Why I write what I write

I had planned something light-hearted for this post, but events have overtaken 'Plan A' so apologies in advance if this comes across as something of a ranty one - more Martin Connolly than Toby Novak, for those of you familiar with my characters.  It's all Atos's fault - naturally.  Or perhaps it's the Daily Mirror's fault - yep, that is Mirror not Mail, this time.  See what you think. 

What's got me riled is a story doing the rounds of various social media disability rights and anti cuts groups (several of which I support) which has recently been published in the Mirror.  Headlined "Humiliated blind woman asked by ATOS benefits assessor: 'How many fingers am I holding up?' " it describes a fairly typical Work Capability Assessment - typical in that the probably under-trained and inappropriately qualified assessor stuck to a standard script rather than tailoring the assessment to the obvious impairment of the claimant.  Discourteous, humiliating and arguably in breach of the Disability Discrimination Act.  Maddening - but that's not what's making me seethe.

My problem is with the alleged quote from the subject of the story.  According to the Mirror:

'Natasha said: "There are so many people receiving benefits that they don't really deserve, people who don't want to work.  And yet people like me who have genuine disabilities, many much worse than mine, are being forced to do humiliating tests like this.  Benefits Street is being filmed a couple of miles away in Stockton and programmes like that give people the impression benefits are being handed out to everyone.  I listened to the first series and there was someone on there with 11 kids who didn't seem to want to work.  And yet I'm told I have to find a job based on tests I am still struggling to understand."'

Natasha may very well have said just that.  People naturally lash out when they're angry.  My former clients often did - so often, that there were times I could have hurled someone's appeal papers at them for being so damned self-righteous.  It's what we're all told: it's what Benefits Street exists to tell us.  But the Daily Mirror proports to be a left-wing, or at least a Labour, newspaper.  I don't expect the same old, same old.  I expect proper analysis and truth.  If this is a journalistic licence version of what she said, shame on them.  Even if it is what was said verbatim, I fail to see how it helps the story to incite ill-feeling towards other benefit claimants who are already frequent victims of hate crime.

Proper analysis of this story wouldn't be asking readers to vote on whether Natasha should be reassessed either.  You could reassess Natasha a dozen times and, if you followed the regulations, you'd get the same result.  Seriously.  'Atos' are not the problem here.  Yes, their assessor was clumsy, insensitive and sceptical, but a paragon of good practice would also have to give 9 points because, since April 2011, that is the law.  I know this, because I wrote a minor character with an identical degree of visual impairment and mobility into Limited Capabilty to make that very point (Linda Jenkins - ebook Episode 2).  She got 9 points from one of the 'good' assessors at my fictional assessment centre; there were no solid grounds for her to appeal.

Unless the actual Work Capability Assessment is changed - or scrapped - the real Natasha's and Linda's will keep being found fit for work.  Arguably, they are - the DWP itself had a blind Secretary of State in 2005!  But they are also quite obviously of 'limited capability for work' in any meaningful sense of the phrase since many roles and professions would be precluded by their disability and many others by the unsuitability of too many workplaces and inflexibility of too many employers.  Benefit entitlement should surely reflect this.

Finally, I'm not at all sure where the Mirror got their numbers from, but I sincerely hope they haven't gone away without telling Natasha about PIP (if she isn't already getting DLA - high rate mobility, low rate care?) and that in fact her JSA wouldn't be a basic £72.40 at all, but should include a disability premium of over £30 a week. 

Sorry - does that count as a spoiler?

What's in a name?

I am trying not to be cynical about the way the Parliamentary Labour Party is patting itself on the back for supporting a motion by a Libdem back-bencher to water down the 'Bedroom Tax', and thus manage a rare defeat of the Government, but it's hard.  Great though it always is to see the Tories defeated and the Coalition coming apart at the seams, Labour's fixation with the 'Bedroom Tax' as the big evil of Welfare Reform, from which they will deliver us all when they come to power, strikes me as either deeply naïve or horribly disingenuous.

