Tag: Social housing

A word of caution about Esther McVey’s ‘u-turn’ on housing benefit for young people

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youth obligationThanks to Joe Halewood for the screenshot

A little background on the “Youth Obligation”.

The ‘national living wage‘ (which is actually an inadequate rise in the minimum wage) was one of the centrepieces of the Osborne budget back in 2015 – which does not apply to those people under 25. Osborne exhorted young people to “earn or learn” in a budget speech that also cut their entitlement to receiving benefits and student grants, prompting serious complaints that young people had been unfairly targeted.  

The policy to end automatic entitlement for the housing element of Universal Credit was announced by David Cameron and Osborne in 2014 and was introduced last April. Housing and homeless organisations warned last year that it will cause grave hardship and force cash-strapped councils to meet higher costs for emergency accommodation. The plans of a review, and potential for a government u-turn on the housing element payment for young people were actually announced last year.

The controversial policy has now been dropped to “reassure young people” they will “receive the help with housing costs that they need.”

McVey said: “The change I am announcing today means that young people on benefits will be assured that if they secure a tenancy, they will have support towards their housing costs in the normal way.”

Matt Hancock released details of ‘radical plans’ in August 2015 “to end long-term youth unemployment and decades of welfare dependency.” He “pledged that the cross-government Earn or Learn Taskforce he chairs will create a ‘no excuses’ culture to support youth employment. ” 

However, we know by now that ‘targeted support’ is a euphemism for draconian welfare conditionality and sanctions. Of course the Conservatives’ ideas were not original. They were imported from the neoliberal Tony Abbott led coalition government in Australia, who announced their ‘earn or learn’ programme back in 2014. Like our own Conservative government, the neoliberal Abbott administration framed welfare as a “trap”, claiming the existence of a ‘culture of dependency’, a radical New Right myth extended from the likes of Charles Murray, which has been thoroughly debunked over the last few decades.

To sustain an ideological commitment to ‘small state’ antiwelfarism, neoliberal welfare narratives are reduced to a language about creating ‘incentives’ and discipline as opposed the traditional established narratives that portray a safety net provision to support people in meeting their basic survival needs (food, fuel and shelter). 

The traditional justification for paying citizens social security in order to ensure they can meet their fundamental needs has been ludicrously turned on its head and presented as a ‘malfunction’ of welfare – apparently it ‘creates poverty’ instead of alleviating it – by neoliberals.

In addition, welfare dependency arguments are based on a number of false assumptions and prejudices, because of the ‘small state’ ideological commitments of neoliberals.  There is a long tradition, stretching back to the Poor Law Amendment act of the 1830s, of political capitalists trying to use welfare to ‘improve’ the poor. Conservatives and some of the economic liberals (as opposed to social liberals) tend to present ‘problems’ with welfare in a moralistic way – they say it systemises “perverse incentives”, or that it it rewards “immoral behaviour”. The goal of welfare reform from this perspective is therefore justified as being about paternalism: administering and imposing discipline, instilling the “right attitude” and coercing behavioural change, rather than alleviating absolute poverty.

The “Youth Obligation” is simply an extension of that approach.

‘Reservations’ have been expressed about the Youth Obligation’s mandatory requirement that young jobseekers apply for a training opportunity or work placement after six months of claiming support. 

The Youth Obligation programme, in areas where full universal credit is running, requires claimants aged between 18 and 21 to undergo ‘intensive job-support training, including work experience, skills workshops, mentoring, help with job applications and interviews, and training in maths, English and IT.’

Those young people still unemployed after six months are given compulsory vocational training and work experience in a sector with a high number of vacancies or encouraged to take up a traineeship.

The youth homelessness charity Centrepoint commissioned the Institute for Employment Studies (IES) to seek the views of vulnerable young people, as well as training providers and charitable organisations who work with them, to further explore the possible implications of the Youth Obligation for the most disadvantaged young people.

Young people surveyed, who had experience of unemployment and/or were living in supported accommodation, consistently stressed that they would only be encouraged to engage in a training opportunity or work placement if it was linked to their career aspirations, or if it did not present other barriers such as being too far to travel or not providing sufficient pay. If Jobcentre Plus were unable to provide access to high-quality opportunities they could see value in, many felt that they would simply disengage and stop claiming benefit.

