Category Archives: Universal Credit

“[MPs] don’t worry about money. They don’t worry about where the next electricity is coming from. You never see anyone like that knocking down at foodbank.” #UniversalCredit

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Have posted below a longer transcript from recent interviews at Oldham foodbank with Michelle, 38, and Jeanette, 53 (I published excerpts earlier here and here).

Like so many interviews I post on this site, this transcript highlights two important points:

1) Political and press obsessions such as government, voting and Brexit barely register in many lives.

I asked both woman for their views on government and Brexit.

Michelle said:

“I ain’t got a clue me, I don’t understand it. I really don’t.”

Jeanette said:

“Neither me…You never see anyone like that knocking down at foodbank…They don’t worry about where the next electricity coming from.”

2) The benefit systems that people in poverty rely on are in tatters, but that fact is ignored. Nobody cares.

Politics refuses to intervene, or to offer constructive answers. Mainstream politics is fixated on Brexit and central politics to the exclusion of everything. Meanwhile, people in poverty are being dragged down by failing state bureaucracies. Online benefit application forms fail. Helplines are hopeless. Claimants go months without money, which makes debt inevitable. The idea is, of course, that anyone who has ever received a state benefit deserves the worst. Dependence on the state justifies aggression from the state.

Michelle had rent arrears, because the DWP took ten weeks to make her first Universal Credit payment. She was also repaying a tax credit debt that she disputed and an advance loan that she took out to buy food during that ten-week wait for her Universal Credit:

“Oh God – it were a nightmare signing on for Universal Credit. You have to do it online and I had to [keep] ringing the jobcentre. I had to keep ringing them, because it were so hard.”

Jeanette had had a stroke in 2009. She struggled with balance and speech. She’d recently applied for Personal Independence Payment application, but missed an award by five points. She’d decided not to appeal that decision, because the appeals process was too complex and wearing:

“Too stressful. I’ve got to think of my health. Just rely on family and friends to get me around.”

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: no part of this mess helps people find stability, or work. Quite the reverse. Any stability people had has been torpedoed. Prevailing government theory is that destabilising people by throwing them off benefits motivates them (whatever “motivates” means). It does not. These broken, maddening public sector bureaucracies mire people in debt. Unfortunately, that fact is below the radar.

Transcript: Oldham foodbank, 7 March 2018.

Michelle:

It hasn’t been this bad before. [They] moved me over [from Employment and Support Allowance to Universal Credit] in October last year. They made me do it, yeah.

They told me… I applied for ESA again, but they said because I was in the catchment area for Universal Credit, that I have to have that instead…but I went for [an ESA face-to-face] assessment on 25th of October [2017] and I’ve still heard nothing…nearly six months. [The assessment was at] Albert Bridge House, yeah.

I don’t sign on. I just have to go and see my advisor at the jobcentre every few weeks.

Oh God – it were a nightmare signing on for Universal Credit. You have to do it online and I had to [keep] ringing the jobcentre. I had to keep ringing them, because it were so hard.

[I] could do one bit of it, where they told you to do your details, but then it told you to do something else – a separate thing which is a new ID thing what they’ve set up. You’ve got to do that to prove your identity. You’ve got to choose which company to do it with.

I did mine with the Post Office. Got to set that account up and then go back to Universal Credit [with the registered identity details] Oh, it is horrible. Then, you’ve got to get an appointment to go up to the jobcentre to do the rest of it there…

You just do it [the identity proof] online while you’re filling your form out. It just takes you to another site and it tells you choose which one you want to use, so I clicked Post Office. Then you have to like create an account with them just to prove your identity, because they’ve got more information on you then – so that they know that it is you, because there are a lot of people trying to claim benefits under different names, so to try and stop that basically.

Had to give my passport, yeah, because it was online…

I had no money for about eight, ten weeks. They let me have an advance payments, but it were only for £200. I’ve got two kids and got behind on all me payments and everything. It were horrible…

Jeanette: It puts you behind with your rent.

