Universal Credit advance payments fix nothing. They’re just loans – and ANOTHER debt for people who have no money

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Getting very sick of Tory claims that Universal Credit advance payments solve the serious financial problems caused by the mandatory six weeks (it’s often longer) that people must wait for their first Universal Credit payment. This claim is a total fudge.

Let’s say this loud and clear: Universal Credit advance payments are LOANS. They must be repaid (you can read full details of the Universal Credit advance payment system on the CAB site). They’re not much-needed extras. They’re advances on people’s Universal Credit money and must be repaid out of people’s benefits.

That means that the DWP claws the money back when people’s Universal Credit claims are up and running. The DWP deducts advance payment loan money from people’s benefits at source. Those deductions mean that for months, people who were already in hardship (people who receive advance payments are in hardship by definition) get a smaller Universal Credit payment than they were expecting.

I’ve posted an example at the top of this article – an advance payment deduction notice from the Universal Credit journal of a Croydon/Colchester claimant I wrote about yesterday.

There’s another issue. The DWP makes mistakes with repayment totals – mistakes which cause people a great deal of stress and which they must try and sort out using Universal Credit’s unreliable online systems. For example: the woman who is paying back the advance payment in the notice above got a notice in her Universal Credit journal this year which said the DWP would deduct £528 that month. You can imagine how she felt when she saw that notice in her online account. She wasn’t even liable for payments listed in the notice:

When this sort of thing happens, people must spend ages on the phone to the DWP and online trying to sort the problem out – and trying to make sure, in this case, that the Universal Credit payment that month wasn’t £528 short. That deduction would have been a disaster. People who struggle to use online systems have no chance at all when these many mistakes happen. I’ve written in detail about problems JSA and Income Support claimants had and still have with DWP loan deductions. Some deductions put people in real hardship.

Let’s not forget either that often people who need advance Universal Credit payments already have other debts because of extra costs heaped on them by welfare reform – council tax debts and court costs, rent arrears and plenty more. The young woman in yesterday’s article had serious council tax and court debts, and tax credit repayment demands in the past two years. A deduction for a Universal Credit advance payment loan quickly becomes just another debt problem. Advance payments don’t solve problems caused by that six (and more) weeks that Universal Credit claimants must endure with no money.

All a Universal Credit advance payment does is push shortfall problems back for a short time – ie, until after Tory party conference is over and attention has moved from Universal Credit.

Does my head in, this. Just pay people their Universal Credit entitlement from the day they make their claim and be done with it. Any other so-called “fix” is garbage.

Universal Credit: You must look for work in Colchester by calling Croydon jobcentre. #wtf #IAmLostHere

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Another example of Universal Credit lunacy:

I’m speaking with a young Universal Credit claimant who lives in Colchester BUT must carry out benefit compliance activities through Croydon jobcentre. Instructions for her work-related activities come from Croydon jobcentre. She must participate in work-focused “telephone appointments” with Croydon jobcentre from her flat in Colchester.

This is ludicrous. This woman has to look for work in Colchester by calling Croydon jobcentre.

Wtf.

This arrangement has yielded no results as far as finding work goes.

Which is hardly surprising. Croydon jobcentre surely knows next to nothing about Colchester’s employment scene (I’ve been to meetings at Croydon jobcentre and have to say they seemed to struggle with things even in Croydon). Colchester is 72 miles, two hours and several overpriced train journeys from Croydon according to gmaps and the national rail planner. Finding work locally takes local knowledge. People need a local jobcentre. Ironically enough, they need local jobcentres more than ever as Universal Credit is rolled out. Universal Credit is supposed to be a world-beating online benefits-and-job-finding experience, but there are so many problems with it that people inevitably want and need face-to-face help. They don’t trust the DWP to give quick answers or help online.

