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Welcome to day four of the Breadline Britain live blog.
This morning, we'll be following up on our investigation into the health risks of benefits reform on vulnerable citizens.
You can read our stories on this theme here, and here, and watch John Domokos's short film here.
All our Breadline Britain stories from the past few days are collected in one place: here.
We'll be hearing more today from job centre staff about whether they feel properly equipped to handle vulnerable customers. And we hope to hear from a DWP minister.
And we'll be looking into the wider psychological impact of austerity on people living on the cliff edge of poverty.
This is the last day of the blog: we'd love to hear what you thought of our project. But it doesn't end here: we'll be continuing the series on an occasional basis, starting next week with housing.
Please get in touch to tell us what stories and themes you think we should investigate next. You can contact me on twitter at @patrickjbutler or via email patrick.butler@guardian.co.uk
Please leave comments below the line. The twitter hashtag is #breadlinebritain
There are some good letters in the Guardian today on the Breadline Britain series, including this from Justin Forsyth, chief executive of Save the Children:
Poverty is all too often wrongly portrayed as a problem created by workshy people, scroungers happy to live off benefits. You rarely hear about the parents struggling to keep their heads above water in low-paid and insecure jobs, or parents desperate but unable to find work (Breadline Britain: 7m adults just one bill away from disaster, 19 June).
The real challenge in driving down child poverty is a labour market that isn't delivering anywhere near enough decent, well-paid and secure jobs to parents in deprived communities. At present, 58% of children living in poverty are in households where at least one adult works, and the number is rising. Record numbers of parents have to work part-time because there aren't enough full-time jobs. Tax-credit cuts and lack of support for childcare costs barely make financial sense for families bringing home a low income.
The government can start to tackle this by letting parents keep more of their earnings before benefits are taken away, and give more support towards meeting the extortionate costs of childcare. We have to put an end to the parent poverty trap.
Does the prevalence of suicide increase during a recession? The answer, sadly and almost inevitably, appears to be yes.
Here's an extract from research published in the Lancet medical journal in 2011, which looked at the link between suicide and unemployment in European countries:
In both old and new EU Member States, official unemployment did not increase until 2009, after the banking crisis. Job loss then increased rapidly, to about 35% above the 2007 level in both parts of Europe (about 2.6 percentage points in the EU overall).
However, the steady downward trend in suicide rates, seen in both groups of countries before 2007, reversed at once. The 2008 increase was less than 1% in the new Member States, but in the old ones it increased by almost 7%.
In both, suicides increased further in 2009. Among the countries studied, only Austria had fewer suicides (down 5%) in 2009 than in 2007. In each of the other countries, the increase was at least 5%.
It continues:
Once data from elsewhere become available, our analysis will need to be updated and the differences in experiences across Europe explored. However, we can already see that the countries facing the most severe financial reversals of fortune, such as Greece and Ireland, had greater rises in suicides (17% and 13%, respectively) than did the other countries, and in Latvia suicides increased by more than 17% between 2007 and 2008.
The article can be read here.
But how will life in Breadline Britain affect mental wellbeing more generally?
According to a report published this week by Sir Michael Marmot's UCL Institute of Health Equity:
Economic crisis increases the risk factors for poor mental health, such as low household income, debt and financial difficulties, housing payment problems, poverty, unemployment and job insecurity
It says the risk of depression, according to this report, is more likely to affect women:
Indeed, poverty is associated with worse mental health outcomes (including sleep deprivation and depression among new mothers) ... This is particularly the case for women because they are more likely than men to handle family budgets, have caring responsibilities and are often the 'shock absorbers' of reduced family incomes, meaning that they 'go without' to protect their children from the worst effects of poverty.
What are the likely recession-related trigger factors for mental illness? The worse off you are the more at risk you are. But it says debt is a key factor:
Studies show that households in debt or facing financial difficulties or housing payment problems suffer worse mental health, including an increased likelihood of having a mental disorder. Debt has commonly been associated with increased stress, stigma, shame and relationship problems with partners and children. It should be noted that the causal pathway may work both ways: those with a pre-existing mental health problem are more likely to get into debt.
More anecdotally, the Deep End research carried out by 100 GP practices in some of the most deprived parts of Scotland earlier this year found:
A central concern of Deep End practices is the number of patients with deteriorating mental health.
At one end of the spectrum, there are those who are in work, and previously well:
• under increasing stress at own jobs due to cutbacks
• taking on extra work/jobs, with resultant impact on family and relationships
• experiencing stress of job insecurityAt the other end of the spectrum, there are those with chronic mental health issues and established physical problems who are "deemed fit for work" and have their benefits cut:
• struggling to make ends meet
• increasing contact with GPs and psychiatry
• increasing antidepressant/antipsychotic use
• self-medicating with drugs and alcohol
You can read the Deep End research here.
