This latest legal challenge comes in the same week that the DWP faced a humiliating court defeat over the Atos assessments for sickness and disability benefits – which were ruled to discriminate against people with mental health conditions.  This followed last week’s news that the DWP had lost a tribunal hearing and was ordered to release the names of the companies and charities profiting from workfare schemes.

These are the very same workfare schemes which were ruled unlawful in the Appeal Court earlier in the year.  This judgement forced Iain Duncan Smith, with the shameful support of Labour, to introduce emergency legislation to steal compensation payments due to those who had benefits sanctioned under the illegal schemes.  Despite this, the DWP are clearly on a losing streak and long may it continue.

The department may hope to be on safer ground with the benefit cap, which the Tories believe has been one of their most popular reforms.  Yet along with the housing benefit caps, in many ways this policy has been one of the nastiest of all.

The benefit cap has been the one policy that has absolutely guaranteed that tens of thousands of claimants -  almost all with children – would lose their homes.  There is not even a remote possibility of families being able to scrimp and save to pay the rent if they live in the capital.  Across huge swathes of London grasping landlords charge far more in rent than even the maximum now allowed in benefits, leaving these families with no choice but to leave the city.  One of the richest cities in the world, is about to export it’s poorest residents to places like Bradford and Birmingham where unemployment is already soaring and public services are stretched to breaking point

It is not the fault of claimants that rents have sky-rocketed out of control in London and that no government has made any meaningful attempt to address the chronic lack of social housing.  The difficulties involved in finding a private sector flat, where many landlords demand ‘No DSS’, is already one of the main causes of homelessness in the city.  Often claimants have faced eye-watering rents simply because these were the only properties available.  Slum landlords have been all too happy to exploit the situation, with astronomical rent demands for shitty rooms in B&Bs or flats that they wouldn’t be able to let to someone who was working – and who had a choice about where they lived.

Yet the Government has chosen to punish claimants themselves for the greed of landlords by forcing them from their homes. Two of the families who have launched the legal challenge against the benefit cap have recently fled domestic violence.  Many claimants in high rent London properties have been those who have faced desperate circumstances and have done what any decent parent would – which is made sure their children have a roof over their heads by any means possible.  These children, who may already have faced significant trauma due to witnessing or experiencing abuse, homelessness and just simple poverty, will have settled in these new homes, gone to school and made friends.  Now they are to be uprooted again, possibly hundreds of miles away, whilst watching their parent(s) disintegrate under the pressures of forced relocation and a new threat of homelessness.

Rarely has a government policy been so precision targeted to attack the most marginalised in society.  People who may just have been starting to put the pieces of their lives back together in safe if shabby accommodation, only to have that security destroyed as they face being cast out onto the streets.

And like so many of Iain Duncan Smith’s welfare reforms, the policy was based on a lie – which is that there were claimants living in areas or properties that those in work could not afford.  Housing Benefit  is available to families in and out of work alike.  Working families in the capital living in high rent areas would be just as eligible for housing benefits as those out of work. Even families on salaries of £30k plus may have been eligible for some housing benefit in parts of the capital.

Housing Benefit has  functioned as a crude sticking plaster for a dysfunctional housing market, and now that sticking plaster is being ripped away.  The consequences of this, for some of the UK’s poorest and most vulnerable children, will be terrifying.  All those who have cheered this reform from the sidelines should think of those children whose lives are about to be destroyed as a result of this bodged experiment in social cleansing.

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This follows a string of legal decisions ruling against the DWP as they have attempted to rush through bungled and poorly thought through welfare reforms.

The tribunal hearing was brought after two claimants supported by the Mental Health Resistance Network (MHRN) were successful in launching  a judicial review into the WCA – the notorious assessment process which has stripped vital benefits from hundreds of thousands of sick and disabled claimants.

According to MHRN: “The judgment is clear: to routinely fail to consider evidence put forward by their own health care practitioners (the DWP current practice) places people with Mental Health Problems at a significant disadvantage which means that the current practice has been – and remains – discriminatory.”

