Universal Credit is not the only horror show in town. The entire benefits system is wrecked. I’ll show you.

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Fact: Universal Credit is NOT the only benefit which plunges people into debt and desperation.

The entire benefit system is a wreck. Years of staff cuts, privatisation, jobcentre closures, sanctions, benefit delays and a brutal institutional contempt for claimants have left people reeling in a system that can’t even do the basics.

Universal Credit hasn’t gone wrong. It has gone exactly as planned. The application process is difficult. It excludes anyone who can’t use a PC, or navigate complex public sector bureaucracies. It has built-in delays which leave people in debt – rent arrears, in particular. Universal Credit strikes terror into anyone who might need it. Its depravity is entirely in keeping with welfare reform.

I understand why activists target Universal Credit. Universal Credit is a vicious ideological project which will adversely affect millions of working people (potential voters, that is). It has cost billions and will cost more. Its failures can be laid firmly at the door of Tory extremism.

The truth is, though, that every part of the safety net is in shreds. No politician will fix that easily. I’m not convinced that the electorate even wants the net fixed for a lot of people. Chaminda had that right. Destruction of welfare reflects an electorate view of the poorest. I’ve often spoken with people who are struggling mightily, but who agree with some degree of welfare reform. They receive benefits, but say that too many people get benefits when they shouldn’t.

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Computer Says No

Let’s take a look at a few typical experiences of people who sign on (or try to) at Stockport jobcentre. I attend Stockport United Against Austerity leafleting sessions at that jobcentre and interview people as they come out. Universal Credit rollout starts at Stockport this month. The jobcentre already has some UC claimants.

The interviews below were all made this year. I’ve picked three at random. Readers of this site will know that I have many others.

The theme of these interviews? – Exclusion. Each person went into the jobcentre with an issue and came out with the same issue. Nothing was fixed, or solved. People were no closer to answers to problems than they were when they went in. This is so commonplace that it is standard.

Here’s Kerry:

Kerry was in her 30s. She was out of work. She was trying to sign on for jobseekers’ allowance while she looked for work. Kerry Anne had a job interview set for the Tuesday after we met.

Kerry had filled in a JSA application form. Then, she’d received a DWP text which instructed her to attend a meeting at Stockport jobcentre to complete her JSA claim.

Kerry had turned up to the meeting – only to be told that her paperwork wasn’t adequate. An adviser told Kerry she needed three forms of ID to claim JSA. The meeting ended there.

When I met Kerry, she was standing outside the jobcentre trying to guess what the adviser was on about. Kerry didn’t have three forms of ID. Nobody does. The adviser had not explained what she’d meant.

Upshot: Kerry left the jobcentre no closer to JSA than she’d been when she arrived. She had no idea how to complete her application and no idea when – or even if – she’d get any money.

That sort of scenario is absolutely par for the course. One person after another leaves that jobcentre trying to work out what in hell to do next. There really are times when it feels as though people who try to claim benefits are forced participants in a hellish gameshow challenge – where the prize for navigating one obstacle is a cryptic hint about the next one. The thing is ridiculous. It goes on and on.

Next up: a man in his 30s called Steve.

Steve needed help to buy a cheap pram. Steve and his partner had a baby, but they couldn’t afford a pram for him. Without a pram, they just carried the baby around town.

On the day we met, the couple had asked the jobcentre for a social fund loan. The jobcentre said they couldn’t have one. Advisers said Steve was paying back another loan. Steve insisted that he wasn’t. This went on for a while. The jobcentre wouldn’t budge.

Continue reading →

Back next week. A few thoughts on Universal Credit until then…

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Back next week.

Will leave you with this thought about Universal Credit until then:

Universal Credit hasn’t gone wrong. It has gone exactly as planned.

The application process is difficult and convoluted. It excludes anyone who can’t use a PC, or who struggles to navigate complex public sector bureaucracies. It has built-in delays which leave people in debt as a matter of course – rent arrears, in particular. It really is no exaggeration to say that just about everybody I speak to at foodbanks and jobcentres these days is in debt.

Universal Credit strikes terror into anyone who might have to use it. That’s the whole idea. Its depravity is entirely in keeping with assaults on social security as we’ve seen them in the last decade or so. The replacing of DLA with PIP, the harshness of the ESA work capability assessment, the closure of the Independent Living Fund, the tightening of eligibility for social care, the caps to LHA – these so-called reforms have been as brutal. Universal Credit is the latest chapter in an evil story.

