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Welcome to day three of the Breadline Britain live blog
Today we'll be continuing our look at the rise in hungry schoolchildren. You can see our collection of articles and films on the issue here.
Are free school breakfasts, run along the same lines as free school dinners, the answer? Wales has been running a free school breakfast scheme for the past few years: we'll be analysing how that scheme has fared, and whether it has made a difference.
At 1pm we welcome two guests for an online discussion of the phenomenon of rising pupil hunger: Carmel McConnell, the CEO of Magic Breakfast, a charity which provides breakfast clubs in around 200 primary schools; and Wendy Berliner, the head of Guardian Teacher Network, whose 90,000-plus members contributed to our survey.
Later on, we'll be introducing the third strand of our Breadline Britain series: the psychological and mental health impact of austerity. In particular, we'll be focusing on the effects of welfare reform on some of Britain's most vulnerable citizens.
We welcome your contributions, below the line , on twitter, or on email to me at patrick.butler@guardian.co.uk
You can tweet me at @patrickjbutler. The hashtag is #breadlinebritain
Pupil hunger. Here's some more testimony, collected from headteachers by my colleague Denis Campbell. Denis writes:
As well as our Guardian Teacher Network survey, some head teachers from around England who belong to the National Association of Head Teachers shared with us their experiences of pupil hunger in their schools.
Here are five which I found especially vivid or insightful. They underline that there is a real, and apparently growing, problem which has knock-on effects for classmates and teachers.
Here's a headteacher in Bradford:
Probably about 10%-15% of our pupils come to school hungry and the number has gone up slightly over the pst two years. The quality of food in lunchboxes has declined dramatically. These are children whose parents can't afford school lunches and are not entitled to free school meals. I have seen lunchboxes with two slices of cheap white bread or a cheap chocolate-filled brioche and nothing else. Today I saw a Key Stage 1 child with a slice of bread and butter and four economy range biscuits in his lunchbox. He was so hungry by lunchtime that he stuffed the whole slice of bread in his mouth and was almost choking on it.
A headteacher in Wigan points out that the move to universal benefit may make the problem worse:
Our school has low free school meals eligibility at 9% of pupils. But this does mask many families who currently receive benefits that include money for school lunches. The move to a single benefit payment in future will impact negatively on many hard pressed families. We also subsidise our school meals - that will cost us £12,000-£15,000 in 2012-13 - and provide free toast for some vulnerable pupils each day. Some Wigan schools are using the pupil premium to support school meals shortfall.
Here's a headteacher in Staffordshire:
We run a cheap breakfast club that is attended by 80% of our children, and I think that catches some children who might otherwise miss breakfast. While I haven't particularly noticed an increase in the numbers of children who are hungry in the morning - that's stayed the same at anything up to 25% of pupils - we have definitely seen a rise in the numbers of children with social and emotional problems that are in part at last related to family tensions caused by cost of living pressures, lack of family time and poor parenting skills. My school counsellor started with two afternoons a week, rising to four currently and from September I have had to make it a full-time post because of the increase in her caseload.
A Wakefield headteacher here refers to "malnourished" pupils:
Up to a quarter of our pupils arrive hungry, and their number has increased over the last year or two. I have increased the number of families receiving free breakfast club during this academic year mainly due to general poverty, cost of living pressure, benefit cuts, family health or social problems and lack of parenting skills. The focus nationally seems to be on obesity but a greater number of our pupils are under-sized or even malnourished.
A headteacher in Essex writes:
In my school the number of children coming into school hungry has increased as more are sent to breakfast club. We're in a town in Essex that is a commuter town for London. It used to be that one parent worked in the City and the other worked part-time or didn't work. Now the pressure to pay the bills has resulted in our breakfast club growing to become an extra class. It averages around 30 pupils but at its peak has close to 60 children. Plus our after school club is now lasting until 6pm. We have gone from no interest in it four years ago to constant steady demand.
Labour is to call for changes to the controversial work capability assessment, the test used to identify whether people on long term sickness benefit are "fit for work".
I'm told the call, by shadow work and pensions secretary Liam Byrne, will be made at an opposition day debate on disability this lunchtime.
Byrne will apparently reveal new figures that show that :
the cuts to disabled peoples' benefits now outstrip the amount of money the Government is taking from bankers.
The work capability assessments (WCA) are a big element in our investigation into mental health and breadline Britain. More on this later.
According to a note I've received from his office, Byrne will also say:
Iain Duncan Smith once said he was determined to tackle poverty. But the reality is he is driving disabled people into poverty and their carers to breaking point.
He 'll also raise the following points:
• Working age disabled people have a median income 30% lower than those without disabilities.
• Nearly 40% of people appealing against a decision to move them off incapacity benefit are successful. The cost of these appeals is approaching £50 million a year – and the wait for a tribunal hearing has doubled to nearly 6 months.
•The Work Programme has missed its target for disabled people by over 60%.
The debate is expected to start at lunchtime (around 12.30). This is expected to pick up on many of the issues relevant to our third Breadline Britain strand. We'll be keeping an eye on the debate. You can watch the debate online here
Wales has been running a government-backed free school breakfasts initiative since 2004. I asked Welsh Education Minister, Leighton Andrews, to tell us a bit more about it.
He writes:
Breakfast has long been recognised as the most important meal of the day
In 2004, the Welsh Government led the way in the UK by introducing a Free School Breakfast initiative. The initiative is aimed at providing pupils of primary school age registered in maintained primary schools in Wales with the opportunity of receiving a free, healthy breakfast at school each day.
It's designed to help improve the health and concentration of pupils, to assist in the raising of standards of learning and attainment. It involves parents, but is not intended to replace breakfast already provided. It will allow all those, that, for whatever reason, have not had breakfast, to have one in school.
The most recent figures show 73% of primary schools in Wales currently participate in the initiative. This is backed by £12.7m funding from the Welsh Government for 2012-13.