Michelle: Yeah, I’ve been having to pay extra each month, because of my rent was in arrears and it wasn’t my fault. It was horrible. [I] rent with First Choice Homes…arrears, about two months, about £700 I think. I have to pay about £20 every month on top of the rent, because the rent’s £330.

They [the DWP] are deducting [money from my monthly Universal Credit payments] for advance loan – about £40 a month. They are taking [repayments for a] child tax credit [overpayment], because when I went onto Universal Credit, the child tax credit stopped, because it all goes in with that. Then after I had been on Universal Credit for a few months, [the DWP] decided to say that they had overpaid me [tax credits] and I owed £300. So now, they’re taking £49 a month off me for that as well.

[So that’s] £49 [taken out each month] for child tax credit debt, £40 for advance payment and £20 for arrears. Not much left at the end of the month once I’ve paid my bills and gone shopping. Only have a little bit left. If my girls need anything, I can’t…do it. Once that little bit of money has gone, I’ve got to wait another month again. The only other thing I get is child benefit, but that is £34 a week. That goes on the stuff like I need like the gas and electric. I can’t give it to my girls. Girls are [aged] 17 coming up and nearly 13.

[The DWP never contacted me to negotiate deduction amounts I could afford]. Oh, no, no, no. They just tell you. They don’t ask. They don’t discuss it with you. They just tell you.

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Ten week Universal Credit start delay, rent arrears as a result, advance loan repayments, tax credit debt…How debt is built into Universal Credit

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The excerpts below are from another interview I recorded last week at Oldham foodbank. I’ll post the full transcript when I’ve finished it.

The interview below was with an Oldham woman called Michelle, 38. Michelle had two daughters aged 13 and 17.

I post this to make the point again that Universal Credit is designed to start claimants off in debt and to keep them there. People are utterly powerless within that. They feel that they can’t fight or negotiate with the DWP.

Michelle applied for Universal Credit in October last year. She had to wait about ten weeks for her first payment (she’s also still waiting to hear the outcome of a Maximus medical assessment which she took at that time).

That long wait for Universal Credit had the usual devastating knock-on effects – the knock-on effects which push Universal Credit claimants into debt from the off.

First problem: while Michelle was waiting for a first UC payment, she went into rent arrears (she rents a place from First Choice Homes at £330 a month). She is now paying those arrears off at about £20 a month. That money comes out of her Universal Credit.

Second problem: because of the delay to the start of her Universal Credit, Michelle had to take out a Universal Credit advance loan to cover costs. She’s paying that back now at about £40 a month. She said she took out a second loan to cover costs as well.

Third problem: Michelle’s child tax credit claim was moved to Universal Credit and the DWP when she made her Universal Credit claim. Like a number of women I’ve interviewed now, Michelle was informed out of the blue that she had been overpaid child tax credits and would have to pay the money back. Without warning, the DWP started to deduct nearly £50 a month from her Universal Credit. There was no negotiation, or discussion with Michelle about these deductions, or about amounts she could realistically afford to pay while still supporting her two kids. The money was simply removed from Michelle’s Universal Credit.

I’ve heard that story time and time again. It’s obscene. These are people in financial hardship. They have children. They can’t make a case with anyone. They’re not even invited to make a case. Nobody wants to hear from them.

I’m making a simple point here, but I’ll make it again and again.

With its delays, loan culture (people in hardship must apply for advance loans while waiting for their first UC payments and then pay that money back) and these random, unexpected deductions for debts from people’s benefit accounts, Universal Credit is designed to ensure that people who have no money start their benefit claims in debt to the state and under real pressure. They are forced to take out advance loans, because their first payments are delayed for months. They are forced into rent arrears while they wait for their first Universal Credit housing costs payments. Money is deducted from their Universal Credit accounts without warning or discussion.

People’s powerlessness in this is disgusting, as I say. They have no choice but to follow the DWP’s line. Organisations such as the DWP have total authority in these scenarios. There is something very disturbing about this. We should all find it disturbing – a government department’s magisterial dismissing of and disinterest in those people who most rely on it.