I often wonder if Labour would have been so willing to stand up against this policy if they weren't under pressure from northern Labour councils, who still have large amounts of their own housing stock and are feeling the financial pinch as their tenants struggle to pay the shortfall.  In short, is it concern for councils, rather than compassion for claimants, that drives this policy at all?

The 'under-occupation penalty' or 'removal of the spare room subsidy' - as the Tories spectacularly failed to christen it - is set apart from the other Coalition benefit horrors by one key thing; a catchy, derogatory nickname.  Coining the phrase 'Bedroom Tax' has helped to make the policy unpopular and catch the critical public eye in a way other 'reforms' have failed to.  To be fair, the Bedroom Tax is also relatively easy to explain and to debunk as policy.  To the Government's claim that it stops 'hard-working families' and 'tax payers' subsidising 'spare rooms' in workshy council tenants' homes, there is the response that many of these rooms aren't really 'spare' at all, but necessary to meet the special needs of disabled adults or children.  And that there is nowhere for the 'under-occupier' - workshy or otherwise - to downsize to.
 

But other 'Welfare Reforms' are at least as easy to knock down if you care to try.  Private tenants are treated at least as unjustly, since the Local Housing Allowance was cut to give benefit claimants access to only the cheapest 30% of properties.  A steep rise in non-dependent deductions amounts to a 'tax' on those grown up children stuck at home with mum and/or dad, unable to afford a place of their own.  The 'benefit cap' is demonstrably unfair if you show the benefit entitlement of a family on the average wage (see previous post).  

What about terminating Contribution-based ESA for those in the work-related activity group rate after 12 months, when both ESA and the Incapacity Benefit which pre-dated it were payable for the duration of the claimant's illness - until the Coalition came to power?  Contribution-based benefits are earned through paying NI contributions and are most useful to those with 'hard-working' spouses whose wages take the couple's joint income over the miserly means-tested benefit rates, or who have saved for a rainy day.  A canny Labour politician could surely sell repealing this mean-spirited measure to the most ardent of Daily Mail readers.


Then there's turning Council Tax Support into the ultimate 'postcode lottery', with a mess of different schemes and only the vulture flocks of the bailiffs gaining anything from the charges.  The cruel chaos of PIP's bungled implementation.  The morass of local Social Fund schemes - and the fact that, having landed councils with responsibility for administering these, the Government is ceasing to fund them next year.

The Opposition has fought shy of taking on these issues from a claimant-focused angle until now, believing the public to have swallowed whole the 'strivers and skivers' tales they also once told.  But perhaps there are important lessons to be learned from the Scottish Independence debate.  North of the border, an awful lot of people haven't bought that story.  They aren't fooled by the 'ending the something for nothing culture' and 'making work pay' mantra trotted out in the face of every reported injustice by increasingly desperate DWP ministers and nameless spokespeople.  They have seen the stories about suicide and starvation in their local papers, on social media and even - occasionally - the national press.  They know this is wrong.  More than that, they're prepared to register to vote, sometimes after decades (post Poll Tax) of not doing so, and to risk a great deal on the chance of a genuinely fairer society.  Women and younger voters in particular like this vision.

With Labour's conference almost upon us, I'll be curious to see whether they'll grasp this last chance before the election to change the debate from one about cutting the cost of 'welfare' to saving Social Security.

Cloth Caps, Benefit Caps and the North/South Divide

I'm sure there are times when this blog appears to exist primarily to take pot shots at my local paper, and this post may appear one such salvo. 

Let's start with its resident 'humourist' looking at the very serious situation of a woman with three children told to move to Stoke-on-Trent as, thanks to the 'Benefit Cap', she will have to leave her north London home.  Entitled 'Stoke-on-Trent is not a dumping ground for Londoners' it starts by informing us 'A woman from London this week complained that being forced to move to the Potteries is inhumane. A bit rich from the city which gave us the jellied eel.' 