Showing their usual contempt for the courts, the DWP have said they will appeal the decision and the assessments will not stop.

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The rally was called outside the annual PCS Conference, with claimants, disabled people and public sector workers joining forces to resist the endless attacks on the welfare state that PCS members are being expected to administer.

Shortly after the rally began, disabled protesters from DAN Cymru arrived with an impressive banner and launched into an impromptu direct action, blocking the busy road along the sea front.  They were soon joined by folk from Boycott Workfare and several PCS members for a noisy and angry demonstration which drew a small police response.  One lane was eventually opened to allow some traffic to pass through and the blockade stayed in place for almost an hour whilst PCS conference delegates mingled outside.

When Universal Credit is finally launched, Jobcentre staff themselves, along with many other part-time public sector workers, will face the same regime as unemployed claimants.  Sadly two motions calling for some form of workplace action against these measures were removed from the PCS Conference agenda.  An emergency motion brought before the conference yesterday to discuss sanctions was also not discussed.  The PCS leadership has dismissed calls for any form of real action to defeat benefit sanctions.

The same PCS leadership were conspicuous by their absence as the drama unfurled outside their conference yesterday, but it was reassuring to see some PCS members take to the road and support claimants and disabled people.  This, along with the efforts of the CSRF in organising the lobby, shows that amongst the rank and file at least of the PCS, there is support for practical action to support unemployed or disabled people and low paid workers.

The day also saw the first appearance of the mysterious Sanction Sabs (pictured above), follow them on twitter @SanctionSabs

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ERSA are the trade body who were formed in 2005 to lie on behalf of the money grabbing welfare-to-work industry .  They represent the companies such as A4e and G4S who are being paid billions to harass and bully benefit claimants on the Government’s Work Programme.

Despite a disastrous year for this sector, during which almost no-one has found work through the Work Programme,  ERSA seem to have plenty of cash to splash out on a back-slapping awards ceremony.  Even the skiving Employment Minister Mark Hoban managed to drag himself off his tax-payer funded silk cushions to turn up for a free drink.

Mencap sponsored the Large Employer of the Year Award, at a cost of a cool £1000 according to advance publicity for the awards (pdf).  This award to went to B&M Stores, a company who have repeatedly been accused of using workfare and who work closely with poverty pimps Ingeus to recruit staff.

Mencap donors and supporters may be shocked to learn the charity is handing out money to cheer on the welfare-to-work sector, but sadly for those following welfare reform this is no surprise.  Whilst many large disability charities, including Mencap, have distanced themselves from workfare in their shops, they still have their snouts firmly in the welfare reform trough.  Scope, RNIB, Leonard Cheshire Disability and MIND are just some of the charities who, along with Mencap, are paid by the welfare-to-work sector to manage Work Programme sub-contracts.

And as this award ceremony shows, behind the scenes charity bosses are quite happy to stuff their faces with vol au vents and hand out money intended for disabled people to pay for glitzy love-ins with the worst of the corporate sector.

Another familiar face at the awards was Matthew Oakley, who was adding yet another lucrative string to his own personal welfare-to-work racket.  Oakley is a leading member of the right wing think-tank, the Policy Exchange, who recommended many of the current welfare reforms.  Oakley is also paid  £256.80 a day by the tax payer as a member of the Social Security Advisory Committee, the so called independent body of so called experts that scrutinise those welfare reforms.  And last week Oakley was a judge at an awards ceremony handing out prizes to the companieswho are paid to implement the reforms.

Over the last eighteen months, any involvement with forced unpaid labour has become a public relations nightmare for both private companies and charities alike.  These awards suggest the welfare-to-work sector is fighting back.  Companies using workfare may face boycotts and protests, but they might also get a shiny award, sponsored by a national charity to show how lovely they really are.  All those who object to Mencap acting as charitable cover for the crimes of the welfare-to-work sector can contact them on facebook or on twitter @mencap_charity.