I asked Michelle if she’d talked to the DWP about reducing some of the repayment amounts, or if anyone had talked to her about manageable amounts before actually taking the money from her.

She said:

“Oh, no, no, no. They just tell you. They don’t ask. They don’t discuss it with you. They just tell you,”

and:

“Just don’t think it’d make a difference really [ringing the DWP to negotiate repayments]. It would just make me worry more…And I suffer from stress and anxiety and panic attacks so…it’s just hard,”

and:

“I just can’t get used to it. It’s just so hard. They should tell you they’re going to do it [deduct money for debt repayments] but they didn’t… because a week before you get paid, you can go onto your [Universal Credit] journal and it tells you how much you’re getting that month. I went on that month and it just told me they were taking it out.”

I wonder why we allow this bullying. The world is run by sociopaths. This isn’t about deciding whether people are deserving or not deserving of support, or whatever the hell it is that policy thinks it is doing. It’s about the state declaring open season on people who claim benefits. They’re the acceptable targets. The normal rules of courtesy or even basic civil human interaction don’t apply.

Getting inside Universal Credit: callout to #UniversalCredit claimants in the Northwest and Northamptonshire

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To Universal Credit claimants in the Northwest and Northamptonshire:

As part of ongoing news stories we’ve done and campaigning on Universal Credit problems, journalists Natalie Bloomer, Charlotte Hughes and I want to attend Universal Credit meetings at jobcentres and to speak to more Universal Credit claimants about their experiences claiming UC.

We want to stay in contact with people who claim the benefit, to record people’s experiences in navigating the system and how/if problems are handled by the DWP.

We also want to accompany UC claimants to jobcentre and claimant commitment meetings if possible, to record those meetings and report back on people’s experiences.

Between us at the moment, we can attend meetings in the Northwest and Northamptonshire, and meet with people in those areas. As things continue, we may be able to travel further afield.

If you live in those areas, claim UC and are interested in talking with us, you can contact us by using the contact details or form on this page.

Waiting 3 months and more for #UniversalCredit for rent: “I was ringing the DWP in tears saying: ‘I’m really scared I’m going to lose the house’.”

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Article by me on politics.co.uk today about a disabled woman’s three month+ wait for Universal Credit:

“Karen Sheader, a Hartlepool film company director, has the bone condition osteopetrosis. Her bones fracture and can take months to heal. In 2017, bones in her legs broke. She was forced to take sick leave. She made a claim for Universal Credit.

What followed was a tortuous three month wait for Universal Credit payment.

“It got to 14 weeks and I was constantly on the phone to them. I kept being told, ‘somebody will update your [Universal Credit] journal by 6pm tonight’. They didn’t… and I was getting conflicting advice from people. It has such an effect on the way you feel. You’re stuck in the house with two broken legs and nobody seems to give a fuck.”

Read the whole article here.

How the DWP makes random deductions from #UniversalCredit accounts to “recover” tax credit debts people can’t afford to pay

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Article by me on politics.co.uk today:

The dreadful DWP is now in charge of tax credit debt collection. It deducts random amounts for debts from people’s Universal Credit accounts without telling them. People say they don’t even owe these so-called debts

These deductions leave people in even more debt and with nothing to live on.

“Without warning the DWP started taking about £25 a month from Susan’s Universal Credit payments for this ‘debt’. She says the deductions stopped and started through the year.

She is now also repaying a Universal Credit advance loan at £67 a month. She took the loan out, in part, to cover the tax credit debt repayments that the DWP suddenly began deducting from her.”

Read the whole article here.

In a refuge, domestic violence, no Universal Credit money since October. This government is vicious

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Yesterday, I spent another couple of hours at Oldham foodbank for more interviews with people who needed food parcels.

Here’s one of those interviews.

I spoke for a short time with a young woman.

She’d been abused by her partner, had left him and had been living in a refuge since July. Her kids were in care, I think (she was emotional and had struggled to speak at points). She said she was waiting to find out from the courts whether or not she’d “get my kids back.”

