I walked past the Conservative Party Conference site in Manchester on Sunday, along with at least 50,000 others craftily avoiding being caught on camera by the BBC.
Emblazoned across the conference centre facade was the motto 'For Hardworking People'. I couldn't help wondering why, if that were so, there seemed to be so many nurses, teachers, firefighters, builders, doctors, paramedics, civil servants and all manner of other unquestionably 'hard workers' marching by outside booing and jeering at the Tories within.
Among the 'workers' were plenty of retired people and many who were clearly permanently severely physically disabled; those who value the NHS more than most and have arguably felt the impact of 'austerity' hardest of all. There were almost certainly some long-term unemployed people as well and, from that snide strapline about 'hardworking people' and a few well-placed leaks, they probably had a fairly good idea that they would be cast as the villains of the economic story once again. But I'm not sure that any of us would have expected not only the odious Secretary of State for Work and Pensions but the Chancellor and today, the Prime Minister himself, to have singled out unemployed people for so much 'tough love' - by which they mean such caring policies as expecting them to pick litter or clean grafitti for their benefits, attend the Jobcentre on a daily basis or, if you're under 25, manage without any benefits at all.
Apparently, or so we are told by the media, proposals of this type are popular with the voters. Naturally they are, when we are spoon-fed such unpleasant stereotypes of what the 'long-term unemployed' look like: that would be Frank Gallagher from 'Shameless' or his real-life equivalent, gleefully tracked down by a so-called 'reality' TV show, accessorised with a can of beer and a big telly. Similarly our unemployed 'youth' is a youth - a young man, smoking, hood up or cap pulled down over his face, sloping out of the jobcentre, swearing and grumbling. You see these images so often that even if you work in welfare rights, they are almost the default, and that's what the Government rely on when they make these announcements - a lack of empathy.
Except that true 'reality' doesn't look like this at all. Real long-term unemployed people don't choose a 'lifestyle' of unemployment and they are as varied as their counterparts still in work. The majority are likely to be older workers from occupations that don't pity advancing age, from manual labourers and care-workers where physical fitness is key to employability, to teaching and technology where burn-out is an occupational hazard and skills quickly become outdated. As likely to be over-qualified as under-qualified: a story today highlights how a woman was threatened with a potential sanction for refusing to 'dumb down' her CV by a Work Programme adviser. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2439989/Job-centre-staff-told-unemployed-graduate-told-dumb-CV-remove-degree-work.html Yes, I'm afraid that is a link to the Daily Mail website - even a stopped clock is right twice a day.
Making someone in either group pick litter for a few months will do nothing to usefully bridge the two-year gap in their CV. Once they are 'long-term unemployed', the damage is done. Access to retraining and support needs to be immediate, genuine and compassionate, not imposed as a form of punishment and bullying on people messing up the economic recovery statistics.
Similarly our jobless young people. They aren't all school-leavers, though even if they were, there would be much wrong with assuming their parents could continue to keep them once the tax credts and child benefit run out, even if there are parents. Cutting benefits will make care leavers even more vulnerable than they are already, surely? But by the age of twenty-five, it's possible to have spent nine years in paid employment and been made redundant, to have a partner and children and a home of your own, mortgaged or rented. Even if you have have just left school, there is no guarantee that there will be job opportunities close to home. Students who have studied away from home may have a better chance of securing work in their University town - but how will they do this with no housing benefit even for a room in a shared house while they look, nor the £57 a week or so currently paid in JSA to the under 25s. If you've grown up in a run-down town with few job opportunities, how do you move to a place with better prospects on no money at all? It will leave many young people seeking to make a new life for themselves desperately vulnerable to exploitation and crime.
What is so vicious about these proposals is framing them as a form of community service punishment to be dished out to 'persistent offenders' who have failed to get jobs after two years and a run-in with the Work Programme. As if no-one who has been long-term unemployed might be willing to take a job street-cleaning or catering, only the Councils who employed people to do these jobs have had their budgets slashed and these posts have had to go. As if someone struggling to master writing a CV and manage online Jobsearch might not welcome the opportunity to see their friendly Jobcentre adviser more regularly than once a fortnight, except that the Jobcentre adviser is now expected to manage a massive caseload and cannot treat any of them as individuals, being under pressure to sanction not support. As if people held back by poor educational attainent wouldn't be glad of the opportunity to brush up their maths and English, if so many libraries and adult education facilities weren't being closed. And as if people with addiction issues aren't crying out for support to help them get clean and lead less chaotic lives, only this Government's cuts have made that support harder to access.