This sort of convoluted “telephone appointments from elsewhere” situation must affect people all over the place. It apparently came about because Colchester doesn’t have full Universal Credit and won’t until April 2018. This woman made her initial Universal Credit claim at Croydon (a monumental headache in itself. She went weeks without money). Then, she moved to Colchester for cheaper housing. Her Universal Credit claim remained in Croydon, because Colchester can’t manage her claim. Continue reading →

Universal Credit rollout put back a year in North Kensington (Grenfell area)

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Looks like the full UC rollout in North Kensington goes back nearly a year. Just got this gov.uk email alert:

“10:02am, 27 September 2017. The date for roll-out of Universal Credit full service in postcode areas administered by North Kensington Jobcentre has changed from 4 October 2017 to 26 September 2018. These postcodes are: W8, W10 5, W10 6, W10 9 and W11.”

Rollout in North Kensington was halted after the Grenfell fire.

These rollouts are all over the place. Complete shambles and they know it. I have some upcoming posts with examples.

Is there too much focus on student loans, credit cards and other “middle class” debt?

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A few thoughts on Labour’s plans to cap credit card interest payments to ease card debt:

I feel that the debt troubles of a particular group of people are being sidelined in the recent flurry of mainstream news stories about debt (have written about this in detail in recent times)

We’re hearing a great deal in the mainstream about student loans and student debt, and about credit card and car payment debt  – debt that particularly concerns the middle and voting classes, as people on twitter have observed.

We’re hearing a lot less about the debts that are crushing people who are most marginalised:

Examples of those debts and costs:

– The council tax debt and outrageous court costs that are added to debts when people are summonsed to court for council tax non-payment

– The bailiff costs that rise by tens and hundreds of pounds each time a bailiff hammers on a door to demand council tax and other debt repayments

– The impossible landlord demands for rent shortfall money when housing benefit or Universal Credit don’t cover escalating rents

– The exorbitant court charges people must pay when eviction battles go to court (£355 for a woman on Income Support in this example).

– The DWP deductions from benefits for loans and advance payments that people must request to cover costs, Universal Credit start delays and all the rest.

– The sudden loss of income when Employment and Support Allowance recipients are found fit for work and told their ESA payments will stop.

Student loan debt and credit card debt are of course important topics. They’re not exclusive to the middle and/or voting classes. They just affect people who have a voice and use it. My point is that the crushing council tax demands, rent shortfall problems, benefit stops and delays, and court costs that keep the poorest people in debt are equally important. Payday loan regulation hardly addresses those problems.

If we’re going to talk about devastating debt which destroys lives, let’s include everyone in the discussion. Policy must be written for people who are the most marginalised, as well as people who are likely to vote. Such policy should be promoted and publicised as enthusiastically as any call for a card interest cap.

Throwing marginalised people a lifeline is not “being soft on welfare,” you know. It’s being humane – and fiscally responsible, I would have thought.

How many damn times does the DWP need to assess unchanged disability?

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Working with a man in his 50s who has just received a letter which calls him to yet another face to face Employment and Support Allowance assessment.

This has to be at least the fourth and probably fifth ESA assessment he’s been called to in three or four years. I attended two of the things with him myself. There have been so many letters from the DWP on this and PIP that we have actually lost count.

This man’s health and disability has not changed over the last few years. If anything, his health has deteriorated because of these constant assessments and the associated stress about the amount of money he will have from one week to the next. Services in his part of the country – particularly mental health services – have about completely disappeared. Even the organisation which used to help him fill in the DWP’s endless application forms is no more. His local MP is some useless Tory.

This assessment this man must attend is a complete waste of time. The DWP is perfectly aware of his health and his issues – or it should be after assessing him so often. Presume Maximus is the only outfit doing well out of this. Meanwhile, this bloke is being harassed out of sight by the DWP. He has also been put through an awful grind to get PIP. That took about a year.

This so called system is out of control. Even rightwing anti tax types ought to be waking up to this dreadful waste of time and money. This government and ridiculous Tory party is criminal. They refuse to take responsibility for this disgrace. They allow this non stop harassment of people most in need. They continue to pay the likes of Maximus god knows what to carry out these pointless assessments – they already know what an assessment will show. Is anyone in government even in charge of day-to-day operations anymore?

