Plans to hand control of crisis funds for vulnerable people to local authorities, while cutting the money available, risk driving the destitute into the hands of loan sharks and forcing victims of domestic violence to stay with abusive partners, a coalition of charities warns today.
In a letter to the Guardian, the 20-strong group, which includes Barnardo's, Save The Children, Women's Aid and Family Action, say it fears councils already facing deep cuts will use the cash they get to replace the abolished Social Fund for other purposes, leaving the poorest people facing "catastrophic" consequences. They call on the government to reconsider the plans and support an amendment to the welfare reform bill that would ringfence the funding.
Local authorities have admitted concerns that the money would be redirected "to plug gaps in other budgets", according to a report produced by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP).
The government has suggested councils may prefer to provide assistance in kind – from food and reconditioned furniture banks – rather than cash, an idea described by Helen Dent, Family Action's chief executive, as harking back to the Victorian vision of the deserving and undeserving poor. Funding for the new system will be £178m when it starts in 2013, compared with £293m in 2010-11.
The Social Fund is often described as the ultimate safety net in the social security system. The two elements being abolished – community care grants and crisis loans – help the country's neediest people deal with emergencies or traumatic life events, such as a family member being unexpectedly taken into hospital, homelessness or escaping a violent relationship. Around 3m grants were made last year.
Victims of domestic abuse are key users, getting money to buy furniture and white goods to set up new homes, or clothes for their children, after being forced to flee their partners with few or no possessions. Other beneficiaries include young people leaving children's homes or foster care, and those with chronic health conditions or disabilities who need aids or adaptations to stay in their own homes.
The amendment on ringfencing will be debated on Wednesday in the Lords. The charities are lobbying Lib Dems and crossbenchers, after the government suffered a heavy defeat over the welfare reform bill in December, when peers voted by 258 to 190 to throw out plans to dock housing benefit from people who have spare bedrooms. As many as 13 Lib Dems rebelled.
Last year the Liberal Democrat peer Lord Kirkwood told fellow peers his "blood ran cold" at the idea that cash handouts might be scrapped in favour of food and furniture banks. "What sort of country are we living in where we have these sorts of rules?" he asked. "Is it 'take it or leave it', living off the scraps from the supermarket when they clear the shelves at night?"
"We are deeply concerned at the government's proposals to abolish these elements of the Social Fund and pass some of the funding to local authorities, without any statutory obligation to ensure they provide emergency support to vulnerable people," say the letter's signatories, who also include Crisis, the Child Poverty Action Group and Scope.
"With hard-pressed councils already experiencing large cuts to their central government grants, we fear that some areas will choose to provide no, or extremely limited, support."
Dent said the change could be disastrous. "It will be a geographical lottery where the poorest could lose out," she said. "Local authorities will be handed a poisoned chalice with reduced resources to support those most in need when crisis hits. Charities will be hard pressed to meet this demand."
Family Action saw demand for its welfare grants increase by 9% last year, while available funds are shrinking due to lower returns on investments.
A DWP spokeswoman said: "We're reforming the Social Fund because it is too complex and poorly targeted. Local authorities are best placed to deliver this support and will ensure that it goes to those most in need. People will now benefit from local knowledge and wider support services."
'I don't know what I would have done without the Social Fund'
Jane [not her real name], in her 30s
"My husband abused me for 10 years, hitting me and the children, controlling me and stopping me from seeing my family. In the end I just couldn't take it any more.
"I saved up all the money I could and moved into rented accommodation, but it was unfurnished. My husband wouldn't let me take a lot of the things we needed, and I didn't have any money left to buy furniture and appliances.
"My children had to sleep on mattresses on cold wooden floors for two months. My little boy suffered nightmares and bed wetting. There was no washing machine or cooker, so I had to make all their meals using just a microwave.
"Just before Christmas I managed to get a community care grant of £500 from the Social Fund. Without it, I just don't know what I would have done: I would have been in dire straits.
"I think the plans to cut the fund are disgraceful. There are a lot of women and other people in the same boat as me. It's horrible having to walk away from your own home and start all over again. They really need that money to get the essentials just to live."
Interview by Rachel Williams
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8 January 2012 9:28PM
I think I spot a typo, surely, "lost in the system", should read "stolen by the system".
8 January 2012 10:24PM
my ex wife was violent towards me and our kids because of her alchoholism. i got no help whatsoever. if i had hit back, as a large ex serviceman i could have easily hurt her badly but i didn't. my work made life hellish, as my youngest is disabled but my boss did everything he could to stop me being able to go to his school when i had too and tried to stop me keeping hospital appointments with him. social services only got involved AFTER i had got her to leave. (she hit my eldest with a cider bottle so i threatened her with assault charges if she didn't leave). they tried to make the kids blame me and only backed of after my teenage daughter threatened to report them for putting words into her mouth. i'm now mentally and physically ill and disabled by being bullied at work and having brought up 3 kids alone and working full time and i was told by my bosses and by the agencies i asked for help " YOU'RE A BLOKE GET ON WITH IT." so i did my eldest got his degree, my youngest is at college and my daughter has a nice chap and a lovely little daughter of her own. when i tried to get help i was told i couold go to a womens refuge with the kids but i would likely be hated by the women there, i got no financial help and i'm just a bit sick of it always being the man who suffers even when its the womans fault.
