Let’s start the week with a rant:
I’ve said this a million times, as has everyone, but let’s say it again:
Some people don’t have enough money to live on. Nothing is changing that I can see.
People are deliberately kept in debt to the state and in crushing poverty as a result. The DWP sanctions and reduces benefit money to the point where people can’t meet basic bills, and then deducts even more for loans and that people can’t pay. People are forced to cough up fines and costs for court appearances for unpaid council tax and rent – bills that they couldn’t afford to pay in the first place. That’s why they’re in court. Something needs to be done, but it isn’t being done. I wonder exactly how long the turning-point will sit on the horizon. How long will people be forced to wait for change?
We’ve had plenty of chat recently in the MSM re: politicians accepting that austerity is terrible and that people loathe it. I’m all for that chat, but a timeline for actual improvement would be good. I realise that we’ve had major political movement in recent times, from Brexit to the Christ-ly rise of Jez, and I try to get/stay enthused/interested, but the truth is that useful results on the ground still feel a very long way away.
I still speak to people who didn’t vote in the general election. They still shrug and say, “it doesn’t make any difference.” You see their point. They’re still at foodbanks. They’re still fighting the DWP for a few quid in hardship funds. They’re still written off as scroungers. Recent political events haven’t meant much in real terms for them.
After squandering months on an election and its aftermath, our “leadership” and parliament will soon take summer break. I wonder if a break should be allowed. Then again – who cares. What’s a couple of months in the greater scheme. Even if Jez launches the glorious revolution tomorrow, it’ll take years – decades – to rebuild public services to the point where people who really need those services get them in a way that feels helpful. A revolution would look great on facebook, but I wouldn’t hold my breath for the rest. I realise that I take a childishly simple view of political realities here, but I feel the need to get down to basics. A lot of people have been waiting an awful long time for the aforementioned turning-point to really arrive. Quite a few people have died along the way.
Some specifics from real life out and about:
There are three key problems I hear again and again from people as I go from foodbanks to lunch kitchens to meetings with people who have housing problems:
1) The DWP, councils and housing associations are deducting money from people’s benefits by way of sanctions, loan repayments, council tax and fines, and rent arrears. The upshot is that people are left with a pittance to live on. It’s not uncommon to hear people talk about a figure of £50 a week and less. Doesn’t matter whether or not you think people deserve these slapdowns because they’re single mums, unemployed, low earners, ex-cons, or whatever. They’re stuck forever. The state and its offshoots crush people with debts that they’ll never repay. The state does not help these people. It owns them. We, or someone, needs concrete plans to change that.
2) People are waiting for an Employment and Support Allowance decision, or a Personal Independence Payment decision. The waiting is going on and on and/or their application is turned down. The mandatory reconsideration and tribunal appeals processes drag on and are extremely difficult to navigate if you can’t grasp complex government bureaucracies. Which many people can’t, because these systems are too hard to deal with even if you do feel up to it. At the moment, in one way or another, I’m dealing with/writing about three people with learning difficulties and health problems who have been found fit for work this year and have not been able to appeal these decisions, or sort out interim income, without help from local support groups.
3) People are fighting eviction and paying big court/bailiffs costs on the way. They’re always insecurely housed, because they must rent in the private sector.
Here are three very recent examples of these:
From South Chadderton foodbank: A couple of weeks ago, I spent several hours talking with people at the South Chadderton foodbank in Oldham. I go to foodbanks and lunch kitchens in the area several times a month. I’ve been to South Chadderton a couple of times and will go again this month.
On 12 June, I spoke with:
Emma, 31. Emma had three children, aged 13, five and six months (she brought her baby boy with her to the foodbank). Emma was losing about £50 a fortnight from her benefit of £150 – hardly a king’s ransom in the first place. Part of the deduction was for a DWP loan that she was repaying. Part of the deduction was punishment for missing a couple of so-called “workforce” interviews that she didn’t realise she had to attend. Her benefit had been reduced to teach her a lesson, or whatever it is that the DWP is doing with these things. No matter that Emma had very young children to feed. Presumably, the DWP had some idea about teaching them a lesson as well. Emma said she had a cleaning job earlier this year, but gave it up, because her benefits were suddenly cut again when she was working and she couldn’t find anyone to help her sort the problem out. It was probably a bureaucratic error, but knowing that hardly helped. Bureaucratic errors can be insurmountable in this day and age of threadbare and dysfunctional public services. I asked Emma if she’d appealed the sanctions punishment. She said she didn’t know that appealing the decision was an option.