 

Why are we talking about student debt but not benefit debt?

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Article about benefit debt by me on Open Democracy today

We need an amnesty on benefit debt NOW.

The state and its ‘providers’ are crushing people with debt. Rather than helping people, organisations like councils and the DWP own people. The problem is as urgent as student debt – and an amnesty is long overdue.

A string of so-called welfare reforms mean that people are paying extra costs they could never afford in the first place – the bedroom tax, rent shortfalls because of LHA caps and benefit caps, council tax because of council tax benefit cuts and exorbitant court costs when they’re taken to court for non-payment. People lose their ESA, face Universal Credit delays and are often paying off DWP loans. They must try to sort these problems out by dealing with horrendously dysfunctional, bare bones public sector bureaucracies that can’t deliver.

People are in debt – probably permanently – to councils, the DWP and housing providers. These are the very organisations that are supposed to support (ha) people most in need.

I meet people who owe hundreds and even several thousand pounds to councils, courts, housing associations, the DWP, bailiffs and all the rest.

In work or not, people will never have the money to get out. They will never have the income. Incomes are too small and debts are too large.

Read the whole article here.

It’s disgusting that people most in need are excluded from help by useless benefits application systems

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And I’m back…with another example of the flawed and downright nonsensical systems people must use to apply for benefits.

This post is about an application for Personal Independence Payment. What a drawn-out mess this one has been:

Regular readers will know that I’ve written several articles this year about Paul, an Oldham man in his 60s. Paul has a heart condition and a defibrillator implant. He has problems with pain and walking, and depression.

Paul is also homeless – or as near to homeless as people can be without actually sleeping on the street. When we first met this year, Paul was living in a tiny, grotty, falling-apart static caravan on an Oldham campsite. First Choice Homes, the local homelessness office, considered Paul adequately housed in that caravan. More recently, Paul’s been living in temporary hotel accommodation. He was moved, because a man living on the caravan site threatened him. I mention Paul’s housing situation, because unstable, insecure housing has a real bearing on people’s attempts to claim benefits. We’ll get to that.

Let’s look at the dreadful PIP application “system” as Paul has experienced it. A person of Paul’s age and with his health and housing problems should NOT have to struggle as he has to get support. Nonetheless, this often-hopeless PIP application system is considered adequate for sick and disabled people who are most in need. This has to change. Now.

Until the end of last year, Paul received Disability Living Allowance. In December 2016, the DWP sent Paul a letter to say his DLA would end (DLA is being phased out and pretty much everyone will have their DLA claim closed and have to apply for PIP). Paul had to apply for the new Personal Independence Payment if he still wanted disability support.

Applying for PIP meant Paul had to take these steps:

– Request an application form

– Gather medical certificates and doctors’ letters to support his application

– Attend a face-to-face assessment to explain to an assessor why he should receive PIP.

You may think these steps were/are straightforward. They are not.

Paul experienced four major problems with his application:

– The DWP didn’t know which papers it had received from him. This confused and concerned Paul greatly, because he’d posted sensitive medical information

– Paul wasn’t sent a date and time for a face-to-face assessment. He says he was never told that an assessment date had been set. The DWP closed his claim for missing the face-to-face appointment he didn’t know about. Paul was denied PIP and had to start his application again. He had no recourse. (I’ve been in touch with another person who had a similar experience. John Pring at Disability News Service has reported on this problem in detail).

– A second face-to-face appointment for the second claim was cancelled at the last minute. This set Paul’s application back another fortnight.

– Texts that Paul received from the DWP made absolutely no sense. Two texts said the DWP hadn’t received Paul’s application forms – forms he’d sent. Shortly after those texts arrived (half-an-hour after in one case), Paul received texts which said the DWP actually HAD received the forms. I’ve seen these texts. This “no, we haven’t received your sensitive information – oh, hang on, yes, we have,” stuff really upsets people who must trust these bureaucracies with sensitive medical details. Continue reading →

Student debt dominates debate – but where’s the political sympathy for people crushed by council tax debt, DWP loans, rent arrears and sanctions debt?