The same gift for wit and cultural sensitivity shines through as the article continues:

'I can imagine too that, in her head, Ms Bruce-Annan is wondering whether the city can match the multi-cultural mix of the capital. She should be reassured that, at any one time, there's at least three lots of gypsy caravans occupying green spaces within its boundaries...'

and

'Of course, Stoke-on-Trent wouldn't wish to be overrun by Londoners. No-one wants to see the Stanley Matthews statue replaced by one of Dennis Wise. And few of us would wish our local pub despoiled by 25 gin-sodden southerners stood round an upright piano singing Any Old Iron.'

Depressingly, someone was indeed paid to write this - and without having to use a Tardis to return to a 1970s variety show to collect the cheque.  http://www.stokesentinel.co.uk/John-Woodhouse-Stoke-Trent-dumping-ground/story-22838895-detail/story.html

The 'serious' news item on this story was little better, treating it as if the woman herself had 'dissed' Stoke-on-Trent and seeking to reassure her it was a wonderful and welcoming place, while giving no explanation of how the 'Benefit Cap' of an apparently generous £500 per week, coupled with obscenely high London rents, was forcing her to move to a city she had never heard of.  Predictable consequence - a troll-fest of cliches about lone parents on benefits, a sprinkling of racism once a photograph showing her to be black appeared and any impression of Stoke-on-Trent being a friendly, welcoming city obliterated by its own knuckle-dragging army of keyboard warriors.

Meanwhile, 'darn sarf', at least the political context got a fairer airing, though 'Things to do and see... it’s a 28 minutes drive to the Alton Towers theme park.  Surrounding area? Mainly just the Alton Towers theme park,' is perhaps the faintest praise dished out to what is actually a great part of the world to live in (this from a southern exile) since the Hitchhiker's Guide summed up planet Earth in two words.  So, better than the Sentinel's approach, but 'could do better.'  http://www.getwestlondon.co.uk/news/local-news/mother-dealt-inhumane-ultimatum-council-7651899

As none of these august publications have explained it, here's a brief guide to the 'benefit cap', not to be confused with the 'welfare cap' on overall Social Security spending. 

In a nutshell, exempting some claimants in receipt of certain disability benefits, it limits the total amount that can be paid in benefits each week to no more than £350 for a single person and £500 for a couple or family, including housing costs.  The justification is that the average wage of £26,000 amounts to no more than £500 per week, therefore those who don't work, and don't have to contend with serious disabilities, shouldn't receive more than this.  A deceptively simple premise which sounds fair (as indeed does most effective propaganda), especially in this part of the world where £500 per week is a damned good wage.  Or it does, until you break it down a bit.

Do all families 'on benefits' get £500 per week?  Of course not!  Excluding housing costs, a lone parent with three children and no other income (like the woman facing rehousing in Stoke) would get £72.40 income support for the adult, plus £169.28 child tax credit and £47.60 child benefit.  Letter after letter will tell her 'this is the amount the Government says you need to live on.'  A total of £289.28.   The maximum she could receive in housing benefit for a private tenancy in this area would be £109.62 per week, taking the total to £398.90, plus 70% of her Council Tax bill.  But at no point does she have anything like £500 to spend on herself and her children.

If this person was instead in paid work and earning £26,000 gross per annum, she could still bring home more than her benefits after tax and NI, and qualify for £105.75 child tax credit every week and her child benefit, and in her first year back to work, it would be more than that.  In Stoke-on-Trent, her rent would be too low for her to receive housing benefit and she would have her full Council Tax to pay.  Until the present Government reduced the percentage to 70%, she would also have got 80% of any reasonable childcare costs covered by working tax credit.  How cutting support for childcare costs is 'making work pay' escapes me, but in the Secretary of State's world I'm sure it makes perfect sense. 

But I digress. 

Let's run those sums again with some London rents.  Harrow's Local Housing Allowance for a three bedroom house is exactly £300 per week, the sort of happy coincidence that usually only happens in made up examples, so without the 'benefit cap', our lone parent with three children would get £289.28 benefits for herself and her children, plus £300 housing benefit (all of which would go out in rent) - a total of £589.28. 