And as I mentioned in the blog yesterday, the Mind charity has some interesting statistics about the rise in calls to its helpline over the past year.
Meanwhile, in a comment below the line, Celato asks:
We hear far too much from government ministers and their shadows. The strangely silent – or sidelined? – voices are those of constituency MPs in unemployment blackspots.
* What, for example, are these MPs doing on a practical level to support individuals needing their help through the benefits' minefield?
* How active are they in challenging local cutbacks, closures and failures to achieve regeneration – and what form, if any, does this campaigning take?
* How "vocal" are they in parliamentary debates and behind-the-scenes discussion with party leaders on issues surrounding poverty?
* Do they have anything to say AT ALL in response to the Guardian's Breadline Britain coverage ..?
With superb timing – it's almost as if he had seen Celato's comment below – I've received this note from Owen Smith, the Labour MP for Pontypridd, and shadow secretary of state for Wales:
"The Guardian's Breadline Britain series is helping expose the social reality of economic failure under this Tory-led government.
"Yesterday, I raised the findings from Day 1 of the series with the Welsh Secretary but it fell on typical deaf ears. Evidence which shows that, across local authorities in Wales, an average of 15% of households are living on the edge of poverty.
"And on the same day that the series' focus shifts to benefit changes, the IFS has confirmed that council tax benefit recipients in Wales are set to lose an average of £74 a year due to spending cuts imposed on Wales by the Tories in Westminster. This decision will hit hardest precisely those families which the Guardian has highlighted as teetering on the brink of poverty.
"The Tory-led government should pay very close attention to these findings and awake from its extraordinary complacency".
He wasn't the only one. Shadow work and pensions secretary Liam Byrne cited the Guardian's benefits suicide story during the opposition day debate on disability yesterday.
Have any more MPs been getting stuck into the Breadline Britain issues this week?
We are hoping to get a response from a DWP minister today by the way – more on that later.
The National Council for Voluntary Organisations (NCVO) has been conducting a rolling survey of its members about the impact of austerity and funding cuts on both charities and their beneficiaries.
The Charity Forecast report published next week is expected to highlight that charities are under acute financial stress: demand for services is increasing at a time when funding is shrinking or static.
The fear among charities is that, financially, "something has got to give".
NCVO has shown me some of the responses to the survey from mental health and disability charities. The first, from a mental health project, states:
Demand for our service is rising and we are fighting to retain our reputation for not turning people away, although I have serious concerns about the toll this may take on our very committed staff team.
A club for disabled people told the survey:
The local authority is closing day centres and dumping people on us without any funding.
A local brain injury charity wrote:
Forward planning at a time when cuts in adult social care funding are impacting hugely on the provision of services is virtually impossible. Having any element of financial reserve within an organisation has become a liability.
The final quote is from an advice agency:
With wide-ranging welfare reforms underway, the demand for welfare benefits advice is predicted to continue to increase, yet welfare benefits legal aid has been completely removed from scope, meaning the loss of at least 120,000 individual acts of assistance through the scheme. These people will not simply go away, and because of their circumstances, they will not be able to pay for alternative sources of advice.
Voluntary sector advice agencies will be of crucial importance in helping these reforms succeed, both for government and for those affected, yet their short and medium term sustainability is seriously under threat.
The NCVO report is expected to be published on Tuesday.
My colleague John Domokos spoke to a number of Job Centre Plus staff during his research into the effects of welfare reform on vulnerable people.
He told me:
I found widespread frustation at what many say is a target-led culture that makes it difficult to deal effectively with vulnerable customers.
Here are some of their remarkable testimonies. They suggest that cuts at Job Centres, coupled with an increase in the number of customers, is affecting the quality of the service they can provide.
The first testimony comes from a call centre worker, who spoke to John in May:
There's been a gradual snowballing effect as the year has gone on. Every new thing the government brings in, we think 'how are we going to deal with this?'
The communication is abysmal. People (staff) will have a change of process emailed to them, and it will be with immediate effect.
I have literally had to google things to find out what contributions-based ESA is, because we didn't know anything about it.
We feel it's been handled very badly. We feel we're not giving (customers) the service they deserve, and we feel we look stupid. It's going to break down trust. The customers want honesty, they want to know where they stand. It's a ridiculously fragmented service, it's messing them around when they clearly need a lot of support. We want to give them that but feel that we don't have the tools.
There is also the fear that for someone who is on the edge it could be the final straw, and you don't want your name involved in that.
Since people have had to go from 16 hours to 24 to claim tax credit, people are ringing up and we have to tell them that they can't claim this and that. We've become more aware that there are a forgotten group of people who are caught between rock and a hard place.
This is from a junior manager at a jobcentre, speaking in May:
The culture now is to achieve 'quick wins' and focus on the easiest to help customers. This means less job-ready customers can be 'parked', potentially receiving dramatically less support. These customers will include those with disabilities or health conditions, ex-offenders, low education and the long-term unemployed.
