And I’m back.
Went leafleting at Stockport jobcentre with Stockport United Against Austerity yesterday.
I wanted to note this:
Since full Universal Credit rollout started in Stockport in November, we’ve spoken to a number of people who’ve been pushed off jobseekers’ allowance, or employment and support allowance, and told to apply for Universal Credit – for spurious reasons if you ask me.
People say they’ve been left with nothing to live on when their JSA or ESA is stopped and while they sit out the weeks they must wait for their first Universal Credit payment.
For example:
We spoke at length yesterday with a woman whose ESA claim was stopped at the beginning of December.
She’d been without money since – aside from a Universal Credit advance loan which she’d had to take out. She’d already spent that loan on bills. She’ll have to pay the loan back when (if) her Universal Credit payments start.
The woman said that as far as she was aware, her ESA was stopped because she’d gone on a four-day trip to see her sister who’d just had a baby (this trip had been paid for by a family member for a surprise, by the way. I say this to head off twits who want to moan in the comments about benefit claimants who dare to indulge in minibreaks).
The woman said she told the jobcentre that she would be away, because the trip coincided with a jobcentre meeting. She had to ask if she could change the meeting date.
When she came back from her trip, the woman found that her ESA claim had been closed.
She had to apply for Universal Credit.
She’d applied and had still not received a payment. Yesterday, she was making her third trip to the jobcentre to try and finalise her application.
She said:
“Four days… it [one of the days I was away] was the day I was signing on, you see, and I came back and they told me I had to sign on for Universal Credit.”
She’d been without income since:
“It’s the time waiting for this Universal Credit [that is the problem]. I got no money. I came down here to fill the form in and he was really nice the lad down here [the jobcentre adviser she saw at Stockport]. He was really nice.
“I came down to show me ID and now I’ve got to come down again.
“I don’t know why they can’t do it all [activate the Universal Credit claim] in one go. Got no money….they gave me an advance payment, but that’s gone on all my bills. I went [on the trip] at the beginning of December and they gave me an advance just before Christmas, but I’ve got more bills to pay.”
So.
We’re finding this too often: people who’ve been thrown off JSA and ESA, and left with nothing while they try to get their Universal Credit claims going.
It was news to me that requesting a new date for a jobcentre meeting counted as a change in circumstances that would mean someone had to make a new Universal Credit claim. Doesn’t matter anyway: the point is that people are left without money while they must make a Universal Credit claim.
I’ll tell you this – such conversations do not give me confidence re: the already-weak managed migration protections that government claims will shield people who must move from existing benefits to Universal Credit. Do me a favour. If you believe that the DWP is inclined or even able to shore up the incomes of people who must move to Universal Credit, you’ll believe anything.
The facts are that we’re meeting people who’ve had their JSA or ESA stopped and have been left in the shit. They must then go through the form-filling and meetings nightmare that is trying to start a Universal Credit claim.
The hell with this.
The system is terrible, it has no capacity to recognise circumstances. I was made to change from live to online this December (which due to the date they sent the letter and Xmas mail, I was given 4 days to archive). When I went to fill in the form it asked if I have a medical condition but doesn’t ask if i’ve already undergone the WCA and instead starts throwing a tantrum because I don’t have “fit notes” anymore
Bloody hell – no record of your WCA?
At one time you could fill in aform if you were going away , there was one to say you were going away to look for work in another area (that I successfully once used to go to Glastonbury festival!) And /or a form for going on holiday (that I once used to travel across Europe for a fortnight) but you weren’t supposed to go abroad or your claim would be stopped (I gave a false address in London). That was like 25 years ago or more, doubt you can do it now.
I think they are using every trick in the book to bypass the unmanaged migration process which is yet to be finalised and then needs to get voted through.
“It was news to me that requesting a new date for a jobcentre meeting counted as a change in circumstances”
That is odd, do you have any more information ?
Helpful table in this:
https://universalcreditadvice.com/housing-associations/2018/10/wrong-advice-leading-to-tenants-losing-legacy-claims?#
Surely if a claim has already been made for one benefit then the DWP has all the claimant details, so why can’t the claimant simply switch from one benefit to another?
That would be too easy, and sensible, this is the DWP we’re talking about…
I think CPAG and SSC/W&P committee had argued for exactly that – automatic transition from existing benefits to UC so that the existing claims didn’t end before the UC one began – but govt rejected that. See pg 3 here (in the summary):
https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201719/cmselect/cmworpen/1762/1762.pdf
The Tories couldn’t organize a piss-up in a brewery, but they can give public money to a company that doesn’t really exist to run ferries they don’t own. Incompetent or corrupt?
Willfully incompetent AND corrupt!