Previous research has shown how homeless young people find it difficult to meet the conditionality terms of their benefit claim, and are disproportionately affected by benefit sanctions compared to the wider claimant population.

However, it is inexcusable that the state considers it is justified in withdrawing financial support that is meant to ensure people can meet their basic living requirements, if young people, living in a wide range of circumstances, cannot meet the inflexible, behaviourist conditionality requirements, including those of the work fare scheme.  

The ‘U-turn’ on housing costs for young people

 The UK government has announced today that it will amend social security regulations so that all 18 to 21-year-olds will be entitled to claim support for housing costs within the scope of Universal Credit provision. The announcement has been timed for the upcoming local elections in May.

The government says its ‘rethink’ is in line with their Homelessness Reduction aims, which comes into force next month, ‘reiterating its commitment to eradicate rough sleeping by 2027’.

Young people will also be given “comprehensive and intensive work-focussed support”, whether they are ‘learning’ or ‘earning’, as part of the ‘Youth Obligation’. Young people will need to sign up to this commitment to be eligible for housing support.

Work and Pensions Secretary of State, Esther McVey, said: “We want every young person to have the confidence to strive to fulfil their ambitions.

“For those young people who are vulnerable or face extra barriers, Universal Credit provides them with intensive, personalised support to move into employment, training or work experience; so no young person is left behind as they could be under the old benefits system.

“As we rollout Universal Credit, we have always been clear we will make any necessary changes along the way. This announcement today will reassure all young people that housing support is in place if they need it.”.

Denise Hatton, Chief Executive for YMCA England & Wales, said: “YMCA welcomes today’s announcement by the Government but we have long argued that the policy was flawed from the outlet and would not deliver what the Government said it would.

“Our 2015 research showed that scrapping housing benefit for young people wouldn’t drive them to ‘earn or learn’ as the majority would find it impossible to find training and employment without having a stable and safe home.

“By removing automatic entitlement to housing support, the Government took away a vital safety net from some of the country’s most vulnerable young people, who have no choice but to rely on it during their times of crisis and need.

“Reinstating housing benefit allows thousands of young people across the country to get the helping hand their need and support them to get their lives back on track.”

Margaret Greenwood MP, Labour’s Shadow Work and Pensions Secretary, said: “Labour welcomes this major U-turn and the fact that the Government have enacted another policy from our popular manifesto.

“However, housing support has been frozen until 2020 and young people still face major problems in finding affordable housing.

“The sight of young people sleeping on our streets has become all too common under this Conservative Government. Behind the homelessness figures, there are many young adults having to sofa surf or remain living with their parents.

“Labour will invest in genuinely affordable housing, regulate the private rented sector and ensure that all young people have a secure home.”

SNP’s Social Justice spokesperson Neil Gray said: “This major u turn from the Tories shows they have finally realised that penalising young people – as they had done until now – is simply callous and could only lead to a rise in homelessness for young people.

“Any change of policy in the shambolic and damaging roll out of UC is welcome – but we need to see detail from the DWP on what they mean by saying young people will need to sign up to a ‘youth obligation‘ before accessing this much-needed benefit – how that will work.

“We also need clarification on whether or not these changes will be linked in any way with sanctions. Our young people need support into work and into homes and not to be penalised as they start their life by having vital financial support removed from them.

“The SNP Scottish Government has always mitigated this callous policy and provided support to under 21s through the Scottish Welfare Fund, and the social security bill ensured this support would be in legislation – at an estimated cost of up to £6.5 million by 2020.

“It is shameful that it’s taken the UK Government till now before realising this policy was just wrong from the start.

“The Tories think they make any cuts in welfare and get away with it – £4bn in annual cuts to Scotland by the end of the decade. now they have u-turned on this, they can reverse all these cuts and realise people need a helping hand up not pushed into poverty.”

