To Millennium House in Stockport this morning, where caseworkers at the Stockport Universal Credit centre were on strike.

The strikers say that the centre doesn’t have the staff to provide Universal Credit claimants with the support they need. They say that people who claim Universal Credit are going without money because of that.

Much of a caseworker’s time at the centre is taken up trying to fix Universal Credit problems for local people who call, or whose problems and details are emailed to them by the national Universal Credit helpline.

Tasks range from sorting out advance loans, to trying to make sure people with children are paid the childcare costs that working Universal Credit claimants are entitled to (“the childcare costs [system] is a massive problem,” said caseworker Billy, 29, who was on the picket line). Workers also deal with calls from people who haven’t been paid the right amount of Universal Credit.

Billy, 29, said he had hundreds of cases on his caseload. Everyone in earshot nodded in agreement. I’ve heard figures in the hundreds before. I’ve certainly spoken to housing officers who’ve been brought in to deal with backlogs of hundreds of homelessness applications.

Another striker, George, 24, said he took about 133 calls last week from people who had problems with their claims:

“…so that’s averaged about 30 a day. [People] are on the phone to me saying, “why hasn’t it been done?” [why hasn’t my Universal Credit problem been fixed?] You’re not supposed to say, “well, [it’s because] the phone’s not stopped ringing.” It’s the true facts of it. You just get so many ad hoc queries on top of the work that you’ve got to do that it just all piles up.”

Both Billy and George said that people who claimed Universal Credit went without their entitlements, because staff were oversubscribed:

Billy said:

“Definitely…a lot of the time people [who claim Universal Credit] don’t get paid.. underpayments are generated if the staff can’t get the work done. There are underpayments, because people aren’t getting paid what they’re owed. It’s not their fault…”

George said that workers dealt with claimants who said they were suicidal:

“They’ll say – well, I’ve got nothing here.” It’s just like – it’s not even about getting the money any more. It’s just like – let’s look after their wellbeing first…I’m not saying this is every call, but I’m just saying it’s like a consequence for some people… this is Universal Credit. They [people who claim Universal Credit] are the most vulnerable people in society.”

There’s a second day of strike action tomorrow (Wednesday).

Here are transcripts from the interviews with Billy and George this morning:

BILLY: [The Universal Credit service centre] is not really a call centre [as such]. It gets turned into one sometimes… we’re actually case managers. We’re not meant to take that many calls… but when the phones are running nonstop, you can’t manage your claims…

It’s managed per team – so, say, if someone rings up with [from] their phone number, then our system then routes them to their case manager [at the centre] but if you’re managing 800 claims like some of us are, then – yeah.

“It is the workload,” another striker said. “At one point, there were 16 people on long-term sick…”

BILLY: The management think that we’re adequately staffed… over the summer with people being on holiday – they have the right to be on holiday – but…if we were adequately staffed, then you wouldn’t feel such a hit…

SECOND STRIKER: There’s such a disconnect between management and staff, because I was speaking to a manager last week and he seemed to think you’ve [we’ve] got it made and I’m looking at him…thinking that’s because you’ve never done it [the job]. You don’t know what you’re talking about…

ME: What will happen when they [the DWP] start migrating people from JSA and ESA to Universal Credit?

BILLY: That’s worrying… advances [Universal Credit advance payments] are a big subject [with people who contact the centre]. When people make their [Universal Credit] claims, they haven’t got any money, so they’ll need advances…

[There is]… a massive problem with childcare costs. Basically it boils down to… if you report it [your childcare costs] a bit late, you don’t get paid… the system doesn’t allow [you to change details]. See the end of this transcript for more details about problems with the Universal Credit childcare costs reimbursement system].

Continue reading →

…or something.

I wrote recently about Alice (name changed). Alice got a job as a security guard for a G4S supplier BUT must wait two months for her first pay.

Alice has been out of work for several years. She’s been claiming Universal Credit.

She was relying on Universal Credit for rent and some income until she received that first wage packet (she won’t be paid until the end of July).

But on Monday morning, a note appeared in Alice’s Universal Credit journal which said her Universal Credit had been stopped that day. Alice had no warning. She just got the note in her journal:

As you can see, the note says Alice’s Universal Credit was stopped, because Alice had told Universal Credit that she had a job, but not how much she was earning.

Alice is, of course, not earning anything for two months. That’s why she has not submitted any information about her earnings. She has nothing to submit.

She did, however, tell Universal Credit that she wouldn’t get any wages for two months. Universal Credit noted that.

There can be no doubt that Universal Credit noted that, because Universal Credit agreed to reduce Alice’s advance loan repayment amounts for the two months without wages to leave her with more money for that time.

Now, Universal Credit has stopped all Alice’s money and left her with nothing.

She rang Universal Credit and was hung up on, because the officer on the phone felt that Alice was angry.

I’d be angry myself if I was working for nothing and being punished for it by the DWP, but you know how it is. People who don’t have a penny to spare are supposed to take all this on the chin.

So.

This is the sort of garbage that people have to put up with – working for nothing and then being punished by the DWP and pushed into rent arrears and all the rest for not getting paid.

