Esther McVey gets brought down from Summer Jobs Cloud Cuckoo Land.

It’s a hard life being Esther McVey.

Attacked for her handling of Universal Credit, and making a fool of herself vaunting the merits of the DWp’s “agile” information system…

Esther McVey apologises for misleading parliament – video

Unkind people have suggested that this has brought about an identity crisis.

But she takes what comfort she can get.

Jobs bonanza as economy surges after Brexit vote https://t.co/IxOCd0LVZg

— Esther McVey (@EstherMcVey1) July 23, 2018

Her Summer Job wheeze is the latest case of what experts in psychology call “flaying around helplessly”.

Hear @EstherMcVey1 on the importance of #summerjobs – and how we've made it easier than ever to find the role that's right for you https://t.co/m3ZiLKrccZ pic.twitter.com/QQevHuJKvx

— DWP Press Office (@dwppressoffice) July 27, 2018

But even delivered with a winsome smile her latest trip into cloud cuckoo land has not met universal admiration.

Why haven't you resigned yet?

— Helen Rich (@HLPGRich) July 27, 2018

this mentally ill man youve starved for 15 months by not giving one penny to him hasnt got enough energy to do anything much in summer. he cant even claim assessment rates of benefits because your staff ignore the social workers letters. ur pure evil allowing vulnerable to die pic.twitter.com/hqNzbrqKcV

— too many women are murdered in uk (@many_women) July 27, 2018

Esther 🤥🤥🤥🤥🤥🤡🤡🤡 McVey. pic.twitter.com/RdfDhkcJtH

— Michael Brookes (@Strummer76) July 27, 2018

The first vacancies have been uploaded and are restricted to those with a blue passport. pic.twitter.com/igDZbgK5RT

— keithw (@highlandradical) July 27, 2018

A third of British children now live in poverty thanks to Esther McVey and her vile human rights abusers at the DWP

It won't be long now before brexit Tories will be sanctioning bairns because they refused a job offer from a local rich Tory to work down his mine#DWP pic.twitter.com/HbFUqZVcBN

— joe kane🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿🇵🇸 (@joe90kane) July 27, 2018

Apart from this unhelpful thread (there is a lot, a real lot, of the above)  the media has got into the act:

Esther McVey told teenagers to get summer jobs and it did not go down well Independent.

Seems there’s no jobs anymore for under 16s though. Paperboys/girls & milkboys/girls hardly exist. Shame govts made it so hard for biz owners to employ under 16s

— Kirsty McGregor (@TheCFN) July 27, 2018

Has anyone asked Esther McVey what summer jobs she did at her fathers construction firm?

— Bri Spong Un (@BrianSpanner1) July 27, 2018

Rich Esther McVey – just about to swan off on long MP holiday – insists children should work in fieldstone gain ‘vital skills’.

What vital skills are they? Apart from filling Brexit fields for free. pic.twitter.com/GUEMxDhimF

— Ron Moore MP (@RonMooreMoreRon) July 27, 2018

Happy Hols Esther!

 

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Health Checks at Jobcentres as Auditor General diagnoses Esther McVey’s Advanced Porky Malady.

Auditor General Says McVey Suffering from Advanced Porky Malady.

“I’m a GP in Kent, with an interest in public health. I’ve really enjoyed the discussion, and this has been really useful to us. We do NHS Health Checks here in my practice. In terms of targeting the people who would most benefit, and I’m aware that there’s an issue with who would do this, but I think we should use places like job centres, food banks and the housing team to publicise this – because, that is where a lot of the people who would benefit most might be found. “

Health Matters – Using NHS Health Checks to optimise CVD care – Your questions answered.

Lo and Behold, in Ipswich…

Our Health Check team are conducting health checks at Ipswich Jobcentre EVERY Wednesday 10:00am-4pm. Please speak with your Work Coach, call 01473 298772 or respond to this email  to make an appointment.

 

https://onelifesuffolk.co.uk/

NHS Health Checks are a bit like a midlife MOT

Not had a health check in the past 5 years?

If you are aged 40-74 OneLife Suffolk can offer you a FREE NHS health check to assess your general health and your risk of cardiovascular disease.

http://onelifesuffolk.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/Health-Checks-June-2017.pdf

Access Criteria:

 

• 40-74 years old
• Not had an NHS Health Check in the last 5 years
• Resident in Suffolk, Essex, or Norfolk

 

• No current diagnosis for hear  (sic) disease, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, diabetes, stroke, kidney disease or vascular dementia.