The 'benefit cap' limits what she gets to £500 per week, but does so by reducing housing benefit payments - shifting the perceived blame for the measure to the councils who administer HB and keeping the anger at arms length from the Government in the process.  So every week, her rent payments are £89.28 short.  Or, to put it another way, if she pays her full rent, her weekly disposable income is almost a third less than 'the amount the Government says you need to live on.'  It's more than the allowance she receives for keeping herself, as an adult, fed, clothed, clean and warm.  That is unsustainable.  It is 'inhumane'.

In work - again at £26,000 - our Londoner still gets her £105.75 tax credits and £47.60 child benefit, in addition to her wage, and she'll get housing benefit too.  On £300 per week rent, it works out at about £189 HB per week.  But at no point, either in Stoke or Harrow, is our 'worker' worse off than her counterpart on benefits.  I'm not saying it isn't possible when you start to take work-based expenses into account, but you don't make the worker better off by cutting the claimant's income - you make the system fairer by allowing the real costs of transport, work clothes, childcare, union subs etc to be disregarded as income when assessing in-work benefits. 

There is an argument that the worker isn't sufficiently better off, but taking money away from someone else does not actually make them a penny richer.  It merely makes the workless person poorer and, as driving down benefits drives down wages, neither actually wins in the long run.

The immediate consequence of this policy for someone like Cecilia Bruce-Annan and her children isn't just to uproot them from a neighbourhood they know and send them 200 miles north to live among strangers, some of whom have already formed their hostile opinions based on a half-telling of her story in the local press.  It also moves them away from a location where there are more job opportunities, and at a higher typical rate of pay, than there are in Stoke.  In the long run, there is a strong possibility it will cost the state more in benefits, as Ms Bruce-Annan may well be jobless for longer here than in Harrow and whatever is 'saved' now on her housing costs will be lost in long-term tax credits to compensate for the local lousy wages.  What price too the disruption to her children's education, the loss of the family's circle of friends?  Talk about knowing the price of everything and the value of nothing!

Of course the sensible way to solve this isn't a 'benefit cap' but a 'rent cap', which would take the steam out of the Capital's run-away house price inflation (predicted today at a possible 26% this year) and help benefit claimants and non-claimants alike, though from the comments in the papers, you'd think the reintroduction of the Workhouse was the preferred option.

Does anyone else understand what the benefit cap is and why it's unfair?  Actually, they do.  Unsurprisingly, it took a local Green to write to the Sentinel with what we might once have hoped a local Labour politician would have the guts to say.

'The 'bedroom tax' and other reforms conducted in the name of austerity have created a gulf of inequality that may be impossible to bridge. They have hammered mercilessly the poorest and most vulnerable members of society, whilst large corporations and wealthy individuals are allowed to evade tax with impunity. Even though the sum lost to the Treasury as a result dwarfs spending on welfare.'  

The full letter is here: http://www.stokesentinel.co.uk/Situation-makes-Stoke-Trent-inhumane-Cecilia/story-22831018-detail/story.html

After a barnstorming performance at a public meeting on the threatened privatisation of local cancer services, it really won't take much more from the Greens for my party membership fee to be in the post.

Bring back Atos...?

Few tears were shed when Atos Origen decided to take an early exit from their Employment and Support Allowance contract with HM Government.  While we all knew that this didn't address the fundamental flaws of the Work Capability Assessment - the bizarrely strict test to determine who has 'limited capability for work' and who does not - it was still good to see the back of a spectacularly incompetent contractor.  Atos are now effectively - or ineffectively - working out their notice and, while we wait for their successors to be appointed, the process of assessing and reassessing claimants grinds all the more slowly. 

If you are an existing ESA recipient, already receiving benefit at the longer-term 'Work-Related Activity Group' (WRAG) rate or 'Support Group' rate, this may very well be - in 1066 and All That terms - a GOOD THING.  For the time being, you are relatively safe.  Ditto if you are part of the last cohort of Incapacity Benefit and Income Support recipients who might not pass the hated WCA and thus are better off where you are.