8 January 2012 10:34PM
I used my Social Fund payment after being homeless after violence to pay to renew my passport. As I can't drive, it's the only photographic ID I can get and without it I couldn't prove who I was in order to actually claim Income Support.
And without being able to claim Income Support, I couldn't claim Housing Benefit and Council Tax Benefit and I'd have lost my flat and either just kept bumping round the hostel system indefinitely or ended up on the streets.
I couldn't even have gone home without my passport as you can't get a flight to Northern Ireland without photographic ID thse days. I'd have been trapped without that payment. It was the thing that kept my life together ultimately.
I could have survived without a sofa. A food voucher wouldn't have done much long term. That £100 payment really did mean the difference between staying in society and dropping out of it completely for me.
8 January 2012 10:48PM
yet again the policy is designed to make us go back in time to the victorian ear, my god. there are already too many families on benefits already relient on food banks because it gas or electric or food. they strim from those who have the least to trim. this country has sank to a new low
9 January 2012 1:16AM
my farther died on boxing day. i applied for a loan/community care grant on 2/1/12 so i could go to his funeral.went to the local Job center and filled a form in with the help of one of the staff there. got a reply 4/1/12 saying i was not receving the right benefit to qualify(i am on incapacty benefit).camron and his con/dem pals changed the rules last april to stop people like me on IB from getting any help when you desperetly need it. they have no idea how this affects people who need this safety net when things like this happen. to say i was upset is an understatement. the only advice i got was cant you borrow the money of freinds or family? if i could i would not be asking for help of them in the first place.
9 January 2012 7:02AM
Well, bless you for doing the right thing and your daughter too.
I think there are a lot of people, men, whom find themselves in similar situations and unable to do anything about it. There are people that will help, you would be surprised at the amount of 'women helpgroups' that would have helped or at least pointed you in the right direction. The women in the refuges are really nice people usually especially if they know that you're in the same situation.
The system is slowly changing to help both men and women in these circumstances but sexism is still rife and even men think that they should be just getting on with it and not complaining. A sense of machoism I think (it doesn't help get rid of the sense that men are supposed to be able to handle everything). However I don't think that's right and no one should suffering any undue hardships like that. Life isn't supposed to be that hard.
I also know what the Social Services are like. (First hand experience, except I was in your Daughter's position).
I hope that you're getting the help you need now, if not, talk to a local charity there are some good ones out there but its still hit and miss in some cases.
Good luck for the future!
9 January 2012 7:03AM
Apparently life was better in the good old days -.-
9 January 2012 9:34AM
Cameron insists that his Big Society is not an excuse to fleece the vulnerable, rather it is an attempt to ensure communities meet local needs.
All the evidence tells us otherwise.
The Big Society = The Big Lie.
9 January 2012 10:12AM
I was wondering how long it would be before the monetary value that the charities represent would be deducted from welfare payments.
It wouldn't suprise me if families who receive regular food bank donations will have the value of that taken directly out of their benefits at some point in the future.
Access to loans for times of emergency are vital. I applied for one so that I could take my daughter to the next city for medical treatment. I have also applied for one in the past to help me get back to work.
It will push people into the hands of loan sharks.
9 January 2012 8:08PM
This is all surreal; all these cuts from people who have nothing and depend on the help they receive. I really have a hard time wrapping my mind around it all, I most definitely would say we are going backwards instead of forwards, civil this is not.
The 1%, bankers, tax evaders etc., are the cause of our economic problems, it’s their greed and recklessness that have us in this mess not the 99%, and most definitely not our most vulnerable in society; don’t let them manipulate you to be like them, we are all entitled to basic human rights and as a society we the 99% should be coming together to hold those 1% accountable for the mess they have gotten us into. It doesn’t make sense to take from the bottom up - the bottom has nothing, it needs to come from the top down.
Furthermore, we need to be more empathetic to each other and more so to those that are unable to fend for themselves; the vulnerable, elderly, disabled and poor of our society. Don’t let the 1% make you callous, don’t fall for their lies, don’t let them turn you against your neighbor. We are a welfare state, we are a supposed to be a civil society there should be an equitable distribution of wealth, not everyone can be the PM, Queen, Banking Executive; someone needs to be there to serve drinks, ring up your shopping, pick up your rubbish and they deserve a living wage, they are just as important.
10 January 2012 1:27AM
We should have a system that honours it commitments from the most vulnerable upwards! See the people and the story without prejudice!
10 January 2012 1:49AM
I think not everybody knows about these and they aren't open to everybody though that is not a reason to take it away; I will say that eating the spare food left on the shelves is an efficient way to deal with waste and 'kill two birds with one stone' in a way but not an unquestionably decent hospitable and fully-generous charitable action towards those having a horrendous time! It would be better tomeet needs properly; but perhaps the stigma of food not past it's sell by date is being unhealthily exxagerated here! Freegans - or would-be freegans - would love to get at food and furniture before it went in the bin or compactor! Perhaps you could work something out! As long as you aren't making people hang about at wrong times at the night or day just to get the coupon-valid items; you don't ask sad and hungry people to jump through hoops?! Think about ways to make life easier for everyone and be ambitious about it! A good gift given politely and packaged nicely hopes and helps and respects! A paternalistic expectation broken wounds?