Perhaps Esther McVey – apparently suffering from Advanced Porky Malady – should give this one a whirl.

(Just out from the Independent)

Esther McVey made incorrect statements to MPs over universal credit roll out, says government spending watchdog

Auditor General Sir Amyas Morse said Ms McVey’s claim the NAO was concerned that universal credit was rolling out too slowly was ‘not correct’.

Whitehall’s spending watchdog has written to cabinet minister Esther McVey to complain over a series of incorrect claims to parliament about its critical report of the roll-out of universal credit.

The National Audit Office (NAO) took the highly unusual step to rebuke the work and pensions secretary, after she dismissed the catalogue of failing outlined by auditors last month in their major report into the government’s flagship welfare programme.

In an open letter to Ms McVey, which is likely to raise questions about her future as a cabinet minister, Auditor General Sir Amyas Morse said that elements of her statement to Parliament on the report were incorrect and unproven.

He said it was “odd” that Ms McVey told MPs that the NAO did not take into account recent changes in the administration of universal credit, when the report had in fact been “fully agreed” with senior officials at the Department for Work and Pensions only days earlier.#

Sir Amyas added that Ms McVey’s claim that the NAO was concerned that Universal Credit was rolling out too slowly was “not correct”.

Her assurance, in response to the report, that Universal Credit was working was also “not proven”, said Sir Amyas.

In its report on June 15, the NAO highlighted the hardship caused to claimants by delays in receiving payments under universal credit.

It concluded that the new system – being gradually introduced to replace a number of benefits – was “not value for money now, and that its future value for money is unproven”.

Esther McVey may survive the NAO’s rebuke on Universal Credit, but she shouldn’t https://t.co/a8lyTmRers

— Andrew Coates (@Pabloite) July 4, 2018

Iain Duncan Smith Rumoured to Seek Cognitive Therapy as his Universal Credit System Worsens.

Creator of Universal Credit Rumoured to be up for Cognitive Therapy.

Every day I walk past Major’s Corner in Ipswich.

Often there are people in a dire state.

Every day I walk round Ipswich town centre and get asked for money from people in a dire state.

I hear all the time from people with problems with finding work, pay, bills, and with benefits.

This is not remarkable: it’s the case for just about every town and city in the country.

What is is clear is that the more that the government’s welfare ‘reforms’ it’s getting worse.

From , ‘Two-child policy’ cuts benefits of more than 70,000 families

Campaigners warn poverty will rise as low-income families lose financial support.

To this, which is typical of the hundreds of reports now filling local and regional papers,

Ex-serviceman facing eviction after receiving just £84 Universal Credit for one month

Grimsby live. 28th of June.

Brian Lister has fallen into rental arrears after receiving only £84 Universal Credit in one month.

An ex-serviceman is facing eviction from his home after receiving just £84 of Universal Credit to live on in one month.

Brian Lister, 61, of Hildyard Street, served for 15 years in the RAF as a telecommunication operator, where he toured in Northern Ireland during the height of the troubles, and is now being told that he faces eviction from his Lincolnshire Housing Partnership home after falling behind on his rent because of Universal Credit.

He owes his landlord £260, and has been threatened with court costs of £325, if he is not able to clear his debts.

He says that the problems all started because his Universal Credit payment was heavily deducted due to him having been working for an agency, and Universal Credit deducted 63p for every pound that he is meant to have earned.

It has come to a sorry pass when even Money Week, not a journal of the radical left, publishes this,

Universal credit and the Tories’ stumbling welfare reforms

By: Simon Wilson.

What happened?

Two big problems. First, as part of his spending cuts, George Osborne (as chancellor in 2010-2016) cut the level that claimants could earn before their benefits were withdrawn, thus saving money but reducing the reform’s effectiveness in creating an incentive to work. The overall result is that the universal-credit system is expected to be about 3% less generous overall than the previous system, shaving £2bn off the total spend. That means that many claimants – in particular self-employed people – will be worse off than under the previous system. Meanwhile, the Office for Budget Responsibility argues that the reform may in practice not save as much as ministers hope, and that the uncertainty poses a “significant risk” to the public finances in coming years as the numbers grow. Only 660,000 people (around 10% of all claimants) were in receipt of universal credit by last November, but the rollout of the benefit is expected to gather pace this year, with two million people projected to be covered by March 2019 and about seven million by 2022-2023.