She had a Universal Credit claim, but hadn’t received any money since October. There was a problem, because she’d moved addresses to get away from the violent partner:

“I haven’t been paid for two months, because of a mixup in address – something to do with the address and all that… I suffered a domestic violence relationship, so I went into refuge.

[I am] trying to fight for my children in court. Don’t know if I’m going to bring the children back with me or not. All depends on whether I’m entitled to a three [unclear] or a one bedroom property.

That relationship. I lost everything.”

The foodbank volunteer asked her if she needed tampax. She said yes, so the volunteer made up a bag of sanitary items for her.

This woman’s mother was with her. She’d come along to do what she could. She was obviously concerned.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, because it becomes truer by the hour – we don’t have a safety net now. Social security hasn’t been reformed. It has been reduced to this rubble. People who need help most – help to stay alive, if you will – can’t access it. I meet more and more people whose circumstances should put them at the head of any queue. As things stand, they’re not in the queue at all. This is criminal.

I gave the woman and her mother my number. Maybe they’ll call.

Excerpts from the interview transcript:

“I’m ashamed of coming here, I don’t know why, but I’m ashamed… food, because I can’t afford to feed myself. Can’t afford to live let alone feed myself.

Haven’t had any money since October …Universal Credit. Can’t afford to go anywhere… if it involves money, I can’t do it

The foodbank volunteer came over with bags. “Not got any tampax in there… do you want…?”

“Yes, tampax please…”

“Haven’t been paid for two months, because of a mix up in address. Something to do with the address and all that, because the refuge I’m staying at. I suffered a domestic violence relationship, so I went into refuge…

Trying to fight for my children in court. Don’t know if I’m going to bring the children back with me or not… all depends on whether I’m entitled to a three [unclear] or a one bedroom property. That relationship… I lost everything.

Trying to fight for my kids… been in refuge since July… ex-partner isn’t the father. He’d hurt me by using the children and hurting me physically and emotionally. I was on Universal Credit with my ex and then I went onto a single claim, from where I lived… and now have made it into my own combination.

I don’t know my future until I get the result of what is happening with the children… haven’t got a clue, had no money for a month.”

DWP to disabled woman with bone fractures: Don’t miss hospital appointments. To meet Universal Credit conditions, you must show you’re trying to get better

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Wtf indeed.

On Wednesday, I spoke at length with Karen Sheader, a Hartlepool women who is a director at the Shoot Your Mouth Off film production company for people with learning difficulties.

Karen has the bone condition osteopetrosis. She’s liable to serious bone fractures. Both her legs are broken at the moment.

She had to take leave from work, because of those fractures, and so applied for Universal Credit earlier this year. This was a shambles in itself – her claim took months to start and she got to the point where she was worried about losing her flat if she went into rent arrears while waiting for Universal Credit. More on that soon.

For now – the extraordinary comment her Universal Credit work coach made at one of Karen’s work-focused interviews.

The work coach said that Karen must make sure that she attended all her hospital appointments to meet Universal Credit claimant commitments – that conditions for benefits included proving that she was doing everything she could to “get better.”

What are these work coaches even talking about?

Are they saying that attendance at medical appointments is an actual condition for claiming benefits – or is it simply that they’re now all so programmed to bang on about getting back to work or into work that they come out with any rot that might serve as a threat? Maybe the DWP really thinks that the only reason anyone ever misses a hospital appointment is because they’ve chosen to avoid healing and avoid work as a lifestyle option. Thinking that about everyone must be hard. These clowns are obsessed.

Karen says she had literally never considered not attending her hospital appointments, because she would very much like to get better and to return to the job and organisation that she has put so much time into. Would have hoped the DWP knew that.

There are days when I wonder where the DWP’s mania for work at all costs will end – if it ends at all, that is. Don’t suppose we can count on that.

We’re obviously well on course for a point where people have their benefit money sanctioned for not only missing a medical appointment, but for missing an hour with the physio, or even a swim class, or maybe even for not shopping at health-food outlets. It’ll be compulsory to participate in any activity that some policy wonk imagines will hasten a return to health and to work.

