Investigating the DWP

Earlier this year the government announced that it was beginning to role out psychometric tests for individuals who were claiming social welfare. Among the facts that the DWP denied

• they were threatening jobseekers with benefit sanction if they refused to participate
• that no qualified psychologists were involved in the decision to threaten potentially-vulnerable into becoming guinea-pigs
• that no training was given to Jobcentre Plus (JCP) advisers in how to select people for the test beyond telling them to do it
• that the experiment had been subjected to none of the usual validations or safeguards

The whole thing stank of the contemptuous, reckless attitude of the DWP and the Cabinet Office’s Nudge Unit toward unemployed people.

It turns out that the psychological abuse of jobseekers – and the abuse of psychology by the government – are by no means limited to the fake test.

Disability benefit claimants are able to ask for their Work Capability Assessments (WCA – usually conducted by Atos) interviews and assessments to be recorded.

DWP hurdles

Many disabled people have complained that obstacles are placed in the way of any wish to record Atos assessments. But if you’re not disabled and are simply unemployed, it appears that these commonsense rules do not even apply in theory. On the contrary, if you ask to record your JCP interviews, it appears you are likely to be labelled psychologically unstable – and deprived of your benefits.

DWP investigation

A jobseeker has forwarded me a copy of correspondence sent to them because they insisted that they wished to record their interviews at the JCP, a request which is more than reasonable in a context of such ridiculous decisions as sanctioning a claimant for attending a job interview.

The two documents in question are quite stunning in what they demonstrate about how claimants are regarded and treated by many within the benefits system under this government. Here’s the main letter:

Am I crazy?

The claimant was referred to a work psychologist simply for wanting to record his/her JCP interviews. The psychologist – contrary to the guidance given to disabled people states that the request to have interviews recorded is impacting on benefit entitlement, a thinly-veiled threat that the claimant will be sanctioned or have his/her claim discontinued if he/she refused to stop asking.

Fighting the impossible

A stark choice: attend the discussion and agree not to record it, or don’t agree – and don’t attend (with obvious consequences for the continuation of benefits.

Summary

Each time I think it couldn’t be plainer that this government despises the unemployed and has set up the system to torture them, it turns out I’m wrong. But it’s very, very evident that our current excuse for leadership considers psychological abuse a perfectly acceptable measure to take against jobseekers for even the most reasonable requests – or for that matter, just for existing.

Get rich and become a politician

Why would anyone go into politics, if not to get filthy rich, enjoy all those perks of office, paid for by the taxpayers, and, let’s be honest about it, have no responsibility whatsoever for anything while not really doing all that much? It’s always funny to hear politicians talk about their desire to ‘change things for the better’ and ‘improve the lives of others’. Power, or rather abuse of it at every given opportunity, is obviously never mentioned. Even though the moment they get elected or appointed, politicians start seriously overdoing it with their perks and freebies, basking in the adoration of all sorts of wealthy people, who always want something in return for their hospitality and generosity.

The thing is that most people go into politics because they can’t find a decent job outside it, being lazy, not very bright and basically hopeless in pretty much everything they do. Politics offers a safe haven for them. They can screw up as much as they want, but they would never be taken to account, hiding behind collective responsibility and having all the opportunities in the world to develop the necessary connections that would be so useful once they step down or are pushed out from their jobs.

The more adventurous ones start making money while they’re still in office, using a string of fixers and a complicated off shore banking arrangement. Conflict of interest, you say? Well, who’s paying attention to conflict of interest nowadays? Pretty much no one. Political leaders start wars on false pretences these days and yet, no one even bothers to find out whether they had benefitted personally from them. You want examples? I don’t think I need to mention any really. they are all over the place.

And have you noticed how every politician publishes his or her memoirs, once he or she steps down, and it’s always about big advances and huge royalties, even if the books are s..t don’t really sell all that well. It’s usually the easiest way to pay off politicians for their ‘hard work’ while in office. Not to mention lectures, consultancies and directorships, even though these very same people struggled to find a job before they went into politics. Strange that, isn’t it?

Lectures are especially a blatant way of paying off former politicians. What on earth can they say of any interest that would be worth fifty or eighty or a hundred grand a time? And who on earth would pay that sort of money to go and listen to their drivel, considering that they can’t even speak without looking into the prepared text? Of course it’s a bribe packaged as an enormous fee for a supposedly extremely entertaining lecture. And the bigger the treachery of the politician while in office, the higher the fee.

