Posts Tagged ‘Universal Credit’
ID Issues Hit Universal Credit.
ID seems an obsession with the crew of chancers who lead this government.
Those who follow politics know that the Tories want everybody who wishes to vote to present photo ID for elections. The fact that a few million people do not have Driving Licences or Passports is a bonus for the Conservatives. It will exclude many of the poor and marginalised from the ballot box, and make local councils (a majority in Labour areas) fork out to pay for some special scheme to allow us to have the privilege to vote. Lots of people will not bother and just give up.
It has crept down to the DWP.
There was this in October,
People are being forced to submit photos of themselves holding a local daily paper outside their home in order to claim universal credit.
The Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) verification process contains a detailed list of bizarre requests potential claimants must follow. It also includes requiring people to send in a photo taken by someone else of them holding their street sign in their right hand.
The instructions were posted in at least one person’s universal credit journal – the online platform used to manage benefit claims – by a DWP employee, according to the Public Interest Law Centre (PILC).
The Mirror reports,
Universal Credit claimants told to pay back thousands in Covid support due to ID issues
Benefit claimants who received Covid support at the height of the pandemic are being told to repay every penny back – with some claimants describing the emergency support as a ‘loan’ not a ‘benefit’.
The Mirror has spoken to dozens of people who have received sudden bills from the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) in the past six months, asking for all the Covid support they received back.
It follows our investigation into dad Gary Blake who had been sent a bill for an overpayment because of missing ID.
In the vast majority of cases we spoke to, claimants were told to submit ID – despite already sharing it, while others were told to repay their Covid benefits because they did not have a tenancy agreement. In many cases, shortly after providing these documents, the claimants were sent a shock bill.
The Mirror continues with first hand stories, beginning with this one:
Mirror reader Sheila Richards said she received an unexpected bill for £6,000 earlier this year after receiving help during the pandemic.
The DWP allegedly told the claimant it was because she had not submitted a photo of herself.
“I had provided photo ID at my local Job Centre Plus on the many occasions that I had been asked to visit, so I didn’t consider it to be that crucial,” Sheila, who is self-employed, told The Mirror.
She is now disputing the charges with the DWP. Sheila wrote to her constituent MP but never heard back.
Still, somebody is happy at the way things are going:
The Budget and Claimants.
The Budget was yesterday.
How does it affect claimants?
Here is the Official View:
Here is the Resolution Foundation’s view.
“The reduction in the taper rate in Universal Credit will bring an additional 400,000 families into the benefits system next year. Around 75 per cent of the 4.4 million households on Universal Credit will be worse off as a result of decisions to take away the £20 per week uplift despite the Chancellor’s new Universal Credit measures in the Budget.”
The Boris Budget (from the Summary)
Resolution Foundation analysis of Autumn Budget and Spending Review 2021
From the full report: The Boris Budget
For some, this change will be significant: a family with two adults in work (one working full-time with earnings at the 25th wage percentile and one working part-time on the National Living Wage for 20 hours a week), who have two children, will gain £42 a week from these Budget day changes, more than offsetting the £20 per week reduction made to the benefit earlier this month. But, overall, these changes will be overshadowed by last month’s £6 billion cut to entitlement: three-quarters of families on UC will lose more from he £20 cut than they gain from the Budget changes. Even if we also take into account the impact of the faster-than-average-earnings increase to the National Living Wage, the fifth of households will still be an average of £280 a year worse off overall.
Here is the real Tory view of claimants:
Then there is this:
It seems equally obvious to mention that if gas and other prices are going up what about increasing benefit levels from their present misery rates?
Next year we will begin paying Council Tax, which even at the reduced rate of Council Tax Relief can be an extra burden, and far from minimal in many areas.
Our contributors remain concerned about the way ‘schemes’ for the unemployed, outlined in ‘Plan for Jobs’ operate. Here is one Restart. Plan for Jobs: skills, employment and support programmes for jobseekers
At the 2020 Spending Review, the chancellor allocated £2.9 billion for the new Restart Scheme, which will give Universal Credit claimants who have been out of work for between 12 to 18 months enhanced support to find jobs. The Restart Scheme will break down employment barriers that could be holding them back from finding work. Providers will work with employers, local government and other partners to deliver tailored support for individuals.
Referrals will be made over a 3-year period and the Restart Scheme will benefit more than 1 million Universal Credit claimants who are expected to look for and be available for work but have no sustained earnings. The scheme will provide up to 12 months of tailored support for each participant. Early access can be considered on a case by case basis where conversations with a work coach suggest this is the most appropriate route for the individual.