And the second big problem?

The rollout, costing £2bn to date, has been shambolic – due to multiple management and IT failures and to radical flaws in the overall design. For example, a key benefit of universal credit is supposed to be simplicity and a smoother claim system. But the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) greatly overestimated the number of claimants who would be able to confirm their identity online using the government’s online interface Verify. The officials reckoned on 90%, but the reality is just 38% (according to the National Audit Office, or NAO), meaning the supposed savings are much lower amid administrative chaos. Additionally, under the new system claimants receive one monthly payment, but have to wait five weeks – and in many cases much longer – for their claim to be assessed.

Why is that such a problem?

Many low earners are paid weekly, not monthly, and reams of research show that people on low incomes struggle to budget over long periods. And the five-week wait for money, in cases where people have no other savings or resources, has proved disastrous – leading to real hardship: a surge in the use of food banks in the areas where universal credit has been brought in; a spike in rent arrears and evictions; and widespread reports of private landlords now refusing to let to benefit claimants. The NAO report is harsh in its criticism of the DWP for failing to react to the mounting evidence of real hardship – from claimants and other stakeholders including landlords and welfare advisers – and instead being “defensive, insensitive,
and dismissive”.

Will it get more people into work?

No one knows, but there are reasons to be sceptical. The NAO says that the DWP will “never be able to measure” whether universal credit actually leads to 200,000 more people in work, because it cannot isolate the effect of the reform from other factors that raise employment. The way the DWP has rolled out the reform means it “lacks appropriate control groups” of legacy (old system) claimants, says the NAO, and “the larger claims for universal credit, such as boosted employment, are unlikely to be demonstrable at any point in the future. Nor for that matter will value for money.”

Wilson concludes,

 Despite evidence that it should pause the scheme, change course, or “risk doing real damage”, the government seems determined to plough ahead with this “giant, increasingly unpopular project”.

No wonder the creator of Universal Credit, Iain Duncan Smith is rumoured to be shortly bundled off for treatment by “nerve specialist” Sir Roderick Glossop with cognitive therapy in a special rest home.

Here is his cry for help:

WATCH Iain Duncan Smith sticks by his bizarre claim that anti-Brexit business groups collaborated with the Nazis, prompting Sarah Smith to ask him "when did the Tory party stop being the party that supported business?" pic.twitter.com/8ejDWFMVYh

— The Red Roar (@TheRedRoar) July 1, 2018

Tory Brexiteer Iain Duncan Smith links CBI to Nazi appeasement.

“Before World War II, as the historian Andrew Roberts has pointed out, the Federation of British Industries – the forerunner of the CBI – supported both the Gold Standard (which, in its constraints on a government’s ability to manage the economy is an instrument of jobs destruction), and the appeasement of Nazi Germany.

“Between 1937 and 1939, while the Nazis were opening their concentration camps, the FBI oversaw the creation of no fewer than 33 separate agreements between British and German business groups.”

Also citing CBI support for nationalisation, the European Exchange Rate Mechanism and the euro, as well as hostility to Margaret Thatcher’s policies, Mr Duncan Smith said the organisation has historically been “wrong” with “amazing consistency”.

“Yet the worry is, despite the CBI’s appalling track record, when it comes to Brexit, aggressive corporate campaigning could have a pivotal impact on government policy by forcing Britain to remain, in effect, under EU rules,” he added.

“There are already signs that this is happening, with key figures in the cabinet now acting as cheerleaders for the argument – made by BMW and Airbus – that Britain must remain as closely aligned to the single market and customs union as possible.”

Plans to Extend Universal Credit Misery to all Claimants.

Esther McVey: Universal Credit Misery Loves Company.

The government is “considering” “to move existing claimants in receipt of a working age income-related benefit to Universal Credit. that is, they intend everybody on benefits to submit to the new system.

Why?

Eight years after implementation of Universal Credit began still only 10 per cent of the expected eventual number of claimants are on the system and significant numbers of those are not paid on time. Some 20 per cent of those paid late, usually the more needy and complicated cases, have waited a staggering five months or more to be paid. These aren’t early teething problems as now, eight years after the first introduction of the benefit one-fifth of new claimants in March 2018 did not receive their full entitlement on time.