Theresa, 50.
Theresa was an alcoholic in recovery. She’d applied for ESA, and had been turned down. Someone had helped her to complete the paperwork that she needed to complete to ask the DWP to carry out a mandatory consideration of that fit-for-work decision. That appeal was turned down as well – mandatory reconsiderations usually are. Someone at an AA meeting was going to help Theresa appeal that second decision at tribunal level. Theresa said that in the meantime, she had no money coming in at all.
On June 23, I spoke in London with:
Chantelle Dean, 32,
I wrote about Chantelle’s housing problems last week. Chantelle is facing eviction and was told by her local council to stay in her flat until the bailiffs turned up, because the council couldn’t help her with emergency accommodation until then (until she was actually homeless, I gather. The logic of all this simply can’t be followed). While waiting, Chantelle’s been made to pay court costs of £355 as her landlord has pursued her eviction through the courts. She must pay this sum back on a weekly repayment plan. She must also look for a new flat in a private rental market which she can’t afford.
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I realise that I go on and on, but I don’t see any other option. We’re not really getting anywhere on any of this. I keep seeing the same problems – and, sometimes, the same people with the same problems – again and again and again. I go onto twitter and facebook (largely when I can’t avoid either these days) and find a mighty left-right war in progress. Then, I go out to do more interviewing and find the above. Turning the Tories over is important, of course, but so is some sort of vision of a rebuild. I think I’m interested in a date when talk becomes action. Or something.
The current system of benefits has been made quite deliberately harsh and difficult, even for disabled claimants. How else can people be forced off benefits and made to undertake insecure low-paid employment instead ?
Even the sick and the dying ?
And once these attitudes become the new ‘normal’, then society has really got a problem. So far I see no genuine changes from the government to reverse any of the damage that they have inflicted.
Certain souls may seem harsh to others, but it is just a way, beknownst only to them, of caring and feeling more deeply.”
― Marquis de Sade
Ive bn 9 weeks without my esa cause i lost my mandatory appeal so i applied for tribunal got told by social on fri i had won my reconsideration bck into support group had phone call yesterday sayng i hvnt won my appeal ive bn ill over all this and its made my mental health worse and other things ive even bn taking ill when in town and had to hve paramedics social do not care at all ive had to borrow mny to eat and ive got lied too on the phone and some of the people in social ive talked to were horrible cannt wait to go to appeal and say exactly what ive bn thrgh and the way its affected my mental health
Made me I’ll with worry only had my flat for a few months now I might lose it as DWP stopped my money rent
Hi. You won’t be allowed to tell the judge or the doctor who works for DWP what you have been through. I’ve been there and they don’t let you say your piece. They treat you like a criminal. You will probably get your esa back but at most you will go into wrag and the DWP doctor will have been told to put you in that group
I am a disabled lady who is wheelchair bound and has MS and a serious unstable heart condition which is resulting in daily Angina Attacks which could be fatal. No UC at all since claim in January 2017.They will not release funds including severe disablement allowance that is due plus arrears.because i am too ill to be interviewed by universal credit staff due to her medical conditions that prevent me.Any help appreciated .???Huge interest for newspaper article to be published .no reply from bigwigs hoping i will go away I won’t
Why has Emma got 3 children, but not bothering to work? Has she ever worked, apart from a small cleaning job she gave up when she realised she could get more on benefits and had her last baby? I have lots of sympathy for people struggling in “the system”. But some people “play the system” and keep having children so that they can avoid working (ever).
You’re right Kate, for all the Political rhetoric about eradicating poverty, (Gordon Brown) creating a fairer society where “no one is left out”,(May) and “that works for everyone”, all the soundbites about “the Big Society” from Cameron and “One Nation” from Miliband, nothing has changed. Politicians are fecking useless. I hope that Corbyn can turn things around IF he ever gets elected, but like you say, it will take decades to even undo the damage the Tories have done before we can even start to redistribute the wealth & create a society where peoples lives are actually worth living. I’m just about getting by on my £73 JSA,just keeping my head above water, but it wouldn’t take much to sink me. A sanction would be devastating. I’m not living, just existing, and my health is suffering from the continuous stress from the DWP/JCP. I don’t know how much more I can take. I’ll certainly be glad when I can retire, but thats another 10 yrs away yet & it can’t come quick enough. That’s IF I live that long! Nobody told me life would be like this. But for the time being I have a roof over my head & a bed to sleep in & some food, so I’m one of the lucky ones, but where’s the joy, where’s the happiness?
