Why you can’t rely on getting a sympathetic DWP work coach

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A few thoughts on now-legendary government plans to have jobcentre work coaches decide whether people are fit to work and how hard:

There are many problems with this hogwash, but the one we’ll talk about today is the pot luck element (already a problem). Sick and disabled people in such a system will have to rely on fair treatment from work coaches (already very much hit and miss). Put simply, people will have to hope that they get a work coach who isn’t a punitive twat.

Which isn’t always a sure thing. Some frontline officers are decent. Others, alas, really are out to lunch.

I’ve been thinking about this, because I recently had a long conversation with a frontline DWP officer who, just a few minutes in, struck me as totally gone.

This person was a universal credit case manager who, funnily enough, was on a Stockport PCS picket line, striking for better pay. I was interviewing strikers and talked with this case manager at length. Actually – this person talked to me at length. I mostly stood there wondering why I’d been born.

This caseworker couldn’t have channelled Mel Stride better if they’d actually been Mel Stride. The caseworker said it all: benefit claimants were lazy, their mental health problems were bogus, that anyone could be a millionaire if they tried (wasn’t sure about this, given that the strikers were out for a few measly percent) and – slight tangent – that social media turned people into turkeys (have to say I agreed with that one).

Anyway.

The red flags went up early on, but the one I’ll start with waved vigorously at me – when the caseworker said that benefit claimants should model themselves on Elon Musk.

“[When] Elon Musk started out people were saying, “electric cars, mate – that’s not going to take off.” He’s now outstripping Toyota, because he showed up. That’s all we ask claimants to do.”

Oh goody, I thought. Bet this plays well. As a caseworker, our comrade here had the power to start (or not start) benefit claims, to stop payments, to read about people’s health and their personal circumstances, and to make decisions about their incomes on the basis of that.

Knowing this and hearing the Musk thing, your hopes for a fair world tank. When you spend hours with claimants who have literacy problems, health problems, age problems and work-related injuries, etc, the last person you want to hear from is another frontline clown who believes that getting work – and getting Musk-rich for that matter – is entirely a matter of the right stuff and backbone. No matter if your backbone is crumbling, or full of arthritis, or whatever it is. No matter if you apply for job after job, but can’t buy an interview because of your age. Our caseworker didn’t really touch on the many and often complicated reasons why people don’t work, apart from suggesting that too many of them arse around on facebook.

“Anything is possible,” the caseworker said. “They talk about the American dream. The dream is all around you.”

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Jeremy Hunt: curing old age and disability one cadaver at a time

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To the real world then! – and the “time to boot lazy old and/or disabled benefit claimants into work” concepts launched at claimants yesterday by legendary civic thinker Jeremy Hunt.

Can’t wait for this. A “voluntary” (don’t laugh) back to work scheme for any disabled people who weren’t bumped off during austerity’s first pass, an over-50s apprenticeship thing to keep not-rich older people grinding in harness so that they drop dead before pension age, and the now-famous plan to force claimants to jobcentres repeatedly for back-to-work meetings with overstretched job coaches who already don’t have time to see clients for more than ten minutes. What’s not to love?

The subtext, of course, is that the only reason people don’t work, or don’t work until their hair bleeds, is because they’re lazy. Disability, old age, mental health issues, sickness – in Hunt’s mind, that stuff is all just panto.

Except that it is not. It really is not.

The “lazy claimants” innuendo is actually the laziest part of Hunt’s gobfest. I can say that for a fact, because as luck would have it, I’ve recently been speaking at length with benefit claimants at a job club in the Stockport suburb of Brinnington (I’m interviewing people for a new book I’m writing).

Intriguingly, this job club has not served up the legions of idlers that Hunt would have you believe are lying around in places like Brinnie and enjoying your taxes via the medium of weed. Actually, the main activity that most people I’ve met are involved in is trying to exist at the rough end of a world run by gobshites and sociopaths such as Jeremy Hunt.

The people I’ve spoken with so far have been older and/or ill (one with a heart condition, but recently employed as a cleaner, and one guy in his 60s who’d been working at McDonald’s), or facing age bias from employers after 40+ years of work and then redundancy, or, in one case, trying to avoid being murdered by Putin. I spoke last week to a 26-year-old Ukranian woman called Nataliia who showed me a picture of a pile of rubble where part of her hometown once stood. She was working as a translator for Stockport council and looking for a permanent job in her field of expertise.

On older people though: You find a lot of older people at these jobs clubs, for the simple reason that the pension age keeps disappearing over the horizon and some people manage to cling to life as it moves.