#UniversalCredit is based on a poisonous government loathing for people in poverty – and a genuine belief that people in poverty are lab rats

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This is a rant, but let’s have it:

Here’s a short list of long points re: some of Universal Credit’s fatal problems as I see them (literally – these are based in problems that people I’ve interviewed actually have).

1) Universal Credit is based on a truly terrifying government and political class contempt for people in poverty.

I have a lot to say on this, so let’s go:

The main point I want to make is that Universal Credit  is based entirely on the (false) premise that people in poverty are solely responsible for that poverty and any problems they have finding work. All Universal Credit problems flow from this political contempt.

The (highly misleading) idea behind Universal Credit (and its strict in-and-out-of-work jobfinding conditionaility) is that people only need a kick up the backside to get out of poverty. With Universal Credit, those kicks take the form of sanctions threats, constant reminders to find more hours in jobs that already pay almost nothing, and days on meaningless, fruitless, privately-provided “employability” courses.

In other words – if you’re poor, stop being poor, or else. That’s it.

This should make everyone furious.

It should make everybody furious, because it is entirely about government shifting blame for societal problems onto the shoulders of people who are least able to respond, or to take the financial burden. There is no acknowledgement whatsoever from government that the problems that land people in poverty might be external – that too many people these days can’t find enough decently-paid work to live on. I see this all the time, as does anyone who frequents foodbanks and jobcentres. It’s real.

Why does government think it has a free pass on this? There is no concession AT ALL to the fact that finding secure work which pays a wage that people can survive and thrive on is difficult, especially in some parts of the country, where it is incredibly difficult (I know this, because I travel around). There is no acknowledgement that government needs to address those problems before pointing the finger at the very people it has abandoned. There is also no concession that money which should be spent on wages and social security keeps disappearing into offshore tax havens. How long will this be tolerated?

Readers of this site will know I regularly interview people who experience these employment difficulties. I’ve interviewed cleaners, carers, housekeepers and people who work in warehouses and in other low-paid jobs. They all have the same problem – insecure employment, variable hours and low wages. They never get ahead. They never will. They never have the money to get ahead. They’re thousands of pounds behind, because they’re in debt. Welfare reforms such as council tax benefit cuts (and court fines for non-payment of council tax) and LHA and benefit caps pushed people into debt even before they were moved to Universal Credit.

As I see it (and I do see it, as I say) government’s answer to its own glaring job creation and wages failures is to set up a system such as Universal Credit and to tell people who receive it that they are responsible for the lack of local jobs and money, and that they need to pull finger to sort problems out. They must fix financial problems by meeting Universal Credit’s strict conditionallity rules and working endless hours for very little money in an unreliable, low-wage economy.

If anybody dares to supplement their non-income by thieving or dealing, they’re chucked in jail (I’ve lost count of the number of people on the breadline I’ve spoken to who’ve done time for such offences. Nobody seems to want to talk about that). It’s just a pity that the same strict rules for behaviour aren’t applied to all these tax dodgers we keep hearing about. Those people walk away from the havoc they create (or fly off in their private jets, or sail away in their yachts, or whatever).

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Total of 40 minutes and more on hold to the DWP’s Universal Credit Debt Management line

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Keeping a record of these things:

Yesterday morning, I made two calls to the DWP’s Debt Management “helpline” – the 0345 850 0293 number that people who receive benefits, including Universal Credit, must use to sort out problems with debt money that the DWP deducts from people’s Universal Credit payments.

I had to call twice yesterday (I didn’t have all the information that DWP Debt Management required the first time around. Unfortunately, I had to make the first call to find that out). I was on hold for more than 20 minutes both times to that 0345 850 0293 DWP Debt Management helpline, as you can see in the image below. I also called the line on Friday and was on hold for more than ten minutes, before I had to hang up to deal with something else.