Oh, some people might say, but what about the people, who go into politics having earned or inherited a lot of money, why should they be tempted by making more of it in high office? And the answer to that is simple: wealthy people never say no to more money. Plus, they like the idea of getting a free ride, if you know what I mean, and carry no responsibility for what they do, or don’t do, as it is often the case with politician. Vain, pompous people love to have power over others, even though they usually have no idea how to use it for the benefit of others.

In an ideal world becoming a politician should be a punishable offence. But we don’t leave in an ideal world, so we all have to suffer and carry on.

United Nations to investigate Bedroom tax sucicides

This article written by Rory MacKinnon and originally titled ‘Watchdog probes tax ‘linked to suicide cases’ was first published by the Morning Star on Tuesday 27th August 2013. united nationsA UN watchdog will touch down in Britain tomorrow to investigate the “bedroom tax” and eviction threats driving tenants to suicide. United Nations special rapporteur Raquel Rolnik is charged with assessing whether member states have delivered on the right to adequate housing – a fact-finding mission that is likely to infuriate PM David Cameron. The PM described Britain in a speech to the UN last year as “a country that keeps its promises to the poorest.”

Yet more than 660,000 of the poorest households in Britain are expected to fall into arrears under the coalition policy, with charities warning that around two-thirds are home to someone with a disability.

The scheme cuts social tenants’ housing benefits by up to a quarter if the Department for Work and Pensions deems their homes “under-occupied.”

Those households, with a median gross income of £209 a week, then rack up an average £728 a year in arrears – the equivalent of six weeks’ rent.

If they cannot pay, local authorities and housing associations have threatened eviction – but the authority may decide not to provide even temporary accommodation as failure to pay rent is technically classified as “intentional homelessness.”

Ms Rolnik is expected to meet with government officials, NGOs, housing associations and individuals in a tour of England and Scotland.

The Anti-Bedroom Tax and Benefit Justice Federation’s Eileen Short said they would be “spelling out in human terms the injustice, insecurity, debt and despair caused by the Bedroom Tax and other benefit cuts.”

The arrival follows a ‘mass sleep-out’ of thousands of demonstrators across Britain on Saturday to highlight a surge in rough sleeping and homelessness if the policy continues.

Greater Manchester Against the Bedroom Tax’s Mark Krantz said he hoped many of those at Saturday’s sleep-out would come share their own stories with Ms Rolnik and supply written statements for her report.

Mr Krantz showed the Morning Star recent footage of residents preparing to resist an eviction – only to hear from bailiffs over the phone that they were delayed as a tenant in Oldham facing eviction had hanged himself to death.

“To have actually hung himself over the bedroom tax while waiting for eviction – that’s unbelievable,” he said.

Submissions can be sent to the Special Rapporteur’s office at gro.r1377776249hcho@1377776249gnisu1377776249ohrs1377776249 or delivered in hard copy during meetings.

The future of Jobseekers allowance JSA

Universal Credit

In just a few short weeks, the new Universal Credit benefit system starts to roll out, albeit more slowly than originally planned (but already in operation in pilot areas). This new benefits system rolls a wide variety of benefits into a single process, including unemployment benefit – and crucially, it extends ‘conditionality’ even to people who are already working, so that penalties can be applied to people for not having enough hours, or if they are not considered to be trying hard enough to get more hours.

The aim of Universal Credit

The government’s ‘policy aims’ for this new system state that:

Universal Credit is designed to ensure that for people who can, work is still the best route out of poverty and an escape from benefit dependence. The aim of Universal Credit is to increase labour market participation, reduce worklessness and increase in-work progression. The conditionality regime will recast the relationship between the citizen and the State from one centred on “entitlement” to one centred on a contractual concept that provides a range of support in return for claimant’s meeting an explicit set of responsibilities, with a sanctions regime to encourage compliance.

Getting to the truth

A series of Freedom of Information (FOI) responses from the DWP reveals that the new regulations turn the opinion of even junior Jobcentre Plus (JCP) advisers into law, place them in a position of despotic omnipotence over benefit claimants, and turn claimants – even working ones – into helpless chattels shorn of power, choice or recourse if unreasonable expectations are placed on them.