But the imminent demise of Atos isn't joyous news for all.  It's certainly a mixed blessing for new claimants.  Those likely to fall short of the magic 15 point threshold for ESA entitlement may be quite happy to settle for the 'assessment rate' indefinitely - in effect, getting Jobseeker's Allowance without the hassle of jobseeking and hazard of sanctions. 

Less happy the claimant with a sound case for one of the higher rates.  They'll be stuck on the assessment rate, £28 per week or more short of their proper entitlement long after the start of the 14th week of their claim, when they should have started to receive whichever additional component suits their circumstances.  When they are eventually assessed they'll get their arrears but in the meanwhile, they might very well suffer severe financial hardship.  Here in Stoke-on-Trent, they could incur Court costs and bailiffs fees being chased for 30% of their Council Tax, when a timely award of the WRAG rate would give them the money to pay it; an award at the Support Group rate would exempt them.

One group of new claimants may never receive their full entitlement.  Consider this example:

Jack is a self-employed window-cleaner.  He breaks a leg and wrist in an unlucky fall from his ladder one day; both are quite complex fractures and it will be some months before he's able to return to work.  He makes a claim for ESA and starts to receive the 'assessment rate' of £72.40 per week.  13 weeks on, he's still in plaster.  During this time he should have his face-to-face assessment and if this is done properly (humour me...) should comfortably score 15 points plus.  His benefit should then increase by £28 per week, or possibly more. 

Instead, there's no sign of an assessment by week 14, so he stays on the 'assessment rate' until he can be seen by a medical services (Atos) 'health care professional'.  His appointment eventually comes through more than eight months into his claim.  At this point Jack is out of plaster at last and, apart from a few follow-up physio appintments, is almost ready to climb his ladder again. 

The HCP does an examination of the claimant as he presents on the day, as the law requires, and finds no descriptors apply.  A Decision Maker at the DWP considers the report, awards no points and finds Jack fit for work.  Jack's ESA ceases.  As no account can be taken of the months when he was incapacitated, he misses out on several hundred pounds due to an administrative and procedural glitch completely beyond his control.  Because most people don't understand these arcane bits of Social Security law, he probably doesn't even know he's missed out, so won't complain or take advice.

The same problem arises for anyone who recovers, or stops claiming ESA, for another reason between the end of week 14 and the date set for their face-to-face assessment.  There is no mechanism to consider their health retrospectively because, when the regulations were drafted, there was every expectation that claimants would have their WCA well within the 13 week assessment period.

If this sounds like you or someone you know, perhaps now would be a good time to contact your MP and ask when this broken system is going to be fixed, because it will get worse before it gets better.  I don't really think we'll be saying 'bring back Atos!', but at least you could appeal a bad decision based on a poor medical assessment.  I don't know how we fix this.

Manifesto

I was asked to address a local Labour Party branch meeting last week on the subject of the current Government's 'welfare reform' programme.  I was delighted to find the meeting attended by genuine socialists, both keen to get the full ghastly picture of life as a benefit claimant in 2014 and to start a debate about what Labour should offer as an alternative, rather than whether Labour should offer an alternative.

So here's my 'to do' list.