For example – I spoke at length last Friday with M, who is 64. M had worked for nearly 50 years – the last 34 of them in for the same employer in retail in a curtain manufacturer’s showroom. But then, “my boss decided to retire and went into voluntary liquidation. There was 9 of us [working there]. In January this year, we were unemployed.”

At 64, M was still a way off pension age. This is a garbage situation in itself. Anyone who is even partly civilised knows that when you get to 60, you should be able to retire if you want to, or if you need to. You shouldn’t be forced to scrabble around for painful ways to drag yourself over a ever-fading finish line. “I’m struggling in lots of ways, because I don’t have a lot of computer skills,” said M. She’d signed on for new-style jobseekers’ allowance, because when she was made redundant, she expected to find another retail job pretty fast.

Except that she hadn’t. There were 2 problems here: age bias and health. “I’ve applied for lots of retail jobs [even] before I became unemployed,” M said. “I do think they look at your age. There have been times when I’ve had to send my passport off to prove who I am – and then I don’t get any contact.” Continue reading →

Why universal credit caseworkers strike

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I recently went to one of the Stockport universal credit caseworker strike pickets. Not a bad morning, all told – picked up a few learnings re: the reasons why people still find the universal credit system a washout.

Certainly, a lot of things fell into place when 2 striking caseworkers told me that at any one time, caseworkers at the Stockport centre have 400+ universal credit cases each. Actually, they have about 1400 each, but estimated that generally, about 35% of them are live.

“WHAT?” I yelled, unsuitably. “You can’t keep on top of that.”

Obviously, the strikers knew that they couldn’t keep on top of that. That was why they were on strike. Too many cases, too few staff and every day on the job spent trying, and often failing, to keep on top of the sorts of numbers that you’d need half a morning just to count up to.

“We work too hard for too little money…they [the DWP] are not replacing any staff when people leave, retire, or when they move on.”

Sounded about right. It’ll be news to nobody who has been following nursing and paramedic strikes, and endless other walkouts, that this government does not invest in public sector workers, or their wages, or their health, for that matter. Think the cabinet is a bit short of members who know what it is like to work past the point of exhaustion.

The striking caseworkers described the average day to me. They fire up their PCs and open their case manager dashboards. They go through new claims – new applications for universal credit that have to be checked and started. They deal with the cases about payment problems – a big part of the day, I imagine, given the number of people I meet at jobcentres, or talk with on whatsapp who say they’ve been paid the wrong amount, or can’t pay their bills after the DWP has hoiked money out for debt repayments and so on. Then, there are the blocked cases – the applications, or investigations, that are on hold while missing paperwork, or medical notes, or responses from other authorities, or whatever it is, are sorted out.

“Then, if we’ve got time, we can get to our journal messages,” one of the strikers said.

“Invariably, we don’t get to the journal messages,” the other striker said.

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Taking bets on when this council block will collapse

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We return today to Brassett Point, the waterlogged Newham council block where the pipework down one whole side of the building is so wrecked that daily life for residents is an actual shower of shit.

Wet ceilings, leaking sewerage and water pipes, and buckets and towels all over – see residents’ vids below. Doesn’t look good. I admit I’m no engineer, but I don’t think you have to be. Can’t bode well when your building turns into a sieve.

Bucket collecting water in Brassett Point

Bucket collecting water in Brassett Point

 

You also start to wonder if the council has given up when you tell them that pipes over your loo are bust – and their suggestion is that you pee in a bucket.

Readers of this site will remember a recent story about the council giving a Brassett Point resident a portaloo to use when the leaks raining down on her toilet became tricky to swerve while perched.

The resident wasn’t thrilled with this arrangement. I think we can all agree that having to sit on a bucket next to your friends in your lounge is socially kind of blunt.

Really – MPs and the council need to get onto this in a big way before the whole sodden building collapses with everyone in it, etc.

The council fixes one leak here, only for another couple of leaks to spring over here. Can’t see this lasting for long.

Water coming through the ceiling

Water coming through the ceiling

More on this soon, but for now – and I do mean now – let’s get moving on this before whatever is still holding the building up finally dissolves.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And the portaloo, just as a reminder of scenes late last year at Brassett Point. I took this picture when I visited:

Portaloo in Newham council flat

Portaloo in Newham council flat

 

And one more video. Why not:

 

Opportunity knocks! – if you have a home and front door, etc

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Happy New Year! Kind of!

Let’s start with some good news:

There’s this young child in London who lives in a crappy homelessness hostel BUT who has real singing talent, which at the moment is being nurtured. Last year, this little girl got a place on a music programme for children where she gets singing lessons, support and chances to perform.