Basically the customers that receive the most help are the ones who would find work on their own anyway.
The (vulnerable) customers are usually very hard to find work for and often have the attitude (understandably) that 'I'm only on JSA until my ESA appeal goes through'. The effect on frontline staff is that they will do shorter and shorter interviews with customers they should really be spending an hour with rather than 5 minutes.
Staff are demoralised because they know full well they cannot help these customers in five minutes every fortnight and sooner or later they will probably have to sanction their claims as the only chance of getting a short-term sign off.
Increased stress, less time with the customers they should be helping, the threat of losing their own jobs. This makes advisers deliver a worse service and will lead to some of them no doubt joining the unemployment register.
On the subject of mental health he says:
There are some specialists called DEAs (Disability Employment Advisors) who tend to be spot on. The problem is with flagging people up to them, for example if someone has been on ESA. Very few people do get referred who could do.Training on the whole is pretty poor.
Plus you've got the attitude that some people may have been milking it and shouldn't have been on ESA in the first place.
This is from a former lone parent adviser who was transferred to be a general adviser, speaking to John in August 2011:
More vulnerable people are coming through the doors because of ESA changes ... and because of people who have been on Income Support (lone parents moved onto Jobseekers Allowance).If you've been on a benefit that has not required you to be actively seeking work, suddenly you are in a world where you are now required to make your priority looking for a job.
It's a big big culture change. If JCP separated out LPs [lone parents] and [people coming off] incapacity benefit and said these people are only going to be seen by specific advisers … I think it would be less frightening ... and probably lead to more positive results.
There hasn't been a shift, as you might have thought, to have specialist advisers. In some cases, it appears to have gone in the opposite direction. The idea is that everybody should know what they are doing, but a lot of people don't.
The lack of continuity of adviser affects them badly and leaves them vulnerable. Sanctions will come in, because people who have been on IS (and ESA) have quite a learning curve to conform to requirements of JSA. Some advisers will [use discretion]. It depends very much on the advisers.
There is huge pressure to challenge the claimants. You need to be quite brave as an adviser, under that kind of pressure.
John also shot this video interview with Lynne Hows, a PCS union branch officer on the Wirral, Merseyside.
In it she talks about the lack of training and preparation staff have for dealing with vulnerable customers.
Such customers are on the increase, Hows says, with many more being found fit for work.
From below the line, a powerful contribution from clarebelz, on the uncertainty and trepidation among people on the estate where she lives who will be affected by forthcoming welfare changes: the so-called "bedroom tax" and council tax benefit cuts.
Here's an extract:
I'll have to pay £100 every 4 weeks to stay here, plus any shortfall in Council Tax, and there is nowhere for me to go either. Similar to my neighbour, this will mean that I will have to go completely without heating, or live on rice or pasta; basically an almost nil food budget.
I haven't slept well for 2 weeks due to the worry, and I've had chronic depression and anxiety for 2 years due to realising how welfare reform would affect me.
I'm already seriously ill and the anxiety on top of everything, not knowing even if you'll qualify for disability benefits in the future, that even if you do that they will not cover your living costs, the feeling that there's no way out of what will amount to abject poverty for me, makes you think that life just won't be worth living.
Well worth a read
Lord Freud, the welfare minister, has written a response to the Guardian's Breadline Britain series, in which he addresses some of the issues we raise.
His piece will be going online on Comment is Free around 4.30pm. In the meantime, here are a couple of taster extracts:
On working poverty:
The Breadline Britain series began by tackling the subject of in-work poverty and challenged the notion that work is the best route out of poverty. We have never disputed that people can be poor in work. But there can be no doubt that being in a job is the best way to prevent poverty. Being in work gives you the chance to develop a career, to earn more and this can not happen if you are left on benefits.
On the Work Capability Assessment:
Your blog has highlighted concerns some people have around the Work Capability Assessment. The Government is not wedded to the WCA existing in a set form, so Professor Malcolm Harrington, an acknowledged expert in this field, is keeping it under continual review to ensure that we make this process work as well as it can for those who undergo an assessment. We have accepted all his recommended changes so far, and he will carry out the next stage of his review for us shortly.
Lord Freud adds:
Changes of this scope are understandably worrying for some people. We are working to build a welfare state that gives the support to vulnerable people when they need it, but doesn't abandon them to a life on benefits. People deserve and expect better and we are determined to do right by them.
What is life like on the brink of poverty in rural Britain?
Our map of local authority areas on the "cliff edge" revealed that many rural parts have high proportions of households facing "financial stress," from Fenland and the Western Isles to North Devon.