The other catch

As Joe Halewood scathingly points out, the amount of housing costs payable under Universal Credit to young people may be limited to the shared accommodation rate (SAR) for 18 – 21 year olds in private sector housing. There are limited exemptions from SAR, but some only apply to people of certain ages. The outcome of these changes to young people’s housing support is that the majority of single young people aged under 35 who are unable to work, looking for work or on a low income will be living in houses that have multiple occupation. 

Today’s announcement neglected to include the information regarding the reduced rate of housing benefit under the Local Housing Allowance rules. Social housing more generally is difficult to access, but young people are even more constrained. This is, in part due to  a decrease in the number of social housing completions. There is currently little political support for social housing from the government.

During the Spending Review and Autumn Statement 2015, Osborne announced an intention to restrict the level of Housing Benefit, or the housing element of Universal Credit, claimed by tenants in social housing (council and housing association ‘stock’) to the Local Housing Allowance (LHA) rate. LHA rates currently apply to most Housing Benefit claimants living in the private rented sector and entitlement is related to household size. A delay in applying the LHA caps and an extension to all Universal Credit claimants was announced during the Autumn Statement 2016, after many charities and academics raised concerns regarding the likely negative impacts. 

Housing Benefit restrictions based on the size of the property occupied have applied to tenants in the private rented sector since 1989. However further changes to legislation were made in 2011, which restricted the number of rooms permitted per child under the age of 18 if they were same sex, and under 16 if they weren’t. Children under those ages are expected to share a bedroom. 

Theresa May dropped the plans to cap housing benefit for social housing and supported accommodation, which had been blamed for an 85% decline in new homes being built for vulnerable people last October.

The prime minister told MPs in the Commons that it would no longer roll out welfare changes that would have resulted in people living in sheltered accommodation having their housing benefit capped in line with private sector rents. The changes were set to save the Treasury £520m by 2020.

May said it was important to “ensure the funding model is right so all providers of supported housing are able to access funding effectively”.

Several schemes for new housing for vulnerable people have either been postponed, cancelled or face closure, a drop from 8,800 to just 1,350 homes, a survey for the National Housing Federation found last year . Uncertainty over the proposed changes to housing benefit have been blamed by many for the decline.

Critics said the LHA rates would have created a postcode lottery and had no relationship to the cost of providing specialist housing in supported accommodation, which include homes for war veterans, disabled people and women fleeing domestic violence.

The shadow housing minister, John Healey, said his party was “winning the arguments and making the running on government policy” but said it would look closely at the detail. 

Labour was due to call on the government to rule out cuts to supported housing during an opposition day debate, but following the climbdown, Healey said the prime minister now needed to commit to a system “which safeguards the long-term future and funding of supported housing”.

The Conservatives’ had originally planned the move to apply LHA rates to Housing Benefit claimants living in the social rented sector, which would have meant that the SAR would also apply to council and housing association tenants under the age of 35 from April 2019 if they are in receipt of Universal Credit, or if their tenancy began or was renewed after April 2016 and they are not living in supported accommodation. (Source: House of Commons Library research briefing, 13 November 2017).

I can’t help but wonder what caveat Esther McVey was referring to in her dissembling use of the vague phrase “in the normal way”. 

‘Securing a tenancy’ isn’t an easy task for young people who need to on very low incomes. Young people tend to have low eligibility for social housing, with priority being given to families. There is a lack of social housing that is suitable for young people, also. Furthermore, The traditional presumption that younger people have recourse to the parental home has been challenged by the introduction of the ‘spare room subsidy’, which finacially penalises parents in social housing for keeping a room free in case their adult children may need to return.

The Conservatives have tended to place an emphasis on home ownership and the private sector in particular, for example: “We want to support the private rented sector to grow, to meet continuing demand for rented homes” (HM Government, 2011; Cameron, 2014).

It has always been the case, historically, that younger people are most strongly represented in the private rented sector,because this sector is the most readily accessible to this group.  A survey (Shelter, 2014) found that less than a quarter (23 per cent) of working adults aged 20-34 living in the parental home wanted to be there, and that the lack of affordable housing was the main stated reason for still living at home. At the same time, wider changes in the economy and labour market have made it harder for young people to enter, remain and progress in employment. 