This could take her great places – perhaps out of poverty and into a future with just a bit more hope, and maybe a housing option where she and mum don’t have to share a bed, or skirt ponds of wee in the hostel lift, or listen to endless shit from the council re: not being overcrowded and sucking it up by sticking an extra bed in the kitchen, etc. That’s the dream, anyway. It’s a warming dream in its way, at least from a middle-class angle – a Billy Elliot for the temporary accommodation age.

So, that’s the good news. The less good news is like many young children in poverty, this one will have to outperform a council that has perfected a modern art of its own – ie turning hope into landfill. And who knows? She may succeed! – though she’ll be coming from a long way behind and she’ll need a pretty big finish.

I say this, because late last week, their council sent J, the girl’s mother, a letter to say that J and her daughter will be chucked out of the hostel in the 2nd week of February. Happy New Year to you.

This letter struck J the two usual blows. It told J that she will be made homeless, because the council is ending its duty to help her. Then, it threw the sucker punch (you could almost hear the council winding an arm up for it), which is that social services had been instructed to turn its attentions to the little girl. They’re great, these letters – exactly the sort of thing you need through the hostel door when you’re already homeless, near breakdown and have nowhere to go in the middle of a terminal housing crisis.

The council did throw in a Sorry About This, Pal, line at the end of the letter: “We appreciate this decision is not the one you would have wished for and apologise if it has caused you any distress,” but I’m not totally sure this has squared things. J has still taken her letter badly. She thinks it means that social services will take her child away, because the child is facing street homelessness. She is also wondering if her fast-failing mental health will improve that much when she’s living in a doorway and desperately bidding for council places on a shaky wifi in some unstaffed library warmbank.

Government and councils seem to think this sort of scenario is character-building, although it could be time that they tried it. Given that J has never had secure housing in her adult life, her fear that she may be homeless forever is not wild imagining. It may also be why I’ve heard more crying than singing in J’s recent phone calls with me.

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Is the idea to find out how much cold poorer people can take?

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Got a bunch of pretty desperate whatsapp messages last night from N, the disabled single mother of 2 little kids whose housing problems I’ve been writing about for about a year. Happy anniversary to that, etc.

Last week, her council finally moved N and her kids from the cramped emergency homelessness hostel she’d been stuck in for 3 years into temporary accommodation. That sounded like good news at the time – except that now we find there’s no heating or hot water in the temporary place. The oven doesn’t work either, so not much chance of warming up a bit by gathering around that – probably not something to encourage a toddler and crawling baby to do anyway. The little ones may not be in the mood, of course, given that they are both now sick.

In recent days, there’s been plenty of snow and ice outside to make sure that the temperature is as perilously low as it can be. Innovation is key at these points – I’ve just been thinking that you could work up a bit of warmth by cuddling your phone close and reading about the middle classes tobogganing in Greenwich park.

N had hopes for this temporary accommodation, chief among which was having a place for a friend to stay next week to look after the kids while N has surgery on the arm that her abusive ex twisted in a rage. Blokes, eh. What can you do.

N says 2 appointments were made for someone to come and fix the heating, but nobody turned up for either. Maybe third time lucky? Or maybe not. I thinking that I won’t put money on it.

Update: An engineer has turned up and said there’s no electricity and/or the boiler isn’t connected to it. N says she is now back on the phone to the council, listening to hold music. So… that’s third time, but not 100% lucky?

And another update: A blog and an activist email to the council later, and the hot water and heating now work. All N needs to do now is find ways to pay for it..? One thing at a time.

Do migrants feel separation from family less or something

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One hypocrisy I really enjoy is this: how the great and good go full the berserker when war, or Trump or other name sociopaths separate families for the political #win, but sort of let it slide when it happens here.

This is particularly true when the families are very poor, or immigrants, or, naturally, very poor immigrants. The consensus seems to be that immigrants feel the pain of separation less.

Email text which says please help me I can't live alone anymore without anyone no friends no family no one is very difficult

Certainly, the rest of the world feels their pain less.

In the past month or so, I’ve been speaking regularly with C, who is a woman in her 30s.

In her life, C has made two of our era’s bigger social mistakes. First one – she was born in Europe. She is Portuguese, but here. Gah. Second one – she’s a single mother. This is absolutely not her fault, but good luck marketing that. Main thing here is that C is suffering for her sins, so that at least will keep the jingoist crowd happy. Somebody’s getting something out of it, etc.

Actually, C is suffering for her landlord’s sins, but no doubt that also works. Two years ago, C was forced to ask Waltham Forest council for help, because she was homeless. The then-pregnant C had been renting a room from some chiseller who said he was the landlord, but was not. He was a tenant who sublet rooms to C and several other women, and, needless to say, paid their rent to himself.

