Gary’s benefit scrapped while universal credit wastes millions

Today the public accounts committee published a highly critical “early progress” assessment of  welfare and pensions minister Iain Duncan Smith’s “flagship” benefit reform. The universal credit scheme to roll up six means-tested benefits into one, has, according to the report, been overseen by extraordinarily weak management. Systems were so lax that a secretary authorised purchase orders worth £23m, the MPs found. They also doubted whether the project could be fully delivered by its deadline of 2017 and described the pilot programme for the scheme as “not a proper pilot” – inadequate and open to fraud.

The devastating report says that £425m has been spent so far on the programme, adding: “It is likely that much of this, including at least £140m worth of IT assets, will have to be written off.” The scope of the pilot programme, says the report, “is limited to only the simplest new claim of people who are single, have no dependents and would otherwise be seeking Jobseeker’s Allowance.”

While Iain Duncan Smith points the finger at the civil servants, and they in turn say ministers now feel able to “shrug off their responsibilities and blame staff”, people continue to arrive at this London food bank hungry and in need of immediate help. Many  are victims of a benefits system that is inadequate and failing to protect the most vulnerable of our citizens.

On the face of it, 54-year-old Gary Watson might seem to fit the  category of someone whose benefit needs are relatively “straightforward”. He’s a single man, and came into the food bank – one of nearly 400 in England run by the Trussell Trust in partnership with churches and communities –  because his benefit has  been stopped. He hadn’t received any Jobseeker’s Allowance for six weeks by the time he got to us recently. He says his benefit ceased because he hadn’t applied for the right number of jobs within the specified time frame. “I only applied for 20 jobs  in two weeks, and it’s supposed to be 42 jobs. I’m sending letters out, but not getting any feedback from the employer.”

Gary, a qualified glass cutter,  is broke and I believe he’s in danger of getting depressed too. He has the air of someone who’s giving up. I ask him what he’s been eating in the last few weeks:” All I’ve been eating is fried dumplings and beans. This is all really difficult to talk about. I need to stay calm about it. Some people would have cracked up or done something stupid. Because I haven’t been eating regularly I’ve got a lot of wind in my stomach.”

In the past Gary has also done some retail work and has worked as a bricklayer. He’s been unemployed for a couple of years now, and “in and out of programmes”. He’s too proud to let his friends and family know how bad his situation has got. “I’m appalled. I’ve got to a certain age and now the employers are only taking on youngsters. They know that at the job centre, but they still want to push you. It’s made my life hell. I don’t know how they can cut you off without giving any consideration to the individual.”

His mother is 87, and a “wise woman”. He said he used to “run to my mum, but I stopped asking her for help”. He adds: “When I go round there she asks if I’m alright for money, and I say yes. I just don’t want to take from her. Sometimes she has £10 in her hand and she says ‘take this’.”  She’s a good-hearted woman, but Gary says he doesn’t want to “feed on that”.

He adds that when he was young, he could just “walk into different jobs”. Now his life is much harder. He lives in a council flat, but when I meet him his electricity meter is just about to run out and then he won’t be able to heat food up. He has problems with his gas central heating, which has packed up.

If the current benefits system is leaving single middle-aged men such as Gary high and dry, what will the eventual toll be on individuals, families and society once these reforms work their way through? When will we decide that enough is enough? Millions will be thrown down the drain. Millions more people left hungry and in despair….

Abdul, his wife and family

The sheer tension of trying to survive from day to day leads to arguments at home for many of the clients who come to this London food bank. Abdul and his wife Rahma have been rowing, and the police got involved. They in turn referred him to a social worker, who gave him a food bank voucher.

The only money this family of four has coming in at the moment is child benefit for the two children.  Abdul’s wife has depression, and is not able to work.  This has been confirmed by her GP,  so she applied for Employment Support Allowance (ESA). She is appealing the decision by the Department of Work and Pensions to refuse her ESA.

His wife is Spanish, and the couple have been in the UK for six years. They live in a privately-rented home. Before she got ill she had been working on and off as an assistant chef in an Italian restaurant. Abdul, who also worked in a restaurant, has also been a self-employed market trader. But with his wife unwell and unable to cope with the children, he has been at home looking after the youngsters of two and three.

He tells me: “Going back 10 weeks, she had been receiving  Jobseeker’s Allowance (JSA) for about seven months. They said she’s not a UK national or Irish, but she had been working and she’s paid taxes. The JSA was £114 for a couple per week, but we’ve now had 10 weeks without any money at all.”