Under the Localism Act, 2011, local authorities are now empowered to discharge their homelessness duty to households deemed statutorily homeless through the offer of a twelve-month private rented sector assured shorthold tenancy. Younger single
people, who as ‘non-priority’ cases have largely been excluded from social housing provision as a consequence of their perceived lower level of need, are now increasingly in competition for property with ‘priority’ households that have in the past been offered a social housing tenancy.

The failure to meet the housing needs of young people is predicated on a presumption that the parental home will always be available if affordable privately rented property is not available. However as I have stated, the bedroom tax prevents parents from keeping a room for their adult children, in the event of them returning home. The government has consistently failed to respond to the housing option constraints place on young people.

To date we have seen every indication that the implementation of Universal Credit is about cutting the level of support that people received under the old system, to the point where even some of its proponents have feared it has become too mean and inadequate to work for those it is meant to help.

Disabled people, for example, are set to lose the disability premiums under Universal Credit that are currently payable under the employment and support (ESA) benefit. The disability income guarantee is set to be abolished for new claimants who are disabled, and the cut will affect many of those who have a change of circumstances, too, such as moving to an area with full Universal Credit roll-out while they are still claiming ESA.

Crisis and other charities have campaigned against the SAR, saying that the modest single room rate would exclude people from housing and increase the risk of homelessness for people in the under-35 age group. (The definition of ‘young person’ was also changed by the government, from under 25  to under 35).

Charities were also concerned that there was not enough accommodation to cater for people under the age of 35 who would require rooms in shared accommodation. There were also concerns that people would be pushed into unsuitable housing or into sharing accommodation inappropriately.

In January, government statistics revealed it would not make the savings ministers had originally thought because most young people claiming housing costs fell within the exemptions that were published alongside the legislation. This indicates that young people claim housing costs because they need to, rather than just because of a ‘lifestyle choice,’ as the government had previously implied.

David Orr, chief executive at the National Housing Federation, said: “It’s very good news the government are restoring housing benefit to 18-21 year olds.

“This benefit cut has been creating great confusion over whether young people were eligible for these vital funds. Housing associations have told us that as a result they have seen more young, vulnerable people sleeping rough, or forced to depend on unscrupulous private landlords and dangerous accommodation. This was a policy that made no sense and today’s decision is a positive sign they are listening on welfare reform.”

It’s only taken the government five years and immense amounts of pressure from the opposition, charities and academics to see the damage and harm that these policies are causing. The small concession has just restored provision for young citizens to meet a basic survival need, which should never have been removed in the first place, in a wealthy, so-called civilised society.

However, any support provided under Universal Credit is precarious, and constantly under threat from the extended, draconian sanction regime, which includes punitive financial penalties and the withdrawal of lifeline support to people in work but on low pay or working part-time hours. Even if young people manage to navigate the series of ordeals built into the rigid and old school behaviourist conditionality of the Youth Obligation, there are further ordeals awaiting, even if they find work.

Young people are very likely to be low earners who require additional Universal Credit support to meet living costs, and because the ‘national living wage’ is paid only to those aged 25 and over, this simply adds to the problems experienced by this social group. The government welfare ‘reforms (a euphemism for cuts) were never about “making work pay”. They were about dismantling our social security system, a cut at a time.

Now the government have perhaps realised that those social groups that have been disproportionately targeted for affected by their austerity programme are actually comprised of voters too. The Conservatives are currently attempting to engage with young people to persuade them vote for them. 

There is still a long way to go before we may celebrate such a small concession on the part of a government that has demonstrated over and over just how much it despises our vital social security safety net. The same government that introduced the bedroom tax and two welfare caps, cuts to disabled people’s vital lifeline support and has presided over a deregulated job market offering increasingly insecure, poor quality and low paid employment for the past eight years, whilst steadily dismantling our essential social safety net.

Image result for housing benefit claim

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Osborne’s housing benefit cap could mean tens of thousands of the most vulnerable citizens losing their homes

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Grave concerns regarding the impact of proposed housing benefit cuts on the most vulnerable social groups have also arisen. Last month a specialist housing association warned that people under the age of 35 in mental health accommodation face rent shortfalls of almost £200 a week under  government plans to cap housing benefit for social housing tenants at Local Housing Allowance rates.