A claimant commitment (CC) is a set of obligations placed on a benefit claimant in terms of actions that must be carried out in looking for work (or more work), the amount of time that must be spent and the results generated. These requirements, as the DWP statement above indicates, are not negligible. For example, as one of the responses states:

A claimant will be expected to devote the same number of hours to work search in accordance with this action plan as we would expect them to be available for work (up to a maximum of 35 hours a week).

This might seem reasonable enough. But as one ex-DWP manager asked her MP:

Is affordability of the work search/preparation taken into account by the Adviser? The average cost of Job seeking prior to 2012 was around £2-£6 per week assuming no job interviews secured, the Jobseeker visited the Jobcentre once a week to look for work, checked the local press, made 1 or 2 job applications and asked family/friends. Claimants were not required to pay Council Tax .

Expenses

£6 a week when you’re on as little as £56 a week in benefits is a huge amount of money. But now claimants can be expected to attend the JCP more than once a week – in fact, as often as the adviser decides is appropriate as part of the CC. Council tax support is far less available, and the price of essentials like food has risen steeply. The costs associated with the activities likely to be involved in a 35-hour work-seeking week are very likely to be (to use the government’s favourite word for NHS hospitals) unsustainable.

Claimants have a right to query the conditions of a CC – but if they refuse to sign it and ask for it to be reviewed, it will merely be looked at by another JCP adviser, not by a more specialised ‘Labour Market Decision Maker’ (LMDM).

As we’re already well aware, the DWP has no qualms about asking JCP advisers to carry out tasks for which they have no qualifications or experience. A decision by an adviser-level JCP employee is perfectly likely not to take into account the full range of circumstances faced by a claimant – and a review by another adviser, who will face his/her own pressure to conform and not to offend a colleague or possibly incur the wrath of a supervisor, in no way guarantees that bad decisions will be overturned.

Especially in a context in which – as we know in spite of government denials – all of the advisers in a JCP are likely to be under pressure to meet covert targets on the number of sanctions the JCP applies.

But surely, if a bad CC isn’t overturned by an adviser the claimant can ask for someone more senior to look at it? You’d think so – at least under any sane government. However, as the 2nd FOI response makes very clear:

There is no right of appeal if a claimant refuses to accept their Claimant Commitment and the requirements that have been set out in it.

Fraught with danger

Under this new system, a JCP adviser – who might be incompetent, inexperienced, bitter, have a personality clash with the claimant or just simply be having a bad day – is the final arbiter of whether a CC is reasonable and achievable, and even a patently bad decision cannot be appealed for a higher opinion.

And if a claimant refuses to sign?

If a claimant still refuses to accept their Claimant Commitment then he or she will no longer be entitled to claim Universal Credit.

Refuse to sign something that might be realistically unachievable – and receive nothing. Could a more coercive and arbitrary situation be imagined?

What can happen?

If a claimant signs and then fails or refuses to perform one of the CC conditions, the only small ray of hope is that an LMDM might see reason:

But this is asking someone to accept a set of conditions knowing they can’t fulfil them – and then put themselves in the hands of a person whose qualifications, motivations, reasonableness and parameters are entirely unknown, in the hope that they’ll agree not to immediately cut off his/her benefits.

That reminds me of something. What was it? Oh, that’s right.

Russian roulette.

As the ex-JCP manager points out, the system is fraught with unknowns and uncertainties. There is nothing in the documentation to indicate:

• what it means for a JCP adviser to ‘look again’ at a decision
• what the criteria for assessing a decision are, or how the 2nd adviser will obtain information about the claimant’s circumstances
• whether there are any firm timescales within which the claimant commitment review must be completed
• whether the claimant will be interviewed by the 2nd adviser or the decision will be made entirely based on the paperwork
• whether any additional financial support is available to help claimants meet increased work-search requirements

There are a myriad of other problems.

We’re left with a situation in which it’s perfectly likely that someone will be expected to sign an unrealistic CC – and summarily deprived of all financial support if they refuse. Once coerced into signing this unrealistic commitment, they then face a financial ‘Russian roulette’ where the whim of an unknown person of unknown competence will decide whether a failure to comply was ‘reasonable’.

All with no guarantee, or even likelihood, that the decision will be impartial.

