On Friday, I recorded three long interviews with people who came in to Oldham foodbank for food parcels: Andrew, 51, Annemarie, 41 (both surnames withheld for these articles) and a woman who spoke at length about her problems with Universal Credit, but did not want to give her name.
I’ve posted the transcript from the interview with Andrew below.
I’ll post the other two this week when I’ve transcribed them.
Common points in all three interviews:
All three people were having money deducted by the DWP directly from their benefits for debts they disputed. This is so common now that it is standard. People run out of money because debt deductions at source mean they never get a full benefit payment. They never get close to breaking even each month and so can never fix financial problems. The DWP deducts money from benefits for social fund loans people insist they’ve paid back, benefit overpayments people say they don’t owe, and, increasingly, tax credit debts which the DWP has inherited from the HMRC and now aggressively claws back from Universal Credit claimants without warning.
All three people had also struggled mightily to navigate the DWP’s complex bureaucracy.
You’ll see examples of both problems in Andrew’s story (the interview transcript is at the end of this post):
Andrew, 51, had a severe hearing impairment. He’d spent the last 17 years of his working life on the production line and then as a floor manager in Parks Bakery (I think he said Parks. His speech was clear in places and less so in others. He read lips well. I wrote out some words as we went along).
Andrew was made redundant about five years ago. It seemed that was when the problems took off – another common story. Redundancy marks the start of the downward spiral for many people. This is hardly surprising. You’re dreaming if you think it’ll be different for you [unless you are well off, of course]. Andrew said he began to struggle with depression and drink, as people do when the work goes and they’re older, disabled and living in an area where jobs are scarce. Returning to solvency and good times in these situations is not quite the slamdunk that welfare reformers would have you believe.
Andrew was now “living off my overdraft.”
He was a good bloke to hang out with – wry. He said that his immediate problem was getting the DWP to understand that he didn’t have the several grand in savings that the DWP kept insisting he had. He said that trying to get this across to the DWP was a challenge nobody had yet been equal to. He kept rolling his eyes as he told the story. He said that he was losing about £14 from each of his Employment and Support Allowance payments in deductions for overpayments. You’ll see in the transcript below that he talked about different figures at different points. That is common, too. People struggle to keep up with the different amounts they’re paid and the varying deductions and costs, especially if they have support needs.
“…yeah [if only]… I’ve been living on my overdraft for the past five years.” He showed me the letter the DWP had sent about the money, several months’ worth of bank statements which showed his overdraft and account-draining bank charges and a Freepost envelope for sending the bank statements to the DWP. He’d been to the jobcentre with the papers. He said the woman he saw at the jobcentre made the changes to his savings information on a computer (“I can’t use it [computers]), but that something had obviously gone wrong, because the DWP had sent this new letter.
“I’ve already been down jobcentre and they did it online and that’s not got through.”
Andrew had also experienced problems with his Personal Independence Payment application.
A foodbank volunteer stopped at our table to tell me that she’d rung the PIP helpline to arrange application forms for Andrew – and got an officer who kept insisting on speaking to Andrew on the phone even though he can’t hear.
The foodbank volunteer said:
“When I was sending out for a PIP form for Andrew, the woman at the other end of the phone – he doesn’t do text speak – she was saying, “why do[n’t] you put him on the phone?”… I said, “I’m supporting this man. He is profoundly deaf… [She said] “has he got a phone?” [I’m like] “No, because he can’t hear you.” Ultimately, she was fine, but she didn’t have the breadth of aspect… [experience] to understand.”
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: benefit application and management systems are atrocious. It is shocking to know that these are the systems that people in the greatest need must deal with.
Often they can’t.
Here’s the transcript. It has been edited in parts.
Andrew, 13 October 2017, Oldham foodbank:
“They [the DWP] said I had this [amount of savings] in my bank account. They been knocking me money down. They’ve been taking… they said I had this in me bank account…[Andrew showed me his bank statements and the letter the DWP had sent him]. They’re going back a long time…they’ve only [gone and] done it twice. It were doing me head in. My bank’s overdrawn. I’ve been living on my overdraft for the past five years… that’s the overdraft…
I’ll post it, yeah. I have to post it to them….I’ve already been down jobcentre and they did it online and that’s not got through.
A woman did it down there for me [made the changes to Andrew’s savings record on his benefits account at the jobcentre] because I can’t use it [computers] and I’ve already done it twice. You can’t get it down at jobcentre…[unclear]
They want to see your bank statement. That’s what I get a fortnight [Andrew pointed to a £168 figure which appeared each month on his bank statement]… £168. They take £14 a month [sic] out of that… because I’m living on me overdraft, yeah. Every month, I get £14 out, so I get about five pound a day… they charge me £8 interest [for overdraft fees]… £168 a fortnight [sic] they said it were an overpayment for that, but I never had that in the bank… that kind of thing and I haven’t got… they’re going back to 2013. If I were employed at the time with that kind of money…
I got made redundant and I made sure were in…
I worked at Park [unclear] bakery for 17 year. Made redundant, 2013… about four years ago [in late December. I think – 2013, 2012 one of them…[unclear]
I can’t use them phones [because of his hearing impairment]. I have to go in person and I find it difficult to walk in, because me back were going and I have to take a lot of painkillers, so I couldn’t walk up there… to stop my back from aching, because I was limping….