At Oldham foodbank, Universal Credit is the biggest problem by miles

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Was at Oldham foodbank last week (there’s a long interview from that session here).

I also had a long chat with Glenn, who is one of the foodbank volunteers.

He told me that:

  • about 75% of foodbank parcels went to people who were struggling because of Universal Credit problems. Rent arrears was a major issue.
  • the foodbank had seen about twice as many people this year as last year, largely for the above reason.
  • the foodbank came close to running out of supplies at times. People donated around Christmas and New Year, because there was a lot of awareness at that time, but things were different during other months.
  • more and more people who used the foodbank were in work. Glenn gave the example of people who were in cleaning jobs. Some people had two cleaning jobs, but could not meet their bills on their wages.

This certainly gels with service user reports.

I’ve published a lot of interviews on this site with people who’ve had to use Oldham foodbank in the last year or so. Literally everyone I’ve spoken to at each visit has been in debt – debts which have often run to thousands of pounds. Reasons have included rent arrears because of Universal Credit delays or LHA gaps, council tax arrears, court fines for arrears and PIP and other benefit delays. I’ve posted links to a few of those interviews below.

This welfare reform disaster has to be turned around one way or another. You can’t have people on the edge like this, especially with another freezing northern winter taking hold. Seriously. If the aim of welfare reform was to push people in poverty into debt, fear, agony and death, we’re at Mission Accomplished.

Enough.

#UniversalCredit, sanctions, rent arrears, radiation therapy, 8 people living in one small flat…what the hell does this achieve?

 

“I miss one bill [to] pay another.” Universal Credit and debt, debt, debt. More #foodbank interviews

 

When the stress of applying for disability benefits is dangerous to disabled people’s health…

 

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

“I got sanctioned nine months altogether – sanctioned, sanctioned, sanctioned.” And £2k rent arrears. No money for fares to work. More stories from the foodbank

 

 

#UniversalCredit, sanctions, rent arrears, radiation therapy, 8 people living in one small flat…what the hell does this achieve?

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When will modern society work out that hating and bullying people in poverty doesn’t eradicate poverty?

Last Wednesday, I spent several hours at Oldham foodbank, speaking with people who’d come in for food parcels. I visit Oldham foodbank from time to time.

On Wednesday, I had a long talk with Mel (name changed), 47. There’s a full transcript from that interview at the end of this article.

I’m posting this interview for a specific reason.

Mel and her family were on the receiving end of a great deal of government and public bile.

I want to show you how that looks from Mel’s side of the fence:

Mel talked about being patronised by frontline officers and targeted by people in the neighbourhood.

Universal Credit officers dismissed Mel when she rang the helpline because her benefits weren’t paid: “He [the DWP officer] said, “there’s thousands like you. You’re not the only one.”

A neighbour had dobbed Mel in with authorities – I think for housing extra family members in her flat.

A secretary at a local school had called Mel’s children and grandchildren dirty: “I didn’t actually punch her…I’m not a violent person but…yeah.”

The list went on. It usually does.

That’s the point I want to focus on here.

I know precisely what government and a judgmental electorate would say about Mel’s family. They would call Mel and her family scroungers. They would hate on the family and think – “Job Done. That’ll Learn Them.” (It’s only a pity that bailed-out bankers aren’t punished as thoroughly for their money-handling problems). Such is our era. The general view is that all that people in Mel’s situation need to sort things out is a kick in the head.

I don’t believe that bashing people when they’re already down is a brilliant social policy tactic. What I do know is that Mel and her family were being crushed by the dysfunctional and abusive public sector bureaucracies that they relied on. That part was absolutely not Mel’s fault. That part was society’s fault. Society approves of institutional aggression towards the worst off and likes to describe people in poverty as barbaric if they respond badly to that aggression. That’s how things roll for the Mels of the modern world.

Let’s start at the beginning.

Mel was ill. She said that she was having radiation therapy. She looked sick. She was tiny and gaunt, and her hair was thinning. She kept saying that she looked old. She was upset about it.

“I’ve got two weeks left of radiation… two weeks left of treatment, three times a week. I look old.”

There were other problems, too – like Mel needed them.

One problem was that Mel was receiving Universal Credit. Universal Credit’s defective payment systems had caused Mel no end of grief. For example: Mel had rent arrears. She couldn’t understand why, because the housing costs component of her Universal Credit was paid straight to her landlord. Her rent should have been covered. It hadn’t been at one point or another, and she didn’t know why. Mel kept getting letters from First Choice Homes about the arrears. She couldn’t repay the money. She would never be able to repay the money. The demand letters kept coming. This happens too often to mention. The threats roll in and roll in. There’s no respite. The debts never end.