But the Government's own plans for 'Welfare Reform' will themselves increase the numbers counted as 'out of work'. Couples who work now need to manage at least 24 hours a week between them to qualify for working tax credit - up from 16 hours, so a typical 181/2 jobshare is no longer enough if your partner is, for example, sick or a carer - you'll have to fight a colleague for extra hours. Lone parents have had to seek work at an ever decreasing age for their youngest child, and people with health problems that previously saw them classed as unfit for work are now miraculously 'cured' via the ESA work capability assessment. Universal Credit goes further, proposing to pressurise increasing numbers of low-paid and part-time workers to get extra hours or risk losing their benefits, and will extend these work-seeking requirements to people currently off the radar as far as unemployment statistics are concerned - the working-age partners of retired people, people with a low income currently claiming for rent only, including volunteers or carers or childminders for their family, or those in some other way playing a small but useful role in society.
With many more people already chasing the jobs available than there are posts, why add people needlessly to the ranks of the 'unemployed'? Because, unless something is done to create more real jobs, rather than continuing to cut public services still further, how are any of them supposed to become 'hardworking people'?
Wednesday, 2 October 2013
Sunday, 8 September 2013
Computer still says "No!"
I wish that people who should know better would stop offering 'lifelines' and encouragement to Iain Duncan Smith and his hideous Universal Credit project. As if having the Shadow Minister for Work and Pensions proposing cross-party discussion to salvage it wasn't demoralising enough, on the eve of a scathing National Audit Office report on the mismanagement of the IT for the project The Guardian, no less, waded clumsily into the debate with an editorial encouraging IDS to 'soldier on'.
Universal Credit is currently a fiasco, but with the potential to become a fully-fledged disaster. I've blogged before about the ill-conceived 'digital by default' intention that all claims will be made online or, in exceptional circumstances, by telephone, and this is indeed happening in 'Pathfinder' areas, but while claimants must use computers and there is no provision for them to use paper forms, their actual claims are being printed out in the offices where they are being processed and their benefit calculated manually with the aid of a spreadsheet by extra staff drafted in for the purpose - about as low-tech as the 21st Century gets. Furthermore, claims are still only being taken from single jobseekers in robust good health without children, earnings or housing costs; hardly a test of any system, since the average Year Three class could probably handle the calculations for that scenario.
Panic set in when one of the UC claimants joined someone else's family, and since once a claim is made for Universal Credit, you're stuck with it, the rest of the household will now lose their income support, tax credits and housing benefit and be reassessed for UC, despite there being no systems in place to deal with such a complex claim. Had the claimant's new partner understood this, perhaps they would have been less keen to get together, but s/he is stuck with it now - even if they split up, the partner will also never be rid of Universal Credit.
This raises the grim spectre of UC spreading from claimant to cohabitee, and thus out of the quarantined 'Pathfinder' areas, like some ghastly new STD, while welfare rights organisations warn of the dangers with a gloomy 'Don't Die of Ignorance' style campaign and struggle to develop the case law to treat it effectively.
So why is 'catching' Universal Credit such a risk? Government statistics (yeah, I know...) suggest that approximately 3.2 million claimants will be better of on UC than their present benefits (albeit rigged by tampering with Working Tax Credit entitlement) and there's the lure of 'simplification' to make it appeal further, assuming you can get an Internet connection for long enough to actually make your claim. But if we take that as our starting point - the one claim for all benefits 'advantage' - it swiftly becomes apparent that this is, in gambling terms, putting everything on 'red' or 'black'. And with sanctions and questionable medical assessments making claiming social security benefits as predictable as a roulette game, that carries a massive risk.
At present, if your JSA is sanctioned or your ESA stopped after an Atos misdiagnosis, your main subsistence benefit may well be thrown into chaos, but at least any assistance via housing benefit that you're getting to keep the roof over your head can be maintained. You may need to make a 'zero income' housing benefit claim a bit sharpish, but the Council don't care if you're fit for work, seeking it actively or not, and while you serve out your suspension or make your appeal, your rent continues to be paid. Similarly, if you have children and find yourself in either of those predicaments, at least you know the Child Tax Credit will be paid while you fight your cause.
Contrast this with the fate of the Universal Credit claimant. Sanctioned - perhaps for missing your 'signing on time' due to a late bus or even a job interview (seriously, that isn't an urban myth) - and everything stops, because you aren't entitled to any of it unless you're meeting your 'claimant commitment'. Disputing a fit to work decision? Try surviving your new 'mandatory reconsideration' period with no money for you, but also nothing for your rent or your kids.
It may be convenient to have all your eggs in one basket, but that's only until someone takes the basket away.
Universal Credit is currently a fiasco, but with the potential to become a fully-fledged disaster. I've blogged before about the ill-conceived 'digital by default' intention that all claims will be made online or, in exceptional circumstances, by telephone, and this is indeed happening in 'Pathfinder' areas, but while claimants must use computers and there is no provision for them to use paper forms, their actual claims are being printed out in the offices where they are being processed and their benefit calculated manually with the aid of a spreadsheet by extra staff drafted in for the purpose - about as low-tech as the 21st Century gets. Furthermore, claims are still only being taken from single jobseekers in robust good health without children, earnings or housing costs; hardly a test of any system, since the average Year Three class could probably handle the calculations for that scenario.