John Healey MP, Labour’s Shadow Cabinet Minister for Housing and Planning, warned at the time that housing providers could be forced to close accommodation for the most vulnerable because of housing benefit cuts.

Brighton Housing Trust (BHT) said that its fincancial modelling of the impact of capping housing benefit for social tenants, including supported housing tenants, at Local Housing Allowance rates revealed that 70% of all its homes would be unaffordable to under 35s under the plan, as they would only qualify for the “shared room rate” – the cost of renting a single room within a house.

The Trust said in its specialist supported housing, under-35s would face a shortfall of between £52.60 and £193.49 in 71 of 101 mental health units. There would also be shortfalls of up to £75 per week in specialist drug and alcohol units, homelessness hostels and young people’s accommodation.

Tenants older than 35 would also be unable to afford many of the homes, although the benefit gaps would be smaller.

BHT is a specialist housing association which provides for tenants with support needs, even in much of its general needs accommodation.

The association warned that the government’s offer of additional Discretionary Housing Payments to plug the rent shortfalls would also be insufficient.

The housing benefit cuts which were announced last Autumn in  George Osborne’s budget Statement are claimed to be aimed at bringing housing benefit rates for social housing in line with the sums paid to landlords in the private sector. However, the National Housing Federation has raised further concerns in a press release statement today. The Federation’s Chief Executive, David Orr, said:

“New homes for people with support needs – vulnerable people – that would be being built have been cancelled.

The impacts of the LHA cap are real and immediate. The threat alone has caused the building of thousands of specialist homes for the nation’s most vulnerable to grind to a halt. And if the cap comes into force, our research suggests that 156,000 specialist homes could be lost.

The PM has said that this would be a government that supports the vulnerable. But if this cap applies, society’s most vulnerable – dementia patients, women fleeing domestic violence, army veterans suffering mental health problems, older and disabled people – will be asked to find an extra £68 a week.

“We have repeatedly tried to engage the Government on the urgency and severe impacts of this cap on supported housing – we need clarity that this won’t apply to those in specialist homes today.”

Mr Osborne said the move, which will affect England, Scotland and Wales, would deliver savings of £225m by 2020-21, and is part of a £12bn package of cuts from the welfare bill. Conservative ministers claim they are reviewing the sheltered housing sector “to ensure it works in the best way possible”.

But hundreds of planned new sheltered accommodation units have been delayed or scrapped owing to proposed cuts to housing benefit. And several housing associations have said they are no longer financially viable. The National Housing Federation (NHF) has calculated that nearly 2,500 units have so far been scrapped or delayed as sheltered housing providers face losing an average of £68 a week per tenant.

Flats for elderly people and people with learning disabilities are more expensive to build and run because they provide crucial additional support. Concerns raised about the cap on housing benefit will affect society’s poorest and most vulnerable people, such as  women fleeing domestic violence, dementia patients,  army veterans suffering mental health problems, older and disabled people, because these peoeple  will need to find an extra £68 a week.

BBC News reports that a further four housing associations confirmed their plans had needed to change:

  • Southdown Housing in East Sussex has ben forced to scrap plans for 18 units for people with learning disabilities
  • Knightstone Housing in Somerset has delayed a complex of 65 homes for the elderly and 13 properties for learning-disabled people
  • In Manchester, Contour Homes has had to put on hold a scheme to build 36 units for the elderly
  • In North Yorkshire, Harrogate Neighbours has delayed construction of 55 extra care flats

John Healey MP Labour’s Shadow Cabinet Minister for Housing and Planning, has commented further today on the new reports of the effect that the Chancellor’s planned cuts to housing benefit are having on specialist accommodation for elderly and vulnerable people. He said:

“George Osborne’s crude cuts to housing benefit could mean tens of thousands of people losing their homes, including elderly people with dementia, veterans and women fleeing domestic violence.

“The consequences of these cuts are being felt right now, with the building of thousands of new homes stopped or scrapped because of Ministers’ failure to act.