So, there was that.

Another problem was that Mel’s flat was overcrowded. Her children and grandchildren were staying with her, because they had nowhere else to go.

Mel said she had seven (sometimes eight) people living in her two-bedroom flat. There was Mel, her five-year-old daughter, her 26-year-old daughter, the daughter’s partner and their three kids (and sometimes another daughter, I think Mel said). The 26-year-old daughter and her family had recently been evicted from their flat, because the landlord had wanted to sell.

There was more.

At the moment, the family relied on Mel’s benefit money to pay for food and clothes. Mel’s daughter had applied for Universal Credit, but had only received one payment in ten months. Continue reading →

Worried about being moved to the same borough as your violent ex-partner’s family? Tough. Get going.

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Here’s a paragraph from a council letter which dismisses a homeless woman’s concerns about being moved to the same borough as members of her violent ex-partner’s family.

You need to see this. It is a common example of the sort of thing that homeless households are told when they challenge a council decision to send them out of borough:

The letter from the council officer says:

“You advised me that your ex partner who you fled whilst residing at [word removed] due to domestic violence. His [word removed] lives in [word removed], but you could not provide me with details such as address or full name but you were confident that [word removed] lives in [word removed]. I looked at your previous notes on file, your housing officer at that time made enquiries with the police, police confirmed that they did not state that you were not safe in the borough of…. were [sic] you fled from, neither did they exclude [word removed] as a risk area and your last reported incident was July 2016…Based on all the information this would suggest that the incidents are historic…”

Really.

I’m seeing more and more letters where every single one of a homeless family’s reasons for wanting to stay in the area that they know are dismissed out of hand by their council.

People tell their council that they want to stay in their borough for their children’s schools, for important health services, for local networks they rely on, and even for safety. They’re entitled to ask their councils to consider these circumstances when councils are looking at where to house them.

Unfortunately, none of the points that homeless families raise seem to rate. People are perfectly entitled to ask a council to review its choice of home for them, but they might as well not bother. I get the distinct feeling that decisions to send homeless people away are made before people even walk through a council’s doors.

So.

The recipient of this letter, Christine (named changed), is a young homeless Newham mother.

Christine and her children live in a single room temporary accommodation flat. They’ve been there for a year. Christine says Newham council told Christine that the accommodation would be short term. She and the kids are still there – all living in one tiny room together.

In its letter, Newham council says that Christine’s only option for longer-term housing is a privately rented flat in another borough (I’m withholding the name of the borough, because of Christine’s safety concerns).

Christine says the council has told her that she risks making herself intentionally homeless if she refuses to go.

But Christine has good reasons for not wanting to go.

As we’ve seen, one of those good reasons is that Christine doesn’t want to move to the area that the council proposes because a member of her violent ex-partner’s family lives there.

Christine’s problem is that she has not been able to prove that easily. Christine says she isn’t even sure where to start.

This problem comes up time and time again when homeless people ask for housing help from councils (and for benefits help from the DWP).

People can’t always give councils or the DWP the evidence and/or paperwork that the excessively bureaucratic public sector demands. Not everyone who has spent years moving from one crappy rental to another has a tidy and up-to-date filing cabinet or contacts book.

Nonetheless, public sector bureaucracies demand paperwork and evidence, evidence, evidence. I’ve sat in meetings with people who’ve been denied crucial rent money because the officer in front of them has decided that another piece of paper is required. Forcing stressed people to chase and present pieces of paper and official letters so that they can get benefits and housing is one of austerity’s special tortures. Continue reading →

Working for nothing, accused of fraud, sent on unchanging CV courses: owned by the DWP when you’re older and unemployed

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Back to Stockport jobcentre – where I recently spoke at length with Ben (named changed). I’ve posted the transcript below.

Ben was 58 and long-term unemployed. Ben did not think that his situation would change soon.

The DWP was after Ben on several fronts.

The DWP is often after people on several fronts.

The department refuses to leave people alone for five minutes. The department drags people to compliance interviews, sends people on useless “employability” courses and makes people attend jobcentres to sit in front of computers and apply online for jobs they never hear about again.

None of this is about helping people find work. It’s about something sinister. It’s about standing over people who are least likely to find work. It’s about reminding people who are out of work that they are not entitled to even a little autonomy. There’s a whole industry devoted to making sure that people who are long-term unemployed are permanently under the thumb.