Professor Mark Shucksmith, Professor of Planning at Newcastle University and a commissioner at the Commission for Rural Communities, sent me this conttribution:
People in rural Britain are well used to work not always offering a route out of poverty, but this has not made them 'benefit-dependent'.
Analysis of the British Household Panel Survey shows that people living and working in rural areas are much more likely than those in towns and cities to suffer persistent low pay, but that they are also less likely to claim the welfare benefits to which they are entitled or to register as unemployed.
Instead many try to make ends meet by combining two or three poorly paid, insecure jobs. And levels of poverty among the self-employed are far higher in rural Britain. Low pay in rural areas seems to be associated with small firms, and with low-paying sectors like tourism and agriculture.
The introduction of the National Minimum Wage has helped, along with other benefit reforms which lifted many out of poverty in work after 1997. What would really help, though, would be policies which promoted a rural economy based on better-paid employment sectors, and this would help the economic recovery too.
You can now read the full version of the government's response to issues the Guardian's three day Breadline Britain series, by the welfare minister Lord Freud on Comment Is Free here
The think tank Demos, and Scope the disability charity have been tracking the impact of benefit cuts and the recession on six disabled households over the past two years.
The latest installment of its findings are published in a report, Destination Unknown, which is out on Friday. It's a fascinating report, which I'll be writing about tomorrow (in a news story, not on this blog).
One of the main impacts of austerity on these households, the report finds, is deteriorating mental health. By way of a taster, here's an extract:
All of the households in the study have reported stress, anxiety, fear, a sense of persecution or depression at some point during the course of the project.
It is clear the financial uncertainty caused by a prolonged period of significant welfare changes, combined with a shifting local support environment (such as
closures) and higher costs of living (utility and fuel bills), have been compounded by fluctuating health typical of so many disabled people to create a perfect storm of mental distress.Aisha's mother's mental health has deteriorated, and she is now on medication. Carla has had to increase her medication too. Helen is feeling at her wit's end fighting for the proper support for her son, and even Philip – who had hitherto always been supportive of the Government's deficit reduction plan and stoical about the financial sacrifices he needed to make – is now worried about his next work capability assessment and feels his benefit income is under threat.
A GP has commented below the line on work capability assessments. The post contains a link to a blogpost they have written about the "fit for work" test tribulations of one of their patients, who had chronic depression, anxiety and panic attacks.
It's incredibly powerful and moving. I won't extract from it because it is best read in full. You can read it here.
The GP, posting here as onegpprotest tweets at @onegpprotest
OK, that's it for today, and for the Breadline Britain live blog (at least for now).
Our investigations this week are collected in one place - here
We'll be continuing the project on an occasional basis over the next few weeks and months, and hope to follow up many of the leads you have given us.
Please send suggestions for future stories to patrick.butler@guardian.co.uk or via twitter at @patrickjbutler
Many thanks to everyone who helped us with our project, and to you for reading and contributing your views, tips and comments over the past week.
Patrick Butler
Social policy editor
The Guardian
Comments
21 June 2012 10:36AM
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21 June 2012 10:46AM
Especially by this bunch of over-privileged millionaires who haven't got a clue about common people's lives yet don't get tired to lecture others.
The solution is simple: kick the ConDems out and social mobility will magically improve again.
21 June 2012 11:05AM
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21 June 2012 11:09AM
Why does this paper repeatedly castrate itself by silencing the entirely justified rage of the people it claims to represent?
)
21 June 2012 11:10AM
We hear far too much from government ministers and their shadows. The strangely silent - or sidelined? - voices are those of constituency MPs in unemployment blackspots.
* What, for example, are these MPs doing on a practical level to support individuals needing their help through the benefits' minefield?
* How active are they in challenging local cutbacks, closures, and failures to achieve regeneration - and what form, if any, does this campaigning take?
* How "vocal" are they in parliamentary debates and behind-the-scenes discussion with party leaders on issues surrounding poverty?
* Do they have anything to say AT ALL in response to the Guardian's Breadline Britain coverage ..?
21 June 2012 11:12AM
The wider psychological impact on me of the Con-Dem austerity measures is the growing sense of doom and hopelessness.
DWP staff, in my experience are trained to assume that every "customer" is lying. Then, there is ATOS.
There appears to be "deserving poor" being set against the "undeserving poor". What about the deserving rich / undeserving rich divide?
On a personal note, I am now four months into a wait for an ATOS asessment. I feel doomed to be another statistic. The form being filled in was a humiliating experience, and the asessment is something that just terrifies me. I have become paranoid, wondering "Am I being watched,to check I`ve told the truth?" (which I have-trust me, I`d rather have a life than an existance). I`ve not spent money on things I need, because I am scared of being left with nothing when the ATOS asessment happens (therefore, I will be evicted, with nowhere to go).
I am very afraid of the echos between the current Con-Dem policies and those of Nazi Germany.
.
