Month: November 2015

Scottish Welfare Reform Committee hear evidence of Jobcentre staff bullying benefit claimants

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The Scottish Welfare Reform Committee has heard evidence at Holyrood about Jobcentres bullying claimants, often reducing them to tears.

The Committee heard from witnesses who are claimants on a first-name basis only because of fears that the disclosures may lead to sanctioning by the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP).

However, one witness, Nicholas Young, whose firm Working Links has a £167 million contract to find jobs for people on the Department for Work and Pensions’ (DWP) Work Programme, said conditionality – specifically benefit sanctions – “has had a really positive impact over a number of years”. He claimed such “conditionality” is a way of “encouraging active participation.”

He didn’t provide evidence of his claim, and he didn’t elaborate how punitive state sanctions that remove people’s lifeline social security – calculated to meet only basic needs such as food, fuel and shelter –  could possibly be regarded as “encouragement.”

His evidence to the Welfare Reform Committee was at odds with other witnesses, including the director of another DWP contractor. Paul de Pellette, director of fellow Work Programme contractor Ingeus, said  that sanctions are a “disincentive” to building trust.

He said: “If you’re an employment adviser working in the Work Programme, one of the most important things to have is to build trust and rapport with the people that are coming through the door.

“Therefore, the sanctions regime in some regards could be viewed as a disincentive for that because the reality is you want to have trust and rapport.”

Contractors delivering the DWP’s voluntary disability employment scheme Work Choice also warned the UK Government’s decision to devolve the employment schemes to Holyrood but keep the responsibility for implementing sanctions was a recipe for confusion.

SNP MSP Joan McAlpine said the Work Programme contractors appeared “unmoved” by research which found people on the work programme “are three times as likely to be sanctioned than find a job”.

Mr Young said: “I am absolutely not unmoved at all. The plight and the personal circumstances of our customers is incredibly important to us.”

He went on to say: “Single parents have long had conditionality attached to their benefits regime. I think it has had a really positive impact over a number of years.

“Again, some disabled people will have conditionality attached to their benefits regime. I support the role of conditionality.”

He added: “I support the principle of conditionality as a way of encouraging active participation.”

However, although the Conservatives conflated sanctions with welfare conditionality under their welfare “reforms”, increasing the severity and frequency of sanctions as a punishment for “non-compliance”, sanctions and conditionality may also be regarded as mutually exclusive criteria, since state punishment need not be included in “encouraging” people to look for work.

Disabled people and lone parents already face additional barriers to finding work that are out of their control, and so to punish people in protected social groups potentially on the basis of their characteristics is discriminatory.

Another issue that was discussed is that those on welfare-to-work schemes spend all day having to repeatedly cold-call frustrated companies who do not have any work to offer, MSPs were told.

One witness, “Donna,” who had been made redundant after working all of her life gave evidence to the Committee, she said that Jobcentre advisers had bullied her, making her ill and stressed. She was a former Church of Scotland development worker from Glasgow.

She said of her first interview with the Jobcentre: “He made me feel like I was imagining my problems and I didn’t have any problems,”

“I would have been in a mental institution if I had stayed with that first adviser.”

“He was saying to me: ‘It’s not like you’ve got a leg missing.’ Each time he made me cry.

“I would have been in a mental institution if I had stayed with that first adviser – or I would have shot him.”

Another claimant called “Jake”, also from Glasgow, said: “Sometimes you sit on the phone from nine to five each day making calls for jobs but you know you’re not going to get anything. It’s depressing.

“The booklet I got was all of the cleaning companies, the laundry companies, you were just to phone up and say you’re looking for work. Most of them would say: ‘Don’t phone here again.'”

SNP MSP Christina McKelvie said the system amounts to “class warfare” with “propaganda” against the unemployed.

“A report from the DWP suggested only 24% of people going through the work programme were successful and only 9% of them were in a job after a year,” she said.

“The DWP had paid the providers £1.8bn since the scheme had started for that kind of outcome. Is all of that money worth it?”

Labour MSP Neil Findlay said: “If it is as described, this is in effect state-sanctioned cold-calling. This has really disturbed and upset me. In fact it has disgusted me.