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Benefit sanctions are set to become a huge issue for public sector workers when Universal Credit is fully introduced. Under the new rules even part-time workers will be expected to continually look for ‘more or better paid work’ or face in-work benefits being stopped. This will lead to Jobcentre workers being expected to police and sanction their colleagues, along with other low paid DWP workers.

It is clear how this toxic regime will not just place intolerable pressure on working relations at the DWP, but also could be used to undermine future industrial action.  DWP management will be given unprecedented power over the lives of part-time public sector workers, including the option to send people on workfare during the hours they are not in paid employment.

This is not scare-mongering. 85,000 benefit sanctions were imposed on claimants in just January of this year. Jobcentre workers who do not sanction enough claims are placed under Performance Improvement Plans. PCS members right now are being disciplined for not meeting targets to sanction benefit claims – yet DWP ministers have denied that these targets even exist.

When Universal Credit is launched PCS members at the DWP will not just have the power to sanction their lowest paid colleagues, they will face disciplinary action if they don’t do it often enough.

Astonishingly the PCS leadership have said that this sanctioning regime is not a workplace issue. Two motions calling for urgent  debate on how to take meaningful action against these measures  – and Universal Credit will begin to be rolled out nationally from October this year – have been removed from the PCS Conference agenda.

Claimants have long called for action not words from the PCS to help bring about an end to benefit sanctions. There is no doubting the sincerity of the PCS in their support of claimants and low paid workers, but leaflets and strongly worded statements are no longer enough, if they ever were.

Benefit sanctions mean child poverty, ill health and even in some cases homelessness. Lives can be shattered by decisions Jobcentre workers are forced to take under threat of losing their jobs if they refuse. Very soon some of those having their lives ripped apart by DWP created poverty will be low paid public sector workers. Only collective action from the PCS, along with active support from claimants and low paid members of other unions, will bring this regime to an end.

If the PCS leadership will not let a discussion take place inside the conference on how to fight these devastating attacks on those both in and out of work, then that conversation will have to take place in the street.  Join the lobby, supported by claimant groups including Boycott Workfare and Disabled People Against Cuts, outside the PCS Conference in Brighton on Tuesday 21st May.

Tuesday 21 May, 12.30-14.00
The Brighton Centre, King’s Rd, Brighton, BN1 2GR
Bring flags and banners

Facebook event page: https://www.facebook.com/events/258534454291849/

Universal Credit and Benefit Sanctions, What Every PCS Member Urgently Needs To Know

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A long running war of words has been waging between the DWP and the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) ever since a Freedom of Information request was submitted by Frank Zola asking for the names of organisations taking placements under the Government’s Mandatory Work Activity scheme.  Three times the DWP have attempted to dodge the ICO’s demand for transparency which resulted in this week’s tribunal hearing.

In an astonishing legal defence the DWP claimed this week that if the public knew who was taking part in the workfare schemes then the entire racket might be in danger of collapse.  Providing an unwitting but glowing testimony to the effectiveness of Boycott Workfare and other anti-workfare campaigners, the department claimed:  “The activities of campaign groups and the results of negative publicity meant that… “a great many placement organisations” had ceased to offer placements. That in turn reduced the numbers of opportunities available across both programmes with a loss of many placements and prospective new placements being at risk.”

The DWP’s wild claims included a shabby, if half-hearted,  attempt to smear anti-workfare campaigners as violent – something which was dismissed out of hand by the tribunal – and even a claim that campaigners might be responsible for increasing unemployment.  This is despite the fact that the DWP’s own evidence shows that forced work has no impact on whether people taking part eventually find a real job.  It appears the department are desperate to blame anyone except themselves for the failure to bring down soaring unemployment.