21 June 2012 11:15AM
The health impacts of the reforms tend to be ignored because unless you can prove an exact cause to a problem it gets dismissed. However, this report by the Marmot Review is excellent at outlining the costs to people's lives which in turn means costs to our economy:
http://www.instituteofhealthequity.org/projects/fair-society-healthy-lives-the-marmot-review
"There is a social gradient in health – the lower a person’s social position, the worse his or her health. Action should focus on reducing the gradient in health..
Health inequalities result from social inequalities. Action on health inequalities requires action across the social determinants of health..
Action taken to reduce health inequalities will benefit society in many ways. It will have economic benefits in reducing losses from illness associated with health inequalities. These currently account for productivity losses, reduced tax revenue, higher welfare payments and increased treatment costs.”
21 June 2012 11:40AM
The financial stability of the nation will hit the rocks though, attempts to increase social mobility are pointless anyway. The best way is to encourage people to make use of the opportunities available rather than just chucking money we don't have at hard luck cases.
21 June 2012 11:41AM
Why would that reply to articles that virtually no one will ever read much less their own supporters?
21 June 2012 11:58AM
Not everyone has access to these mythical "opportunities". Are we supposed to starve?
21 June 2012 12:02PM
No, that's why we have a benefit system. As long as subsistence is taken care of the rest is a bonus.
21 June 2012 12:10PM
Any campaign, blog or series or articles that rallies to a banner headline which alliterates (negatively) with 'Britain' can FRO. Cheap and lazy, a bit like - no, never mind.
21 June 2012 12:22PM
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21 June 2012 12:24PM
Censored again. Apologies I am not suffering in a polite way.
I know it sounds extreme, but perhaps if we just smile and ask Mr Cameron nicely if he could please stop being so nasty, there's a good chap, perhaps then things will change.
21 June 2012 12:29PM
Justin Forsyth fails to draw the logical conclusion from an other wise excellent letter: national governments are now very limited in what steps they can take to remediate the problems raise, especially in regard to the jobs market. (The assumes government would want to make the effort - this one certainly does not.)
Under the terms of social Darwinist globalisation the 'movers and shakers' are beyond any government's control, and the efforts of talking shops like the G20 are risible in this respect.
Some form of global governance must be recognized as the only way forward.
Getting from here to there - especially in the light of the European experience - is going to be a monumental undertaking.
Do we want a social world badly enough?
21 June 2012 12:31PM
Instead of hiding this series of articles in the society section, why not continue to make this campaign a front page campaign until it is addressed? And why not organise a mass protest?
It's nice that the Guardian are seriously focusing on these problems, but I don't see how it's actually going to achieve anything other than perhaps acting as a kind of safety/pressure valve for those affected to let off steam.
21 June 2012 12:33PM
But that's the point. They are cutting subsistance. ESA is maximum £94 per week for a childless adult no matter where in the UK you live. They've time limited contribution based to 365 days so that if you have paid into the system for years and then need a subsistance level safety net it only lasts a year if you have any capital or assets over 6K or a partner who earns 7.5K or more. And they are finding every single sneaky trick in the book to stop people's income based ESA and leave them destitute and desperate.
I have never met anyone on sickness benefits who is demanding untold riches from them (and I am sure I've met a lot more claimants than you have before you ask...) People are simply asking for the basics to live on, administered in a fair and transparent fashion not income that looks like a phone number.
And how the most vulnerable are treated matters because the government starts with them and when they get away with that they go after the next group which in this case is working parents in low wage jobs as evidenced by the recent Working Tax Credit cut. Increasing poverty and uncertainty affects the entire population, just in different ways depending which part you belong to.
21 June 2012 12:49PM
Thanks Celato these are good questions - will see if we can answer them in the live blog.
21 June 2012 12:51PM
Thanks qwerty99 - we've run the series from Monday - it was in three parts and the last part ot be published was yesterday. Today's live blog is just mopping up some of the reaction and will be finishing around lunchtime. Glad you've enjoyed the series and will be passing on your remarks to our editors to see what we can do next. Suggestions welcome.
21 June 2012 1:09PM
Can we please start defining what we mean by poverty? According to some criteria used I’ve been experiencing poverty and I can assure you I am not. I think the term is clearly being misapplied here and what is being referred to is relative poverty
21 June 2012 1:20PM
I'm really moved by these articles on Breadline Britain. I want to make a suggestion. Could you possibly do a feature on where foodbanks are and where people can donate to them? I know some supermarkets around the country have boxes where you can donate but here's an exmaple; I live in West Yorkshire and I'd like to donate food to a foodbank. I know where the headquarters of the local foodbank are but I can't get there in office times, how about a feature on where people can drop off supplies for foodbanks? I think it would really help
21 June 2012 1:21PM
Great - we're supposed to "subsist". I'd actually like to live. Is that OK with you?