“The system that we have created and the atmosphere in this system is so wrong, I find it incredible the more evidence that people present to us.

“It also disgusts me what they have done to public services on the frontline having to deal with people going through this bloody system, because I don’t think for one second 99.9% of them want to treat people like this.”

Alistair Kerr, head of quality and contract compliance at Work Choice contractor Momentum Scotland, said: “Any performance contracts have to have elements of conditionality to them, but if that is to the detriment of the most vulnerable across the UK then surely that should not be a model that should be adopted by the Scottish Government.”

Whilst the devolution of some aspects of Social Security continue to be debated during the passage of the Scotland Bill, the Welfare Reform Committee has focused on the practical implementation of the social security schemes outlined in the Smith Agreement.

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This post was written for Welfare Weekly, which is a socially responsible and ethical news provider, specialising in social welfare related news and opinion.

Government refuses to review the negative impact of sanctions on people with mental illness

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Illustration by Jack Hudson.

The increased use and rising severity of benefit sanctions became an integrated part of welfare “conditionality” in 2012. Sanctions are based on the behavioural theory called “loss aversion,” which is borrowed from economics and decision theory. Loss aversion refers to the idea that people’s tendency is to strongly prefer avoiding losses to acquiring gains. The idea is embedded in the use of sanctions to “nudge” people towards “changing their behaviours,” by using a threat of punitive loss, since the underpinning assumption is that people are unemployed because of personal behavioural deficits and making “wrong decisions,” rather than because of socio-economic conditions and political policy decisions.

However, a wealth of evidence has demonstrated that sanctioning does not help clients into work; indeed, it is more likely to make it much harder to get a job. Furthermore, sanctions are often applied in an arbitrary manner, without due regard to proportionality, rationality or for the health and wellbeing of people claiming benefits.

The Government is facing renewed calls for an independent review to examine its controversial benefit sanctions policy and to ensure vulnerable people are protected. However, Department of Work and Pensions minister, Priti Patel, has refused to examine the effect of its  sanctions regime on the mental health of people who are affected by it.

MPs used a question session in the Commons to raise concerns over the impact of benefit sanctions on the mental health of claimants.

Employment minister, Patel, said any analysis of the temporary benefit cuts’ effects would be “misleading” in isolation and that their effect should therefore not be examined.

“There are many factors affecting an individual’s mental health. To assess the effect of sanctions in isolation of all other factors would be misleading,” she told MPs at a Work and Pensions Questions session in the House of Commons.

She also claimed that there was no evidence that sanctions particularly affected people with mental health problems – a claim contrary to the results of independent research.

More than 100 people with mental health issues have their benefits sanctioned every day, according to figures released earlier this year.

The government’s refusal to engage with criticism of the sanction system’s effect on mental health comes after the highly critical study by the charity Mind.

83 per cent of Work Programme participants with mental health issues surveyed by Mind said the scheme’s “support” had made their mental health problems worse of much worse.

Jobseekers are to be given 14 days’ notice before facing benefit sanctions under a new scheme being trialled next year by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP).

But the government were questioned why they are waiting until next year to trial this idea.

Eilidh Whiteford, the SNP’s social justice and welfare spokeswoman, told Ms Patel: “The so-called yellow pilot scheme is actually an admission by the Government that the sanctions regime isn’t working at the present time, and it’s particularly badly failing people with serious mental illnesses.

“Why is the Government waiting until next year to bring in this pilot scheme, and in the meantime will they please just stop sanctioning people who are seriously ill?”

Ms Patel said she would “respectfully disagree” with Ms Whiteford, adding: “Claimants are only asked to meet reasonable requirements taking into account their circumstances and I think, as you will find with the pilots as they are under way, that again this is about how we can integrate support for claimants and importantly provide them with the support and the guidance to help them get back to work.”

Ms Whiteford insisted the reality is people with mental health problems are being “disproportionately sanctioned”, adding that has been clear for “some time”.

Ms Patel replied: “For a start, the Government has been listening and we have responded to the Work and Pensions Select Committee, hence the reason we will be trialling and piloting the new scheme.”

She reiterated staff in jobcentres are trained to support claimants with mental health conditions, adding: “There is no evidence to suggest mental health claimants are being sanctioned more than anybody else.”