Perhaps one of the most shocking aspects of the DWP’s evidence is just how far they wanted to go to protect charities from being held to account by their donor and their supporters.  The Charity Commission’s ‘Hallmarks of an Effective Charity’ is very clear that an “effective charity is accountable to the public and others with an interest in the charity in a way that is transparent and understandable”.  Yet, no doubt with the connivance of some of the charities themselves, the DWP have sought to undermine the very foundations of charity governance in an attempt to keep the public in the dark about the activities of the sector.

Unsurprisingly the views of the welfare-to-work industry were also brought in to bolster the DWP’s argument.  Evidence was submitted in which SEETEC warned disclosure of who the workfare exploiters are could put their very organisation at risk.  Another workfare contractor, Ingeus, claimed that it might cost them around £1 million in lost revenue if this information was made public – although by them, they meant us, because all their money has been stolen from the tax payer anyway.

This is a revealing admission from the corporate poverty pimps who have turned forced labour and harassment of the poor into a multi-billion pound scam.  It’s not just DWP policy that could be affected by an escalation in anti-workfare protests according to the industry, but the entire welfare-to-work gravy train.

With this in mind the last word should to go to Boycott Workfare themselves:

“Since the Salvation Army gets a special mention from the DWP for ‘holding the line’ (point 196), you may like to take this opportunity to remind them why this position is just so inconsistent with their Christian values. The Salvation Army UK can be contacted on facebook, by phone (020 7367 4500), by email (info@salvationarmy.org.uk). More background on their involvement and contact details can be found here, or you can tweet at them @salvationarmyuk”

Read the full judgement at: http://www.informationtribunal.gov.uk/DBFiles/Decision/i1016/EA-2012-0207%28+2%29_Judgment_17-05-2013.pdf

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The advert, spotted by @SmithTonyD over on twitter, explains: “The DWP has led, and continues to lead, the domestic news agenda. Its policies are debated in all forms of media and it will be your responsibility to ensure the Department’s voice is heard where those discussions are taking place.

Reporting to the Director of Communications, you will take this work on within a fully integrated communications directorate, leading our media relations. You will help to inform policy, advise Ministers, brief the media, and build compelling PR campaigns, whilst ensuring we talk directly and efficiently to our audiences.”

The true nature of the role comes later in the job description, where the DWP ask for someone who can be ‘imaginative’ in their solutions.

Welfare-to-work companies often advise searching out those hidden vacancies, and this was pretty well tucked away.  The DWP chose not to advertise the job on their own shambolic Universal Jobmatch website. Concerns have been raised that employers using the bodged government job vacancy site are likely to be swamped as thousands of people apply for jobs they are not qualified for just to meet their  jobseeking activity conditions.

The DWP are obviously keen to make sure they themselves dont have to spend hours wading through applications.  Luckily claimants can apply via the Guardian jobs website.  The salary is a whopping ‘circa £82,000 a year, plus benefits’ (I don’t think that means you can sign on at the same time).  All you have to do is be able to lie through your teeth about unemployed and disabled people for money.

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Saturday 18 May, Assemble 12 noon

Concert Hall Approach /Belvedere Rd, Waterloo http://goo.gl/maps/Lg6MT

March to Downing Street then rally in Whitehall at 2pm

This demonstration has been called by an unprecedented coalition of London residents, medical staff, trade unions and health campaigners who have come together to raise the alarm regarding the biggest threats to A & E’s, maternity units and in-hospital care for a generation.

Closures planned across the capital include nine accident and emergency departments, a number of maternity units and thousands of hospital beds that campaigners believe will put lives at risk..

Hospitals and community services are also threatened with take-over by multi-national private companies. Hundreds of thousands of London residents have pledged their opposition to these privatisation plans for the NHS.

Across the capital, tens of thousands have taken to the streets to protest and demonstrate to save their local hospitals. 80,000 signed a petition against the closures in North West London. 25,000 joined the demonstration to defend Lewisham hospital.

The local campaigns have joined up to call on the government to stop these closures. We are working together to undermine the government’s divisive tactics of playing one hospital off against another. Instead we are demanding that the government provide the funding needed for safe levels of care across the capital.