Abdul, who is 37, has now had to borrow £200 from his wife’s cousin, but doesn’t  know when he can repay him. He applied for child tax credit five weeks ago, but still hasn’t heard back about it.  He has now applied to the council for a crisis loan. I’ll follow up Abdul’s progress in a few weeks…..

Rich London/poor London – and the world’s best social worker

In a powerful article in the Guardian recently, Aditya Chakrabortty describes the nature of the recovery Britain is enjoying. He points to analysis by the Centre for Research on Socio-Cultural Change (Cresc) at Manchester University. This, he says,  shows that London and the South East “have come roaring out of the crash, and now account for a greater share of growth than they did even during the boom”. He describes how a restaurateur in Canary Wharf has had his opening delayed while he waits for a supply of marble to arrive from an Italian quarry.

The owner of this latest upmarket eatery targeted at the capital’s bankers and lawyers points out that he knows it’s been a dark period nationally, But he says customers at his other restaurants in central London have spent more year upon year – “apart from what he describes as a blip in 2010”. The restaurateur adds: “….On our figures, it’s as if London has never suffered a recession.”

A few miles down the road from Canary Wharf, we’re trying to identify signs of  this economic good cheer. All we’ve picked up on so far is a surge in demand at our borough’s food banks. Is this what Aditya Chakrabortty describes as a “recovery centred on the capital and driven by credit”  looks like in our part of London?

‘Margaret’ (not her real name) came into the food bank that’s located in a far corner of the borough recently (the food banks in this borough are all supported  by the Trussell Trust, which partners with churches and communities to open food banks nationwide). Out of breath, she told us that she lives very close to here, but by mistake had ended up at a different food bank, which was closed (Each food bank in the borough opens on a different day of the week). She eventually got here with her eight-year-old daughter . Margaret was exhausted and in need of a cigarette. We took two chairs outside so that she could speak freely without her daughter listening (and because smoking is banned in the food bank).

This former store manager for a major retail chain has had the most difficult of lives since she was widowed in 2001. At that point she had a breakdown, and lost her children when they were taken into care for a year. “I got the children back, but neither I nor the kids were offered any support.”  A social worker – “the world’s best” according to Margaret – took over her case recently. She says the social worker was shocked when she worked through the family’s paperwork and is now offering the family ongoing support.

As well as her eight-year-old, Margaret  has sons of  21, 16, 15, and 13. She also shares her home with her 21 year-old stepdaughter.  Margaret’s 21 year-old son is severely autistic, her son of 13 has Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) and she also spends as much time as she can helping to care for her father – who has had a stroke and memory loss – and her mother, who is wheelchair-bound.

The family became homeless in February, and was eventually rehoused by a different borough in September.  Her family’s troubled situation seemed to only trigger intervention when their homelessness was picked up by staff at her daughter’s school. Someone from the school referred the family to child protection.

Once on the scene, the social worker quickly realised that this was not a child protection situation, said Margaret.  With the social worker involved, things are improving.  Margaret is a terrific person, who wants to care for everyone, but has missed on on vital support for years. But this dynamic social worker has clearly decided that the family will have a future . She’s told Margaret that “all you need to do is get a foot in the door”. Margaret is a wonderful, intelligent woman and a great communicator.  Many employers would see her as an asset.

Margaret tell me that her social worker is not scared of  telling her what’s what. “I put a telly into Cash Converters – but she said you can’t do that. She went into the shop and she got it back.” At this point her daughter comes outside and chips in: “We’ve got the best social worker ever!”

Her daughter’s eyes light up when she sees the supply of emergency food. She shouts out: “I love people!” She then tells us she can do break-dancing and Irish dancing – and we’re treated to an enthusiastic demonstration of each.

This is a  family that has much to build on. Margaret’s son of 16 is a talented rugby player, whose club is supporting his attendance at an academy. He’s also getting extra help to deal with his dyslexia. Margaret loves watching him play at the weekends. The social worker is arranging for them to have a holiday – the sort of thing they have missed out on for years. There’s a lot of love to go round in this family, and maybe that has helped them through some ghastly times.

London’s “boom” is not making a deal of difference to the food bank clients in this blighted corner of the world, but this social worker just might be able to help effect some progress for Margaret, her kids and her parents.