The OECD – hardly a hotbed of socialism or a great friend to the common man or woman – considers impartiality to be very important. In a document titled ‘Administrative Procedures in EU Member States‘, it discussion the need for impartiality:

29. The principle of impartiality is structurally weakened in administrative procedures because the Administration is party and judge in the procedure. Therefore it is necessary to establish legal measures to establish the equilibrium between the parties or at least to reduce the likelihood of unfairness. A Minimum of impartiality should be guaranteed. Therefore the withdrawal from the procedure of those Officials who have a personal interest (typical conflict of interest situation) in the outcome of the procedure 8 should be mandatory. Otherwise the administration would incur into abuse of power. Another requirement for impartiality is that any party in the procedure should be entitled to recluse any intervening official suspect of having an interest in the outcome of the procedure or having qualified friendship or enmity or kinship relationships with any of the parties.”

It’s absolutely obvious that advisers working together in a JCP office will often form friendships and a sense of loyalty to one another. It’s only human to find it difficult to judge impartially in those circumstances, and there will be a clear pressure to ‘back up’ one’s colleague, and a fear of upsetting a fellow adviser by overturning a decision.

It will therefore be extremely difficult to find an impartial adviser to judge a request for review – and even an impartial one will be judging based on personal experience and emotion rather than on professional qualifications and clear criteria.

In case anyone thinks ‘bloody EU and their bureaucracy’, or wants to write off as a ‘leftie’ opinion that this situation is wrong. The Ombudsman’s office sets out ‘Principles of Administration‘ that make the potential problems very clear:

The Principles of Good Administration

• Public servants do not get it right every time, so there must be a form of redress that is impartial and fair for claimants.
• Being customer focused
• Public Bodies do not always treat people with sensitivity, bearing in mind their individual needs, and respond flexibly to the circumstances of the case in every instance; doctors for example, can get this wrong at times.
• Acting fairly and proportionately
• Public bodies do not always deal with people fairly or with respect.

There is no doubt at all that the new UC system completely fails to make available an impartial and fair ‘form of redress’ as outlined by the Ombudsman.

In the real world

Let’s look at a real-life scenario. The DWP operates a Universal Jobmatch (UJM) system that jobseekers are expected to use to look for jobs – but the UJM system has been shown to be seriously flawed and even a vehicle for various scams. It also contains serious security issues that risk revealing jobseekers’ private information to people who shouldn’t have it.

Jobseekers are frequently pressured to use the system and told that they might be sanctioned if they don’t – but our ex-JCP manager advises me that there is no legal obligation whatever for jobseekers to use it. They can use any available method of jobseeking, online or offline.

Under the UC system, the illegality of a sanction applied for failing to use UJM will become irrelevant. A JCP adviser has no legal right to apply a sanction for not using UJM – but if they do, and a colleague from the same JCP and therefore likely to be similarly ill-informed agrees, then the sanctioned person has no right of appeal.

Yet again the government, via its ludicrously corrupt and vicious Department of Work and Pensions’ is showing a staggering degree of contempt for those in society who need help and support, and a complete disregard for the life and wellbeing of human beings in our society who find themselves in need of that support.

Support which, as the government baldly states, is no longer the ‘entitlement’ it should be in a civilised society, but is instead something for which people are forced to sign unfeasible contracts that merely set them up to have that support snatched away arbitrarily – on the ‘godlike’ whim of JCP advisers of unknown competence and who might well be under pressure to hit sanction targets.

And all, if we’re to believe this lying-if-their-lips-are-moving government, because it’s the best ‘route out of poverty’.

Yeah. Like the best cure for a headache is decapitation. Many, many people in this country will not survive a 2nd term of this government, or any part of it. And the way the rules are constructed shows that the Tories are ‘perfectly relaxed’ about that.

They want to take us back to the 1920s of soup kitchens, means-testing and stigmatised poverty.

We can’t let them. Please spread the word or things are only going to get worse.

Failure to pay the dreaded bedroom tax

A large proportion of tenants hit by the bedroom tax have so far failed to pay the resulting shortfall in their rent. Several of the UK’s largest housing associations have this week revealed thousands of tenants have not covered their rent since the controversial policy was introduced on 1 April.

The bedroom tax cuts the benefit payment of working-age social housing tenants with spare bedrooms. In some parts of the country, up to half of affected tenants have not paid anything at all to cover the average £14-a-week shortfall.

This has sparked fears that landlords’ income streams and ability to borrow cheaply to build new homes could be hit if the trend continues.