As far as I can tell, this number has a charge. (I have a phone contract which covers those charges – that’s why I make calls for people who don’t). I hope this is one of the numbers that David Gauke has decided will be free soon. All helplines lines should have been free in the first place (I’d ask the DWP’s press office where things are at on all of these lines, but their answer to all my questions these days is to submit an FOI. So I have).

People who ring the DWP Debt Management helpline only ring that number because they have a debt problem and are in serious financial hardship. They can least afford extra charges for phone calls:

I was calling on behalf of young woman who claims Universal Credit and whose story I’ve been covering. She is concerned about deductions for child tax credit debt that the DWP is taking from her Universal Credit payments. She disputes the tax credit debt. The DWP has taken over tax credit debt recovery for Universal Credit claimants from the HMRC.

Trying to get to the bottom of disputes and problems with deductions from benefits like this literally takes forever. It really does. It drives people out of their minds. The whole “process,” is unbelievably stressful. I can’t emphasis strongly enough the difficulties we’re having just finding the right people to talk to – or getting through to anyone at all.

I called Universal Credit on Friday to try and understand who to contact. We wanted to do two things – challenge the tax credit debt and stop the reductions from benefit. Universal Credit said we’d have to speak to the HMRC about challenging the tax credit debt decision, and then to DWP Debt Management about stopping or reducing the deductions the DWP was taking from the Universal Credit payments each month.

Universal Credit gave me two different numbers to call. There was no suggestion that Universal Credit could just me put through to DWP Debt Management. I had to make new calls all over again. I’ve literally spent the time I’ve had available since then on hold to DWP Debt Management.

I post this, because I want to keep talking about the problems that people who are on the lowest incomes and most in need have with these systems. Waiting on hold to a debt management department for more than 20 minutes when you’ve got a serious debt and income problem is dreadful. It really is. People have complicated situations, too. I had to call Debt Management twice yesterday, as I say, because I didn’t have all the information needed when I made the first call. That sort of thing happens all the time. It meant I had to find the information, dial DWP Debt Management again and wait another 20+ minutes for the phone to be answered.

This really is the sort of thing that has people climbing the walls.

Why can’t/won’t the DWP send a #UniversalCredit claimant details of tax credit debt it is deducting?

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Not a trick question…

Readers of this site will know I’ve been working with a young woman in Colchester who receives Universal Credit. She is very concerned about the random amounts of money that the DWP suddenly started to deduct from her Universal Credit payments for an alleged tax credit debt.

The woman disputes the debt. She wants a chance to challenge it and to stop the deductions.

The DWP is taking over collection of tax credit debt from the HMRC for Universal Credit claimants. People are complaining that the DWP has started to deduct tax credit debt repayments without notice from their Universal Credit payments each month.

Problem is – people who want to challenge these deductions run into bureaucratic problems at every turn. It’s very hard not to feel this is intentional. It really, really is. Here’s an interview I posted yesterday with an Oldham woman who has the same tax credit debt problem.

Three weeks ago, the Colchester woman asked the DWP to send her a full statement and breakdown of her alleged tax credit debt. She wanted a statement which showed the debt and listed all repayments deducted from her benefits and tax credit claims for to date.

She’s found getting that information impossible.

On the phone, she was passed from the HMRC to the DWP to the DWP Debt Management department.

The DWP finally agreed to send her a statement history in a fortnight.

That was three weeks ago. The statement has not arrived.

This means the woman is no closer to being able to challenge the tax credit debt, or the DWP’s deductions from her Universal Credit payments.

The DWP’s bureaucratic failures and institutional indifference deny her that right. The department continues to deduct tax credit debt repayment money she can ill afford to lose from her Universal Credit payments.

She will go further into debt because of that – a point that should concern everyone. This woman just took out another Universal Credit advance payment to cover the tax credit debt deductions – having just finished paying back the Advance Payment she took out to cover payment delays when she started her Universal Credit claim (you can see that deduction in the image above).

The whole thing is absolutely hopeless. I’ll post more on it as we make further requests for statements and repayment histories. Continue reading →