Visit the website for details of local meet up points: http://defendlondonsnhs.wordpress.com/

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The report is part of an ongoing piece of ‘independent’ research commissioned by the DWP to look at the impact of the first raft of welfare reforms – the vicious cuts to housing benefits.  These included the caps on the amount of benefit available to pay for housing and a reduction in local housing allowance rates from the bottom 50% to 30% of the local rental market.  Another change meant that those aged under 35 are no longer entitled to a self-contained property, but can only claim the Shared Accommodation Rate (SAR).

The research features wide ranging interviews with claimants, landlords and housing advisors discussing the changes.  As is repeatedly pointed out, as these interviews were carried out throughout 2012, then many, if not most claimants will not have yet been affected by the reforms.  This research is therefore an indicator of how people are intending to  respond to the changes.   The report is also quite long so I won’t try cover it all in one post.

Predictably the most telling comments come from landlords.  According to the report, 16% of landlords who currently let to claimants plan to stop doing so due to the cuts.  Most landlords seem well aware of what is to come and are already making plans:

“I’m giving notice on [20 tenants affected by the change to the Shared Accommodation Rate], it’s not fair, I don’t like doing it. And we’re not taking any [more] on. We have to protect ourselves and we have to protect our landlords.”

This was the response of one letting agent to the vicious slashing of housing benefits for those under 35 and is an attitude which seems to dominate the private rental sector.  Despite initial claims by the Government that landlords would lower rents in response to the changes it seems that barely any of them have been prepared to do so.  Only those renting in areas with high numbers of claimants have seriously considered this as an option – but crucially even this in many cases appears to be just a temporary measure.  Landlords may be willing to accept a temporary small reduction in rent to avoid the expense of eviction, but will turf tenants out when tenancies are due for renewal.

Local Housing Allowance (LHA) is a localised benefit, which is paid according to the local cost of rents.  This decision to peg the maximum available at the bottom 30%, rather than 50% of the market, will mean hundreds of thousands of private sector tenants forced to pay some of their rent out of meagre benefits intended to pay for other living expenses.

The average loss to claimants according to the report is £7.76 a week – although due to the caps in some areas this will be far higher.  Landlords appear to be sceptical that those on benefits will be able to afford this, with one warning: “Some of them are making it up but a lot of them are struggling because it’s not just [LHA] that’s been cut, they’re getting other money cut as well, so it’s making it harder and harder.”

Many landlords report having already reduced the number of claimants they rent to on Local Housing Allowance due to the introduction of Direct Payments by the Labour Government in 2008.  This meant that generally rent payments were sent direct  to tenants not landlords, a move which was hugely unpopular amongst those renting out property.  When Universal Credit is finally launched, the Direct Payments regime will be strengthened and also applied to the social housing sector.  The  very thing that most landlords say puts them off renting to claimants is about to be hugely extended.

As would be expected, one of the biggest impacts of the reforms has been in London where in some boroughs almost no properties are now affordable to those on benefits due to the caps.  This will not just affect those out of work – 44% of housing benefit claimants in London are working.  It will also not just impact on central London boroughs such as Westminster where rents are astronomical.  A letting agent in Barking and Dagenham reports their current strategy on renting to tenants on benefits: “We have slowly, slowly been booting them out, average between 150 and 200 properties.”

The research also reveals that a less well known, but sweeping reform to housing benefits, the introduction of the Shared Accommodation Rate for those under 35, could bring some of the most devastating consequences.   This change, which means anyone under 35 will have to find a room in a shared house to be eligible for LHA, was carried out without any assessment of whether enough properties exist to house all those who need them.