Thought that were it when the jobcentre changed it [the savings figure in his ESA account]… I have to give them that, haven’t got savings any more [laughed]…. If I’d had them savings, I would have bought me campervan, yep.
I live not far… [in a flat]… been like 17 years, I been in there. Don’t own it. I was going to buy it at one time… First Choice Homes flat.
It never existed in the bank all at once… made it up themselves…they’ve been asking for and they have been taking 11 pound a week out of me for like two years… it goes on until 2018 or summat. Big rip out of your money, that. Got to pay your council tax on top of that – about £13 a month… £18 for electric. That is about £20 a week…[sic]
[It’s] £13 council tax… £18 a week for electric – about £20.40 a week [sic]. It varies – depends on weather, doesn’t it… around about a tenner a week [in summer].
….I can’t have a conversation on the phone… catch little bits. Half the time, I say, “what, what, what, what?” and then they put the phone down on me. When you been waiting for half an hour to get through [to the DWP]… depresses me badly…
I remember when used to be able to hear. I used to play in a band and everything.
I played bass. I could play drums as well, but I ended up playing bass. I used to play a lot of blues and everything. I couldn’t read music or anything. It was by ear. Now, it’s all that crap now, isn’t it. You can’t make new music now. You got to make all these remixes.
I was floor manager in the bakery. I started in the factory. Just worked my way up. Keeping 24 people happy for 24 hour, no, wasn’t easy. I had 18 on my [roster] and he [another floor manager] had three and [another floor manager] had four. It got too hot… couldn’t have them all on the floor at the same time… [unclear]. Then, they put me back on the line. Imagine putting the floor manager back on the line putting cakes in a box for [£17.50? – unclear] an hour [laughed].
….I’m having one of my bad days today. Worries me, because of the [letter]. I was taking antidepressants, but they were making me worse them… they sent my drinking up sky high and getting more paranoid.
It’s all expensive. I can remember when you had a fiver, that was worth it. If I got a taxi to hospital, it costs £18 in a taxi, nine quid there and nine quid back… no point.
They’re okay [at the jobcentre], I guess. Jobcentre down there, that’s down the road. When I went to [the jobcentre to sort out the overpayment problem], they didn’t set it up proper, so now I’ve got to send it off [send his bank statements to the DWP] before they stop my money.
I asked Andrew what he thought of Brexit:
“EU – we’ll get ripped off… when we joined the common market, we got ripped off… No point, is it. Doesn’t matter. The rich are the richer and the poor are the poorer, and that’s the way it works these days. There’s no middle class or working class. There’s rich and poorer, and that’s the end of the tale.”
I asked Andrew about his hearing impairment
“I played a lot of rugby [and took] banging [to my ear]… and I got too lazy. It started to go… when I go to my late 20s, I got hearing aids, but they’re no use. I’ve got hearing aids at home, but they’re no use. I can hear the change rattling in your pockets, but I can’t hear what you are saying.”
Andrew had a bad sore on his hand. What happened to your hand? I said.
“Opening a tin. I can’t use my fingers properly.”
Andrew asked where I was from. I said I was from New Zealand and also had Irish citizenship.
“What did you come over here for? [laughed] You are mad. You looked intelligent to me… but now… [laughed]”
“I like England,” I said. “It’s good.”
“I’d do a u-turn if I was you. Why does anyone want to come to this country for? [laughed] Nothing but rain, cold, damp…it’s nothing like when I were a kid, this weather. It’s mild… now…you used to wake in the morning in the winter and the ice was clinging to inside of the windows, never mind the outside, and you couldn’t see out of the window, because it was full of snow. You had to dig your way to get out. You had to get your food. Yeah, that was Oldham. I was born in Salford, but I was adopted three month after to Oldham.”
It was a Holy Grail of Iain Duncan Smith’s that everyone would claim benefits entirely online.
A fully-computerised fantasy DWP. Benefits Runner 2049.
Where everything would be so efficient, and so wonderfully cheap.
The stark reality is, and always was, that there are many people who cannot afford an online connection. Cannot access it at their local jobcentre as these continue to close. And many more whose disabilities mean that they simply cannot interact with a distant online system.
Were these people considered, or were their needs simply disregarded from the very first ?
Discarded, surely. In what universe would it be thought acceptable for a helpline officer who is administering a disability benefit like PIP to demand that someone who is deaf speak on the phone?