Indeed homelessness and depression is likely to arrive more quickly than payment of the benefit. Without reliance on families and friends, foodbanks and other charities, Universal Credit claimants would be likely to lose their health and their housing. This is the very essence of the Dickensian Britain the Tory government presides over.

Neil McLeod: Universal Credit – The ‘benefit’ that will bring you homelessness and depression quicker than it will get paid.

It looks like a lot more Dickens is about to hit Britain as plans are afloat to move all claimants onto Universal Credit.

Universal Credit next steps: have your say

Paul Gray, 

The end of my time as Chair of SSAC is now rapidly approaching – I stand down at the end of July. But this week’s meeting (June 20) of the Committee saw us considering perhaps the most important set of legislative proposals – in the form of draft regulations – coming to us from the Government for scrutiny in the last few years. The rollout of Universal Credit (UC) is reaching a critical point as DWP plan for the launch next year of moving all recipients of the old “legacy” benefits – mainly employment support allowance, housing benefit and tax credits – to the new integrated UC system. This so-called “managed migration” will affect around three million people.

The implementation plan for UC has changed very considerably from when the Committee scrutinised the initial regulations for the new benefit back in 2012. Rollout is now, very sensibly, much more gradual and the Committee welcomes the stated intention to “test and learn”, as well as some of the detailed changes in the policy already announced. The challenges encountered so far, and the resulting mix of successes and setbacks, have been widely publicised. But the move to full national rollout unquestionably raises those challenges to an even higher, more demanding, level.

The Committee therefore quickly concluded that we should undertake a full public consultation exercise before completing our scrutiny process – at which point we will put our advice to Ministers which they are then obliged to publish before the draft regulations are debated in Parliament. We are launching that consultation process today.

The draft regulations now include some important further developments in the detailed design of the policy – notably the requirement for all existing benefit and tax credit recipients to make a claim for UC and ensure they do so within precise timescales, plus the detail and extent of the “transitional protection” arrangements for those claimants who might otherwise see a fall in their benefit entitlement. But there are also important proposals on the delivery logistics for the rollout, and the Committee is keen for the consultation to generate input on all aspects of this package.

We recognise that the timetable for this consultation – in the run up to the main holiday season – is a challenge in itself. But we hope that providing two months for responses will allow the opportunity for interested parties in all parts of the UK to participate in the exercise.

By the time this consultation finishes I will have taken my leave from SSAC. It’s been both a privilege and a pleasure to chair the Committee since late 2011, and I am most grateful to everyone who has engaged with SSAC and enriched our work during that time. I am delighted to be handing over the role to Ian Diamond, who I’m sure will find it as rewarding and enjoyable as I have. Do please ensure that the evidence and insights Ian and the rest of the Committee have at their disposal following this consultation is as full and rich as it can be, so that they can prepare a compelling, independent, evidence based and constructive report for Ministers and Parliament on the proposals for this important next stage in the evolution of the UK social security system for people of working age.

Amongst the comments (Leave a comment here) these stand out,

Universal Credit is based far too much on coercion through sanctions.

Making people on legacy benefits make a fresh claim is putting more pressure on disabled people. Many of whom have mental health problems.

Stop this inhumane and disastrous Universal Credit it has caused more harm than good and the people who instigated it should be deeply ashamed about it .It is savage and cruel and ill conceived and the sooner it is stopped the less casualties there will be.

The whole ethos of “Universal Credit” is to inflict hardship and destitution to the most vulnerable people in society.

Transferring the sick and disabled onto UC from legacy benefits is the worst idea possible. It means an immediate wait of up to 8 weeks before funds are received – for people that are already living on the breadline and have no savings to live on during the waiting period – people who rely on these funds for things like food, power, medicine and rent who will risk losing their homes, starvation and inability to pay carers or take their medication, in effect – condemning them to misery and fear – deliberately.

Government proposal to move claimants on ‘legacy’ benefits to Universal Credit: consultation announced.

GOV.UK.

Seeing as this document is not handed out in Job centres we give it in full.

The SSAC is consulting on proposals to move existing claimants in receipt of a working age income-related benefit to Universal Credit.

The Social Security Advisory Committee (SSAC) has today launched a public consultation on proposals for moving all existing claimants of a working age income-related benefit to Universal Credit.