Panic set in when one of the UC claimants joined someone else's family, and since once a claim is made for Universal Credit, you're stuck with it, the rest of the household will now lose their income support, tax credits and housing benefit and be reassessed for UC, despite there being no systems in place to deal with such a complex claim. Had the claimant's new partner understood this, perhaps they would have been less keen to get together, but s/he is stuck with it now - even if they split up, the partner will also never be rid of Universal Credit.
This raises the grim spectre of UC spreading from claimant to cohabitee, and thus out of the quarantined 'Pathfinder' areas, like some ghastly new STD, while welfare rights organisations warn of the dangers with a gloomy 'Don't Die of Ignorance' style campaign and struggle to develop the case law to treat it effectively.
So why is 'catching' Universal Credit such a risk? Government statistics (yeah, I know...) suggest that approximately 3.2 million claimants will be better of on UC than their present benefits (albeit rigged by tampering with Working Tax Credit entitlement) and there's the lure of 'simplification' to make it appeal further, assuming you can get an Internet connection for long enough to actually make your claim. But if we take that as our starting point - the one claim for all benefits 'advantage' - it swiftly becomes apparent that this is, in gambling terms, putting everything on 'red' or 'black'. And with sanctions and questionable medical assessments making claiming social security benefits as predictable as a roulette game, that carries a massive risk.
At present, if your JSA is sanctioned or your ESA stopped after an Atos misdiagnosis, your main subsistence benefit may well be thrown into chaos, but at least any assistance via housing benefit that you're getting to keep the roof over your head can be maintained. You may need to make a 'zero income' housing benefit claim a bit sharpish, but the Council don't care if you're fit for work, seeking it actively or not, and while you serve out your suspension or make your appeal, your rent continues to be paid. Similarly, if you have children and find yourself in either of those predicaments, at least you know the Child Tax Credit will be paid while you fight your cause.
Contrast this with the fate of the Universal Credit claimant. Sanctioned - perhaps for missing your 'signing on time' due to a late bus or even a job interview (seriously, that isn't an urban myth) - and everything stops, because you aren't entitled to any of it unless you're meeting your 'claimant commitment'. Disputing a fit to work decision? Try surviving your new 'mandatory reconsideration' period with no money for you, but also nothing for your rent or your kids.
It may be convenient to have all your eggs in one basket, but that's only until someone takes the basket away.
Sunday, 1 September 2013
Stale bread and circuses
There were more negative 'people on benefits' stories kicking about in the press this week, from Jamie Oliver slating the eating habits of people claiming to be poor who still - shock, horror - found the money for huge televisions, to a DWP press release on implausible defences put forward by alleged social security fraudsters. What larks! Considering that the latter was so blatant a piece of propaganda that it would have made Orwell's Ministry of Truth blush, it was disappointing to see it run unquestioned and apparently unedited in this weekend's Guardian. A depressing piece of 'friendly fire' from a paper that usually knows better.
The 'Grauniad', ironically giving the smug Mr Oliver its 'My Family Values' slot, also found room for this excellent critique of his latest headline-grabbing, totally-unrelated-to-his-new-TV-series-and- spin-off-book rant, and there is little to add to it except to confirm that low income households get their (expletive deleted) big TVs and other luxuries either on easy terms but at premium prices from the Brighthouses of this world, or occasionally as a gift from better-off relations (often the claimant's parents as a present for their grandchildren).
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/aug/30/credit-jamie-oliver-doesnt-understand
But it's become the staple stereotype proof that life on benefits must be pretty cushy. Not so. Consider that Jobseekers' Allowance is just £112 per week for a couple, to cover food, fuel, 'phone, toiletries, utilities, clothes and shoes and weekly payments off that big TV. It's a sum most people could easily spend on a good meal and drinks for four in a decent pub-restaurant, a thought that occured to me even as we split the bill with friends for just that about a week ago.
As for the DWP press release, the devil is in the detail. While the silly stories steal the headlines, the purpose is made clear when it goes on to say that anti-fraud initiatives are to be stepped up in the autumn. So get used to seeing more drag artists in high heels claiming DLA, though it's tempting to suggest that the defence in that case missed the obvious mitigation that surely anyone trying to walk in those shoes would be in severe discomfort!
But there is a serious point to watch for in all of these cases and which illustrates that the aim is demonisation of claimants and the denegration of the benefits system rather than effective management of erroneous and fraudulent claims. These days, in contrast to common practice some years ago, there is no attempt by the DWP to present figures showing whether the claimant would have been entitled to benefit had their correct circumstances been known, nor to offset this against the sum wrongly paid.