Yep, that sums them up.
In fact it gets worse, there should be a public inquiry about this, and a police investigation:
https://voxpoliticalonline.com/2019/01/03/properly-vetted-ferry-firm-took-its-terms-from-a-takeaway-website-are-you-laughing-yet/
I returned to volunteering at the foodbank this week following the hols. to find the place in crisis, they held an emergency meeting and are looking at renting a much larger warehouse/storage unit, and have asked volunteers if they can take on extra hours for a while. In my area (in Yorkshire) demand is being largely attributed to Universal Credit,
https://www.examinerlive.co.uk/news/west-yorkshire-news/people-scavenging-bins-200000-meals-15580122
but in other parts of the country it’s also low wages, with workers unable to feed their families. Look at this from Bristol:
https://www.bristolpost.co.uk/news/bristol-news/bristol-parents-surviving-week-without-2305656
.
The collapse of Universal Credit? Looks like it’s starting to wobble….
https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/uk-world-news/universal-credit-rollout-axed-controversial-13819403
https://intensiveactivity.wordpress.com/2019/01/06/collapse-of-universal-credit-extension-delayed/
Yep it seems that even the appalling Amber is waking up to the possibility that this turd can’t be polished https://www.theguardian.com/society/2019/jan/05/amber-rudd-to-delay-universal-credit-roll-out-pilot-study
What a fucking shambles
In such situations I would usually say “kick it ’til it breaks”, but in this case it’s already broken.
Exactly. Like trying to get someone to re-crap a turd.
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Same thing happened to me. June, ’17 my ESA was stopped. Got an email about UC. Claim it or be broke. So, I claimed it. No managed migration happened though. I waited cos my work coach said it’ll happen, there’s a back log……. Then in May, ’18 I was awarded 24 points by the Tribunal. I thought, “NOW it’s gonna happen!” I waited. My work coach said the same thing again…. Throughout ’18, ’19, and 2020, and ongoing, I had many appointments in Guy’s hosp for MRI & CT scans, X rays, consultations, Fit Notes, operations, two; knee replacement surgery, Oct.,’18, & a throat op, Jan, ’19, I waited. And waited. Finally, I learned about Freedom of Information for your DWP files. I asked for them and what I read shocked me. From June, ’17 they had me in “intensive work search” AND I was “working 16 hours a week.” . I was in chronic and debilitating pain from my knee yet it didn’t matter an iota. I had stacks of proof, I was doing everything right and honestly. On one page there is a journal entry I wrote about my operation the following day and at the the bottom is “working 16 hours a week.” Yet I was still on basic UC. From June, ’17 to Jan, ’19 I tried to sort it out. I couldn’t. Finally, I went to my MP, Labour fortunately, where I learned that because I am “single, with no dependants.” I was not entitled to anything more. The rightness and correctness of my case, OF ME, could be and would be ignored. I tried, in vain, to sort it out, to be listened to, for 19 months! Nothing and silence. My MP got it sorted in less than 2 weeks! Two weeks! It made me realise how helpless I was without the power and clout of my MP! In Jan., ’19 I got a PDF doc from the DWP. I opened it with immense trepidation! My jaw dropped! I’d been put in the right group and all the money was backdated! I was gobsmacked at the amount. I didn’t touch it for several weeks cos I thought, “They’ve made a mistake and they’ll want it back. Don’t touch it!” Well, no mistake. That this happened, and still does!, in a democracy is disgraceful and deeply unsettling. If you find yourself up against the monolith of the DWP then go to F. of. I, and then, maybe your MP, if you think it’s necessary. Good luck and I hope you win!
I was forced off ESA/JSA way back in 2016 before the full rollout. The DWP force you to do things but, like I’ve always asked, ‘ Who defends or speaks up for the unemployed and benefit claimants?’ Nobody does because they’re seen as scroungers, and even with so many losing their jobs because of this pandemic things still won’t change. And once Rishi Sunak removes the £20 a week ‘top-up’ claimants will be back to pre-2015 levels of benefits.
Those of us still on so-called ‘legacy’ Benefits (in my case JSA) never even got the £20 “uplift”, as they oddly like to describe it. But yes, it will come as a big shock to newer claimants on UC, that £80 extra on top makes a big difference, perhaps the difference between just managing to scrape by and having to get referred to the foodbank because ends no longer meet. The extra £20 p/w takes Benefits nearly to the level that the Council of Europe said it should have been at seven years ago! If, however, anyone who voted Tory finds themselves affected I would just like to say it bloody well serves you right and wtf were you thinking?
The DWP and the entire Social Security system is a complete shambles, partly by deliberate design and partly by incompetence. Get the Tories out!