An independent evaluation indicated that this initiative represents a potentially effective approach for influencing dietary habits in the long term, given that many of them develop at this age.
We want to give every child in Wales a flying start – this progressive initiative is doing just that.
Note that the evaluation states the scheme could be a "potentially effective approach for influencing dietary habits in the long term." That's useful but hardly a ringing endorsement.
Is there any evidence that introducing free school breakfasts across the rest of the UK would be effective in addressing the issue of pupil hunger?
Let me know what you think.
Here's another snippet of detail on the Welsh free school breakfast scheme, courtesy of the Welsh Government:
The Annual School Census 2011 indicated that 1,052 primary schools reported that they were providing free breakfasts (around 75% of schools in Wales). The percentage of pupils taking at least one free breakfast in the week prior to the school census was 36.4%. The percentage of pupils qualifying for free school meals, and taking at least one free breakfast in the week prior to the school census was 37.1%.
The School Standards and Organisation Bill aims to ensure that primary school free breakfasts are available in all maintained schools unless it would be unreasonable for the local authority to do so.
Estimated expenditure on breakfasts for 2011-12 is £11.3m, and the budget for 2012-13 is £12.7m. Expenditure on breakfasts has increased steadily since the scheme was introduced, as more schools come on board.
Here's a tweet from Healthy Futures UK, which describes itself as a nutrition consultancy:
we provided free breakfast club training to over 200 schools in 2008/2009 in West Mids but now Food In Schools prog stopped
It adds:
DH [Department of Health] previously sponsored this. But the whole school approach to promoting nutrition, food and health is no longer on agenda
Do readers agree? Is school nutrition food and health "no longer on the agenda"?
My colleagues on Guardian Teacher Network have published this piece from Marian Thomas, a headteacher at Hengoed Primary School in Caerphilly, Wales.
In it she discusses the benefits of a free breakfast scheme:
From a headteacher's perspective, I can look at how the attendance and punctuality of certain pupils has improved. Pupil's social skills and behaviour are noticeably better than previously. Their attention spans in class have developed and extended.
Certainly, the menu options every day, have made the pupils aware of the benefits of a healthy diet and we see that they make healthier choices about what they eat at other times (except, perhaps, when there's ice-cream as an option – I feel the same!).
Our parents also value this initiative: it is one of the first questions asked on our new starter meetings. In a Communities First area like ours, the support a Breakfast Club offers parents is wide-ranging. They know that they can bring their child along, safe in the knowledge that they will have a nutritious meal to start their day; parents are able to begin a working day earlier without the added worry of childcare.
We'll be hosting an online discussion about pupil hunger and what to do about it at 1pm.
Should England follow Wales in introducing free school breakfasts? How far is the problem of pupil hunger one of poverty, and how much a symptom of poor parenting? Are breakfast clubs cost effective?
We are pleased to welcome along Carmel McConnell, the CEO of Magic Breakfast, a charity which provides breakfast clubs in around 200 primary schools; and Wendy Berliner, the head of Guardian Teacher Network, whose 90,000-plus members contributed to our survey.
Here, taken from its website, Magic breakfast explains what it does, and why:
Every school day, we provide free, nutritious breakfast food (bagels, porridge, orange juice and cereals) to 6,000 children in 200 primary schools. Why? Because in each one of those schools, many children arrive at school too hungry to learn.
Magic Breakfast is a UK charity (registration number 1102510), dedicated to ensuring every child starts the day with the right breakfast as fuel for learning. Magic Breakfast believes no child's education should suffer for the lack of a breakfast.
There are many reasons a child may not have breakfast in the morning, financial hardship being the most common. We target schools where over 50% of the children are living in poverty and eligible for Free School Meals (the UK average is 17%).
Through our partnership with schools we make sure we reach the children most in need, the children who are arriving at school without having breakfast or in some cases any food since lunchtime the day before .
Magic Breakfast doesn't believe in quick fixes for a larger social problem. We believe in finding long term sustainable solutions that will solve the problem of child hunger at the start of the school day.
That's why we are developing our school sustainability programme. This is a grassroots social enterprise process empowering schools to self fund as well as run their own breakfast clubs, feeding the many children who arrive at school hungry, independent of external aid.
A hungry child cannot concentrate. We think every child needs a healthy breakfast, ideally at home with their parents. But some parents cannot provide – so let's not allow any child to miss out on their future success for want of a breakfast.
That's why Magic Breakfast reaches into the heart of communities to close the attainment and nutrition gap and give every child the best start to every day.
The third strand of Breadline Britain looks at the impact of welfare reform on mental health.
Here's a taster of the story we've just published to launch this theme.
Senior jobcentre executives have warned staff of the risk of benefit claimants attempting suicide as controversial changes to sickness benefits are being pushed through.
The warning, contained in an internal email sent to staff by three senior managers of the government-run jobcentres, warns staff that ill-handling of benefit changes for vulnerable claimants could have "profound consequences" and highlights the case of one suicide attempt this year.
It emphasises the need for the "utmost care and sensitivity" when dealing with customers, as a result of "difficult changes which some of our more vulnerable customers may take some time to accept and adjust to".
The email, adds: "Very sadly, only last week a customer of DWP [department of work and pensions] attempted suicide" – which it adds is "said to be the result of receiving a letter" informing him that his sickness benefit would be cut off.
The memo will crystalise concerns among charities, campaigners and medical professionals over the impact of welfare reforms on the mental health of some of Britain's most vulnerable people.
You can read the full story here
We'll be publishing more from our investigation later today.
A quick note on the benefits and mental health story. My colleague Hannah Waldram writes:
Some of you have brought up this issue a number of times in comments and with the help of commenters we've put together this page which contains links to other places of support and advice as well as support forums for those dealing with changes to benefits and welfare reforms:
Here's some statistics from Mind the mental health charity, which give an indicator of the impact on benefit reform on mental health.