• Labour have already pledged to scrap the bedroom tax, but to be fair to private sector tenants, they must at the least unpick the Coalition's tighter Local Housing Allowance rules - no more 'single room rate' for under 35s (or any age).  Allowances should go back to being based on at least the median rent for the area, not the cheapest 30%.  Plunging someone into rent arrears will not make it easier for them to find a job, making someone homeless if they become sick is disgraceful.  In the longer term, building social housing and controlling rents in the private rented sector - and paying workers a living wage - is the only fair way to cut the cost of Housing Benefit.
• Let's be grown-ups at 18.  Enough of these stupid 'under 25' rates of benefit for young unemployed people, young carers and young disabled people claiming means-tested benefits, plus young workers on Housing Benefit.  It isn't cheaper to be 24 than 25 and I defy anyone to live on £57 a week.  Even IDS.
• End the 'Benefit Cap' on claimants and repeal the 'Welfare Cap' on Government spending.  Both are bad policy and lazy, cruel propaganda.   
• Back to the drawing board with 'Universal Credit'.  It's good to aim for one subsistence benefit instead of different ones for jobseekers, sick and disabled people, lone parents and carers, but UC's problem is that it isn't ambitious enough.  If you want to be radical, make it a really Universal non-means-tested Citizen's Allowance.  Short of that, bring the benefit 'taper' into line with tax rates, so the poorest workers keep at least the same percentage of their income as those above benefit level. 
• Ultimately, devise a true unified tax and benefits system to make sure you don't give with one hand and take away with the other.  Remember, when the Coalition talk about their tax cuts, working Universal Credit claimants will never fully benefit from tax cuts because it's worked out on their net income.
• The Work Capability Assessment must go, along with the current sharp edge between 'fit for work' and 'limited capability for work'.  We all have some limitations on our capability for work.  If there is one subsistence benefit for all, don't differentiate between jobseekers and others - allow additional benefit for anyone with a health problem or disability based on their additional needs and costs, whether jobseeker or not, paid at a sliding percentage rate rather than the current clumsy points-based system and assessed by the NHS.
• End the current punative sanctions system.  Unemployed people haven't morphed into 'skivers' since the 1980s.  If your benefit system really 'makes work pay', and employers aren't allowed to treat their staff like disposable components, those who can find work, will.  Encourage genuine, voluntary volunteering and further education to help people improve their skills without losing their benefits and stop subsidising profit-making companies with cheap labour.  Poundland can pay their own shelf-stackers, not expect the taxpayer to do it.
• Put and end to profit-making organisations and out-sourcing giants making a killing from DWP contracts.  Most have been abject failures.  Fund Councils and voluntary organisations to employ the staff they need at all levels to create real jobs, not schemes.
• Scrap 'PIP' now and reinstate DLA, as an interim measure, before consulting properly with those directly affected and introducing improved benefits for disabled people and carers, again with percentage allowances rather than the current all-or-nothing components.
• Reinstate free telephone numbers for all DWP and Tax Credit sections, and a free 'benefits enquiry line' for people to check their entitlement.  That's an easy one.

That's enough to be getting on with, and more than any of us dare hope for, but we could surely ask one very simple thing from Labour as a start. 

Change the tone of the debate. 

If you're announcing a new employment initiative for young people, leave out 'which they'll have to take or we'll stop their benefits'.  If it's a good scheme with fair pay, no-one needs coercing into it. 

Let's get the numbers for underclaimed benefit centre stage, along with the terrible true stories of what being 'tough' on claimants has meant to those who have lost their homes and even their lives. 

Show up this Government for its incompetence.  That a six month timelag for a decision on PIP - the benefit for our most disabled citizens - is now so standard the telephone helpline tells you not to bother them if you haven't been waiting that long yet is unforgivable.  That 'benefit delay' is just about the most common reason for rising Foodbank use is a scandal.  Tell some of the 'stupid sanctions' stories.

And start now. 

Old News

I've been off on my travels for the last few weeks, and with so much national news breaking on the 'omnishambles' of ESA and PIP, it might seem a strange choice to resume this blog with a story from a very local paper on an issue I have tackled many times before - in fact, you could even say I wrote the book* on it.

The reason I want to examine this particular article is that it is an text-book example of all that is wrong with the reporting of benefit issues and particular the coverage of benefit fraud.  The whole story is here:
http://www.stokesentinel.co.uk/3-234-benefit-cheats-shopped-neighbours-Stoke/story-21164292-detail/story.html

Let's start with the source.  I think we can fairly assume this is drawn heavily from a press release from the Local Authority, who are inordinately proud of their 'Know a Cheat on your Street' campaign.  It's easy to slate the papers and broadcasters for their quality of reporting on Social Security issues, but the root cause of a bad report is often misinformation from the Government - and there are clear parallels here.  Even if you agree that precious funds from a self-confessed 'cash-strapped' authority need spending on telling people benefit fraud is wrong when we have most of the main-stream media in full hue-and-cry against claimants as a whole (and I continue to maintain that many 'frauds' would be avoided if people knew the full extent of what they could legitimately claim), the way statistics are misused by the Council here suggests they have been taking figure-fiddling lessons from IDS and the DWP.