From next year DWP will begin the process of moving claimants in receipt of one or more of the following benefits to Universal Credit:

• Working Tax Credit
• Child Tax Credit
• income-based Jobseeker’s Allowance
• income-related Employment and Support Allowance
• Income Support
• Housing Benefit

The wide-ranging draft legislation, which was presented to the committee for scrutiny at its meeting on 20 June 2018, sets out the government’s proposals on:

1. requirements for claimants on existing benefits to make a claim for Universal Credit (including the deadlines for doing so) and arrangements for ending their existing benefit
2. the calculation, award and ongoing treatment of transitional protection

The task of safely moving around 3 million claimants (in around 2 million households) from legacy benefits to Universal Credit raises important questions about the delivery challenge facing the department and the potential impact on claimants.

SSAC has therefore decided to examine this draft legislation, and the impacts that flow from it, in more detail. To help inform this work, the committee would welcome evidence from a broad range of organisations and individuals who have good insight into and/or experience of the following aspects of these proposals:

• the overall migration timetable
• arrangements for contacting claimants and inviting claims from them
• issues associated with making a claim, and ending legacy benefit claims
• the calculation of transitional protection (including the treatment of earnings and capital)
• the impact of proposed transitional protection (including how easily it will be delivered and the degree to which it will be understood by claimants)
• the impact on workers, including the self-employed
• equality impact (whether there will be particular effects for different groups and how these can best be addressed), for example are there any groups that will not be covered by transitional protection?
• monitoring and evaluation

The committee would welcome responses to ensure that its advice to the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions is informed by a range of perspectives. The committee would welcome real or hypothetical case studies or specific examples as part of that evidence.

Paul Gray, the committee’s Chair, said:

The planned rollout of Universal Credit is now reaching its most critical and challenging stage. The government’s draft proposals involve major issues on both detailed entitlement rules and delivery logistics, and are due to be debated in Parliament later this year. SSAC is keen to ensure that the scrutiny report it submits to ministers and Parliament is as well informed as possible, and we therefore strongly encourage all organisations and individuals with relevant evidence to take part in this consultation process.

Please note that we are not consulting on the government’s overarching Universal Credit policy, which is enshrined in primary legislation following Parliamentary scrutiny during the passage of the Welfare Reform Act 2012. Comments on this will not be considered.

Responses should be submitted to the Committee Secretary by no later than 10am on Monday 20 August:

The Committee Secretary
Social Security Advisory Committee
5th Floor
Caxton House
Tothill Street
London
SW1H 9NA

Universal Credit – Rubbish (Official). National Audit Office Report.

This morning on the BBC Breakfast carried a report on this “The National Audit Office said the £1.9bn Universal Credit system could end up costing more to administer than the benefits system it is replacing.”

Key findings in the National Audit Office included:

• Eight years after work began on UC, only 10% (815,000) of the expected eventual number of claimants are on the system
• Some 20% of those paid late – usually the more needy and complicated cases – were waiting five months or more to be paid
• Ministers would never know if their aim of putting 200,000 extra people in employment, or saving £2.1bn in fraud and error, would work
• Government expectations that UC would deliver £8bn of net benefits annually depended on “unproven assumptions”
• UC currently costs £699 per claim – four times as much as the government intends to spend when the systems are fully developed
• So many changes had been made to job centres and working practices that there is no “alternative but to continue”

To discuss it they had a woman from the Citizens’ Advice Bureaux and some ponce from  the Centre for Social Justice (set up by… Iain Duncan Smith, yes really…).

The CAB spokesperson said a few home truths about what a mess UC has been for many people.

The Mr Ponceworth admitted a few spots on the Sun of Universal Credit but said it has proved its worth as a way of helping people back to work.

Since us Bloggers and our contributors have been going on about the mess from the origins of UC it would have been good to have somebody form our side on.

But the report is devastating enough.

Summary – Rolling out Universal Credit.

Key facts £1.9bn spend to date on Universal Credit, comprising £1.3bn on investment and £0.6bn on running costs £8.0bn

Department for Work & Pensions’ expectation of the annual net benefi tof Universal Credit, which remains unproven

Number of late payments of new claims in 2017,113,000.