• Mind is seeing a surge in demand from people looking for mental health support and services (Mind Infoline up 18%, Legal line up 28%, local Minds supporting 250,000 people)
• Since the start of the recession, the Infoline seen an increase of 100% on calls on both personal finances and employment.
• Since the introduction of the Work Capability Assessment (WCA) the Infoline seen an increase of 100% on calls about benefits
• WCA appeals: Of appeals that go to oral hearing (about 80% of appeals) only about 20% of appellants are represented but 67% of these appellants are successful as compared to 41% of unrepresented appellants
•The majority of local Minds' welfare advice services have an appeals success rate of over 90%.
We'll be digging out more evidence of the impact of benefits reform on mental health.
I'll be keeping an eye on Labour's opposition day motion on disability, which will be starting in the Commons any time now.
Some of the issues around benefits reform and mental health are certain to come up, and the shadow work and pensions secretary Liam Byrne is expected to call for changes to the Work Capability Assessment (WCA).
This is the controversial "fit for work" test which Labour itself introduced, but which has been widely criticised as not fit for purpose. Critics say it fails to take into account the fluctuating nature of mental illness, resulting in incorrect assessments.
Liam Byrne is now introducing the opposition day debate debate on disability.
Byrne quotes Bob Holman, who in a Guardian article yesterday called on the work and pensions minister Iain Duncan Smith to resign. Holman, a Glasgow community activist was formerly IDS's guru on poverty.
Byrne says that disabled people are paying the price for the government's economic failure.
Sickness benefit reform is being "botched", says Byrne. He cites the Guardian's news story revealing DWP senior managers have warned of the suicide risk among benefit claimants.
A Conservative MP says that it has introduced the Harrington review, which is tasked with making the work capability assessment more effective.
Byrne points out that Harrington was appointed by Labour.
It is interesting that Byrne is calling for reform of the the WCA system of assessment that Labour introduced. They key is what reforms he will propose.
As Paul Jenkins, the CEO of Rethink charity tweeted earlier"
Encouraging news depending on exactly what they say.
Here is a scanned copy of the internal DWP memo which refers to the risks to vulnerable claimants.
Liam Byrne ends his speech by saying he will be campaigning for the human rights of disabled people:
"We believe that rights should be made a reality for disabled people. We will campaign for that justice."
The welfare minister Maria Miller accuses Byrne of "scaremongering". She says equality is a fundamental part of the government's programmes across the UK, not just "warm words."
Paul Farmer, Chief Executive of the mental health charity Mind, has responded to our story on benefit changes and suicide:
He said:
It is important to handle benefit changes for vulnerable people carefully, and sensitivity and empathy are a crucial part of this. However this is not just about poorly handled claims, rather that the system is leading to bad decisions which mean that people with mental health problems are not getting the support that they need.
Sadly we have heard of a number of cases where people have taken their own lives, or attempted to take their own lives, where benefit decisions have been a key factor in causing their distress.The work capability assessment (WCA) is continuing to wrongly assess thousands of people as fit for work and many people in the employment support allowance (ESA) work related activity group (WRAG) are now having their benefits cut off as they have been receiving it for the new time limit of twelve months.
The stress and anxiety these decisions cause can have a devastating impact on people's lives.
Campaigner Sue Marsh, who was a leading light in the Spartacus campaign around disability living allowance reform earlier this year, has sent me a comment about Liam Byrne's speech today:
I welcome recognition from Liam Byrne that Work Capability Assessments used to determine eligibility for Employment and Support Allowance are unfit for purpose.
These assessments use a crude, tick-box computer system to decide the futures of the most vulnerable people in our society with some of the most complex needs. They do not consider what work a person may be able to do in real life, they take little account of symptoms, pain or fatigue and they are consistently failing to support sick and disabled people. Around 40% of cases taken to appeal are overturned.
For too long, politicians of all major parties and successive governments have refused to recognise the fear anxiety, and human suffering that these tests are causing.
The time has come for those with integrity to speak out, to defend those most in need of support and to challenge the lack of evidence and integrity that these tests are based on.
Until the Labour party fully acknowledge their own part in designing ESA, the debate cannot move forward and sick and disabled people will continue to live in fear.
Sue is tweeting about today's debate here
My colleague John Domokos has made a brilliant short film about the psychological and financial effect of benefits reform on some of Britain's most vulnerable citizens.
He talks to two people, Julie Cawardine and Richard Sykes, about the financial and mental impact of losing their benefits after being sanctioned.
Julie, says feels punished because of her poor health. She has successfully fought three appeals against fit for work decisions. She says:
[I'm] just keeping my head above a dark hole
Richard worries he is at "going postal point". He says:
I'm a positive person. I always look on the bright side of life. To be in a situation where I'm losing control of my marbles is not something I'm used to.
One of the most interesting bits of research I've into the negative effects on the mental health of vulnerable people as a result of benefits reform has been done by 100 GPs practices in some of the most deprived communities in Scotland.
The GPs decided to compare notes via a survey on the effects of austerity on their patients. What they found, the report says, was that "deteriorating mental health" was a central issue, both for patients who had no previous history of mental illness, and those who did.
Changes to the benefit system were cited by most respondents as having an impact on both the patients and the practice workload. Some GPs were scathing about the effectiveness and clinical accuracy of work capability assessments (WCA) and the seemingly endless cycle of appeals that many patients embarked on as a result of being tested.
One GP called the WCA tests:
completely unnecessary [and] completely avoidable
Another drily noted:
For obvious reasons the patients in X [deprived area of Glasgow] call Corunna House [where the Work Capability Assessments are done] "Lourdes" because all the sick come out cured!
The report contains a number of case studies. This one caught my eye as being particularly powerful:
Single parent, late 30s, developed acute onset sciatica having been fit and well and working previously. She was walking with a stick and required a variety of analgesic agents to control unpleasant sensory symptoms. MRI showed clear nerve root impingement, but due to a high BMI she required to lose weight before she could be considered for general anaesthetic.