“Labour will continue to lead the opposition to these crude cuts. George Osborne must halt these dangerous plans and consult fully with housing providers to safeguard this essential specialist housing.”

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Pictures courtesy of Robert Livingstone

Mother who faced bedroom tax eviction after son’s suicide found hanged with note to David Cameron

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An inquest has heard that Frances McCormack, a 53-year-old school cook, had been hounded for bedroom tax payments since the tragic suicide of her 16-year-old son, Jack Allen, in 2013. A handwritten note, dated 10 days before her death, was found in her bedroom, part of which was addressed to David Cameron, outlining the hardships and distress that the Bedroom Tax was causing her.

Ms McCormack’s body was discovered by her close friend Natalie Richardson at her home in Maltby, near Rotherham.

An eviction notice was served on Ms McCormack the day before her body was discovered, the court heard.

Frances McCormack had been helping Rotherham Council with its suicide prevention work following the tragic suicides of an increasing number of local young people.

Her ex-husband Jimmy Allen said after the inquest: “She was a strong-willed woman and a good, loving mother. This was a totally unseen body blow to the family.”

Close friend Natalie Richardson told the Doncaster inquest: “Frances had spoken to me previously about the property.

“She wanted to buy into it, it was where the three boys were raised and where Jack took his last breaths, ate his last meal and spoke his last words.

“She was a very strong woman, very strong minded. I felt she was getting a lot better with herself. She had decided to go out a bit more, she had started going to the gym, she was very focused and always had something to do.

“She never gave me any kind of inkling and was strong for me when my partner passed away. She was my rock.”

A Department for Work and Pensions spokesman said: “Our sympathies are with the family of Ms McCormack. This is a tragic and complex issue and it would be misleading to link it to one cause.”

The cause of Frances McCormack’s suicide was the distressing impact of a cruel and punitive policy that is intentionally designed to target our poorest and most vulnerable citizens. Frances was already vulnerable because she was grieving her son. But she was also bravely supporting others, in her contributions to suicide prevention work. It must have been profoundly distressing to receive notice that she was to be forced out of her family home.

How many more suicides will it take before this souless, indifferent government recognise the all too often devastating consequences of their “reforms” and engage with citizens, honestly and openly investigating their accounts, and those of campaigners, academics and professionals? There is an established correlation between Conservative austerity cuts and an increase in suicides and deaths that demands urgent investigation.

Surely what is needed, instead of a wall of oppressive political denial, is a democratically accountable impact assessment of the Conservative’s draconian and ideologically-driven policies. Denying other people’s experiences of inflicted political cruelty is the hallmark of Despotism. It’s not the behaviour one would expect from an elected government in a first-world liberal democracy.

Recent research by Iain Duncan Smith’s own department showed 78% of bedroom tax victims were penniless by the month’s end and at least half had to turn down their heating.

The study report was released on December 17 – the very last day of parliament before the Christmas break.

The Labour Party have confirmed the report was received by the Department for Work and Pensions on December 8 and signed off completely for publication on December 11.

A Department for Work and Pensions spokesman insisted it was standard practice for there to be a week’s delay between reports being received and published online.

But the shadow work and pensions secretary Owen Smith said: 

“The Tories are right to be ashamed about a report showing the Bedroom Tax is driving people deeper and deeper in to poverty.

“Iain Duncan Smith should show some decency, by being honest about the damage his hated policy is causing. Then listen to Labour’s calls to scrap the Bedroom Tax at once.”

The government released 36 ministerial statements – compared to three or four on an average day – in a mountain of information on the last day of Parliament before Christmas. Anyone would think the Conservatives want to avoid any democratic scrutiny or accountability.

Alison Garnham of the Child Poverty Action Group said:

“The DWP’s own evaluation finds the ‘bedroom tax’ is not only pushing families into hardship but it’s also failing to free up more accommodation for families – the key argument ministers used to justify this controversial policy.

“This is a long and deep look at a hugely controversial policy – it really should not have been released just as MPs rise for Christmas.”