It has been quite some time since the media was interested in what is happening on these ‘schemes’ but our contributors are already reporting serious difficulties with them.
Legacy Benefits Case Continues in Court.
Case Continues.
Were it not for some of our eagle-eyed contributors this case would be ignored even on this site.
It is an injustice, not just for disabled people but for those on ” Income-based Jobseekers Allowance, Income-related Employment and Support Allowance, Income Support, Housing Benefit, Child Tax Credit and Working Tax Credit.”
Those claimants did not get the uplift when people on Universal Credit got the extra £20 a week.
There was an Early Day Motion in the House of Commons, (February 2021)
That this House recognises the financial effect that the covid-19 outbreak has had on disabled people; further recognises that research from the Disability Benefits Consortium found that over six in 10 disabled people in the survey had gone without essentials such as food, heating or medication since the pandemic began; is concerned that no uplift was provided to people on legacy benefits such as employment and support allowance, jobseeker’s allowance and income support; calls on the Government to implement a £20 uplift for legacy benefits to reflect the additional costs disabled people have faced; and further calls on the Government to commission research to assess the adequacy of benefits for disabled people.
And a debate in the House of Commons, on the 15h of September 2021 which mentioned this injustice,
Opposition Day Debate: Universal Credit and Working Tax Credits
On Wednesday 15 September there will be an Opposition Day Debate on the motion ‘That this House calls on the Government to cancel its planned cut to Universal Credit and Working Tax Credit which from the end of September 2021 will reduce support for many hardworking families by £1,040 a year.’
This uplift, however, did not apply to any other benefits, such as contributory benefits or extra-costs disability benefits such as Personal Independence Payment (PIP). It also did not extend to means-tested benefits which are being replaced by Universal Credit, but are still being claimed by many low-income families of working age. These are known as ‘legacy’ benefits and include: income-related Employment and Support Allowance (ESA), income-based Jobseeker’s Allowance (JSA), and Income Support.
There were some protests and a petition protesting against this injustice.
Government responded
This response was given on 11 March 2021
The Government has now confirmed the temporary £20 per week increase to Universal Credit remains in place for a further six months. There are no plans to extend a benefit increase to legacy benefits.
But the only avenue left now seems to be this important court case.
A disabled man from Milton Keynes is to make history with a judicial review in the High Court that could help two million other benefit claimants in the UK win a backdated amount of cash.
Ian Barrow is one of four people nationally to challenge the decision of the government not to give legacy benefit claimants an extra £20 to help them during the Covid pandemic.
All Universal Credit claimants were given the weekly ‘uplift’ but those on legacy benefits received nothing extra.
Legacy benefits are Income-based Jobseekers Allowance, Income-related Employment and Support Allowance, Income Support, Housing Benefit, Child Tax Credit and Working Tax Credit.
He is in receipt of Jobseekers Allowance and has been assessed as having limited capability for work-related activity (LCWRA).
At the beginning of the pandemic the Chancellor announced the £20 per week increase to the standard allowance of Universal Credit, but this increase was never extended to those on legacy benefits, the majority of whom are disabled, sick or carers.
A spokesman for Osbornes said the legal argument is that this action is discriminatory and unjustified. The High Court has agreed it is arguably unlawful and will decide the case later this year. The claimants have asked for the trial to be heard before the end of July 2021.
Claimants return to court for third battle with DWP in fight for universal credit justice
The high court has this week heard the latest stage in a long-running battle to secure justice for thousands of disabled benefit claimants who lost out financially after being forced onto universal credit.
The hearing, due to end today (Thursday), concerns policies that left many claimants worse off when their circumstances changed and they had to move from legacy benefits like employment and support allowance onto universal credit (UC).
Two of the three claimants taking the case – known as TP and AR for legal reasons – have already twice defeated the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) in the court of appeal in connected cases.
Their first legal case challenged rules that meant they lost out on about £180 a month in the move to UC, because they were no longer receiving severe disability premium (SDP) and enhanced disability premium (EDP).
DWP responded by temporarily stopping other claimants in similar positions from migrating onto UC and introducing payments of about £80 month for those already affected.
TP and AR then had to take another legal case – which they also won – because this payment failed to bridge the gap between what they were now receiving and what they would have been receiving if they were still claiming ESA.