Shadow work and pensions minister Debbie Abrahams told Ms Patel: “You may have inadvertently slipped up there.

“There is clear evidence from last year that 58% of people with mental health conditions on the Employment Support Allowance work-related activity group were sanctioned.

“Obviously that’s over half and that’s the equivalent to 105,000 people – 83% in a Mind survey say that their health condition was made worse as a result of this.”

Data released by the mental health charity Mind recently revealed the scale of sanctions imposed on people with mental health problems being supported by out-of-work disability benefits.

Obtained by the charity under the Freedom of Information Act, the figures show that there were up to three times more benefit sanctions issued by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) to people with mental health problems last year than there were people “supported” into work.

There were almost 20,000 benefits sanctions received by people who were out of work because of their mental health last year, while only 6340 of this group were successfully supported into a job during the same period.

Professor Jamie Hacker Hughes, President of the British Psychological Society, said:

“Today’s news, from a Freedom of Information request made by the mental health charity Mind, shows that three times as many people are subject to benefit sanctions as those who have been supported back into work.”

“We in the British Psychological Society have become increasingly concerned about benefit sanctions and a number of other issues concerning the psychological welfare of those on benefits.

“We have repeatedly sought a meeting with the Secretary of State and his team and now repeat that request so that his Department may become aware of the most up-to-date psychological research and opinion on these issues.

“There are approximately 250,000 people receiving the benefit Employment and Support Allowance who need this support primarily because of their mental health. People can be sanctioned – have their benefits cut – if they fail to participate in work-related activity, including missing appointments or being late for meetings or CV writing workshops.

“However, many people with mental health problems find it difficult to participate in these activities due to the nature of their health problem and the types of activities they’re asked to do, which are often inappropriate.”

The government has a duty to monitor the impact of its policies, and to make the results public. Sanctions are founded on theory and experimental behavioural science, which adds a further dimension of legitimacy to calls for a review into the impacts of sanctions on people.

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This post was written for Welfare Weekly, which is a socially responsible and ethical news provider, specialising in social welfare related news and opinion.

Tories and equality? Don’t make me laugh

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gret deceitThe government have claimed to be “committed to supporting the most vulnerable” and ensuring “everyone contributes to reducing the deficit, and where those with the most contribute the most.”

Cameron claimed that he intends to devote much of his time in office to “an all-out assault on poverty”, in his speech to the Conservative Party conference, he also said he wanted to tackle “deep social problems” and “boost social mobility” and remarkably, to “finish the fight for real equality.” 

I can’t help wondering with trepidation what “real equality” actually means to the government.

So, do the Tories walk the talk? Let’s have a look at their track record. Let’s judge prudently, by deeds not words.

Here’s a list of Conservative-led policies from their last term in office:-

The following cuts, amongst others, came into force in April 2013, affecting the poorest citizens:

  • 1 April – Housing benefit cut, including the introduction of the ‘bedroom tax’
  • 1 April – Council tax benefit cut
  • 1 April – Legal Aid savagely cut
  • 6 April – Tax credit and child benefit cut
  • 7 April – Maternity and paternity pay cut
  • 8 April – 1% cap on the rise of in working-age benefits (for the next three years)
  • 8 April – Disability living allowance replaced by personal independence payment (PIP)
  • 15 April – Cap on the total amount of benefit working-age people can receive 
  • Independent Living Fund for disabled people – scrapped
  • Access To Work grant for disabled people – cut

Here are some of the Tory “incentives” for the wealthy:

  • Rising wealth – 50 richest people from this region increased their wealth by £3.46 billion last year to a record £28.5 billion.
  • Falling taxes – top rate of tax cut from 50% to 45% for those earning over £150,000 a year. This is 1% of the population who earn 13% of the income. The wealthiest had a tax cut of £170,000 each per year.
  • No mansion tax and caps on council tax mean that the highest value properties are taxed proportionately less than average houses. Meanwhile, those previously exempt from council tax claiming social security now have to pay due to reductions in their benefit.
  • Benefitted most from Quantitative Easing (QE) – the Bank of England say that as 50% of households have little or no financial assets, almost all the financial benefit of QE was for the wealthiest 50% of households, with the wealthiest 10% taking the lions share
  • Tax free living – extremely wealthy individuals can access tax avoidance schemes which contribute to the £25bn of tax which is avoided every year, as profits are shifted offshore to join the estimated £13 trillion of assets siphoned off from our economy.