As a result, people are going into Court accused of defrauding the Public Purse of tens of thousands of pounds, with imprisonment a potential consequence, when they might have been eligible for almost as much, and sometimes more, had their true circumstances been known. This is commonly the case where a person claiming as a lone parent has failed to declare a low-waged partner, where time and again they would have been better off receiving tax credits as a working household. In a recent case in my local area, a disabled woman was taken to Court accused of defrauding almost £80,000 for failing to disclose that she had a partner - a sum that would certainly have seen her go to prison - but was 'spared jail' as the papers say thanks to an independent report commissioned by her solicitor that showed the true difference between what she had received and what she was entitled to was an overpayment of barely £1,000.
To use an analogy I've possibly suggested before, it's like being accused of doing 100mph in a 30mph limit, when you were actually doing 35.
Which begs the question: if you genuinely want people to 'come clean' about such arrangements, why wouldn't you make a big splash of publicity about cases of this nature? The cynical side of me wonders whether that might be because it would undermine the 'we need to reform the system to make work pay' litany, since work has 'paid' in relation to out-of-work benefits in the majority of cases since the inception of tax credits and cases like this would serve to reinforce that, and make liars of the present generation of DWP spin-doctors.
Indeed, if what you really want is for people currently claiming dubiously to stop doing so, why not try an amnesty? That would certainly help anyone who knows that they went from 'it's complicated' to 'in a relationship' a little while ago, and is now afraid to own up for fear of being hit with a massive overpayment or prosecuted. It would give 'cash in hand' workers an opportunity to seek a proper contract, without the threat of being dropped in it by the employer whose been exploiting them. It would allow the claimant fighting back after serious injury to take a long, hard look at how far they've come and find the courage to hand back the keys to the motability car, without the fear of being called a scrounger for daring to get well again.
But that isn't what we're going to see. Instead, expect more women in controlling, abusive on-off relationships to be paraded through the Courts as benefit cheats, when all they've been trying to do is maintain a secure income for themselves and their children, and watch as people who've learned to live with the pain of their injuries and disabilities, and would be called 'brave' if they were wealthy, are pilloried in your local paper as play-actors and liars.
Let the Games begin...
The 'Grauniad', ironically giving the smug Mr Oliver its 'My Family Values' slot, also found room for this excellent critique of his latest headline-grabbing, totally-unrelated-to-his-new-TV-series-and- spin-off-book rant, and there is little to add to it except to confirm that low income households get their (expletive deleted) big TVs and other luxuries either on easy terms but at premium prices from the Brighthouses of this world, or occasionally as a gift from better-off relations (often the claimant's parents as a present for their grandchildren).
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/aug/30/credit-jamie-oliver-doesnt-understand
But it's become the staple stereotype proof that life on benefits must be pretty cushy. Not so. Consider that Jobseekers' Allowance is just £112 per week for a couple, to cover food, fuel, 'phone, toiletries, utilities, clothes and shoes and weekly payments off that big TV. It's a sum most people could easily spend on a good meal and drinks for four in a decent pub-restaurant, a thought that occured to me even as we split the bill with friends for just that about a week ago.
As for the DWP press release, the devil is in the detail. While the silly stories steal the headlines, the purpose is made clear when it goes on to say that anti-fraud initiatives are to be stepped up in the autumn. So get used to seeing more drag artists in high heels claiming DLA, though it's tempting to suggest that the defence in that case missed the obvious mitigation that surely anyone trying to walk in those shoes would be in severe discomfort!
But there is a serious point to watch for in all of these cases and which illustrates that the aim is demonisation of claimants and the denegration of the benefits system rather than effective management of erroneous and fraudulent claims. These days, in contrast to common practice some years ago, there is no attempt by the DWP to present figures showing whether the claimant would have been entitled to benefit had their correct circumstances been known, nor to offset this against the sum wrongly paid.
As a result, people are going into Court accused of defrauding the Public Purse of tens of thousands of pounds, with imprisonment a potential consequence, when they might have been eligible for almost as much, and sometimes more, had their true circumstances been known. This is commonly the case where a person claiming as a lone parent has failed to declare a low-waged partner, where time and again they would have been better off receiving tax credits as a working household. In a recent case in my local area, a disabled woman was taken to Court accused of defrauding almost £80,000 for failing to disclose that she had a partner - a sum that would certainly have seen her go to prison - but was 'spared jail' as the papers say thanks to an independent report commissioned by her solicitor that showed the true difference between what she had received and what she was entitled to was an overpayment of barely £1,000.
To use an analogy I've possibly suggested before, it's like being accused of doing 100mph in a 30mph limit, when you were actually doing 35.
Which begs the question: if you genuinely want people to 'come clean' about such arrangements, why wouldn't you make a big splash of publicity about cases of this nature? The cynical side of me wonders whether that might be because it would undermine the 'we need to reform the system to make work pay' litany, since work has 'paid' in relation to out-of-work benefits in the majority of cases since the inception of tax credits and cases like this would serve to reinforce that, and make liars of the present generation of DWP spin-doctors.
