomes vanish than those on seven-figure salaries thanks to the way the benefit works.
The merry tale about the fake Universal Credit ads (Universal credit adverts banned as ‘misleading’) continues,
Hotspur has already noticed these letters in the Guardian.
Aditya Chakrabortty’s article (The government uses your money to gaslight poor people, 6 November) revealed the depth that the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) will go to defend its failing flagship universal credit programme, which has pushed thousands of people into poverty. It is important people are able to make decisions that impact on their finances based on factual information.
The anti-poverty charity Z2K (Zacchaeus 2000 Trust) that I lead was the first to complain to the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) about this series of ads, and we are named in the ASA’s final ruling. We were compelled to make this complaint because we simply could not understand why the DWP would make assertions without clear evidence to back up their claims.
We were really pleased to see such wide coverage of the ASA ruling, and to know that thousands of Guardian readers share our concerns. We are, however, very disappointed that the DWP is neither able to satisfactorily explain its actions or apologise for the harm they will have caused to the people who may have moved on to universal credit as a result.
The ruling comes too late as the now discredited campaign has already ended. That’s why Z2K has launched a public campaign calling for an apology from the DWP and an independent investigation into how and why these adverts came to be authorised. It is vital that we the public can trust government departments to be telling us the truth, particularly in being clear about their strategies to ensure that the social security system works as a safety net to reduce the numbers of people now living in poverty in the UK. Instead of using taxpayers’ money on a failed PR campaign, the DWP must now start engaging meaningfully with the widespread evidence of the impact of welfare reform on pushing people into poverty. Join our campaign to tell the DWP to #StopMisleading today.
Raji Hunjan
CEO, Z2K (Zacchaeus 2000 Trust)The ASA found that government claim “people move into work faster” under universal credit breached the advertising code under the rules 3.1 (Misleading advertising), 3.7 (Substantiation), 3.9 (Qualification) and 3.11 (Exaggeration). That exact phrase has been used by government MPs 67 times in parliament to defend universal credit, as well as in countless media interviews. It is the key plank of the government’s claim that universal credit is making lives better – yet it fails to meet the basic standards of truthfulness and honesty that we demand of soap powder commercials. It is time that it is removed from the mouths of government ministers.
Paul Morrison
London• Huge credit to Aditya Chakrabortty. Credit also to cabinet secretary Mark Sedwill, for ruling that the government cannot publish a Treasury analysis of Labour’s spending plans. While both developments are clearly embarrassing to the Conservatives, I think they also reveal a worrying failure by the civil service to adhere to its “core values” of integrity, honesty, objectivity and impartiality.
Specifically, officials in the DWP and Treasury seem to have been willing participants in attempts by the government to manipulate the evidence in order to support a predetermined policy (universal credit), rather than providing an objective analysis of its impact; and to devote resources to rubbishing opposition spending plans for party political purposes, while apparently not having sufficient resources to analyse the impact of the government’s Brexit deal.
I worked for 38 years as a government analyst and I know that the UK civil service, in particular its analytical professions, has a deserved reputation for observing high standards of professionalism and propriety. It saddens me to see this now under serious threat from the actions of current government ministers, combined with the pressures from austerity and the demands of Brexit. It will be important for the next government, and civil servants themselves, to take steps to restore this reputation before it is too late.
Alan Spence
Southport, Merseyside
Meanwhile Therese Coffey is preparing for the Great Flood that will hit Suffolk Coasts