21 June 2012 1:21PM
Yeah, if it's going to be talked about in general terms, we should refer to it as 'disadvantage'. The disadvantage varies depending on where you live and therefore how it affects your well-being.
21 June 2012 1:33PM
MPs are specifically employed to "reply" to matters affecting the people they are elected to represent. If the Guardian raises questions about impoverishment with an MP representing a poverty blackspot, it's his/her JOB to respond - whether directly or indirectly, positively or negatively, and whether in words or deeds.
For what other purpose do you think we pay politicians comfortable salaries and hefty office expenses?
21 June 2012 1:35PM
Thank you!
21 June 2012 1:49PM
It is not only Sir Michael Marmot who is pointing to debt as a key factor.
The Royal College of Psychiatrists also agree.
In our systematic review of the published scientific evidence
http://bit.ly/NTsDum
we contend that debt not only leads to the development of mental health problems, but is often overlooked in health policy for dealing with low income and poverty, and the activity of financial service organisations.
21 June 2012 2:04PM
Funny.
Because where I come from, social mobility works pretty well, is real and therefore is never questioned. But I know that people like you will do everything it takes to maintain your privileges, even if that means to keep everyone else down and out.
As somebody famous once said: You can fool some people some of the time... and so on.
21 June 2012 2:17PM
Sure, as long as you pay for it.
21 June 2012 2:32PM
I had my latest medical 9 weeks ago and STILL haven't heard if i am going to have to go to the tribunal again. That is 9 weeks of stress and anxiety.
21 June 2012 2:34PM
It's all the uncertainty that weighs down on you.
People feel like they're being attacked from all sides. Yesterday our estate had visits from a housing officer to inform them how much 'bedroom tax' they would have to pay from April 2013. On top of that we face Council Tax cuts and the threat of a great drop in income when migrating to Universal Credit next year.
My neighbours profoundly disabled son who has a mental age of about 4 had a serious fit on the day of the housing visit because he keeps thinking he'll lose his home. The £40 every 4 weeks that they will have to pay to stay there will mean they will have to cut down on food or utilities. There is nowhere for them to go; hardly any smaller properties available locally.
I'll have to pay £100 every 4 weeks to stay here, plus any shortfall in Council Tax, and there is nowhere for me to go either. Similar to my neighbour, this will mean that I will have to go completely without heating, or live on rice or pasta; basically an almost nil food budget. I haven't slept well for 2 weeks due to the worry, and I've had chronic depression and anxiety for 2 years due to realising how welfare reform would affect me. I'm already seriously ill and the anxiety on top of everything, not knowing even if you'll qualify for disability benefits in the future, that even if you do that they will not cover your living costs, the feeling that there's no way out of what will amount to abject poverty for me, makes you think that life just won't be worth living.
I'm having anxiety counselling again at the moment, but no matter what techniques I try to use to stop the symptoms, the cause of them won't go away: how am I expected to be happy when I'm facing the possible loss of my home and any sort of income that provides me with a dignified and stable life? Do they really not understand why so many people are committing suicide?
People I know just don't know who to turn to for help either. One seriously ill woman I know - permanently on morphine along with arthritis drugs and medication for severe asthma - has just lost her DLA. When she approached the CAB for help, she was told that the local authority has refused to fund a replacement for the CAB welfare officer who was on maternity leave. They suggested that she approach other disability organisations, but she was told that they are inundated with requests for help, so they can't take her case on.
This woman is left with £12 a week to live on due to the government also cutting the amount they give home-owners in mortgage interest and along with loans she had to take out for repairs. A few weeks ago she said that her week's food budget allowed for bread or butter, but not both. She can't stop crying and is seriously depressed: hardly in a fit state to fight an appeal. I really worry about what she may do to herself.
People are literally being scared to death here. We all knew we'd have to face cuts along with everyone else, but for some people this has already translated into abject poverty, which cannot be right in anyone's estimation.
People at the very least need housing and an adequate amount to cover their living costs.
21 June 2012 2:34PM
Is that you Ian Duncan Smith??
21 June 2012 2:46PM
Genuine question.Do you not,in the least comprehend that we all pay taxes and we all receive benefits;further the current policies of the Government inevitably and clearly lead to increased costs to the State.What do you think is the consequence when less people are able to live independently?By all means outline your misanthropy but be aware it is also against your own financial interests by not appreciating the actual consequences.
21 June 2012 2:46PM
I do pay for what I need - and save for years for some things. I'd just like more opportunities in life.
21 June 2012 3:23PM
Thanks for the suggestion campervanfan - certainly something will see if we can do as would be a great idea to see where the different foodbanks are across the UK.
21 June 2012 3:41PM
Some of us pay more taxes than others, some of us only pay tax on money received from true taxpayers (net taxpayers)
Increased cost to the state? Is only what the state feels it needs to pay.