Other elements:

• One in five claimants do not receive their full payment on time.
• Universal Credit is creating additional costs for local organisations that help administer Universal Credit and support claimants.
• Some claimants have struggled to adjust to Universal Credit. We spoke to local and national bodies that, together, work with a significant minority of claimants. They showed us evidence that many of these people have suffered difficulties and hardship during the rollout of the full service. These have resulted from a combination of issues with the design of Universal Credit and its implementation. The Department has found it difficult to identify and track those who it deems vulnerable. It has not measured how many Universal Credit claimants are having difficulties because it does not have systematic means of gathering intelligence from delivery partners. The Department does not accept that Universal Credit has caused hardship among claimants, because it makes advances available, and it said that if claimants take up these opportunities hardship should not occur. However in its survey of full service claimants, published in June 2018, the Department found that four in ten claimants that were surveyed were experiencing financial difficulties.

This is a good newspaper report.

Universal credit savaged by public spending watchdog

NAO says core claims about flagship welfare programme are based on unproven assumptions

Patrick Butler  Guardian.

The government’s ambitious change to the benefits system, universal credit, fails to deliver promised financial savings or employment benefits and leaves thousands of vulnerable claimants in hardship, according to the public spending watchdog.

The National Audit Office effectively demolishes ministerial claims for universal credit, concluding that the much-delayed flagship welfare programme may end up costing more than the benefit system it replaces, cannot prove it helps more claimants into work and is unlikely to ever deliver value for money.

The NAO report paints a damning picture of a system that despite more than £1bn in investment, eight years in development and a much hyped digital-only approach to transforming welfare, is still in many respects unwieldy, inefficient and reliant on basic, manual processes.

Amyas Morse, the head of the NAO, said: “We think the larger claims for universal credit, such as boosted employment, are unlikely to be demonstrable at any point in future. Nor for that matter will value for money.”

Opposition politicians and campaigners seized on the report to renew calls for universal credit to be delayed and its multiple design flaws fixed before the government continues its rollout to millions more claimants over the next four years.

Margaret Greenwood, the shadow secretary for work and pensions, said: “This report shows just how disastrously wrong the government has got the rollout of universal credit. It has shamelessly ignored warning after warning about the devastating impact its flagship welfare reform has had on people’s lives.

“The government is accelerating the rollout in the face of all of the evidence, using human beings as guinea pigs. It must fix the fundamental flaws in universal credit and make sure that vulnerable people are not pushed into poverty because of its policies.”

Our friends in the Mirror– who have covered the story with great verve for a long time –  noted this,

 …campaigners have used the report to call for reform of the benefit, which has already cost the state £1.9bn to date.

There are many, many, other news articles on the National Audit Office report….

NAO Universal Credit Report – links to articles https://t.co/1Z4xPHEMr7 via @wordpressdotcom

— Andrew Coates (@Pabloite) June 15, 2018

This is another BBC report.

Judicial Review of Universal Credit’s “Hostile Environment”.

Join us today for the 2nd day of the vigil outside the high court  to support the first judicial review against the Government’s decision to bring in Universal Credit. The case will focus in particular on the removal of the Severe and Enhanced Disability Premiums which will have a devastating impact on Disabled people. When the Government introduced Universal credit they said no one will be worse off, but this simply isn’t true. Research in 2013 estimated that 450,000 households containing a Disabled person would lose essential income.

The case is being taken by Leigh Day solicitors on behalf of a man who is terminally ill and through the removal of SDP and EDP has lost £178 per month.

Vigil called by Disabled People Against Cuts and Winvisible.

#StopandScrapUniversalCredit outside royal courts of justice 1st court case DWP Against Universal Credit taking place today @MrTopple @NicolaCJeffery @depresseddawg74 @Dis_PPL_Protest @EllenClifford1 @johnpringdns @blacktriangle1 @AnitaBellows12 @blueannoyed @UniteCommSEL pic.twitter.com/WasI16ELuq

— paula peters (@paulapeters2) May 1, 2018

Universal Credit Behavioural Change Scandal to Follow Windrush.

Claimants forced into Experiment in Behavioural Change.

A commentator writes,

Based on the Windrush and Universal Credit scandals one might think that the government didn’t know what it was doing.

Many will no doubt be impressed by the sheer scale of the misery inflicted by Windrush, brought to people’s attention, let it be noted, first through a drip drip of petitions on FB, then newspaper articles, and last, but not least by the efforts of Diane Abbott and David Lamey.