If you’re out of work and signing on, the DWP owns you.

The DWP certainly owned Ben.

For starters, the DWP was coming for Ben on compliance.

People are called to compliance interviews when the DWP wants to accuse them of earning while claiming, or having secret savings, or whatever. I’ve seen more compliance letters over the years than I care to count. The amounts of money are rarely startling and anyway, the DWP’s accusations are often completely wrong. This doesn’t stop the department frightening the hell out of people by firing out fraud accusations. If you’re out of work, government likes to take any opportunity to rough you up. If there isn’t an opportunity to rough you up on the immediate horizon, government creates one.

Ben had received a compliance letter and a call from the DWP that morning.

The DWP had accused Ben of earning a bit of money and not declaring it.

Ben was furious about this. He was angry about the accusation and, it turned out, about the problems that working a few days had caused him.

Ben had worked as a security guard for three days and had been paid, and declared that. Then he worked another three days as a security guard, but the company he’d worked for that time never paid him.

This happens ALL the time, just so that you know. People land few days’ work with some fly-by-night company and/or sub-sub-subcontracted contractor, but they never get the pay they were promised. They can either go to war with the company in question to get their money, or they can let it go and hope things work out better next time. It’s not much of a choice.

Said Ben:

“I’ve just had an accusation this morning… they sent me a…I have a [compliance] interview… that’s the letter [Ben showed me the compliance letter that the DWP had sent]. It’s a compliance thing. I’ve been accused of working…and I haven’t… this other company, I worked for them in August in the hospital for three days – three 12-hour days. They never paid me. I didn’t get slips or anything. They [the DWP] said, “Oh, you were working.” I said, “I never got anything except a uniform they sent me…” They’re [the security company] probably saying, “he’s got the uniform. We’re not going to pay him…”

So, there was that.

Continue reading →

Universal Credit, not allowed to use jobcentre phones to secure work, sent on a course called Changing Attitudes…

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Here’s another example of farcical jobcentre operations. How many of these have I got:

I recently attended another leafleting sessions at Stockport jobcentre with Stockport United Against Austerity.

I spoke at length outside the jobcentre with Mark, 46.

Mark had been on Universal Credit for two years.

Mark was fuming.

Mark had been given a number to call about voluntary work at a Stockport Homes cafe – but the jobcentre wouldn’t let him use the jobcentre phones to call the number to arrange an interview. He couldn’t believe it. Well – he could believe it, because being told to get lost is par for the course at jobcentres, but you know what I mean.

Said Mark:

“I can’t get even get a fucking job as a fucking roadsweeper… do you know what I mean? Volunteering… I thought that having that on my CV it would be better than [nothing]…[but] they won’t even let you use the phone…”

There was more.

Mark said that the previous week, he’d had been sent on a course called something like Changing Attitudes, or about changing attitudes. Something cute like that.

The course was about changing Mark’s attitude to unemployment. It was not, alas, about changing the DWP’s attitude to unemployment. Stories about not allowing unemployed people to use jobcentre phones to set up voluntary work suggested the DWP was in urgent need of its own course. The DWP does get these things arse-about.

Still, Mark decided to enter the spirit of the course. He decided to ask around for voluntary work. Unfortunately, the DWP’s rigid refusal to provide the most basic services had turned Mark’s morning into a trial.

I find this so often at jobcentres: people wandering around outside, trying to understand what just happened, or didn’t happen, inside the jobcentre and why they are no closer to work, or even solutions to basic problems, than they were when they went in. They are told to Go Away as soon as they step in – to go away and find their own phones, or to go away and get another bank statement, or medical certificate, or piece of paper to prove an address, or to go away and look online for answers to their problems.

The DWP does not prioritise sorting people’s problems out. The DWP prioritises pushing people out the door. The DWP is good at that part.

Mark said:

“They put us on the training course last week… it was changing attitudes to it all [laughs]… [They said] instead of thinking outside the box, think inside the box – so I’m thinking I might just become a volunteer instead of signing off. Everything has been for nothing.”

Never was a truer sentence spoken. Everything people do at the jobcentre is for nothing. If you’re wondering why the average bloke in the street is so pissed off at the world at the moment, it is because everything people are told to do is for nothing. I gave Mark my phone to use for his call. It turned out the number that he had was wrong as well. What a circus. Continue reading →

Islington council: Dunno how many disabled people we have stuck in inaccessible flats or buildings they can’t get out of. Wouldn’t tell you anyway

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Readers of this site will know that I’ve been posting stories about Ann Sparling, a 47-year-old disabled woman who can’t leave her 4th floor Islington council flat, because she can’t walk up or down the four flights of stairs. There is no lift in her building.