How is it against my financial interests? If I and others like me paid nominal tax then we could get everything done privately.
21 June 2012 3:42PM
Some opportunities are not open to all. E.g. a blind person will never have the opportunity to pilot an airliner. What is the government supposed to do?
21 June 2012 3:45PM
That's just it, those who elected them which is not everyone in their constituency. These issues are of little interest to your typical Tory voter.
21 June 2012 4:00PM
Hi,
As for suggestions the main one HAS to be a front page investigation of the WCA assessment. Perhaps accompany several volunteers to their assessments as friends etc and undercover film/record. Make it clear to the public what the assessment process really is, not a medical at all, and the type of questions asked both on the initial form and the Lima software. Can you move an empty carboard box and do you watch eastenders is hardly a medical. Why should the boss of Atos get paid a £1million bonus, when a minimum of 40% of their decisions have to be overturned on appeal, at a cost of £50million to the taxpayer. In Scotland and I think Oxford,some CABs have a success rate of 95%. An undercover doctor going to work for atos would be the best way to get the truth of their "training" methods and how they are punished for not hitting performance targets ie not passing enough people fit for work. This is the biggest social and human rights issue of our time in this country. A government policy that is knowingly leading people to mental ill health, suicide and death in abject poverty cannnot go unquestioned in a supposedly civilised country.
21 June 2012 4:10PM
Hi Campervanfan,
Here is a map of where the food banks from just one charity can be found.
As you will see they are everywhere and more opening weekly. Who says Britain doesn't have a growth economy? (The direct map link I tried doesn't work,) so go to
http://www.trusselltrust.org/
On the main page is a link to UK Foodbank Map.
21 June 2012 4:16PM
It doesn't help when you deliberately give facetious examples to try and justify your "argument".
21 June 2012 4:20PM
"Lord Freud adds:
Changes of this scope are understandably worrying for some people. We are working to build a welfare state that gives the support to vulnerable people when they need it, but doesn't abandon them to a life on benefits. People deserve and expect better and we are determined to do right by them."
To which I reply:
BULL!
21 June 2012 4:31PM
If your typical Tory voter is not concerned with issues of poverty and impoverishment , as you say, don't worry, they soon will be.
Wealth is meant to trickle down but it rarely does. The plans for poverty to trickle up are already in motion.
The "typical" Tory voter is of no more concern to this government than an ant, unless you are a banker or millionaire. You too are also just a serf to provide the labour needed, however highly you seem to regard yourself. You are also claiming, by what you have stated, that the typical conservative voter is something less than human. I think some of them would disagree with you.
21 June 2012 4:35PM
and yet welfare reform was popular, one poll had it at 70% approval when the Welfare reform Bill was going through. I would sooner trust that that the hand wringing of a barely read liberal rag.
21 June 2012 4:45PM
Can we ever have facts?
£600 million overpayments?
All the Harrington recommendations accepted? - last report had 23 of which 8 were only accepted 'in principle'
How many times do we have to listen to the 38% rise in DLA claims?
Why are some figures presented in which a benefit claimants full household income is compared to the single earner income of a 'taxpayer' but the latter's working tax credits and child benefits are excluded?
Why is there no overal calculation of the cumulative effects of the cuts when there is a legal obligation under the UN convention to provide such information?
21 June 2012 4:54PM
A map showing the percentage reduction in disability services across the country would also be useful, perhaps with a link to previous such maps showing size of cuts in council budgets.
21 June 2012 4:55PM
I hate the government rhetoric about not 'abandoning people to a life on benefits'- giving the sick or unemployed a modest allowance to live on is not abandonment. Cutting it off when they have no other source of income certainly is, though.
21 June 2012 4:55PM
This blog has shown brilliantly how the tories/libdem policies are causing complete devastation to poor and vulnerable people countrywide.
I worked for 22 years until I became ill and unable to work any longer. I had no idea about how the welfare system worked and presumed as I had paid into the system since leaving school it would be there in my time of need. How wrong was I ???
My first hurdle was the ATOS farce to complete. I suffer severe mobility problems where I am unable to walk at all and have to crawl on the floor so not to use my legs. I have 3/4 blackouts each day and have a sleep disorder where I can fall asleep with no notice standing up and chatting. I have fallen asleep standing next to a cooker and set myself and kitchen on fire. I suffer these episodes approx 5-6 times a day. I have diabetis and am waiting for a heart operation.
The ATOS medical found I was perfectly fit for work and gave me 0 points. I saw the cab who helped me appeal and the tribunal awarded me over 40 points. How can there be such a huge difference in these results? I had provided the ATOS medical people with all my medical history and all my consultants reports. I had a blackout at my medical and had to be brought round by the person doing the medical. But I was still found fit for work. Plus the blackout was never mentioned in the report.