She was referred to the local weight management service but has not yet managed her weight goal because of extremely stressful social circumstances. Early on in her sickness, a few weeks after her MED3 (fitness for work certificate) started, she was assessed and found fit for work, and had her money stopped. In my opinion this was a medically inappropriate decision.
I did not realise it at the time but this was not a quirky isolated example of an aberrant process. A deluge of similar situations followed and I quickly realised I could not challenge each one as workload made that impossible. I slowly became aware of the Appeals process and people coming for MED3s.
The last few months have been among the most depressing, disturbing times in my many years as a GP.
The report also touches on other aspects of poverty and health that relate to our wider Breadline Britain investigations.
One GP notes:
I observe this again and again that I cannot address medical issues as I have to deal with the patient's agenda first, which is getting money to feed and heat.
The report accepts it makes "grim reading". It notes:
Most of the issues raised relate to the direct and indirect sequelae of austerity policies – benefit cuts; service cutbacks; and an increasing number of patients being taken off Employment Support Allowance (ESA) or Disability Living Allowance (DLA).
I'm keen to hear more from public service professionals about the impact of austerity on their work: email me at patrick.butler@guardian.co.uk
Mental health campaigners have told me that they were accused of "scaremongering" when they suggested to ministers and DWP officials that benefit reforms would push some vulnerable people to take their own life.
The DWP says incidents, like the one described in our story are rare. That may be true. But should we be right to worry that vulnerable people's lives were at risk as a results of benefits reform?
I asked Kaliya Franklin, a disability rights campaigner and blogger at Benefit Scrounging Scum about this. Kaliya is a contributor to Broken of Britain, a welfare reform blog blog collects the views and testimonies of disabled people.
She told me:
Warnings to jobcentre staff about the high risk of suicide related to WCA will come as no surprise to sick and disabled people.
Tragically, this is something we have witnessed our community discuss, and in some cases plan and carry out since October 2010. It's so common place that as I received the call asking for my comments on the issue, someone with a history of suicide attempts was simultaneously leaving a comment on my blog explaining he fears he is days away from homelessness and fears for his future.
People affected by the welfare reforms are not being histrionic with these claims but are attempting to draw attention to a matter that should shame all our politicians and British society as a whole - that in the seventh richest country in the world, austerity is being brokered upon the backs of the poorest and weakest, some of whom now view suicide as their safest place.
Kaliya tweets at @BendyGirl
I've spoken to the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) about our story on the risks of suicide among vulnerable benefit claimants.
Its initial response is included in the story. We are hoping to get a longer comment from a minister on Thursday, which we'll publish on this blog.
For now here's a summary (based on conversations with a senior DWP offical) of the department's broad position on the work capability assessment (WCA), and the risks to sick and mentally ill claimants.
• Incidents like the one described in the memo are rare. When they happen, they are investigated to see if systems can be improved.
• DWP and job centre staff are well trained in dealing with vulnerable customers and those judged to be at risk of self harm, and sensitive to their needs.
• The WCA needs to be improved continuously, to make it clearer and more consistent. The DWP is making changes. A third review of the WCA, under Professor Malcolm Harrington will start this year.
• The DWP is engaging with some leading mental health charities like Scope and Mind to refine the WCA "descriptors" used to assess mentally ill claimants.
• Apart from the technical changes above, ministers believe the WCA is neccessary, and welfare reform will benefit many claimants by reintroducing them to the workplace.
If you are on disability benefits, or you work for Job Centre Plus, let us now what you think.
Back to our earlier Breadline Britain strand on hungry schoolchildren.
My colleague Hannah Waldram was following our Q&A with Wendy Berliner and Carmel McConnell in comments below the line.
Here are a couple of questions and answers:
If a key problem is kids eating junk for breakfast then why is the guardian portraying this as some sort of quasi-political austerity issue. Surely the problem lies with the parents of these kids?
From what we were being told by teachers, there are families who don't realise that the food kids are eating qualifies as junk ie chocolate, crisps and Coke for breakfast and they are urging more healthy eating education both inside schools and outside. It is also clear from the survey that there are more families who simply don't have enough money for breafast from all kinds of background - unemployed, working poor, straitended middle classes etc
Why not start a nationwide campaign to act on the suggestion made earlier on CiF that there should be a small reduction in Child Benefit to fund breakfast clubs at every single school in the land? Talk is cheap; actions are priceless!
carmelmcconnell responded:
Yes definitely worth looking at - but feels a bit like robbing Peter to pay Paul. What about asking for help from more food industry business leaders who want to get a good message out about nutrition , and getting parents who will get benefits in terms of childcase as well as a valuable lifeline if they can't provide food. We're able to do a lot of what we do because Quaker Oats and Tropicana Orange juice donate products - they want to help and we know the need is there
Islington council decided to keep free school meals for all primary school children, despite huge cuts to its budget.
It believes that universal provision of free school meals is essential in one of the most deprived boroughs in the country.
Richard Watts, executive member for children and families at Islington council, explains:
Despite Islington's reputation for cappuccino swilling and boutique shopping, our borough is one of the most deprived in the country.
Around half our children live under the poverty line and a further 25% living on the breadline with family incomes under £30k a year.
It is heart breaking, but not surprising, that across the country many of these children are hungry at school.
As well as encouraging our schools to have breakfast clubs, in Islington we are giving all primary school children a free school meals at lunchtime.
The scheme isn't cheap; it costs the borough around £2.5 million a year at a time when the government is cutting our funding by £100 million a year.
But the benefits are clear: almost 90% of Islington's children now have a nutritious high quality school lunch. The scheme saves a family earning £17,000 a year with two children around £700 a year.
This removes a big disincentive to work and ensures that families on the breadline aren't faced put in the invidious position of knowing a small increase their income will loose them a great deal more in subsidised food for their children.