Indeed, if what you really want is for people currently claiming dubiously to stop doing so, why not try an amnesty? That would certainly help anyone who knows that they went from 'it's complicated' to 'in a relationship' a little while ago, and is now afraid to own up for fear of being hit with a massive overpayment or prosecuted. It would give 'cash in hand' workers an opportunity to seek a proper contract, without the threat of being dropped in it by the employer whose been exploiting them. It would allow the claimant fighting back after serious injury to take a long, hard look at how far they've come and find the courage to hand back the keys to the motability car, without the fear of being called a scrounger for daring to get well again.
But that isn't what we're going to see. Instead, expect more women in controlling, abusive on-off relationships to be paraded through the Courts as benefit cheats, when all they've been trying to do is maintain a secure income for themselves and their children, and watch as people who've learned to live with the pain of their injuries and disabilities, and would be called 'brave' if they were wealthy, are pilloried in your local paper as play-actors and liars.
Let the Games begin...
Saturday, 24 August 2013
Not Sleeping Out
Except that for many middle-aged women, that's exactly the future awaiting them, thanks to the Bedroom Tax. It struck me, as I was driving in to the protest site, that possibly the most likely victims are women, single, divorced or widowed, living in their home of perhaps thirty or more years, where they raised the children who have now left home, leaving Mum with an eerily quiet house and some happy memories...
And a couple of empty bedrooms.
Which is fine, if Mum's got a half-decent job and can afford to pay her rent. But if she's been made redundant, it can be tough finding a new job when you're into your fifties and Jobseekers Allowance for a single person is only £71.70 a week. If she's not in the best of health, she might be on Employment and Support Allowance, which is £30 or so more, unless she's having to appeal a decision refusing it, in which case she's still on £71.70. Or she might be a carer, getting Carer's Allowance and Income Support of about £105 per week.
It's would be a struggle to manage, even before she had to pay 25% of her rent. Right now, a canny budgeter might do it, for the odd week at the height of summer with fuel bills at their lowest. But as the evenings draw in and temperatures fall, those bills will climb to eat up perhaps half of her weekly income.
So, does she eat or pay the rent?
Well, she moves house, obviously! The place she's in is far too big and ought to be freed up for a family, didn't it? Isn't that the whole point of ending the 'Spare Room Subsidy' that used to exist for Social Housing tenants?
But where does she go? Social landlords don't have the smaller properties to offer; the most recent figures suggest less than one tenant in ten affected by the Bedroom Tax can be moved by their existing housing provider. She could look for an exchange, but few families of working age would want to risk moving to somewhere 'too big' in case a change of fortune left them scrabbling about to pay the Bedroom Tax too. The Government imagine single people and childless couples moving back to the private sector, but if you can't find the funds to pay twenty quid or so a week in rent, how are you supposed to save a deposit and rent in advance for a private tenancy, and find the cost of removals? And who wants to be forced into the insecurity of private sector shorthold lettings, especially fairly close to their retirement.
It's not something I can see the MPs who voted for this measure wishing on their own mothers.
Moving may not be an option, especially if Mum's a carer. How far from Grandpa could she move, if she's the keyholder and emergency contact, the one who gets the old chap up, washed and dressed in the morning, sees to his breakfast, pops back to do his lunch and housework and calls again in the evening to get him ready for bed. Or maybe she looks after grandchildren while one of her children works, and needs to be close enough to their school to drop them and pick them up in term time. If Mum has to move, can her daughter still hold down her job?
Not many people will be able to sustain weekly payments of £25 from an income of £71.70, so the rent arrears will build up. Even social landlords chase arrears; locally, we've seen Notice of Seeking Possession served for as little as £40 and cases put into Court for under £100. Facing a suspended possession order, Mum might manage to borrow some money from friends or family, or she might borrow less wisely, but the weekly budget still doesn't balance and missed payments mean eviction.
A fifty-something single woman without serious health problems or a significant disability isn't 'priority need' for rehousing, so the Council has no duty to find her a home if she loses this one. She might find a one-bedroom private property, but it'll have to be no more expensive than one in the bottom third of the local market if she's to receive full Housing Benefit, and she'll still need to find a deposit, rent in advance, the cost of moving...
Remind me - what was I saying about how you can't expect a middle-aged woman to sleep rough under a bit of cardboard..?
Wednesday, 14 August 2013
More food for thought
A brief postscript to yesterday's observations on the moral panic over a police force providing foodbank vouchers to people caught shop-lifting due to hunger. That story made the main evening news programmes; this one, as far as I've seen so far, hasn't done.
http://www.thisishullandeastriding.co.uk/Mums-selling-sex-feed-children-benefit-cuts-hit/story-19650230-detail/story.html#ixzz2bqKqYByr
In summary, it's a damning account from a voluntary organisation in Hull, concerned for the welfare of street sex workers, that women are turning to prostitution to feed themselves and their children specifically due to benefit sanctions and cuts to their income arising from 'welfare reform'.