As a consequence of the highly discriminatory and blatantly class-contingent Tory policies, inequality in the UK has risen to the highest level amongst all EU countries, and tops even the US – the fatherland of neoliberalism.

Rampant socio-economic inequality apparently is the new Tory “real equality”.

The rise in the need for food banks in the UK, amongst both the working and non-working poor over the past five years and the return of absolute poverty, not seen since before the advent of the welfare state in this country, makes a mockery of government claims that it supports the most vulnerable. 

Income tax receipts to the Treasury have fallen because those able to pay the most are being steadily exempted from responsibility, and wages for many of poorer citizens have fallen, whilst the cost of living has risen significantly over the past five years.

The ideologically motivated transfer of funds from the poorest half of the country to the more affluent has not contributed to deficit reduction. It doesn’t take a genius to work out that the cumulative impact of Tory tax and welfare changes, from out-of-work and in-work benefits to council tax support, to the cut in the top rate of income tax and an increase in tax-free personal allowances, has been extremely regressive and detrimental to the poorest citizens.

The revenue gains from the tax changes and benefit cuts were offset by the cost of tax reductions, particularly the increase in the income tax personal allowance, benefitting the wealthiest.

The Treasury response to this is to single out the poorest yet again for more cuts to “balance the books” – which basically translates as the Conservative “small state” fetish, and deep dislike of the gains we made from the post-war settlement. Yet for a government that claims a non-interventionist stance, it sure does make a lot of interventions. Always on behalf of the privileged class, with policies benefitting only the wealthy minority.

How can Conservatives believe that poor people are motivated to work harder by taking money from them, yet also apparently believe that wealthy people are motivated by giving them more money?

Conservatives regard unemployment and disability as some kind of personal deficit on the part of those who are, in reality, simply casualties of bad political decision-making and subsequent policy-shaped socio-economic circumstances.

The Tory answer to policy-imposed structural constraints is to blame the individual and impose punitive measures to bring about “behavioural change.”

Hang on, don’t we elect governments to meet public needs, not to “change behaviours” of citizens to suit government needs?

This is not about “free markets”, “human nature” or the Tory’s new pet “behavioural science.” It’s policy-making founded entirely on traditional Tory prejudices.

Thanks to The Centre for Welfare Reform for the graphic

Related

There is no such thing as a ‘one nation’ Tory: they always create two nations

Conservatism in a nutshell

Tory dogma and hypocrisy: the “big state”, bureaucracy, austerity and “freedom”

It’s time to abolish “purely punitive” benefit sanctions

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Iain Duncan Smith has recently announced that harsh benefit sanctions system will be made less aggressive in response to criticism from a parliamentary select committee. 

The Work and Pensions Secretary said that people subjected to sanctions would from now on initially be given a “yellow card” or warning when the sanction – a benefit deduction – was triggered.

People would then be given a 14 day period to provide evidence of why a sanction was not deserved before the monetary penalty was applied. The onus is on the person claiming benefits to provide evidence and account of any “non-compliance” with the strict codes of “conditionality”, which is a now fundamental part of eligibility for social security benefits.

However, widely criticised decisions include people being sanctioned for missing jobcentre appointments because they had to attend a job interview, or because they were ill, or people sanctioned for not looking for work because they had already secured a job due to start in a week’s time.

A man with heart problems was sanctioned because he had a heart attack during a disability benefits assessment and so failed to complete the assessment.

The Work and Pensions Committee in March called for an independent inquiry into the way the sanctions operated, for the second time in a year. In the Committee report, MPs warned that the sanctions regime appeared to be “purely punitive”.

In August the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) was caught out making up quotes from supposed “benefit claimants,” saying that sanctions had actually “helped” them. A freedom of Information request (FOI) from Welfare Weekly exposed the fact that neither the comments on DWP leaflets nor the people used for the photographs were genuine.The DWP admitted that both “quotes” and people were for “illustrative purposes only.”