Finally, by asking all families to fill in an application form we remove the stigma associated with being a 'free school meals family' meaning almost all of our families in deep poverty now claim the decent lunch they're entitled to.
But is this a good use of resources, given that the borough has huge wealth inequalities? Is it right that the children of well-heeled residents get a free lunch? Should Islington introduce free school breakfasts too?
Let me know what you think.
Here are two more contributions on hungry school children, sent to my email inbox by readers of the blog:
The first is from Dianne Harris, in Manchester:
Her school has been part of the Magic Breakfast scheme for a couple of years. Newall Green Primary School is in Wythenshawe, is a deprived area of Manchester.
Many of children receive Free School Meals (57%) and over the past few years we have noticed that some of our children are coming to school without any breakfast. This affects their concentration and in some cases their behaviour.
With the restraints on our school budget, we look to schemes like the Magic Breakfast to help fund us so that we can give our children a free breakfast when they arrive at school. In some cases in our school the children only eat whatever they receive during the school day.
This can mean that if they don't eat any breakfast before they come to school, then their school dinner is the only food they will eat that day.
I know this sounds Dickensian, but it is a fact.We would be completely lost without the support of the Magic Breakfast and our children would suffer greatly. The Government need to fund schemes like this to ensure that the future generations of this country get the best start in life.
This is from Malcolm Clark, co-ordinator at the Children's Food Campaign
No child should start their school day hungry. There's a very persuasive argument for government stepping in and providing funding for free school breakfasts to all children who receive a free school meal at lunchtime.
Not only will this improve children's performance in class, but it will also lessen the likelihood they might buy unhealthy snacks on the way to or from school.
The Guardian's findings are also a reminder of why cooking and food education should be part of the curriculum, from primary age upwards. That way we'll give children the skills and knowledge to be able to help themselves and their families make nutritious and affordable food choices throughout the week.
We've just published online a longer piece as part of our investigation into mental health and benefits reform, by myself and my colleague John Domokos.
The opening paragraphs are pretty shocking: I'll leave those for you to read.
Later on there's an interesting quote from an welfare rights adviser based on Merseyside:
Simon Wilkinson, a caseworker, says the centre is so swamped by people needing benefits advice there is now a three-week waiting list to see him. 'We are getting people who are massively on the edge, people who are genuinely close to killing themselves. It's not scaremongering, it's absolutely real.'
The waiting list for advice is deeply worrying. Citizen's Advice and other advice agencies have seen their funding reduced massively, at precisely the time when demand from vulnerable citizens is rising.
I'll also single out another quote, from a GP in Glasgow, Peter Cawston, who I spoke to about the psychological effects of welfare reform. He said it was not just the technical aspects of fit-for-work test stress that was an issue for patients, but the assumptions it makes about their motives: that they are not really ill but scroungers and fraudsters.
Part of what he [Cawston] calls the "emotional intensity" felt by these patients about the WCA is caused by the way they feel the system fails to understand often complex mental health issues, and assumes they are cheats. "People feel more humiliated. People feel destroyed. It's partly financial, but behind it is a feeling that people are demeaned, not believed, their lives caricatured. People just come away [from the WCA] feeling belittled."
You can read the full article here
So, if you are denied benefits what can you do? One route is to contact your MP, says Missbabs in this below the line comment (on the suicide risk news story)
I worked for a politician and it is absolutely vital that people denied benefits contact their MP/AM/MSP/MEP, face to face if possible. They need to be bombarded at constituency level in order to get them to understand the true impact of the welfare reform cuts, which have only just started to bite. Put them on the spot by asking specific questions, such as 'I have no money to feed my children, where can I go?'.
The reason it's important to get them involved is
i) they have access to specialist teams working for HMRC and JCP etc, who are there purely to take up complaints and deal with queries from MPs etc (this is not widely known), and can ring non public number to raise problems, while you are in the room with them
ii) as someone above says, they can use the parliamentary ombudsman to highlight poor practice
iii) they may have developed referral procedures with local foodbanks etc, so can make referrals on your behalf
iv) they should be made aware of the scale of the problem in their constituency, so that they can lobby ministers using hard evidence
v) they bloody well need to understand what's going on a human level
If you don't know how to get in touch go to the writetothem website.
@markoneinfour has contacted me with a series of tweeted comments on mental health and benefits reform
It's been irresponsible at a time of instability to ramp up rhetoric of crisis and to expect people on benefits to ignore it
People in vulnerable situations are, well, vulnerable. If we are vulnerable we need reassurance, not moral condemnation
People with #mentalhealth difficulties are worried about a very real drop in income and are wary of being pressganged
I think the government needs to answer the question "what will I do if you remove my benefits?" seriously and with respect
Whether you agree with #atos and welfare reform or not, government has handled it carelessly and effect is in people's lives
Worth pointing out you need 'buy-in' of people with #mentalhealth difficulties for support to work. Doesn't work otherwise
Follow Mark on twitter here.
Ok, that's it for today. Thanks for reading and contributing to the Breadline Britian live blog. We'll open up the blog again on Thursday morning.
Comments
20 June 2012 10:06AM
Elsewhere:
If business wants command of the economy then it must take responsibility for keeping all the people in this country alive and prosperous without exception, which is what the economy is for.
20 June 2012 10:38AM
In the meantime sales of luxury goods are up
2 more houses in my street have lost families to the grubby clutches of elites buying houses like they're fucking sweets for their thick children
20 June 2012 10:46AM
2 graphs I came across whilst doing some research yesterday, they are from the USA but then so are most of the welfare 'reforms' being introduced here:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/rf/image_606w/WashingtonPost/Content/Blogs/ezra-klein/StandingArt/TANFlines.jpg?uuid=j3-ayIMOEeGwiIZgYwtyhA
http://www.cbpp.org/images/cms//3-13-12tanf-f1.jpg
How are these cuts coming about? Linking to CPI not actual costs, providing block grants which aren't ring-fenced, never call it a cut when you can call it a 'reform', 'review' 'adjustment', 'update'....