There should be anger and outrage at this. It should be headline news and a resigning matter for those ministers responsible for the regime that leaves anyone so desperate.
Instead, the silence is deafening.
http://www.thisishullandeastriding.co.uk/Mums-selling-sex-feed-children-benefit-cuts-hit/story-19650230-detail/story.html#ixzz2bqKqYByr
In summary, it's a damning account from a voluntary organisation in Hull, concerned for the welfare of street sex workers, that women are turning to prostitution to feed themselves and their children specifically due to benefit sanctions and cuts to their income arising from 'welfare reform'.
There should be anger and outrage at this. It should be headline news and a resigning matter for those ministers responsible for the regime that leaves anyone so desperate.
Instead, the silence is deafening.
Monday, 12 August 2013
Food for Thought
On my way to work one day last week, I heard on our local radio station that a foodbank in Sussex had reported seeing children suffering from scurvy. The discussion moved on from mild surprise to some practical tips from a nutritionist for foodbank donors regarding their contributions, in order to ensure users received their optimum vitamin C intake.
I'm not sure what I found most disturbing: the fact that in a relatively properous part of a First World country in the 21st century children were being diagnosed with a disease from the days of press gangs and broadsides, or the matter-of-fact way in which this was discussed. The problem, it seemed, was that kind-hearted but misguided donors weren't making healthy enough contributions. If only they would give more tinned fruit in juice rather than syrup, all would be well! The atrocious scandal that today families are relying on Foodbanks, even as our Social Security system is dismembered - supposedly with 'tax-payers' and 'hard-working families' cheering the process on - was not up for debate.
Another day, another Foodbank story - this time, a local newspaper splashing a headline that the police 'Give Criminals Free Food' all over its front page and billboards, with the result that the scheme under scrutiny is suspended by the local Police Commissioner, the story makes the 'nationals' and TV and the trolls come out to play. The background to this story - that since March, seven vouchers for the local foodbank, each worth three days' food, had been given out by the police, apparently to people caught shop-lifting due to hunger. That's barely one a month, so hardly an incentive to adopt a life of crime, but it's a sad sign of the times that anyone should be forced to steal simply to feed themselves, and a pretty clear indication that these people aren't hardened criminals if the police are moved to find them a square meal rather than the inside of a prison cell.
The worry has to be that the negative headlines will put people off donating - one commenter on the paper's website claimed that s/he had been about to set up a monthly donation to the foodbank, but changed their mind on reading the story. I suspect that comment was simply hot air from a regular grumbler, but it will give some people pause for thought when they see a collection being made and someone with no food will spend another day hungry as a consequence, or may feel driven to theft or other crime.
Bad journalism suggesting that a compassionate scheme encouraged shop-lifting won't stop desperate, hungry people from stealing food for themselves and their families; the threat of hanging or transportation didn't do that, and sadly it's unlikely that even the most well-provisioned foodbank will achieve that either, when benefit cuts are leaving single people and families without the bare minimum they need to live on. And demand has soared during the summer holidays according to this disturbing article from the Independent:
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/summer-of-hunger-huge-rise-in-food-bank-use-as-demand-linked-to-welfare-reform-8755101.html?origin=internalSearch
The comment late in the item from the DWP stating that they do not believe the rising demand for foodbank provisions is linked to the 'welfare reform' process is demonstrably untrue, if only because a specific piece of that reform - the dismantling of the discretionary element of the Social Fund and the devolving of its remit to help people in crisis situations to Local Authorities - has led very directly and deliberately to a rise in referrals to foodbanks.
Much as I admire the dedication and compassion of foodbank volunteers and the humanity of people who donate, the sad fact is that foodbanks are masking the true impact of benefit cuts and allowing charity to be substituted for proper state support. But if the alternative is hungry kids during the school holidays and people stealing food through hunger, I'd better look out for the special offers on tinned fruit in juice, and lob a few cans into the collection trolley.
I'm not sure what I found most disturbing: the fact that in a relatively properous part of a First World country in the 21st century children were being diagnosed with a disease from the days of press gangs and broadsides, or the matter-of-fact way in which this was discussed. The problem, it seemed, was that kind-hearted but misguided donors weren't making healthy enough contributions. If only they would give more tinned fruit in juice rather than syrup, all would be well! The atrocious scandal that today families are relying on Foodbanks, even as our Social Security system is dismembered - supposedly with 'tax-payers' and 'hard-working families' cheering the process on - was not up for debate.
Another day, another Foodbank story - this time, a local newspaper splashing a headline that the police 'Give Criminals Free Food' all over its front page and billboards, with the result that the scheme under scrutiny is suspended by the local Police Commissioner, the story makes the 'nationals' and TV and the trolls come out to play. The background to this story - that since March, seven vouchers for the local foodbank, each worth three days' food, had been given out by the police, apparently to people caught shop-lifting due to hunger. That's barely one a month, so hardly an incentive to adopt a life of crime, but it's a sad sign of the times that anyone should be forced to steal simply to feed themselves, and a pretty clear indication that these people aren't hardened criminals if the police are moved to find them a square meal rather than the inside of a prison cell.