I’m not sure that laughing is really the right kind of response to reading this piece, but that’s what I found myself doing after reading about the sheer absurdity of a DWP worker asking to a deaf person on the phone – is ‘breadth of aspect’ a polite way of saying that that particular DWP worker is intellectually challenged? One thing is for certain, they certainly seem to lack common sense.
I was also a somewhat puzzled how the DWP have come to the conclusion that Andrew has savings, when he actually has a debt with the bank. Did he get a redundancy payment when he was made redundant? After 17 years he would be in for a fair whack, and I know that the DWP and Housing Benefit etc look at your savings and calculate how long it has to last, based on the interest that they reckon is made on the amount in the bank. However, this calculation isn’t, as far as I can fathom, based on the real world, (which before long will see savings being worth less, as the lending rate will be a negative figure, in other words, you will be paid to borrow, rather than save) but on some arbitrary figure of interest that is of the DWPs making, and that can mean that they calculate receipt of interest way above what is actual reality. If you spend above that amount, and it’s damned near impossible not to, as there are things like rent and council tax, utilities and food, clothing etc, all form savings, as if someone has more than £16,000, they get nothing from the state, and are subject to all sorts of petty rules about how it is spent – some things are okay, but even with the greatest of restraint, it would be pretty impossible to live on less than about £250 a week when not on benefits. Rents, even in social, supposedly ‘affordable’ housing, (according to who?) are rapidly approaching £100 a week for a one bedroom flat, and council tax is now the best part of £1k a year for such.
About the only benefit of having a bit of money is that one is spared the degradation of having to deal with the idiots at the Jobcentre every fortnight for a while. I’m hoping to get a job of some sort, but at 60 I think I’ll be lucky to even get a shit job somewhere like B&Q, who seem to want to make people jump through hoops before even considering to employ them on starvation wages.
I’m old enough to remember the supposedly ‘bad old days’ of the 70s when the economy was supposedly ruined by the unions organising all the strikes etc, but many of those strikes were ‘wildcat’ i.e. not organised by the union at all, but directly by the workers in support of a pay rise, or poor working conditons in an economy where an annual rate of inflation was 20% plus. Things weren’t bad, and even at the end, where unemployment had hit the terrifying level of a million, and prompting the Tories infamous 1979 election poster ‘Labour isn’t working’ (and increasing that figure to 3 million less than 18 months later, after taking office). It was only in the very late 70s, early 80s that getting a job became a bit of a struggle. Previous to this, getting a crap job was pretty easy, no application form, (there were very few HR ‘professionals self-justifying their existence at that time) just ring up, go in on spec, short interview, and then a yey or neigh there and then very often, a months trial and no hard feelings either way if it didn’t work out. Pay might have been pretty crap, but it was enough to have something of a life, and rents were usually genuinely affordable, as there was plenty of social housing, and private rents were strictly regulated by fair rents.
Things started to go pear shaped after the Oil Crisis of 1973, which, just ‘coincidentally’ neo-liberal economics were discovered. Things weren’t perfect, but we did have a social security system that worked, staffed by caring people, and paying a decent amount, (it was index linked to pay, and with Contributions Based Unemployment Benefit, it was pay related for a certain period, which meant you got a certain percentage of your previous pay packet as your dole) If you were really destitute and needed what was called Social Security, (different department to unemployment) you were entitled to all sorts of extra payments if you literally had nothing, and it wasn’t hand-me-downs from the local Starvation Army either. It may have been the more ‘cost effective’ models of cooker, and the budget line in beds, but you were allowed a rug, but paradoxically not a washing machine if where you lived had a bath! The system was run by human beings and not a computer in sight.
In some ways I hope the Tories do continue with the rolling out of UC, as it will be a complete disaster, not that it isn’t already. I hope it doesn’t happen, because I know that it won’t be the Tories who really suffer, but those struggling at the bottom who have no voice. I hope Corbyn does win the next election, but I’m very concerned that Labour aren’t championing the cause of those with no voice more than they are, and condemning UC outright for what it really is, was designed as. If it wasn’t designed as such, it was certainly done incompetently, but I doubt that. Nothing the Tories do can be put down to incompetence when it gets to this scale – at an individual MP level, maybe, but not when the whole picture of the social security system is one that smashes the poor, the disabled and the sick. For many, many years I refused to characterise anything as such, but there is only one way of describing this system, and those who are implementing it. Quite simply, it’s evil.
We can’t go back to the past, the 70s, even if we wanted to, (and there is no way I’d now fit into those 30″ waist Levis with the 36″ flare!) but i do think it’s important that those of us who can remember those days to remind people what a humane and genuinely caring society looks like. That is something that should never be ‘out of fashion’ or derided as unworkable, or even more obscenely, as unaffordable. In a country where the large companies have £13 trillion squirreled away in tax havens, out of reach of taxation, and undeclared, or a country that is the sixth most wealthy society, this kind of statement is unconscionable.
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