Department for Work and Pensions sources maintain that the bedroom tax is “fair”, claiming that it was “wrong” that “taxpayers had to “subsidise” benefit claimants to live in houses that are “larger than they require.”

However, most benefit claimants have actually worked or are working in low paid jobs, and have therefore contributed to their own provision.

It would be far more reasonable, credible and valid to object to the “taxpayer” having to subsidise big businesses who are avoiding paying their taxes. The public are paying for a grotesquely greedy level of bonuses and multimillion figure salaries awarded to incompetent private sector CEOs. Only a quarter of government revenue comes from income tax, with much of the rest coming from national insurance and indirect taxes such as VAT, paid by the population as a whole, including by those people needing social security. But tax avoidance is widespread amongst much of the corporate and wealthy elite that benefits so much from state handouts. There’s a real “culture of entitlement” that the Conservatives happily endorse. And it is costing us far more than the welfare state, established for those in need, after the war.

In the Conservative benefit-cutting climate of austerity Britain, one of the wealthiest nations of the world, disability charities have reported that the despicable scapegoating “scrounger” rhetoric has provoked a significant surge in abuse and hate crime towards disabled people. But the behaviour of state-funded private contractors such as G4S and Atos must surely raise the question of who the “scroungers” really are.

In April 2014, Atos was forced to abandon their contract with the government because of a growing backlash, but not before they had syphoned off very large sums of public money. Meanwhile, sick and disabled people have had their support brutally slashed to the bone, people have died as a consequence of that. Yet our welfare state is being used as a sporting arena for big business profit-making, eating up public funds that were supposed to help people who have encountered difficulties meeting their basic needs through losing their job or becoming ill. Now there is a cause for public and political outrage.

The selling of our public services and lucrative contracting out of state functions to private companies who exchange public money for a notoriously poor service is a prominent feature of Tory “small state” Britain. Tax-funded corporate welfare has never been more generous. Another such woefully inept business is A4e, a welfare-to-work company dogged by controversy over poor performance and corruption. Former chairman Emma Harrison paid herself £8.6m in dividends, all courtesy of the taxpayer. In February 2014, four former A4e employees admitted committing acts of fraud and forgery after charging the state for working for clients that did not even exist.

The Conservative’s draconian policies, which they claim were intended to “solve” Britain’s housing crisis, have done nothing but actually make it worse. The Tories have overseen the withdrawal of the right to lifetime tenancies, introduced a dubious “help to buy” guarantee that further inflates housing costs and they have imposed an arbitrary benefits cap, applied indiscriminately whatever a family’s size or needs, which will see an exodus of poorer people, effectively bringing about a “social cleansing” of the capital and other major cities.

Few groups have suffered more than disabled people from this government’s five years in office. Though the human rights of women and children have also been violated by this government’s grinding and unrelentlessly discriminatory legislative machine.

I wrote earlier about the grave concerns regarding the impact of the next round of proposed housing benefit cuts on the most vulnerable social groups from within the housing sector. A specialist housing association has warned that people under the age of 35 in mental health accommodation face rent shortfalls of almost £200 a week under  government plans to cap housing benefit for social housing tenants at Local Housing Allowance rates. Financial modelling shows that at least 95 per cent of supported housing providers would be forced to evict their tenants if the government succeeds in slashing housing benefits.

Capping benefits at the level of Local Housing Allowance (LHA), the council-administered benefit for people in the private rented sector, would affect almost everyone in supported housing.

Every single Tory austerity measure targets the most vulnerable and those citizens with the very least to lose, and not “those with the broadest shoulders,” as Cameron claimed would be the case in 2010.

Charities, mental health professionals, campaigners and researchers have warned the government that austerity cuts are causing mental distress and are linked to rise in suicides.  Research published in September 2015 by Mind, the UK’s largest mental health charity, reported that for people with mental health problems, the Government’s flagship back-to-work scheme, the Work Programme, made their distress worse in 83 per cent of cases. 

A letter, published before the 2015 election, signed by 442 professionals ranging from psychologists to epidemiologists, stated:

“The past five years have seen a radical shift in the kinds of issues generating distress in our clients: increasing inequality and outright poverty, families forced to move against their wishes, and, perhaps most important, benefits claimants (including disabled and ill people) and those seeking work being subjected to a quite new, intimidatory kind of disciplinary regime.”