The report suggests that this is not the case, with many landlords pulling out of the multiple occupancy market due to recently introduced regulations.  Planning permission is now needed if a property is to be used for multiple tenants in a move which many landlords claim has made the sector unprofitable.  Quite simply, most landlords say the Shared Accommodation rate is too low, summed up by this quote from a landlord in Perth:  “‘Where’s the difference going to come from £52 [LHA] up to £85 a week [rent]?  There’s no way somebody on £120 a fortnight can afford to pay the difference and I can’t rent them out at £53 a week. I think they’ll possibly be moving, I can’t see any alternative.”

Almost all landlords quoted say they are planning to evict claimants under 35, with some going even further and suggesting they will now not rent to anyone from this age group: “We’re not housing under 35s now, so long term it will resolve itself because we’re not putting anyone in under 35. But we’ve got this 15, 20 people who are going to be on the street.”

This comment is backed up by a housing advice worker later in the report who says: “a lot of existing agents and landlords have told me they’ve now served notice on every tenant they have under 35. Even those tenants who might be in work at the moment, a lot of landlords have thought if they lose their job they won’t be able to pay the rent.”

Many landlords fear that tenants under 35 will face homelessness as a result of the drastic cuts: “[They’ll end up] on the streets, they’ve got nowhere to go. These people haven’t got no funds.”

Others have concerns that separated parents will no longer be able to have their children stay with one Hackney landlord saying: “There are going to be certain tenants who it’s going to have a massive impact on.  My heart bleeds for them, because the majority of them are divorced fathers who see their kids. I’ve got one lovely guy, he’s got three kids, wife lives in Hillingdon, kids come and spend the weekend with him, where’s he going to put them? Does he lose his visitation rights to his children because he hasn’t got a job or hasn’t got the home to be able to offer the children somewhere to sleep [because] there isn’t any room?”

Like many of the bodged welfare reforms, it will be the most marginalised who are worst affected by the slashing of LHA rates for under 35s.  Those likely to end up homeless will be the people who cannot go back to live with their parents, or who face other difficulties such as a mental or physical health condition which makes sharing difficult or even impossible.

Whilst claimants in some form of supported accommodation, such as homeless nightshelters or women’s refuges have been exempt from the reforms (so far), many Local Authorities used informal relationships with landlords to provide housing for those they deem ‘vulnerable’.  The report suggests this is all likely to come to an end, with one landlord reporting: “‘I’m kicking them all out … I’m serving them notices because I want, on the day the rent will have to be changed, they’ll already be out … It’s a complete change to the portfolio.  I’ve always been the person they phone up and say they’ve got somebody who’s not well or who’s just come out of drug rehabilitation, that kind. I’ve always taken them in and never had a problem but I’m not going to do it any more.”

To read the DWP’s gushing press release which accompanied this report you would never guess the bleak future it describes for low income tenants.  This is far from surprising.  Minister for Welfare Reform, Lord Fraud claimed the first piece of research in this series proved tenants were not facing excessive financial difficulties due to housing benefit reforms.  In fact the research had revealed that many tenants were having serious money problem before the cuts were even introduced.

This time the DWP is attempting to use the research to claim that there has been no Kosovo style social cleansing due to LHA reforms and people are not being exported from London in huge numbers.  But that’s because the report was carried before most claimants had been affected by the changes.  The views of claimants themselves, along with housing advice workers, (both of which I’ll cover later this week) reveals that this mass forced expulsion is simply yet to come.

It’s also important to note this research does not include the impact of the Bedroom Tax, the overall benefit cap or Council Tax benefit reform.  Nor does it consider the changes to DLA, Employment Support Allowance, the upcoming nightmare that is Universal Credit or the huge rise in the numbers of claimants having benefit’s sanctioned.  It also does not examine the consequences of the Benefit Uprating Bill which will see Local Housing Allowance rises capped at 1% annually despite rents soaring by over ten times that figure in some parts of the UK.

If this report makes grim reading (and it does) for all those concerned about the future of housing for people on low incomes, then it is only a small taste of what is to come.

The report can be read at: http://research.dwp.gov.uk/asd/asd5/report_abstracts/rr_abstracts/rra_838.asp

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