The more you read about Universal Credit the angrier you get.

As people here show.

The intellectual journal Prospect obviously read our contributors’ minds when it writes today,

A landmark legal challenge shows the cruel reality of Universal Credit for disabled people

The Windrush scandal currently engulfing the government is evidence not only of the great damage ministers can inflict on marginalised people’s lives—but the revolt that can occur when it goes too far. Yet look to the High Court this week and you’ll see the same damage being inflicted by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP), right at the centre of a flagship ‘welfare’ policy.

Two disabled people—aided by the law firm Leigh Day—have launched a landmark legal challenge against the government, arguing Universal Credit (UC) “unlawfully discriminates” against disabled benefit claimants.

It’s well established now that UC is creating financial misery, with those witnessing the fallout of the new benefit system describing it as “hell on earth.” Just last month, research by the Trussell Trust found food bank use is, on average, 52 per cent higher in areas where the full universal credit service has been in place for 12 months or more.

But like the Conservative’s ‘welfare reform’ generally, it’s disabled people who are taking the brunt. This is because two key disability benefits—the severe disability premium (SDP) and enhanced disability premium (EDP)—are being abolished under the new system. The move will see claimants lose as much as £395 a month, according to the disability charity Scope.

It’s estimated a staggering 230,000 disabled people will be affected.  

…..

Universal Credit has been hailed as the biggest transformation of the welfare state in sixty years—which would be laudable if it were not taking place at a time in which the government was simultaneously undertaking unprecedented cuts to the ‘welfare’ budget. Disabled people alone will collectively lose £2 billion in disability premium payments by the time UC fully rolls out (a particularly galling fact considering delays mean it is estimated to be costing taxpayers £16 billion by 2020).

‘Behavioural change’ is at the centre of these UC cuts. This is insulting enough for anyone—a single mum doesn’t need to be left hungry to ‘motivate’ her to look for work; she needs affordable childcare and flexible work opportunities. But with disabled people it’s particularly egregious; as if their disability will suddenly improve the moment they transfer to Universal Credit.

This travesty is a product of Conservative governments but opposition should come from all sides. By any political leaning, reform of the social security system that actively makes the lives of those experiencing illness and disability worse—rather than supporting them—is ultimately a failure. If this week’s court case goes in disabled people’s favour, the government could be forced to learn that lesson whether it likes it or not.

Let’s look at  aspects this programme of “behavioural change”.

One, dealt with in the previous post, is the “on-line Job search”.

It is part of this:

Digital challenge of Universal Credit. (Local Government)

Given that many residents’ main source of income will be via the UC method, the challenge for claimants, Government and all stakeholder is how to get people to engage digitally while avoiding significant delays in UC applications.

Our experience tells us that the first obstacle is getting people to actually attend a digital workshop. With lives, full of stress and concern, getting a resident to attend a workshop – which might be wrongly perceived as another way to criticise perceived inadequacies – can be a difficult sell. We utilise a variety of methods to combat this, from guerrilla marketing to ‘nudge’ behavioural change theory, to positively encourage this attendance. We talk to residents in ways that are clear and jargon-free, no blame is ever ascribed to their lack of knowledge and we use the communication channels that they use, such as text messaging or mobile phone calls. We also incentivise people, whether that’s free prizes from local businesses to using tempting food treats. Sounds simple, but it works.

These marketing and engagement devices encourage people to attend events, but the content of the workshop is, of course, crucial to maintain attendance. One area we’ve found particularly powerful is a successful replica UC portal for practicing and getting used to the online form – www.we-are-digital.co.uk/help. This warms residents to the structure, questions and information they need for when they fill in the actual form, answering many of their concerns ahead of time – a move we’d like to see replicated nationwide.

In addition, it is important to consider that, once claimants start filling in their forms, they will still need support and reassurance. For housing associations, we recommend promoting the toll-free UC telephone support claims line – which residents can call to get support over the phone to complete a real claim, regardless of which HA they are from. For the most difficult cases, in-home support is also an option, with a tutor taking them through a real claim, one-to-one. Ultimately, these methods will help to prevent sanctions and decrease arrears.

With a delay in UC rollout politically unpalatable, the emphasis is on increasing claimants’ skills base, and quickly. This urgency of this expediency is most pronounced on housing association tenants.

Isn’t it wonderful being part of a vast social experiment in “behavioural change”?