Whoever wrote the headline and that catchy opener "More than 3,000 benefit cheats have been shopped by their neighbours in just two years – after ripping off the cash-strapped city council to the tune of £1.8 million..." - the Council's press officer or the journalist - it's a disgraceful misrepresentation, as the very next line confirms:

"Figures show Stoke-on-Trent City Council received 1,777 fraud tip-offs in 2012/13 and a further 1,457 in 2013/14."  My italics, and I'm sure you can see why - our headline 'benefit cheats' are actually alleged cheats.  This is akin to a police report which categorised everyone questioned over a period of time as a 'criminal'.  We have no idea how many of these were disregarded at first contact as rubbish or were multiple reports relating to the same person.  In short, these figures are completely meaningless - even as an indication of the prevalence of nosy, grudgy neighbours.

The report breaks these 'tips offs' down as:

"888 people who were investigated after failing to tell the authorities they were living with a partner;

"744 people suspected of tenancy fraud such as illegal sub-letting, lying about circumstances to claim accommodation, or leaving council homes empty;

"107 residents accused of not paying the correct amount of council tax;

"39 drivers allegedly wrongly using blue badges. 

Only the first and a proportion of the third of these categories are matters of benefit fraud at all.  Compare these figures for actual action taken from a little later in the same article:

"A total of 359 people's benefits were stopped immediately over the two years saving taxpayers £25,848.

"Twenty-nine cheats had their single person council tax discount cancelled saving £7,946.

"And finally, 139 fraudsters who wrongly claimed a council house were kicked out which is estimated to save £834,000 based on an average £1,000 rental income per month for six months. 

So the number of people being overpaid benefits is a tenth of that headline figure - and we might reasonably assume too that not all of those were guilty of deliberate 'fraud'. 

If you read on, you find that to be true.  "Overall, in 2013/14, 76 people were prosecuted for fraud, 27 received administrative penalties and 68 were formally cautioned."

So we've gone from a headline of '3234 Benefit Cheats shopped...' to 171 people actually facing prosecution or a penalty suggestive of wrong-doing; admittedly, the second figure is for one year not two, but even if we assume as many waiting for their day in Court as dealt with, we find we're still only at 342 - and again, not all of these for benefit-related offences.

Three weeks earlier, the same paper ran an almost identical story with a similar headline looking at the 2013/14 campaign, but with slightly more nuanced statistics: it's here:

http://www.stokesentinel.co.uk/1-000-benefits-cheats-shopped-neighbours-Stoke/story-21078066-detail/story.html 

In this we read that, "Between April 2013 and March 2014, a total of 1,457 people were reported to Stoke-on-Trent City Council, accused of fraud. Of that figure, 963 were shopped for allegedly cheating on their benefits, while 494 were unrelated to benefit fraud."

So we have a clear statement - also we must assume from the Council's press office - that over a third of reports in 2013/14 were 'unrelated to benefit fraud'.  So why in the later report is this inconvenient truth ignored as getting in the way of a nice Daily Maily headline, and who authorised this deception?  Is it any wonder the the public's perception of the extent of benefit fraud is so far wide of the mark?  In case you've missed the numbers for this, the public perception is of a fraud rate of about a quarter of all claims - the reality is only 0.7% of payments are on fraudulent claims.  No wonder so many false accusations appear to be flooding in.

And, looking at what we might reasonably expect from a free, investigative press, is anyone asking the Council about the cost in staff time of investigating what appears to be a very high proportion of groundless or malicious allegations, and what the consequences have been for the victims of these?  Or what steps are being taken to investigate contractors and consultants?  After all, the first article also stated that: "Nationally, the annual loss to local authorities from non-benefit fraud is £2.1 billion, while £350 million is lost to benefit fraud."

Instead, the story is always 'benefit fraud' - but unlike the politicians and the papers, at least I make it clear when I'm writing fiction.

