Flexible New Deal | New Deal Scandal: Leading Welfare Reform Concerns

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I find it absolutely disgusting how DWP staff, management and politicians are all exempt from any blame when it comes to benefit entitlement decisions. Today comes the real life scenario of the DWP who turn their backs on people without a care in the world; in this case it was a woman who was forced to suicide taking her young child with her.

Whereas to most people who fall victim to the dark side of the welfare state having to live deeper into poverty perhaps commiting crime to survive; regardless of the situation there needs to be responsibility for actions.

First, the computer systems list your personal circumstances and this shall be taken into consideration when making the decision. In this example maybe she had an 8 month gap in 5 years making her not entitled to the benefit but didn’t they overlook that she also has a child?

Jobcentre Plus was fully aware of the situation as the woman previously claimed Jobseekers Allowance up until she was kicked off for being pregnant.

So instead of using the just a number ideology (which is meant to give equal, unbiased and fair procedure which meant that when her claim was considered the only merits were that on a consolidated point system her 93 didn’t quite equal 100 as the additional score of 7 was in dispute, therefore making her not eligible;) an ideology of responsibility and care, to what is commonly referred to some of the most vulnerable people in society is deserved and long overdue.

DWP are aware that Housing Benefit is linked.

Did they really not consider the consequences for their actions?

The answer is no. They have no reason for this because it isn’t a crime to have executed their actions but a severe breach of Human Rights! It’s not their problem attitude. (The Human Rights Act 1998 exists indeed however its against the Governemnt not the individual) The DWP have a duty towards taxpayers’ money – both in Statutory Law and Common Law. They have no duty towards the people they are meant to be helping.

There is absolutely no reason that in this situation that the claim could have been accepted pending investigation into the disputed period. During this time if the information provided was false then the claim would have been fraudulent and dealt with otherwise through the courts or simply by demanding the money back.

Alternatively, why are DWP segregated from other Government departments? Is there not a reason why the DWP employee couldn’t have contacted the Council or Social Services? Regardless if she werent entitled to Income Support she was perfectly entitled to Housing Benefit. An instruction of continuation for Housing Benefit could have been made even if that meant the council had to contact her and start the process over again.

Secondly,  the system of a “yay” or “nay” needs to be abolished. Additional support could have been provided such as sign posting even if benefit entitlement didn’t exist. Government departments need to work together!

I have always experienced this from the Government. Basically, “No cant help”. Who can? No answer. Not their remit. I hear plenty of people go to the Jobcentre asking about Tax Credits… Response: “No we don’t do that here. Inland Revenue deals with that.” Not only is it Revenue & Customs now, not Inland Revenue; but would it really harm to provide more information?

The Government likes to mess people about… the cowboy way of Customer Service. Why spend a couple of minutes each time of staff both in person and on the telephone at the BDC trying to get rid of people when you could simply spend 5 minutes giving great Customer Service to begin with resulting in no further follow ups by the customer?

It doesn’t stop there. If you don’t like the standard poor level of service the staff return round and say “Don’t like it? You are always free to sign off”. That isn’t the point! More to the point is “Cant do your job properly? Perhaps you need to sign on!”
Thirdly, the law needs to be changed to bring in responsibility.  In the private sector Directors can be prosecuted for Corporate Manslaughter, the Baby P highlights how in the public sector no can do, they walk free!

Feel free to comment. Would love to hear opinions on this and perhaps proposals to prevent cases like these happening again. Below is a cross-post from Ipswich Unemployed Action, Shiraz Socialist and Fat Man on a Keyboard.

“In June of last year a young Frenchwoman jumped off the sixth floor balcony of her sister’s flat in London holding her five-month-old baby in her arms. Both were killed. A tragedy, but one with a reason. Let Jenni Russell take up the story. Christelle fitted no stereotype. She was a 32-year-old Frenchwoman living in Hackney who had lived in Britain since she and her sister moved here in 1997. In May 2008 she graduated from London’s Metropolitan University with a degree in philosophy. At about the same time she discovered she was pregnant. She looked for work while claiming jobseeker’s allowance and housing benefit.

Then in December 2008, the advisers at the jobcentre told her she no longer qualified for jobseeker’s allowance.

According to the Department for Work and Pensions the fact that she was within 11 weeks of giving birth disqualified her from being an active jobseeker. She was told to apply for income support instead. What no one warned her was that European nationals who claim income support must provide more proof of residence than jobseekers have to. All a jobseeker needs do is show they are looking for work. Income support is only given if the claimant can prove that for the previous five years they have been either in work, searching for work, studying, or self-sufficient.

Christelle had an eight-month period in 2003 when she said she had been working in a cafe but had no employment records to prove it. Her claim was turned down.

Once that happened, the welfare state stopped operating. Her housing benefit was automatically withdrawn. The state, having decreed she was not in a fit condition to look for work, took no further interest in how the penniless mother of a new baby was going to survive.

This is how it ends. All the endless measures aimed at tightening the rules on claimants and foreigners in an attempt to appease the supposed, and probably fictional, atavistic appetites of the electorate, all the cosying up to the the editors of the right wing press, all the creation of increasingly labyrinthine bureaucratic rules, they all result in two broken bodies lying on a Hackney pavement.

And now we turn to the ‘coup’ that failed – the last ditch attempt to oust the Prime Minister. I may have missed it, but I can’t recall any debate about what the Labour Party should be and what would change under a new leader. Was there a discussion of alternative ideas, philosophies and policies? Was there any mention of how to create a better Britain, one forged from the best traditions of the Labour movement, one that would not lead someone to choose death over destitution? Not as far as I could see. Instead all the talk was of who would be most likely to win an election, of who is in and who is out, of factions and intrigues. Court politics. That is what we are left with, court politics.

Jenni Russell concluded, I don’t believe this is a stance a civilised society can justify. It pitches foreign-born mothers back into a Victorian-style existence in which pregnancy may mean destitution and disgrace. I agree. And as the ghastly prospect of a prolonged election campaign, dripping with platitudes, looms, don’t expect to hear anything about the suicide of a young mother and how we should ensure that something as grotesquely tragic never happens again. It wouldn’t do to disturb the formulaic answers and sloganising with the lives and deaths of real people. Would it?”

This isn’t that great of an article I am clearly affected by this. I apologise for it.