I asked the Islington Council press office what procedures the council had in place for ensuring that people in Ann’s situation wouldn’t be stuck in their flats in an emergency.

I also asked if the council knew how many disabled people were trapped in similar situations.

Got no answers there.

Ann reported, however, that when a council officer finally got in contact with Ann about her situation, the council officer wondered the same sort of thing – “wonder how many people are stuck in the same situation?”

Ever the trier, I sent an FOI to Islington in August with those questions.

The answers were hopeless.

For example:

Q: How many of those households with a disabled member who are requesting transfers are requesting ground floor flats, because they are housed in flats which are up one or more flights of stairs?

Answer: “We are unable to answer this question. Housing information (e.g. the floor level of a property) and Adult Social Care information (e.g. whether a service user has a disability) are stored on different systems and it is not possible to cross reference this information.”

and:

Q: How many households with a disabled member of the household are currently housed in council flats which are inaccessible to disabled people?

Answer: “…For those with existing tenancies in council properties, the council would only be aware if a resident is disabled if they self-identify as such and have notified the council. Additionally, housing information (e.g. the floor level of a property) and Adult Social Care information (e.g. whether a service user is disabled) are stored on different systems and it is not possible to cross reference this information.”

I’m not even sure what that means. I do know that notifying the council re: your disability and needing a transfer because of it means absolutely nothing. Ann notified the council of her situation several years ago and has sent no end of paperwork since, but remained stuck in her flat.

This is garbage. How many disabled people are stuck in flats in buildings that they can’t easily leave? What happens to those people an emergency? What happens if the fire brigade asks if there are disabled people stuck in inaccessible flats? Do they get the same Computer Says No? Does anybody care?

This disabled Islington woman is a prisoner in her inaccessible flat. How many others are stuck like this?

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Last week, I wrote about Islington woman Ann Sparling, 47.

Ann lives in a 4th floor Islington council flat with her daughter, who is 15 and her son, who is 17. Ann has serious osteoarthritis in her knees. She’s had surgery several times. She walks with crutches. She is in constant pain.

There is no lift in Ann’s building. She must use the stairs to leave the building.

Ann can’t walk up and down these stairs. She recently stayed in the flat for 41 days straight, because her knees were bad and she found the stairs impossible. Occasionally, on a better day, Ann’s children help her down the stairs so that she can go outside. They hold onto her as she walks the steps. Ann’s children are her carers. They help her in and out of the bath and do the shopping, and so on.

Ann lives in fear of fire, or an emergency, because she can’t leave the flat by herself. She’s trapped.

I went to see Ann on Sunday. These are the stairs that she is expected to navigate:

Ann first asked Islington council to move her to an accessible flat three years ago. Nothing happened.

Last week, when people started tweeting this post, things started to happen – after a fashion. A council officer called Ann to collect her details and note down her difficulties. The council sent Ann a form for an occupational therapy assessment.

That was a start.

Ann’s problems will only be solved, of course, when she is moved to an accessible flat.

The council was reluctant to give me a timeframe for that, or to get down to specifics.

Any specifics, that is.

I asked the council several times how many sick, disabled and elderly people are stuck in the isolated and potentially lethal situation described here. I’ve asked the council about this several times.

This is crucial. Since my last post, people in different parts of the country have been in touch to say that disabled family members have indeed been stuck in inaccessible flats.

Ann says that the officer who spoke to her last week wondered the same thing: “[the officer said] it makes you wonder how many people are in the same way.”

Islington council refuses to answer questions about the number of people in Ann’s situation. Nor will the council say what plans it has in place to make sure that people who live in inaccessible housing can get out in an emergency. Does the council even know who and where everybody in this sort of situation is?

I think that the council does not.

The council sent me the usual We’re In A Housing Crisis statement – as opposed to answers:

“London is in the grip of a major housing crisis…There is a desperate need for secure, genuinely affordable housing to help people in very difficult circumstances…The council is doing everything it can to help tackle this problem and help residents into safe, genuinely affordable homes…” etc, etc.

That, as I say, is a statement, not an answer. I know London is in the grip of a housing crisis. Problem is that disabled people and people in poverty are expected to take the deadly fallout.