* That's this one: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Severe-Discomfort-Social-Insecurity-Honeysett-ebook/dp/B00C69HMRM/ref=la_B00CGNAZXQ_1_5?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1403427936&sr=1-5 
The Kindle version is free to download today.

X marks the spot

I've got to decide shortly how to vote in the elections for the European Parliament, and I've made up my mind to vote Green.

I've always had greenish leanings, being a keen organic gardener and an enthusiast for renewable energy - especially micro-generation schemes like community wind and water projects.  They've also been resolutely behind renationalisation of the railways and promotion of affordable, integrated public transport, another policy close to my heart.  But it's the Greens' line on that devalued concept of 'social justice' that caught my eye for this election.

To quote their website: 

We do not believe in blaming those on benefits, or in blaming migrants for our problems. Human rights are not a barrier to progress. Circumstances mean that some of us need more help than others and that help should be available to everyone who needs it.  We will end the race to the bottom on welfare: we will not kick people when they are down.

The Green Party would:

• Oppose austerity. There is an alternative – investment in a low carbon economy, creating real jobs of the future.
• Turn the national minimum wage into a genuine living wage so that everyone can put food on the table and pay the bills.
• Build truly affordable housing, and stop demolishing existing homes.
• Scrap the welfare cap to ensure that we can truly help the poorest and most vulnerable in our society.
• Enforce a cap on bankers’ bonuses and reduce the pay gap between those at the top and those at the bottom.

Browsing Labour's 2014 European Election manifesto - for some bizarre reason, to be found on a site called 'Your Britain' not apparently accessible from the Party's main website (and if there are any actual policies on there, I didn't track them down), I found only one reference to Social Security.  And as if to make the point above, it's framed purely in the context of making sure that Johnny Foreigner doesn't exploit it:

Action is also needed to deal with the impact of immigration on the welfare system and public services. British people recognise that most people who come to Britain from the EU work hard and contribute more in taxes than they use in public services or claim in benefits. However, they also want the system to be fair. For example, they don’t believe that people newly arrived should have exactly the same rights as people who have contributed throughout their lives. So Labour would look at increasing the period for which people have to be present in the UK before they can claim unemployment benefits from three months to six months. And we would pursue reforms in Europe so that child tax credit and child benefit are no longer paid to families living abroad.

Tougher than the Tories?  No thanks. 

And if you've ever tried to find financial support for an EU worker unable to work due to illness, accident or pregnancy, you'll know that it never has been the case that 'newly arrived' migrants had 'exactly the same rights as people who have contributed throughout their lives'.  That's the kind of misleading rhetoric that a truly progressive party should challenge, not deploy in its own cause.

I don't think the author of this policy wants you to think of the people who would be left destitute as families with children, women trapped in violent relationships or young people vulnerable to criminal and sexual exploitation - but they will be.

There is, of course, no point in reading the LibDem manifesto as we know from experience that no matter how nice it might be, it's all expendable.  Indeed, I can't help thinking that the biggest boost to the assorted anti-EU camp was probably the sight of Nick Clegg leading the charge for the pro-European cause. 

Anything Right of that is also unworthy of consideration, except for softness and absorbency in the unexpected absence of conventional toilet tissue.  Sadly, that's what has been falling through the letterbox with monotonous regularity - UKIP (and a couple of similarly strident splinter groups) and the BNP managing glossy fliers which must have cost a fair sum to print and distribute, but are sadly quite unsuitable as a loo paper substitute.  By the way, don't try this yourself at home - the UKIP one has staples!  

I did allow myself a chuckle at the irony that UKIPs might very well have been funded by that ex-pat Greek donor of theirs with the very strange views about women's right to wear trousers, but the tragedy is that thousands of working and workless men and women will pick them as their 'protest' vote, because the media have done a splendid job of promoting UKIP as edgy and rebellious and anti-establishment, while the Greens struggle to get an equal platform, even when they're getting arrested fighting fracking.  

You'd almost think it wasn't just UKIP's deranged donor who didn't like women wearing the trousers...