Meanwhile, the Tories tear themselves to pieces over Europe and Labour tears itself to pieces over anti semitism.

And people wonder why I say that I hope that the whole of Westminster is sucked down a sewer.

Blogging will be light over the next month or two as am finishing up a transcription project. Still available for contact here.

Update Monday 13 May:

I rang the Universal Credit helpline (0800 328 5644) to ask if the Flexible Support Fund could be used to help people on Universal Credit with childcare costs when they found work.

After 20 minutes (yep) on hold, the person who answered the phone said that the Flexible Support Fund couldn’t be used for childcare costs. That was interesting. You’ll see in the tweet copied below that Universal Credit CE Neil Couling said that it could.

I asked the helpline specifically if the fund could be used for childcare costs and the officer said No. I explained the upfront and first-month childcare costs of about £300 that the woman in the original post below faces. The helpline said that advance loans and budgeting loans could be used for childcare costs, but must be paid back.

So, I tweeted Couling and asked him to tell me what the right answer is. Can people use the Flexible Support Fund for childcare costs or not? If they can, why does the Universal Credit helpline say they can’t?

People in poverty can’t afford upfront childcare costs when they get work. If Couling says the Flexible Support Fund can be used for those costs, then people should be told about it and how to apply for it.

What a circus. I swear to god.

Update Saturday 11 May:

Universal Credit grandee Neil Couling tells me on twitter that the Flexible Support Fund can indeed be used to fund childcare if people who claim Universal Credit can’t meet childcare costs.

It’s an absolute travesty that jobcentre advisers don’t tell people that. I’m finding this unreal.

As I replied to Neil – he needs to fill the airwaves with news of this fund and instruct his jobcentre advisers to damn well tell people that they can apply to the FSF to pay for childcare when they start work. It’s disgusting that people aren’t told about this fund.

The woman in the original post below tells me that she’s actually lost the carer job she was due to start on Monday, because of the childcare funding problem. Her employer “got funny” about things when the woman asked if she could work 8-2.30pm for the first week while she sorted out childcare and payments.

She has another interview next week for another job.

Here’s Couling on twitter on the subject. He needs to spend less time on twitter and more time making sure Universal Credit claimants get the money they’re entitled to:

Needs to go further afield. The dwp needs to put out a press release on Monday telling everyone that money is there for childcare and that it’s a grant they don’t have to repay. Also want to see a bulletin go to jcp advisers instructing them to tell claimants the money’s there

— Kate B (@hangbitch) May 10, 2019

Original post from yesterday:

To Essex now – where a young woman whose problems with Universal Credit I’ve previously written about gets in touch to say that her new job is at risk because of problems funding childcare.

The woman has found work and starts on Monday.

She has a little girl, so needs a childminder to pick the child up from school and to look after her until her mother gets home from work.

The woman found a childminder (after school club was already booked out).

Universal Credit said they’d fund 85% of the costs.

The problem is that the woman has to pay this in advance (it’ll be about £300 a month) and have the money repaid.

This will be a real stretch – for the first month in particular.

Like so many people who are starting in work, this young woman doesn’t have £300 lying around:

“Universal credit said they can pay 85% of childcare… but I have to add the amount to my account each month. The first month, I’d have to pay in advance and be refunded for it. I can’t get an advance payment, because I had one last October.”

It looks like this woman will have to borrow from family, or friends (assuming someone has £300), or take out a loan elsewhere.

She’ll end up in (more) debt. That’s inevitable. As the woman says in the quote above, Universal Credit won’t give an advance loan for the childcare costs, because she had another loan recently. That loan was to cover debt brought about by deductions that the DWP was taking from her Universal Credit payments. Chief among these were deductions for tax credit overpayments which the woman insists she didn’t owe.

So – “I have to find £300 just to start work.”

Needless to say, the government says it pays childcare costs in arrears to prevent fraud. I just love that. This government’s obsession with appearing tough on people in poverty literally knows no bounds. Government is so damn hung up about fraud that’ll actually shove low-paid parents into debt when they do the “right” thing and find work.

Why the DWP can’t accept a letter from a registered childminder stating charges in advance and pay costs up front I do not know.

In my less charitable moments, of which I have many, I find myself thinking that government wants to keep single mothers in poverty, rather than in work that might let them get ahead.

Suggestions and input welcome.

Update Friday 9 May:

Gail Ward on facebook has alerted me to the Flexible Support Fund, which should be available to people in exactly these situations.

The problem is, as usual, that Universal Credit and jobcentres don’t tell people that these funds exist. This is criminal.

The Turn2Us site actually centres its Flexible Support Fund information around a criticism of the DWP for withholding information about the fund (a fund I’d never heard of).

Says Turn2Us:

“A number of organisations are concerned at how little is known about the FSF.

One Jobcentre adviser in Bolton likened the FSF to the illegal boxing clubs in the film Fight Club, in that they don’t talk about it.

This is highlighted by the fact that the budget set aside for FSF has been underspent in every year since it was introduced.”

Isn’t that just great.