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I have an article on the debts people owe in austerity at politics.co.uk today:

Student debt dominates headlines – but why don’t we hear arguments for writing off debt for people who austerity has crushed with council tax charges, DWP loan repayments, sanctioned benefits, rent arrears, court fines and all the rest? Where’s the political sympathy for writing off debt for these people? Where are the headlines for that?

“Staying housed, battling bailiffs, fighting councils for housing, sorting out benefit sanctions and paying rent arrears, fines and DWP loans really is a full time job. Benefits are constantly threatened and sanctioned by the DWP. Housing benefit and paying rent becomes a mess when people shift their claims to Universal Credit. People end up with rent arrears because their local housing allowance doesn’t cover their private sector rent. They are charged court costs for eviction and struggle to get council help for a new place… People are paying council tax arrears. They’re paying back loans to the DWP which go on and on. The letters and demands pour through the door. They’re in hock to the state and its providers forever. That’s the point. The system isn’t helping these people. It owns them. They can’t get out, because they’re not allowed out. It’s time that the political class stopped insisting they try.”

Read the rest here.

Why does it take the DWP so long to process sick notes? Why must people put up with such useless systems?

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Feel free to email your views and experiences on this if you don’t want to leave a comment. I know many of you have canvassed this topic in recent times:

In the past fortnight, I’ve called the DWP’s 0345 600 0723 Universal Credit line twice to ask about the best place to send the sick notes (DWP calls them fit notes I think) which excuse benefit claimants from jobsearch activities. Sick notes are crucial when a Universal Credit claimant is sick or injured. They explain why people can’t work or carry out jobsearch activities. Benefits can be sanctioned if people miss job activities without a medical note.

Problem is this. People raise concerns with me about sick notes and other communications to the DWP not being properly recorded, or taking ages to process, or being processed out of order, or apparently not even arriving when posted to the DWP. God knows what’s going on with all of this. You should see the masses of paperwork that goes to and from the DWP and benefit claimants. Keeping track is a nightmare.

Last week, I called the DWP after speaking to a volunteer at South Chadderton foodbank. Her 40-year-old son had his Universal Credit sanctioned in June. He’d been about to start a warehouse job in May when he broke his wrist. His sick note from his doctor should have excused him from the placement and jobsearch activities. Something went wrong. He was sanctioned. His mother wondered if there’d been a problem with the processing of his sick note. Nobody was sure at the time of interview. The DWP still hadn’t sent a letter explaining the reasons for the sanction. People were still trying to guess what had happened.

Because I’d spoke to this woman and because others have raised this issue, I decided to call the Universal Credit line to ask general questions about the best place to send sick notes. I especially wanted to know if people everywhere could drop their sick notes in at their jobcentres, or if they should send them in to the DWP’s Freepost address.

Four points emerged from those phone calls (one made on 14 July and the other on 17 July). All four were cause for concern, so I’m putting them here. Feel free to weigh in.

1) The DWP seems to have a sick-note processing backlog of some description, so claimants must allow time for sick notes to be processed. The officer I spoke to last Monday said that UC claimants should allow up to seven days for sick notes to be processed: “because obviously they’re [staff are] so busy.” People online report delays of ten days for DWP mail processing.

That “obviously they’re so busy,” is a line I’m sick of hearing. Why are delays in this area considered so acceptable? Why must benefit claimants always wait and wait before their information is dealt with? The people who use these so-called systems are on extremely limited incomes. Those incomes depend on the right paperwork getting to the right people IMMEDIATELY. Everything can go wrong if it doesn’t. Claimants could be sanctioned if they missed a jobsearch activity while an explanatory sick note was stuck in a pile. If there are processing delays because staff are “so busy,” someone needs to hire more staff.

Continue reading →