Despite the two victories, they were forced to take a third legal action after DWP announced that the level of compensation for disabled people who had been receiving EDP and SDP and had moved onto UC before 16 January 2019 – when another set of regulations came into force to protect other claimants in similar situations – would be set at a lower rate than the £180 a month they had secured through the second case.
They have been joined in the third case by another disabled claimant, AB, who has a partner and a child, and has lost out by even more.
TP and AR are currently losing out by £60 a month and AB and her partner by nearly £400 a month.
TP said last month: “It has been entirely frustrating and exhausting having to exist on an overall unreasonable cut in financial assistance brought about by a move forced upon me into universal credit, whilst at the same time battling debilitating illness during a most challenging period of increased expenditure during this pandemic.
“The principle of a fair transition into universal credit has already been upheld by the courts on numerous occasions now, yet the government has been dragging its feet for a prolonged period of time to my detriment in abiding by these rulings both in letter and spirit.”
AR added: “Yet again I am having to go to court and fight for what is fair.
“Over the last years I should have had much needed support in place to help me get through the challenges I face on a daily basis as a result of my disabilities, but instead I have had to put time and energy into fighting for that support.
“I hope this is the last time we have to fight the secretary of state for support that is so obviously needed.”
Their solicitor, Tessa Gregory, a partner at Leigh Day, said last month that it was “difficult to believe that our clients have been forced to bring a third set of legal proceedings against the government in order to ensure they and thousands of other severely disabled persons are not unlawfully discriminated against following their move on to universal credit”.
Benefits Shake up proposed: DWP considers ‘new single benefit’ for Ill and Disabled People.
New Shake Up.
Yesterday the story about a new single benefit for sick and disabled people came up.
Trev commented,
The proposed merger between UC and PIP seems to be all about preventing people from getting PIP, I reckon that’s what it’s all about.
The story has now developed.
DWP considers ‘new single benefit’ for sick and disabled people. Welfare Weekly, today).
The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) is exploring the idea of a single benefit for sick and disabled people, it has been reported.
Some 1.4million claim Disability Living Allowance (DLA) or its replacement Personal Independence Payment (PIP) – paid to help people with the costs of being disabled. Others claim ESA (Employment and Support Allowance), which UC is replacing.
The DWP says keeping all these different benefits and having just one assessment wouldn’t work. A brand new scheme would be a way to make the whole system simpler, it says.
The proposal is included in the DWP’s recent report ‘Shaping Future Support: The Health and Disability Green Paper.’
NOTE; The Green Paper was published on the 20th of July and the consultation ended on the 11th of October.
As the Mirror points out today, “A little-reported Green Paper over the summer said a ‘new single benefit’ could combine payments – with Tory welfare chief Therese Coffey saying ‘everything is on the table'”
The Welfare Weekly article continues,
“Responding to the proposal of creating a new benefit or merging ESA, DLA & PIP with Universal Credit, Disability Rights UK (DRUK) said: “We are very suspicious of the Green Paper suggestion that Ministers could create a “new single benefit” so as to simplify the application and assessment process..
“Given the stress, worry, fear and distrust work capability assessments and PIP assessments cause Disabled people, the prospect of only having one assessment and not two is only superficially attractive at best.
“Given the repeated stress the Green Paper gives to “affordability” we believe the DWP is being disingenuous and the actual reason for the single benefit suggestion is likely to be reducing expenditure.”
Gail Ward, from the Hand2Mouth Project, said: “Those on Legacy Benefits will be Migrated to UC in 2023/24 and the merging of ESA,DLA/PIP will be a disaster for claimants and potentially means that PIP will become means tested.
“The form descriptors while having different criteria are already closely aligned and the DWP were calling PIP ‘a functional benefit’ in an evidence session before the Work and Pensions Committee recently.
……
The warning is very clearly when Therese Coffey suggested that severe disability group could be nudged into some type of work or training programme is a loud and clear message to all claimants that they want to cut overall costs and cut claimant numbers.”
Or as the Mirror notes of the DWP Minister,
Ms Coffey also suggested she was concerned by the number of people claiming PIP for mental health difficulties, saying she wanted to “target that even more so to people who really need that support”.
She added: “PIP has certainly grown in a way that was not anticipated when it was introduced.
“To give you an example, three out of four young people who claim PIP have their primary reason being mental ill health.
“That in itself is 189,000 young people who currently receive benefit focused on that. There may be other benefits they receive as well.