The real landlord, of course, turned up one day in search of his rent. He wasn’t thrilled to find that his rent was all gone and that his place was being run as an unlicensed HMO by a robber. He chucked C and the other women out.

So far, so private rental sector.

Enter the calamity that is Waltham Forest council (I’ve had experience with Waltham Forest council’s treatment of homeless single mums, most of which I hope to forget).

Ever on the (often successful) prowl for ways to make a lousy situation worse, the council made the extraordinary decision to move C and her baby to a flat in very far-off Blackpool to live, presumably forever.

Even accounting for the possibility that nobody in Waltham Forest knew where Blackpool was, the council outdid itself sending C so far away from friends, family and her baby’s brother and father – an hours-long, massively overpriced return train journey “provided” by your choice of useless transport companies that at the moment couldn’t organise a trip to the shops.

Surely, the council could have found C a low-end flat in a neglected and downtrodden area closer to home? Councils used to like dumping homeless people in ratholes in towns like Slough and Colchester. What happened to those golden days? C didn’t actually demand to stay in London. She just wanted to be able to take the occasional trip there.

Placing C so far away isn’t even a cost-saving exercise, at least for the state. C was employed in London, but now must claim benefits by way of universal credit. As for landing a job in Blackpool – never say never, of course, but Blackpool has one of the highest unemployment rates around. C doesn’t know anybody, has no-one to help care for the baby and she is still learning English. She has also has serious depression now, because she is so isolated. Think we can safely say that she’ll be claiming universal credit for a while.

 

So, there we are. I doubt that C will be getting any big ideas about her human rights, or even being human, soon. Even dog rescue centres usually try to rehome dogs from the same family together, the understanding being is that dogs really feel these things.

You do find yourself wondering why this council practice of tearing people away from their families is still such a thing. No doubt it’s just part of the bigger game we’re playing – you know, the one where we’re trying to find out how much immigrants can take.

The screenshots are from some of C’s emails with the council over the last couple of years.

Update on mould shocker & the bucket for a toilet at Brassett Point estate

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Been movement on the portaloo story:

I posted this no-repairs repairs story on Monday about a Brassett Point housing estate tenant who can’t use her toilet, because water and sewerage drip onto her head whenever she or anyone else takes a seat. In lieu of repairing the broken pipes which are leaking watery crap down several floors in the building, Newham council gave the woman a portaloo. Can’t quite imagine who okay’d that one – possibly someone who feels that council tenants don’t know they’re born.

Anyway, following publication of that story, local MP Lyn Brown got in touch to ask if the residents could contact her, which they did. An email has since arrived from Brown’s office to say that she’s pursuing the repairs with the council (wonder if the council will want the portaloo back).

The possibility of proper repairs is good news. We hope to hear the repairs are underway soon and that they take place before a buttload of poo-soaked plaster collapses through several ceilings and into a baby’s cot etc. There are heaps of little kids living in these flats.

In the meantime, here are some pictures of the mould, water and sewerage stains, and broken pipes and plastic that I took at several Brassett Point flats last weekend. Probably a good thing that you can’t smell pictures…the smell was not that great.

Mould on walls in Brassett Point flat

Mould on walls in Brassett Point flat

Broken, wet wood and plastic fixtures with mould in a Brassett Point flat

Broken, wet wood and plastic fixtures with mould in a Brassett Point flat

And the portaloo:

Portaloo in Newham council flat

Portaloo in Newham council flat

Can’t use your toilet because of sewerage and water leaks? Have a bucket

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Portloo in Newham council flat

On the subject of actual shit repairs:

Visited a part-council block in Newham on the weekend, to take pictures of mould, water and sewerage running down the walls (more on that soon).

Went into the flat of a woman who was no longer keen to use the toilet in her bathroom because of the water/sewerage which drips onto the latrine occupant. You’ll see in the photo below that she’d tried to get around this by stringing a black plastic bag over the toilet to re-route the streams.

This had all been going on long enough for her to make a formal complaint to the council, with a view to approaching the ombudsman.

Rubbish bag over toilet to protect user from water and sewerage coming through gap.

Rubbish bag over toilet to protect user from water and sewerage coming through gap.

Here’s the incredible bit though. The council appears to have countered by giving her a portaloo – a bucket with a little seat. The bucket was very little too. You could definitely only have one guest around and not for very long. Emptying it was also going to be a challenge. We had a few suggestions about possible council and government sites, but all of those involved potentially tricky rides on crowded public transport, so maybe not one to try unless you had really good balance.

Needless to say, the woman had not tried the portaloo out yet. She was using other people’s toilets. They’re not at the portaloo stage. Yet. In the meantime, we rock on with council repairs. While you’re waiting for repairs, you can either wear crap, or handle it. Probably go for wearing it myself.