The worry has to be that the negative headlines will put people off donating - one commenter on the paper's website claimed that s/he had been about to set up a monthly donation to the foodbank, but changed their mind on reading the story. I suspect that comment was simply hot air from a regular grumbler, but it will give some people pause for thought when they see a collection being made and someone with no food will spend another day hungry as a consequence, or may feel driven to theft or other crime.
Bad journalism suggesting that a compassionate scheme encouraged shop-lifting won't stop desperate, hungry people from stealing food for themselves and their families; the threat of hanging or transportation didn't do that, and sadly it's unlikely that even the most well-provisioned foodbank will achieve that either, when benefit cuts are leaving single people and families without the bare minimum they need to live on. And demand has soared during the summer holidays according to this disturbing article from the Independent:
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/summer-of-hunger-huge-rise-in-food-bank-use-as-demand-linked-to-welfare-reform-8755101.html?origin=internalSearch
The comment late in the item from the DWP stating that they do not believe the rising demand for foodbank provisions is linked to the 'welfare reform' process is demonstrably untrue, if only because a specific piece of that reform - the dismantling of the discretionary element of the Social Fund and the devolving of its remit to help people in crisis situations to Local Authorities - has led very directly and deliberately to a rise in referrals to foodbanks.
Much as I admire the dedication and compassion of foodbank volunteers and the humanity of people who donate, the sad fact is that foodbanks are masking the true impact of benefit cuts and allowing charity to be substituted for proper state support. But if the alternative is hungry kids during the school holidays and people stealing food through hunger, I'd better look out for the special offers on tinned fruit in juice, and lob a few cans into the collection trolley.
Tuesday, 16 July 2013
Blue Monday
So this blog is back after a long break, the day after the introduction of the highly popular 'Benefit Cap' policy which, supposedly, ensures that a household reliant on out-of-work benefits cannot receive more than one working and on average earnings.
Naturally, it actually does no such thing, nor does it even promise to save a significant sum from the 'Welfare' bill, but did any of us who follow these things closely ever believe that was the intention? I think not. There have already been many excellent responses to this poisonous policy - I would draw readers' attention to http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2013/07/five-things-iain-duncan-smith-doesnt-want-you-know-about-benefit-cap and http://acuriousorange.blogspot.co.uk/2013/07/so-this-morning-i-flicked-on-to-bbc.html#comment-form as two excellent examples.
Having listened with a mixture of inpatience and incredulity to Iain Duncan Smith justifying this disgraceful policy on yesterday's Today programme on Radio 4, during which he appeared to suggest that the truth of the matter was anything he believed it to be, I am moved to resume this blog. Not specifically on account of anything IDS had to say, neither his willful insistence that the Truth was whatever he claimed it to be, nor his calculated suggestion of bias against the BBC: yes, the TV channel that brought us 'On the Fiddle', 'Saints and Sinners' and most recently 'We Pay Your Benefits', and unwittingly or otherwise played straight into the worst prejudices of IDS's cheerleaders with a radio interview on the Benefit Cap issue with one of those likely to suffer - from her accent, an immigrant living in London of African origin. Hardly a propaganda coup for the Left. I bet IDS couldn't believe his luck!
Then we had his taunting of the Labour Party as the 'Welfare Party'. I wish! The people who brought you Employment and Support Allowance and hired Atos to do Incapacity Benefit and ESA medicals - the Welfare Party! Give me strength!
In fact, it was Labour's response which drew me back to the keyboard today.
Unless I have it completely wrong, Shadow Work and Pensions Secretary Liam Byrne appeared to suggest that the problem with the benefit cap was that it didn't impact large families hard enough, as the Governement's shifty tactic of making Local Authorities impose the cap via Housing Benefit let large households with low housing costs off the hook. To hell with the issues of 'Social Cleansing' of London Boroughs and leafy shires and the sheer absurdity of forcing larger households out of the very areas in which job opportunities are most plentiful. Never mind the homelessness and family breakdown likely to result, the extra mouths to be fed by hard-pressed Foodbanks. Let IDS tell his statistical lies unchallenged. What's wrong with this policy is that some people won't be affected by it!
Well, there goes my idea of rejoining the party once I have a steady wage again. At least not while Liam Byrne is within spitting distance of anything Work and Pensions related.
How should the response have gone? Imagine for a moment, Ed Milliband on his feet at that 'Welfare Party' gibe. He faces the Government benches defiantly...
'Mr Speaker, the Right Honourable Member for Toryshire implies that I should feel shame at the suggestion that Labour is 'The Welfare Party'. Should not every party have the welfare of this country and its people at heart? If we are not the 'Welfare Party', what should we be? The 'Workfare Party'. who allow profitable multi-national companies to use the labour of unemployed workers for profit at taxpayers' expense? Or the 'Workhouse Party', who would confine young mothers and their babies to hostels out of spite, regardless of the needs of the children and the best interests of the women?