Just call the police if you gave any issues at a job centre .claiments have rights . The system was broken years ago it’s gone beyond funny ..we need professionals in job centres .very well payed an high skills . They need to stop funding capita an atos to the tunes of £700.million . These people are taking profits at £200 for a work capability assessment. What a shambles this country is in ..we need a public enquiry in the d.w.p.
Totally agree. How can they be paying thousands in voluntary redundancies to staff but then e employing. How can they Warren spending milliona for the change from Jobcentre to jobcentre plus? Million ‘s in rebranding yet now so far from being around customer service? How can they employ so many staff who have worked in that department for 20 yrs plus who liturally have no idea about working in the normal job market. Who employ managers because they are friends with that member of staff? The whole department is not fit for purpose! They need investigating. Simple
That’s not a lot of money to live on Trev. I plan to keep going until it is changed.
JSA is certainly not a lot to live on, & a couple of years ago the Council of Europe (to which Britain was a signed up participant) said that it was being paid at too low a rate & should be over £100 p/w. The Tories were obviously not going to abide by that, IDS was incandescent with rage, &now with Brexit there’s No chance. The only way forward is Universal Basic Income to replace unemployment benefit. But we’ll have to get rid of the Tories first.
Politicians are only in power to steal your money and allocate it to other government bodies I.e. DWP staff aka crown servants, council workers aka servants of the public and private contractors that are families, husband’s sons daughters of the servants that are government, people feared the gustappo, well the crown servants of the UK are the real enemy of the world, feared the world over and the punishment on us is hallmark to the tyrannical rule of the French bloodline Queen of england.
So you can forget about calling politicians useless, they are part of a family, a big family that steal from the country to fund the £19m houses they live in and extravagant life styles. They do the job they are trying to do, by stealing money from you in the form of tax and making you think its a good idea. They are very good at doing it and have been doing it for years, when 1 politician who has “tried” to help the poor can’t do it, not that he tried, another one of many thousands of people from the family will take the spotlight and come up with a catchy slogan to draw everyone’s attention to the circus act that steals your money.
I have nothing against taxation so long as it’s spent on funding public services that benefit society.
The DWP keeps sending people for assessments and I have noticed when I have asked for them to help me, they are not interested in helping me, I am disabled with my left leg shorter than my right, these assessments are for capacity for work, I wanted proof of this to ESA to help me with my claim. They have stopped £30.00 a week of my money and I can not get about.
My nephew has been so called sanctioned for 6 months, but says he has another 4months to go, it is bullying at the highest level, and needs to be stopped, as for determining that the sick and disabled can be in work is bloody stupid,
I am currently grappling with this fiasco after being forced to switch from ESA to universal credit. My mortgage interest payments were stopped for months causing my mortgage to default. I had all my prescriptions cancelled, I am bipolar type 2 so clearly need medication. I haven’t had a full month payment since January this year. I am a single mum with two young children to support and we can barely survive. I don’t drink or smoke or go out anywhere. My mental state has deteriorated drastically because of this. Now, I’m having £150 taken off me each month which is just a further kick in the teeth. I am more than happy to speak with someone if you need a case study.
why have your prescriptions been cancelled? I think you need to speak to your Doctors about that. Have they cancelled your sick note too? If so your ESA will stop. I was in the opposite situation a couple of years ago, I got a diagnosis, was being prescribed medication but was denied a sick note & was forced to continue claiming JSA instead of being allowed to apply for ESA. They were quite happy to keep giving me pills but wouldnt put me on the sick. I am amongst the 0.5% of the population – a man with Borderline Personality Disorder. It affects. about 2% of the population but mostly women apparently. But I’m deemed to be fit for work.
Bi-polar is helped by medication – most people with Bi-polar manage to work.