The Department of Work and Pensions is under fire again, this time for applying punitive benefit sanctions without any prior warning to tens of thousands of people over the past five years, according to a academic researcher, David Webster. In almost 300,000 cases, claimants have been hit with sanctions without being officially notified. The shocking figure includes an estimated 28,000 cases in Scotland. Campaigners warn that claimants are being left without any money and plunged into “crisis”.

The figure has been calculated based on data released by the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) by Dr David Webster, an honorary senior research fellow in urban studies at Glasgow University.

Under the Conservative welfare “reform” Act, sanctions are now used much more frequently within the social security system. The severity of sanctions has also increased and conditionality is now controversially applied to previously exempt groups such as lone parents and disabled people.

The DWP’s own analysis found that in 2014, there were 47,239 sanction decisions – a total of 6.9% of all cases – where claimants of Jobseeker’s Allowance (JSA) had not been notified in writing.

The DWP letters – which outline the sanction decision and the right to ask for a review and lodge an appeal – had not been sent out due to an “administration error.” The first that many people knew of the sanction was when they found they had not been paid into their bank account.

Webster has calculated that applying the percentage over the past five years shows there were around 279,000 cases where claimants had their benefit stopped without being officially notified.

The theories of “behaviour change” originating from the Cabinet’s “Nudge Unit” and advocated and extended by the Consevatives to prop up a small state ideology, underpin conditionality and sanctioning.

The efficacy of sanctions has been questioned by commentators from both the Right and the Left (including myself), with respect to the assumed responses of welfare recipients to financial sanctions and incentives, but also because of the profoundly unethical dimensions presented by state action that involves removing lifeline support that was calculated to meet basic survival needs, such as food, fuel and shelter.

There are further concerns that welfare conditionality leads to a range of unintended effects, including: distancing people from support; causing hardship and destitution; displacing rather than resolving issues such as street homelessness and anti-social behaviour; and negative impacts on third parties, particularly children.

Webster has said previously that research, and “a torrent of evidence from Britain’s voluntary sector, shows a wide range of adverse effects. Sanctions undermine physical and mental health, cause hardship for family and friends, damage relationships, create homelessness and drive people to Food Banks and payday lenders, and to crime. They also often make it harder to look for work.

Taking these negatives into account, they cannot be justified. Benefit sanctions are an “amateurish, secret penal system” which is actually more severe than the mainstream judicial system, but lacks its safeguards. It is time for everyone concerned for the rights of the citizen to demand their abolition.” 

The DWP has admitted the letters should have been sent out and is now writing to all those who did not receive the notification. However the correspondence will not include an apology for the error. The DWP say that they have now changed procedures so that letters to notify of sanctions will now be triggered automatically instead of having to be sent out manually.

Webster said the figures published by the DWP were an “important admission” of the problem.

He said: “It is a very large number and it explains why so many of these cases are being thrown up in the various voluntary sector reports on sanctions.

“This is one of the commonest stories that people tell – that the first they knew about a sanction is when they went to the cash machine and there was no money.”

He added: “You can do an estimate of the number in Scotland and there would be around 28,000 occasions a sanction has been imposed without the claimant being notified.”

However, Duncan Smith has said that the “yellow card” approach would be introduced on a trial basis, which is a relatively small commitment, next year.

In a letter to the Work and Pensions Select Committee, he said: “During this time, [two weeks] claimants will have another opportunity to provide further evidence to explain their non-compliance.” 

“We will then review this information before deciding whether a sanction remains appropriate. We expect that this will strike the right balance between enforcing the claimant commitment and fairness.”

David Webster’s written and oral evidence to the recent House of Commons Work and Pensions Committee inquiry into Benefit Sanctions, Beyond the Oakley Review, is available on the Parliament.uk website and and his other papers on sanctions are available via Child Poverty Action Group.

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This post was written for Welfare Weekly, which is a socially responsible and ethical news provider, specialising in social welfare related news and opinion.