'I'm proud of my Party's part in founding our Welfare State at a time of great economic hardship, and of all that it has done to create a fair and modern Social Security system; but I agree, there is much to reform. Tax Credits are no substitute for fair wages, and a generous income from Housing Benefit should not be a lifestyle choice for landlords. The next Labour Government will therefore bring forward legislation to increase the Minimum Wage to a Living Wage. We will build adequate Social Housing and reintroduce rent controls in the private sector, in order that key workers are not priced out of our wealthier cities. These measures will reduce the cost of Social Security spending to the state, but not by taking food from the mouths of the poorest children, or driving our most vulnerable citizens to despair. And that is not all...'
I woke up at that point, to find myself still in this place where politicians try to outbid each other in their attacks on the poorest members of society in a desperate competition to capture the moral low ground of perceived public opinion. But the dream was great, while it lasted...
Naturally, it actually does no such thing, nor does it even promise to save a significant sum from the 'Welfare' bill, but did any of us who follow these things closely ever believe that was the intention? I think not. There have already been many excellent responses to this poisonous policy - I would draw readers' attention to http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2013/07/five-things-iain-duncan-smith-doesnt-want-you-know-about-benefit-cap and http://acuriousorange.blogspot.co.uk/2013/07/so-this-morning-i-flicked-on-to-bbc.html#comment-form as two excellent examples.
Having listened with a mixture of inpatience and incredulity to Iain Duncan Smith justifying this disgraceful policy on yesterday's Today programme on Radio 4, during which he appeared to suggest that the truth of the matter was anything he believed it to be, I am moved to resume this blog. Not specifically on account of anything IDS had to say, neither his willful insistence that the Truth was whatever he claimed it to be, nor his calculated suggestion of bias against the BBC: yes, the TV channel that brought us 'On the Fiddle', 'Saints and Sinners' and most recently 'We Pay Your Benefits', and unwittingly or otherwise played straight into the worst prejudices of IDS's cheerleaders with a radio interview on the Benefit Cap issue with one of those likely to suffer - from her accent, an immigrant living in London of African origin. Hardly a propaganda coup for the Left. I bet IDS couldn't believe his luck!
Then we had his taunting of the Labour Party as the 'Welfare Party'. I wish! The people who brought you Employment and Support Allowance and hired Atos to do Incapacity Benefit and ESA medicals - the Welfare Party! Give me strength!
In fact, it was Labour's response which drew me back to the keyboard today.
Unless I have it completely wrong, Shadow Work and Pensions Secretary Liam Byrne appeared to suggest that the problem with the benefit cap was that it didn't impact large families hard enough, as the Governement's shifty tactic of making Local Authorities impose the cap via Housing Benefit let large households with low housing costs off the hook. To hell with the issues of 'Social Cleansing' of London Boroughs and leafy shires and the sheer absurdity of forcing larger households out of the very areas in which job opportunities are most plentiful. Never mind the homelessness and family breakdown likely to result, the extra mouths to be fed by hard-pressed Foodbanks. Let IDS tell his statistical lies unchallenged. What's wrong with this policy is that some people won't be affected by it!
Well, there goes my idea of rejoining the party once I have a steady wage again. At least not while Liam Byrne is within spitting distance of anything Work and Pensions related.
How should the response have gone? Imagine for a moment, Ed Milliband on his feet at that 'Welfare Party' gibe. He faces the Government benches defiantly...
'Mr Speaker, the Right Honourable Member for Toryshire implies that I should feel shame at the suggestion that Labour is 'The Welfare Party'. Should not every party have the welfare of this country and its people at heart? If we are not the 'Welfare Party', what should we be? The 'Workfare Party'. who allow profitable multi-national companies to use the labour of unemployed workers for profit at taxpayers' expense? Or the 'Workhouse Party', who would confine young mothers and their babies to hostels out of spite, regardless of the needs of the children and the best interests of the women?
'I'm proud of my Party's part in founding our Welfare State at a time of great economic hardship, and of all that it has done to create a fair and modern Social Security system; but I agree, there is much to reform. Tax Credits are no substitute for fair wages, and a generous income from Housing Benefit should not be a lifestyle choice for landlords. The next Labour Government will therefore bring forward legislation to increase the Minimum Wage to a Living Wage. We will build adequate Social Housing and reintroduce rent controls in the private sector, in order that key workers are not priced out of our wealthier cities. These measures will reduce the cost of Social Security spending to the state, but not by taking food from the mouths of the poorest children, or driving our most vulnerable citizens to despair. And that is not all...'
I woke up at that point, to find myself still in this place where politicians try to outbid each other in their attacks on the poorest members of society in a desperate competition to capture the moral low ground of perceived public opinion. But the dream was great, while it lasted...
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