The DWP is stopping the £30.00 a week that disabled people relying to live on from day to day basis, and there’s a lot of people can not get about and need help from other people. The DWP doesn’t think about problems of people who are disabled and very sick people rely on them for help. These people should not have to keep going for assessments every year.
These cases need to be brought fully to the attention of everyone via the mainstream media, especially television. The disgraceful behaviour of the DWP seemed to get little or no coverage during the election campaign. The tories are still free to carry this on! Let’s hope they are gone asap for all our sakes!
Believe me – it’s not such a bundle of laughs being a landlord letting to UC claimants. I’ve spent literally over a 100 hours trying to get the DWP to make payments under the APA that they set up for a vulnerable tenant that they placed with me. My MPs office isn’t being very helpful and DWP make it such a bureaucratic Kafkaesque nightmare. I am just glad that I can put bread on my table for my kids but if I rent to more UC claimants then I might not be able to. This system has been designed to be unworkable and to victimise and exclude poorest of society and I resent being a pawn in this Tory game..
That’s interesting. I had this extraordinary outing at Croydon jobcentre where the adviser seemed to actively start looking for reasons not to start the claimant’s UC housing cost payments. There was some rubbish about the letting agent and landlord names not matching – and then the adviser refused to sort it out by speaking to the agents on the phone. This was even though we got the letting agents on the phone as we sat there. Utterly bizarre. The woman who was claiming had already been without the UC housing component for months http://www.katebelgrave.com/2017/01/how-the-universal-credit-bureaucracy-can-screw-your-chance-of-paying-rent/
DWP ended our son’s DLA late March. I sent his application for PIP to DWP 2 months ago but still haven’t had a reply.
The dwp don’t give a shit about benefit claiments because at the end of the day they don’t have a clue what we have to go through the job centre I go to the advisor’s who work there most of them are so bloody patronising and rude and they have security guards in there now as well and the first sign of and trouble within there they hide behind the security staff and they are just as bad the dwp really do need to fix up
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My payments are constantly delayed. I had change in circumstances and that mans they stopped my payments and decided to send it to decision maker. I didn’t had any money coming in since 6 weeks. They say they don’t know when my claim will be reassessed. My usual payment is 1200 I can’t afford rent without it. My rent is 210 per week. I don’t know what to do. They will evict me. Still yesterday BBC said that the house of commons heard that 85% of claimants are happy with universal credit.
Simple stop voting Conservatives stand up together all out strike in the whole of the country move on Westminster remove the government
I can’t for the life in me understand WHY anyone would vote Tory in the first place!
The Welfare Reforms were brought in solely on the evidence of the press demonisation of the poor, the sick and the vulnerable that the Conservative Party, (and shamefully with the assistance of the Lib Dems), who were instrumental in perpetuating myths about welfare, to justify their persecution of people!
These Welfare Reforms, are in DIRECT VIOLATION of the International Universal Declaration of Human Rights which the UK government are signatories to!
Thousands have died because of these reforms! Tens of thousands!
And we have EVERY RIGHT under Articles 2 & 4 of the Convention for the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, to bring charges against EVERY SINGLE individual responsible for this crime against humanity, from government ministers, Lords, Job Centre staff and management!
Adding to this, the so-called health care ‘professionals’ employed by Atos and Maximus etc, should be banned for life from practicing any form of medicine for gross violations of the health professions Hippocratic Oath!
Instead of charities such as MIND, SCOPE, MS etc etc etc giving glib newspaper articles to newspapers, they should be uniting to bring all those responsible for this final solution policy to justice!
What is disastrous to the people targeted by these ‘welfare reforms’ gives rise to ‘new business opportunities’ under ‘government by the market’. Why this blogger is boycotting Direct Line insurance of any kind .
I still week in week out have too choose between eating a hot meal or warming my home up. And with my arthritis and fibromyalgia and asthma and over serious lung condition whare they require me too keep warm. The truth of the matter is if I choose too keep my tiny compact flat warm I could not afford to eat. And my conditions also I require I eat a good diet fact is that after I’ve paid my bills I can only afford the very cheapest tin of beans which has no nutritional value 9p or 19p tins of beans has no nutritional value at all which keeps me unwell. So the facts are what the government Is trying to achieve with this current system is in fact having opposite effect.