This seems, as our contributors have commented, part of a wider strategy to merge all benefits. The problem is, as Universal Credit has already shown, this can create bureaucratic and information technology nightmares. As well as, as he above comment about ‘affordability’ indicates, being an excuse for cutting benefit levels.
This is the Minister in Charge of the Green Paper:
Culture Secretary Nadine Dorries,”Nobody” to be Pushed into Poverty by Slashing Universal Credit.
“Universal Credit cut will not drag a single person into poverty.”
With the rise in the cost of gas and the expected increase in food prices most people on low incomes and benefits are worried. Slashing Universal Credit will not help, to say the least.
Hearing about this from people I wondered if this will help everybody, “Support with essential costs. You can contact your local council to see if they can give you any extra help from a hardship fund, including food or essential things like clothes. Check your local council on GOV.UK.”
Just guessing, but apart from those in dire straits and, above all, families, it is hard to see that applying to our contributors.
I imagine this may well offer something, judging from the queue of homeless people outside the nearby 7th Day Adventist Church on a Sunday waiting for food distribution:
Food bank vouchers. If you can’t afford the food you can ask for a referral from Citizens Advice or an organisation that’s already supporting you – for example, a charity, school or children’s centre – for a food bank voucher.
The Government itself says that everybody will be helped by getting work, with some push up from various schemes, like the “life-time skills guarantee.”
One Minister who could do with skills training in how to communicate with ordinary people has had her say on the Universal Credit cut.
Tory Nadine Dorries claims Universal Credit cut won’t push ANYONE into poverty.
Mirror.
Tory minister has been accused of not living in the real world after she claimed the Universal Credit cut will not drag a single person into poverty.
Culture Secretary Nadine Dorries boasted “nobody” will be driven below the poverty line when a £20-a-week Covid uplift in place since March 2020 is withdrawn from this week.
That is despite think tanks putting the worst-case estimate at around 500,000 to 800,000 people.
The Joseph Rowntree Foundation (JRF) has said the cut risks moving 500,000 people including 200,000 children below the poverty line.
While the Legatum Institute think tank, led by Tory UC architect Baroness Stroud, says the change will hit 840,000 Brits who are currently just above the poverty line – including 290,000 children.
But ministers have no official figure for how many people will be thrown into poverty because they’ve refused to do a formal impact assessment.
And questioned by left-wing journalist Owen Jones at the Tory conference, Ms Dorries said: “Nobody. Nobody is.
Because what we’re doing, what we’re doing is giving people a step out.
“By lifetime skills guarantee, by all the money being invested in the…” – she then walked away with an aide.
****
Some people think that Nadine Dorries is one of Boris Johnson’s famously unfunny jokes and probably only exists as a hologram borrowed from GB News…
But the scheme is a very real.
Bootcamps for Skills:
“An estimated 11 million adults now have the opportunity to gain a new qualification for free, designed to help them to gain in-demand skills and secure great jobs.
Almost 400 qualifications are available to take from today (1 April) – backed by £95 million in government funding in 2021/22 – as part of the government’s Lifetime Skills Guarantee.
The qualifications on offer range from engineering to social care to conservation and are available to any adult who has not already achieved a qualification at Level 3 (equivalent to A-levels).
The roll out marks a major milestone in the delivery of the landmark Lifetime Skills Guarantee – announced by the Prime Minister in September 2020. The Guarantee aims to transform the skills system so everyone, no matter where they live or their background, can gain the skills they need to progress in work at any stage of their lives. It will also ensure employers have access to the skilled workforce they need, and more people are trained for the skills gaps that exist now, and in the future.
Adults who take up the free courses have the potential to boost career prospects, wages and help fill skills gaps, while supporting the economy and building back better.
For example, with a Diploma in Engineering Technology adults can progress to roles in Maintenance or Manufacturing Engineering. A Level 3 Diploma in Electrical Installation or a qualification in Adult Care can also provide a gateway to sectors offering rewarding careers and where there are multiple job opportunities.
So more unemployed people can take full advantage of these courses, the government will pilot an extension to the length of time they can receive Universal Credit while undertaking work-focused study.
They will now be able to train full time for up to 12 weeks, or up to 16 weeks on a full time skills bootcamp in England, while receiving Universal Credit to support their living costs This will allow access to more training options and provide a better chance of finding work, while continuing to receive the support they need.”
Let us know if you have experience of this “bootcamp”.
Ipswich Unemployed Action. 
You must be logged in to post a comment.