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/post/welfare-reform-doesnt-prove-republicans-can-cut-without-consequences/2012/04/10/gIQA2hE57S_blog.html
http://www.cbpp.org/cms/index.cfm?fa=view&id=3700
20 June 2012 11:07AM
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20 June 2012 11:52AM
The Work Capability Assessment needs to be scrapped, not changed.
20 June 2012 11:55AM
I do not see the correlation in cause or solution
Picking on bankers (and no other sector of society ) may be pleasingly rabble rousing, but it has absolutely nothing to do with the issue.
It doesn't say much for Liam Byrne when he cannot discuss solutions and concentrates himself with drawing false comparisons and attributing blame.
20 June 2012 11:59AM
Any questions for Carmel McConnell, the CEO of Magic Breakfast, a charity which provides breakfast clubs in around 200 primary schools; and Wendy Berliner, the head of Guardian Teacher Network, whose 90,000-plus members contributed to our survey? They'll be online to answer your questions from 1pm (BST) and keen to hear from any teachers in Wales about how the free breakfast schemes have been working out for you?
20 June 2012 12:13PM
Unless you are proposing an entirely unregulated system, It would probably be easier, quicker and cheaper to change it rather than scrapping it and coming up with something else.
This should be an entirely politics free debate and solution.
20 June 2012 12:35PM
Really?.
Explain your reasoning and why you found the Uk figures 'unsatisfactory' for your point.
20 June 2012 1:09PM
Hi there, the response to this article has been astonishing - in particular how we can help schools become better at finding partnerships and revenue to pay for breakfast clubs
20 June 2012 1:10PM
Hello, I'm Wendy Berliner, Head of Education for Guardian Professional, which includes leading the team on the great Guardian Teacher Network. We have recently surveyed our members as part of the Guardian's Breadline Britain campaign to guage how far pupil and student hunger is affecting their classes and whether it is on the increase. Some of our members reported that half of their children turn up hungry or having breakfasted on crisps or chocolate or fizzy drinks on the way to school. As one member put it, a two litre bottle of Coke is not a suitable breakfast. They report using their own money to buy food for kids in their classes so that they are able to learn. As another sd - a tired and hungry child cannot learn.
20 June 2012 1:15PM
Magic Breakfast has seen a rise in the numbers of schools seeking our support and we emphasise three things - getting a heallthy breakfast to children who need it most (not always just on fsm), helping parents recognise their role and supporting food skills and creating a programme to help schools develop ways to self fund the whole breakfast club. We have a team of three and no Government funds, and it seems likely we'll upscale and expand. I'd welcome views from schools which have developed ways to fund their own breakfast clubs - in areas where there are economic challenges. Thanks - and happy to answer your other questions!
20 June 2012 1:18PM
Hi Wendy - thank you for that research, it showed just what we feared - an increase in teacher numbers who have to deal with hungry or malnourished pupils. Several of our schools report that children would have been excluded if a teacher hadn't found out that their bad behaviour was due to a lack of food. What does this make you think?
20 June 2012 1:21PM
UK figures are unsatisfactory for one major reason - the DWP and ONS don't provide them! There is currently a call for evidence on the performance of the ONS.
Additionally the DWP continually state that all their figures are 'unsuitable' because they are 'the first few months' there are 'teething problems' they reforms are being 'rolled out' whereas the US figures show the effects of the type of changes that the UK is introducing and the principle of, for example, linking to CPI as opposed to real changes in price, is identical in the USA and the UK and it is for that reason that both countries are using that method of uprating.
I could give you pages of evidence from various select committees but DWPP figures are as trustworthy as Soviet tractor production. Hague has just given erroneous figures on housing benefits during PMQ's!
20 June 2012 1:24PM
Carmel, Wendy. To what extent to you think the prevalence of hungry school children is caused by poor parenting skills, and to what extent is it caused by wider societal and economic pressures.
Clearly many of the teachers in the survey thought the former was a big factor.
What does Magic Breakfast do to address the "skills deficit"?
Patrick
20 June 2012 1:28PM
If a key problem is kids eating junk for breakfast then why is the guardian portraying this as some sort of quasi-political austerity issue. Surely the problem lies with the parents of these kids?
20 June 2012 1:28PM
Just wanted to share with you all the blog written by Marian Thomas, headteacher of Hengoed Primary school - obviously free breakfasts in Wales are making a huge difference. Surely this scheme should be rolled out across the UK?
20 June 2012 1:29PM
I think there will be a lot of poor behaviour in schools which is down to poor nutrition. Many teachers who took part in the Guardian Teacher Network survey mentioned that their schools provided breakfasts for pupils before SATs in primary schools or important exams in secondary schools because that helped them perform better - one teacher specifically sd there ws always 100 per cent take up. Which makes me think - what about all the other days of the school yr? How many children are simply not in a state to learn when they are at school because they are so poorly nourished?
20 June 2012 1:29PM
Thanks to carmelmcconnell and wendyberliner for joining in the webchat - here are a couple of comments on the hungry children story which you might want to respond to:
MediaFerret said:
2ndRateMind summed up the view from Guardian readers' comments:
20 June 2012 1:30PM
We've had a response from an English teacher @siancarter1 on Twitter who wants to know if Wales are successful in offering free breakfasts in primary schools then why not in secondary schools too?
I wondered if anyone had any specific experiences they would like to share of hunger in secondary schools - and the particular problems associated with it?
Could the Magic Breakfast scheme work in secondary schools too Carmel (obviously if you had the necc funding)? What changes would need to be made?
20 June 2012 1:33PM
Patrick
In our experience we see the problem as primarily driven by financial hardship, closely followed by gaps in family knowledge of food or organisation. Definitely see parents who were not raised with any sense of breakfast as the most important meal of the day,so unable to be role models.