At long last am glad some people out there have realised how much most of the population are suffering to eat proper food n always the government is saying there are jobs but they know there isn’t. I have lived for 36yrs worked to my bones and no money to show. Due to illness stop work n was put on ESA but later this government put me on JSA and am suffering so much can’t eat and can’t pay my bills I hope something would be done about it.
There are *some* jobs, but not enough for everyone, because industry has declined whilst the population has increased. Jobs have been lost to technology & overseas, traditonal Industries have disappeared. You are now expected to travel 15 to 20 miles to do a Min. Wage job (in a “fast paced environment”, i.e. work as fast as a machine!) often shift work with early starts & late finishes. Unless you have a car you can’t do it, & even then the fuel costs would make it unfeasible, as would bus/train fares. On top of that, Employers can take their pick & are much more likely to hire younger people who can work faster, car owners or people who live nearer to the job, & who might have worked more recently. If you’re over 50 with health problems, no transport & haven’t worked for a while you’ve got No chance. Still, you have to go thru the motions of searching & applying for these jobs constantly just to avoid getting sanctioned. It’s a charade. A total, pointless, farce. They need to remove Conditionality from Unemployment Benefit, give us a Universal Basic Income, & the flexibility we need to be able to do local part-time jobs.
I have struggled in the last 12 months since they took my car off i just feel that my life is over i can’t walk much and the neighbour in same area can do gardening carry things drive everywhere and gets high mobility high care it’s a unfair system pip is making fun of the disabled
I sent my pip form in April stil no reply. I Rang the dwp and they said they sent the form over in May to them to arrange assessment. I then called the independent assessor and she said all applications are taking too long..
It’s a waiting game basically.
Why do MPs have such long holidays? Only a few were in parliament yesterday. Do the dup and sein feign still get paid when they are virtually on strike. None of them are here for us, only for their own benefit. Is their salary increase more necessary than my £6 a month? Increase on oap.
What can change
I change all mps and so called pm to live on £50 a week I worked 14 hours a day on the farm 7 days a week I payd my taxes and stamp up till 2000 I’m 74 now left on the scrapheap by those so called mps how get a10 per cent rise sham on you all
I am 71yrs old. I worked all my life from the age of 15 except for taking a few years out to bring up my children. My total income is £87 a week state pension. I moved to France 10 years ago, so I am not entitled to a penny more than that.
My husband died in England last year, we had no savings so I asked DWP for a funeral grant. I was refused ‘because I am over pension age’ …. Ridiculous! I then asked for a social fund loan, again I was refused because I am not claiming any other benefits… Eventually various charities found the money for a simple funeral. The DWP change their rules to ensure that they never have to pay out. It’s a disgrace, we had both worked and contributed to the state for over 50 years., my husband was registered disabled with various debilitating problems but we were forever fighting for his rights. France may not be ideal, but I can live stress free here. I get a reduction on my council tax, help with my electricity bills and (excellent) free health care from the French government due to my low income. I would not be able to afford life in England now and I feel terribly sorry for the sick,disabled and elderly people who do…. England was once my home, my birthplace and I was proud to be English – sadly, not any more….
My son works for a charity that tries to help people not get sanctioned. It’s an uphill struggle. The rules are so harsh and the job centre staff are under pressure to meet sanction targets. So even if you have done nothing wrong you could be sanctioned to make up the numbers. People who are clearly very unwell are forced to job seek as their sickness benefits are taken away. This country is a disgrace. It’s like living in nazi Germany, anyone disabled or unwell counts for nothing. It makes me so ashamed of our government
Never admit to DWP/Jobcentres you received a letter and thought attending was optional! Instead demand a watermarked copy with proof of postage and receipt,claimants must get the DWP/Jobcentres to get signatures from people that receive letters off them. Then there is asking what it is you are signing for when someone says “sign this!” “Who is it addressed too?” I now ask this and will refuse if they say it’s a letter but won’t say who it’s for!
Eviction is IMO easy to get round even if sanctioned! You email the council and tell them to send a form for NIL INCOME because you certainly qualify for housing benefit if your income is ZERO and have no income. Most, if not all, councils will backdate all payments so there is no break in the payments, some may get discretionary payments to cover and extra they have to pay while on a sanction.
If someone is an alcoholic then they could be a danger to themselves, and possibly others, in a workplace, either intebtionally or unintentionally!