After the tribunal I thought that would be the end of my problems. I have had three medicals and three appeals which overturn ATOS decisions each time. Yesterday I received another medical invition to start the process again. The stress involved is hard to bear sometimes and what a waste of taxpayers money.
My other problem was my DLA application. DWP based there decision on my eligibilty to DLA by the rsults of the ATOS medical report for ESA. So I have had to endure three more appeals for DLA which I passed each time but another waste of money. Why are the government not penalising ATOS for each report they do wrong?? I wonder how much my six appeals have cost ????
My future looks bleak with bedroom tax and council tax cuts affecting me next year. I have a carer who helps me at night and she sleeps in my tiny spare bedroom. I have lived in my house for 34 years and upgraded it and made it into a lovely home and garden. Now the government are taking that away from me. Strangely enough my rent is £85 per a week which they wont pay but if I move to a privately rented one bedrromed house they will pay £170 per a week. How is that saving them money???
I have tried to move and my name is on many lists but there is no property suitable available. My choice in April will be to get into arrears and then I will face eviction if I cannot find somewhere suitable to move to. This must be one of the governments most ill advised policies to date. The housing associations opposed these plans to deaf ears. I note the mps will not be having to pay for any spare bedrooms they have in their tax payer funded homes.
A friend of mine is under 35 and has been hit by the room rate policy. To be able to stay in her home she took in a lodger like the ministers are telling people to do. Two weeks ago he came home and raped her and she is still in hospital at the moment. I know of two other people who will be homeless by July as there crime is to be 32 and 33. They both have small one bedroomed flats but will not be able to afford to pay there rent anymore. The council will pay bed and breakfast rates which on average are costing £450 a week. There rents are only £400 a month. How is this saving money ?????
There will be so many devastating stories to come with misery exploding into peoples lives just due to the tories/libdem policies that our so called developed society will have gone back to the victorian era. If I hear one more politician say we are doing the right thing as we have no money i think I will go mad. Funny how they have found enough money for trident while there citizens live in complete poverty and misery !!!
21 June 2012 4:57PM
That poll was taken only after the Conservative rags like the Mail and the Sun had run endlesss benefit scrounger stories and completely inaccurate figures on the level of benefit fraud, provided by the government. This was a deliberate ploy so that the barely thinking such as yourself, would not question the many measures contained in the Wellfare Reform Bill. In fact the media was so complicit, none of the MSM even covered the measures in the bill except the benefit Cap - the most part of which is housing costs in expensive areas of London. You have head of the Leveson Inquiry I suppose? It is about what newspapers will print in order to support government policies
Only now are those people who were so in favour, begining to realise the measures in the Bill which would affect THEM. Such as no working tax credits unless you can find an extra 8 hours work per week. Such as cutting credits for disabled children in half. Such as a 15% tax for having a spare bedroom, even if you are a foster carer. Such as stopping Disability Living Allowance to 20% of disabled people by moving the goalposts, as to what constitutes "disabled". eg the blind will no longer qualify for assistance with getting about.
The REAL levels of fraud, contained in the government's own figures, if you can be bothered to look them up are Incapacity Benefit 0.3%. Disability Living Allowance 0.5%. Not quite what the Mail and Telegraph told you is it? In fact there is more fraud committed by pensioners falsely claiming Pension Credit.
The benefit cap was popular because people were led to believe this was pure "income". Not told that the vast majority of it goes straight to private landlords charging exhorbitant rents because house prices are out of control. Or that the bulk of housing benefit is paid to people IN WORK, whoo even so cannot meet all the cost of their rent.
If you want to troll relentlessly when people are really suffering, at least try and get some facts under your belt. Otherwise you just look a bit foolish, you see.
Try running that poll again in a couple of years when the pensioners and middle classes realise it includes them too. Knowledge and experience has a funny way of changing opinions.
21 June 2012 5:04PM
Facts?
Sorry, 0.3% and 0.5% are not facts, they are conservative estimates. How can you possibly put a figure on fraud, it is secret, if we knew for certain what the figure was we would also knew who was behind it surely
I find you comments about serfs to be trolling as well- you have no idea of my circumstances and as for many Tory voters being serfs that to is a nonsesne. How is anyone above the national average income a serf? To many they are being screwed both ways, not rich enough to employ accountants to minimise their tax and not poor enough to qualify for benefits.
21 June 2012 5:14PM
If you are going to keep coming back with ill -informed comments, at least aim them at the right person.
I wrote the comment containing the fraud figures, not molly99, to whom you have addressed your comments.
If you have a problem with the DWP's own published statistics take it up with them. They do not record them as "estimates" but fact. They also include the "fact" that they lose more money in their own errors than fraud.
Since, in your haste, you have incorrectly addressed your reply to molly 99, try reading her truly horrific story. If it doesn't make you take a good look at yourself, then nothing will.