Liverpool-based Riverside Group said around half of its 6,193 affected households receiving full housing benefit have not paid anything at all to cover the shortfall, while a quarter contributed something but did not pay their rent in full. Just one in four affected tenants paid the full amount.

James Tickell, director of consultancy Campbell Tickell, said: ‘These are the first signs of a significant threat to housing associations’ income streams.’

Hugh Owen, director of policy and communications at 54,000-home Riverside, said: ‘Such a significant amount of people paying nothing proves there is a real issue of affordability.’

He added that some of the non-payment may be due to delays in setting up direct debits or to tenants awaiting decisions on discretionary housing payments and that a clearer picture will emerge after several months.

Guinness Partnership said a third of 3,000 affected tenants have not met the shortfall. Simon Dow, chief executive, said: ‘If a third of our residents are not able to pay the whole of their rent, then obviously there would be a significant increase in arrears… as well as a crisis for the household.’

Yorkshire-based, 25,000-home Incommunities said 601 of 2,414 affected households had not paid anything to cover the shortfall. Wakefield and District said 42 per cent of 5,000 affected households have not paid their rent, while two-thirds of the 7,350 tenants of Glasgow and Cube housing associations had underpaid.

Spectrum Housing Group said 259 of 1,151 affected households failed to pay any of the shortfall at a cost of £17,000 in income - a result it described as ‘better than expected’.

Yesterday the government announced it is extending six pilot schemes examining the impact of direct payment of housing benefit to tenants under universal credit. This will give the pilots an extra six months to assess how the bedroom tax and other welfare reforms are influencing rent arrears.

DHP top up

A thirty five million boost to discretionary housing payments will not relieve the worst effects of the bedroom tax, housing sector figures have warned.

The government announced the additional DHP funding – which provides cash for local authorities to help those affected by the policy pay their rent – on Tuesday.

The same day, a legal challenge over claims the policy discriminates against disabled people was dismissed by the High Court.

Judges ruled that its effect on disabled people was not disproportionate, in part due to DHP provision.

However Birmingham Council, an interested party in Tuesday’s case, said the additional cash ‘merely papered over the cracks’.

John Cotton, cabinet member for social cohesion and equalities, said: ‘At the current rate our original allocation of £3.8 million will be fully spent by around November.’

Abigail Davies, assistant director of policy and practice at the Chartered Institute of Housing, said: ‘Discretionary housing support is meant to be for short-term issues not for situations that will be with people for life.’

Sam Lister, policy officer at the CIH, added that the announcement of extra cash could make it harder to overturn Tuesday’s ruling on appeal because the judgement said the original DHP level was enough to stop the policy being disproportionate.

Tuesday’s announcement takes this year’s funding for DHPs up to £185 million, due to drop to £120 million next year.

Emily Bird, policy leader for the National Housing Federation, said: ‘The provision of additional DHP doesn’t change the fact that the policy is unworkable and unfair.’

Lord Freud, minister for welfare reform, said the additional DHP funding would help councils offer support to vulnerable tenants.

Inside Housing revealed last month that English councils received more than 13,000 extra applications for DHPs in the month following the implementation of the bedroom tax.

The cost of welfare

The cost of welfare is set to rise by an extra £1.5billion a year due to the rocketing cost of rent and the hated Bedroom Tax.

Figures from the Commons library show the amount of housing benefit paid to private landlords will rise from £7.9billion to £9.4billion.

And it is forecast to increase still further over the next three years.

Labour MP Karen Buck, who unearthed the figures, said: “Despite the bluster, the truth is that in the Tories’ low-wage, high-rent Britain, housing benefit has risen rather than fallen, with the biggest pressure coming from working people needing help with housing costs.”

The Tory-led Coalition said it would cut the welfare bill but housing benefit costs have risen sharply as private landlords have pushed up rents.

At the same time some councils have been forced to rehouse victims of the Bedroom Tax from cheaper council housing into more expensive private rental properties. Labour said the policy was the “economics of the madhouse”.

The tax, introduced in April, docks the housing benefit of anyone living in a council house with a spare bedroom.

Families either have to pay at least £14 a week more or find alternative accommodation.

But putting them up in privately rented homes is proving more expensive for local authorities.

There are now 5,072,264 people in the UK claiming housing benefit, a rise of more than 40,000 on this time last year.

To add to the misery, tenants have seen their rents rise by an inflation busting 3% on average in the past 12 months.