Psychologists Against Austerity, an alliance of mental health professionals, formed with the aim of directly challenging the cuts and welfare changes that they said were adding to mental distress. The group produced a briefing paper that includes five “austerity ailments” that contribute to worsening mental distress and despair. These are: humiliation and shame, instability and insecurity, isolation and loneliness, being trapped or feeling powerless, and fear and distrust.

The government continue to deny any “causal link” between their draconian policies and an increase in suicide, refusing to carry out an investigation into the impacts of their callous legislative authoritarianism that not only treats our poorest and most vulnerable citizens with disgusting contempt, but also systematically and shamefully contravenes their human rights.

 

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From homes fit for heroes to the end of secure, lifelong social housing tenancies

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Social housing arose to supply uncrowded, well-built homes on secure tenancies at reasonable rents to primarily working class people. The First World War indirectly provided a new impetus for house building programmes, when the poor physical health and condition of many urban recruits to the army raised alarm. This led to a post-war campaign – Homes fit for heroes and in 1919 the Government first required councils to provide housing, helping them to do so through the provision of subsidies, under the Housing Act 1919.

Determined to “lift the shadow of the workhouse from the homes of the poor”, David Lloyd George also promised “a land fit for heroes.” But it was after the Second World War that council house building programmes and inner city slum clearance began in earnest. There was and still is a constant demand for social housing, and “waiting lists” are maintained, with preference being given to those in greatest need.

The post-war settlement refers to an era of public policy consensus that included support for collectivism, a mixed economy, access to justice, healthcare, social housing and a broader welfare state. It lasted until the monetarism and privatisation programmes of the New Right government of Thatcher.

Thatcher’s “right to buy” scheme depleted social housing stock, and there was a sharp decline in the building of new council homes, as she legislated to prevent councils reinvesting money from the sales of housing in building new council houses.

Now the Conservative government is planning to scrap lifetime security of tenure for renters in council and housing association properties, in favour of in favour of fixed-term contracts, according to housing industry reports. Up until recently, most tenants in council and housing association properties had lifetime security, compare to private renters who generally face six-month or one year tenancies.

However, the Tory bedroom tax has eroded the very idea of secure social housing tenure, because people on unemployment benefits, low wages and particularly disabled people now face either an unaffordable housing benefit penalty (and therefore a rise in the amount they have to pay in rent) if they are deemed to be “under-occupying” their home.

Now, under government plans, social landlords will no longer be able to automatically issue tenancies on a lifetime basis and would instead be forced to offer fixed-term lets for prospective tenants.

Although social landlords have been allowed to issue five-year tenancies since the Government changed the law in 2012, only around 1 in 10 new tenancies have seen the offer taken up.

In July the government said it would review the use of lifetime tenancies and limit their use. Civil servants have briefed several sector figures in the last few weeks that this strategy will go as far as preventing landlords offering lifetime tenancies to new tenants.

The Government and the social housing sector recently had a major disagreement over Tory plans to extend its Right To Buy policy to housing associations.

Landlords initially threatened legal action over the proposals when they first appeared in the Tory manifesto, but were apparently encouraged to agree a deal that involved no primary legislation.

The Government recently cut social housing rents in the budget but is planning to raise them for higher earners, under a new policy dubbed “pay to stay”.

Although Natalie Elphicke, co-author of the Treasury-commissioned House/Elphicke review of council house building, has previously urged that lifetime tenancies are restricted to groups such as those in “extreme old age” or “highly disabled” people, at the moment there is no guarrantee  that this will happen.

Michael Gelling, chair of the Tenants and Residents Organisations of England (TAROE), said the prospect was “alarming”, and that long-term tenancies gave tenants and communities stability.

Civil servants are said to be briefing industry figures on the changes, with an official announcement due within the next few months.

A spokesperson for the Department for Communities and Local Government told Inside Housing: “More details will be available in due course.”

547145_195460507271672_1145852710_nCourtesy of Robert Livingstone

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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.