So our programme includes cookery as well as gentle, hopefully entertaining family food discussions. Helping parents with no confidence or cookery works best when, led by children who love to cook, as well as simply being encouraging about trying to provide simple food that doesn't cost a fortune. Parents really welcome support but don't like being hectored for their inadequacies - so we try to figure out all we can do to help parents provide "fuel for learning". Things like getting the breakfast bowls and spoons on a tray the night before, telling older children to get the younger children to help themselves to cereal, making porridge the night before and putting it into the microwave. And helping time and cash poor families to trade tips to get through the morning chaos with fed and clothed kids is always a good idea!
20 June 2012 1:34PM
From what we were being told by teachers, there are families who don't realise that the food kids are eating qualifies as junk ie chocolate, crisps and Coke for breakfast and they are urging more healthy eating education both inside schools and outside. It is also clear from the survey that there are more families who simply don't have enough money for breafast from all kinds of background - unemployed, working poor, straitended middle classes etc
20 June 2012 1:38PM
In an ideal world yes of course families would provide food for their own children. But what about when there is simply not enough money for food. I wish I had not had conversations with mums saying which meal they have to give up in the day in order to feed her children. Or teachers telling me about empty cupboards when they do home visits. We have an urgent food problem here which is exacerbated by poor parenting skills but driven by financial pressues and we urgently need extra provision - urgent food aid now, and yes in secondaries as well - because even though we all want it to be parents doing it, the fact is there are thousands of children starting their school day hungry and we can do something about it. Magic Breakfast is going flat out to ensure children with inadequate family incomes, family skills - whichever - simply get fed. Children can't eat cant.
20 June 2012 1:40PM
A couple more comments & questions from users left here which may be of interest:
tiredgiraffe:
xyzzy questions the survey:
MemoryStick14 took part in the survey:
20 June 2012 1:41PM
Patrick, there is clearly a real parenting skills deficit in this country. The Guardian Teacher Network ran a survey of its members last autumn testing the tempperature of how they felt about a number of issues and there were many references to poor parenting skills affecting how children performed at school. More here http://www.guardian.co.uk/teacher-network/teacher-survey
With those problems extant, any wider societal or economic pressures just make matters worse.
20 June 2012 1:42PM
Carmel, thanks so much for providing us here at the Guardian Teacher Network with some resources to help promote the benefit of pupils' having breakfast. This factsheet is really useful for both teachers and parents, as is this resource which talks about different results from different breakfasts.
20 June 2012 1:42PM
Emily - this is really helpful. Yes the scheme should be rolled out across the UK, but I'd do it our way ( I would say that wouldn't I) using more business partnership, more community food skill development and a better link to the strategic goals of the school. A good breakfast club can help a school improve - just ask some of our 200 partners.
It's interesting to note as well that breakfast clubs are in most of the independent schools and now in academies, not to replace family provision but simply seen as a very good extra facility to ensure every child has been fed and can concentrate. We could prove the business case for free breakfasts in this country based on improved attendance and punctuality alone - never mind the extra benefits in terms of readiness to study, improved school performance and long term improvement in life chances.
20 June 2012 1:43PM
Why not start a nationwide campaign to act on the suggestion made earlier on CiF that there should be a small reduction in Child Benefit to fund breakfast clubs at every single school in the land? Talk is cheap; actions are priceless!
20 June 2012 1:45PM
Welcome - and if there are primary schools with over 50% free school meals who need our help, please do apply for our support (www.magicbreakfast.com). We are fundraising like anything to get food to your hungry children and will do all we can to help - it just might take a bit of time.
20 June 2012 1:46PM
so why conflate the issue of poor nutrition with one of (financial) poverty and austerity by including it in 'breadline britain'
no amount of wishful thinking removes the fact that the cost of "crisps or chocolate or fizzy drinks" is equal to or greater than, say, a bowl of porridge.
as for tiredness, there is one very simple cure for that (and one readily achieved for school children). Go to bed earlier.
Even you must agree that the topics above (coke for breakfast, tiredness) are *not* a result of any austerity drive or changes in welfare.
20 June 2012 1:47PM
Yes definitely worth looking at - but feels a bit like robbing Peter to pay Paul. What about asking for help from more food industry business leaders who want to get a good message out about nutrition , and getting parents who will get benefits in terms of childcase as well as a valuable lifeline if they can't provide food. We're able to do a lot of what we do because Quaker Oats and Tropicana Orange juice donate products - they want to help and we know the need is there
20 June 2012 1:52PM
A very naive view of the situation.
Quaker Oats and Tropicana (both owned by PepsiCo) want to 'help' because they want to create more customers for their products, and because their are tax advantages to charitalble donations.
That their interest might, temporarily, align with yours is mere coincidence.
it's not like Pepsi are going to stop marketing their products at school children, is it?
20 June 2012 1:53PM
TiredGiraffe - you make some really important points here - am in Bedale in Yorkshire right now, our Trustee Alan Mak has just run with the Olympic Torch (bear with me) and people here are saying - Magic Breakfast is most needed in cities because here if there was a child who seemed hungry or malnourished, other parents would know. We're a community and we wouldn't let it happen.
My mum used to ask a neighbours children in for beans on toast after school - I remember being shocked at how quickly they'd eat everything. Long hours on low income and some other things like not wanting to intrude mean children don't get the food they need. You are right - we can all potentially think about the children around us.
20 June 2012 1:57PM
The Tories don't have to worry about hungry kids, their kids have their meals at public school at 20 quid a pop.
For that matter, even some of labours and lbdems kids. Look at the menus on public school websites.
This fucking coalition government should be roasted. Not pot roast but spit roast.
20 June 2012 1:57PM
I wish more people knew what you do and I do - that a bowl of porridge is almost certainly cheaper than crisps and chocolate for breakfast. But in a country where not all parents have the same levels of knowledge about healthy food or time to make porridge or money to buy enough food, you will have an end result where some children arrive at school hungry because the last thing they eat was their free school meal the day before. Where a child can report their parent had told them they were rude asking for food at home because they had a dinner at school. Where teachers have to discourage children with no packed lunch ever from begging food from other children's lunch boxes
20 June 2012 2:07PM
Thanks to wendyberliner and carmelmcconnell for taking part in the webchat today - it's ending now but feel free to continue to post your thoughts and comments.