Philip Davies sabotages Free Hospital Parking Bill for Carer’s by out-talking time

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Shameless Philip Davies Showed Tories’ Nasty Side By Filibustering Free Hospital Parking For Carers’

The Conservative MP for Shipley, Philip Davies, has intentionally blocked a proposed law to introduce free hospital parking for carers by speaking in the House of Commons for 93 minutes in order to use up the time allocated for the debate. Conservative MPs Christopher Chope and David Nuttall, who spoke for another hour and 20 minutes between them, also contributed to underhandedly “talking out the Bill.”

The private member’s Bill was brought forward by Julie Cooper, Labour MP for Burnley, and set out a proposed exemption to controversial hospital parking charges for carers. At the moment hospitals have “discretionary powers” to grant exemptions to parking charges.

Davies used a tactic called filibustering – where MPs speak for so long that a vote is delayed or prevented – he spoke about his opposition to the bill for more than an hour and a half. This meant that MPs ran out of time to vote on the law, as backbench debates are time-limited.

The Shipley MP has been accused of profound hypocrisy, because he  claimed £11.67 for parking in 2014-15 and £16 in 2013-14. He has also Davies also claimed parking fees for meetings with local councillors and constituents.

He argued that the proposals would mean “higher car parking charges for everybody else who visits the hospital in order to protect that revenue stream for the hospitals”. Though he stretched the point, talking so much that his lengthy monolgue left no time for a democratic vote on the Bill.

Nuttall, the MP for Bury North, also said it was inevitable that one of the consequences of the bill would be to “divert part of the healthcare budget that could otherwise be used for frontline national health services, potentially life-saving services, to cover car parking maintenance and all the associated costs”.

However, Labour MP Khalid Mahmood condemned the Conservative’s  tactics by some on the government benches.

“Owing to the assassins on the government benches more than two hours of time has, bizarrely, been taken up, and I do not think that I will be able to go into all the important issues that I wished to raise,” he said.

It’s a slap in the face for carers, because the bill, effectively sabotaged during the debate, will now be delayed, as it will be placed at the bottom of the pile of private members’ bills, but health minister Alistair Burt said the guidance principles sent to hospital trusts by the government detailing who should be granted concessions or exemptions would now explicitly mention carers.

Julie Cooper, who introduced her hospital parking charges (exemption for carers) bill to the Commons for its second reading, said the charges placed an unfair financial burden on those caring for disabled, seriously ill or older friends and relatives.

She spoke about her experience of caring for her own mother when she was in hospital. “Each night when I left tired and distressed I queued up to pay for my parking,” she said.

“At that time it was costing me £40 a week. On one of those days driving out of the car park, it occurred to me that I was lucky because I could afford to pay this charge and I went on to reflect on the matter and I thought what about those people who can’t afford to pay?”

It’s not the first time Davies and the Conservatives have used filibustering to sabotage Bills, On July 3, 1998, Labour MP Michael Foster’s Wild Mammals (Hunting with Dogs) Bill was stymied and blocked in parliament by opposition filibustering.

And only last November (2014), Philip Davies and Conserative MPs Christopher Chope successfully filibustered a Private Member’s Bill that would prohibit retaliatory evictions. Davies’s speech however, was curtailed by Deputy Speaker Dawn Primarolo for disregarding her authority, after she ordered Davies to wrap up his then-hour long speech. A closure motion moved by the government, which was agreed to 60–0, failed due to being inquorate.

Recently Davies has also filibustered legislation to stop rogue landlords evicting tenants asking for basic repairs. He also tried to thwart legislation to enshrine the Government aid budget in law – despite the legislation having the support of all three main parties.

Previously, Davies has contributed in preventing attempts by backbenchers to get mandatory smoke detectors fitted in rented properties, regulate payday lenders and force councils to provide support to those who care for the disabled.

And earlier this month – using a different tactic – he managed to prevent a Bill banning the use of wild animals in circuses from even being debated in the Commons. Among other things Davies has objected to gay marriage, regulating lobbyists, allowing MPs to tweet in the House of Commons and banning smoking in cars with children. Last week he came out strongly in favour of the oppresive ban on sending books to prisoners.

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This post was written for Welfare Weekly, which is a socially responsible and ethical news provider, specialising in social welfare related news and opinion.