20 June 2012 2:09PM
Wendy I really like your response to superburger. We get free orange juice, porridge and help with our logistics, and we buy bagels and cereals. Children who would otherwise start the day too hungry to learn get fed. We're socially aware people and rather than sneer from behind a laptop we take the social need out to business leaders and ask for support for these communities. Superburger is very welcome to come to one of our breakfast clubs to see the fuel for learning approach personally and we'd have more time to discuss why social activists are more needed now than ever.
20 June 2012 2:10PM
You miss my point, I think.
conflating the issue of 'crisps and chocolate' for breakfast is *not* and *cannot* be related to lack of money, government 'austerity' or any other financial factor.
Put it this way - if 'healthy' breakfast food was freely available to every parent in the country, in the same manner as infant milk tokens are, do you think *every* child would be eating a healthy breakfast.
I'd also question how many adults in the UK if asked 'what is a better breakfast, cornflakes or coke?' would answer coke.
20 June 2012 2:11PM
Great thank you and to all who sent in questions. Leaving the blog now.
20 June 2012 2:13PM
This argument when ever it comes up is totally bogus, how does that make sense they didn't loose the house, they had to sell it - and if the house stood empty instead of someone buying it presumably with a view to rent, then there would soon be a shortage of rental properties.
Although I agree that it is nice to be able to buy a house, it is not a necessity, nor is it even desirable by some. House prices are so low right now that anyone who CAN buy would be crazy not to, especially with how little interest there is on savings right now - Much of the time buying houses is considered a reasonable retirement plan considering the poor rates of pensions and other savings.
When there is a shortage of houses to buy I agree with this - but it is not the people who can still buy who are responsible for those who must default on their mortgages, apart from anything else if everyone who could afford to buy did not, that would cause a further slump in housing prices and how would that help those families who had ended up in so much debt they had to sell their houses?!
Are you suggesting people should instead just stash their money under mattresses, would THAT help the economy?!
20 June 2012 2:16PM
Perhaps we can have some figures? If a parent is on housing benefit - in addition perhaps to council tax relief, child benefit and JSA - can they really not afford to feed their children? It would cost less than £5 to feed 2 or 3 children corn flakes for a week - how much benefit would a married couple receive over that period?
The real issue - as with most problems with the education system at present - is very poor parenting. Through knowing many teachers, anecdotally, it seems that struggling children tend to have bad parents that are lazy and neglectful - rich or poor.
Whether it's keeping children awake all night having sex, leaving them in front of the TV all weekend, never reading to them, let alone talking or debating with them, not washing their clothes, hitting them and swearing around them - parents are to blame.
We have a fantastic state - providing free education up to the age of 18, free libraries, thousands of free museums and art galleries all around the country. Why don't parents take more responsibility? Why are we giving them an excuse? Posters have mentioned that parents don't like their short comings made apparent to them - why are we afraid of telling them they are bad parents?
20 June 2012 2:19PM
not sneering, just confused as to why a problem of children eating chocolate for breakfast can ever be conflated with financial poverty.
I'd repeat my thought experiment
imagine 'healthy' breakfast food was freely available to every parent, through a voucher scheme similar to the infant milk voucher system. Would that eliminate the problem of kids drinking coke for breakfast?
20 June 2012 2:20PM
Spoken like a true 'buy to let' landlord. I suspect like most landlords you're paying bugger all in tax
In a civilised country (eg Germany). You wouldn't get a look in.
Instead you're actively encouraged to rob and cheat families.
20 June 2012 2:22PM
Clueless beyond belief
20 June 2012 2:25PM
Wasting your time with people like Superburger.
He hates them when they're poor. Hates them when they have a decent feed. Just basically.... hates
20 June 2012 2:31PM
My point wd be that crisps and chocolate for breakfast can be related to financial factors - as well as other factors. I spent some time recently in schools in one of the most deprived parts of England. There were children there, in both primary and secondary - from exceptionally poor families - arriving having had no breakfast at home. Some of these very poor parents had given them a little bit of money to spend on food so they'd bought crisps or chocolate. Some of these parents had given them nothing because they had nothing to give them and were relying on the free school meal to keep the child going.
20 June 2012 2:31PM
Thanks everyone who took part. I have to disappear into meetings now. Good bye.
20 June 2012 2:43PM
I've been eligible for free school meals on >1 occasion, so some grasp.
don't hate anyone or anything. Especially on arbitrary grounds like personal income.
But I'm still not sure why the issue of parents who can afford a basic healthy breakfast for their children, but instead chose to allow them to eat junk is confused with the, very real, issue of poverty.
again, I'd be curious to know if anyone thinks the problem could be eliminated by providing free healthy breakfast foodstuff through a voucher system analogous to the infant milk voucher system.
20 June 2012 2:51PM
Just watched the videao about the human cost cost of welfare Very powerful stuff from the two people speaking out their situations. A point they both make is about how some people are worse off than them.
I work for a mental health charity which campaigns around welfare and it's something I hear a lot. People who have been dragged through hell and back by the DWP, humbly saying that there are people worse off than them. It's terrifying to think what is happening to those not capable of fighting back; not able to go to appeal; not in a place where they can speak to a journalist who can highlight their plight. What happens to them?
Oh, that's right: http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/patrick-butler-cuts-blog/2011/nov/16/do-public-spending-cuts-kill
20 June 2012 2:55PM
Healthy school dinners and breakfasts should be available to all children.
...don't think that will stop a bunch of kids preferring to buy Pepsi and crisps on their way to school instead, though. They did it before austerity, so I don't think it makes sense to blame austerity for the practise continuing.