Self-help support vs ravages of 'welfare reform'. Never attend anywhere official alone!
This blog currently focuses on national policy matters that impact upon KUWG members.
Kilburn Unemployed Workers Group as a group focuses primarily on combating benefits injustices locally through advocacy in individuals' benefit claims, and demonstrations that emphasise that there is hope when we come together. We are more angry than frightened.
Dear all,
Here is our latest leaflet directed at GPs and others about exemption from
the ESA and PIP exams.
https://winvisibleblog.wordpress.com/2017/12/10/benefit-exam-exemptions-briefing-for-professionals/
Happy Christmas!
|
Government confirms freeze on working age benefits minutes after Prince Harry wedding news revealed
Freeze continues amid the longest fall in living standards for 60 years"According to Clarence House, the wedding will take place in Spring 2018" — by which time many more parts of the UK will be experiencing the 'shock and awe' of 'Universal Credit full roll-out'. That in itself will be an opportunity to 'bury bad news'.
Such is the poverty of Tory ideas that they deny poverty even exists
.... good intentions would manifest in curiosity about the lived experience of one’s policies, which would in turn entail figuring out what those policies amounted to in the aggregate. Failure to ask such questions is not born out of ignorance: it is critical to the Conservative narrative to deny, forcefully and sometimes gleefully, that anyone in the country is struggling.The contrast between the royal wedding announcement and UK poverty reminds me of lines in a Harvey Andrews & Graham Cooper song, 'Targets' that was written to commemorate Margaret Thatcher's election as Tory Party leader in 1975:
We would have married long ago
And we're still hoping one day
Two up two down and a little lawn
And time to rest on Sunday.
I wish the ones who left us here
Could live like us and borrow
I'd place a pound for what it's worth
That they'd be gone tomorrow
We'd like a yacht, some rooms to spare
And horses in the stable
We might as well believe that we
Could buy meat for the table.
Call us equal, call us proud, call yourself a liar
No matter what the people do, they set the target higher
 |
| Placard: "Government knows what it's doing." Do you know what they are planning? |
With the opposition, the Commons work and pensions select committee and even universal credit's instigator, Iain Duncan Smith, lining up to condemn the minimum six-week which new recipients must undergo before they see any cash, pressure is mounting on the government to reduce the arrears period. But this initial wait for cash may not be the only period during which UC claimants go without funds.For claimants who are in work and paid weekly (which is the case in many low-paid jobs that will qualify for UC top-ups), the small print of the benefit makes it clear that they will run into problems whenever they receive five pay packages withing the calendar months that are used to calculate their UC eligibility."When you have five weekly earnings payments within an assessment period, your income may be too high to qualify for universal credit in that month," say the DWP rules. "If this happens you will be notified that your income is too high and you will no longer ge universal credit. You can re-apply the following month as you should only get for wage payments in your assessment period then."The vagaries of the calendar will not, of course, affect the amount workers are actually earning — but a month with five Fridays (this December, for example) will see them automatically lose their entire universal credit for that period. "You will need to be prepared for a month when you get five wage payments in one assessment period and budget for a potential change in your monthly universal credit payments," the DWP guidelines state blithely.In 2018, March, June, August and November will all have five Fridays — so UC claimants who are paid weekly may have to budget for extraordinarily lean months for a third of the year. The DWP itself admitted in a report published last month that delays in UC payments were "a key factor" in claimants falling into rent arrears.Given that UC has supposedly been designed to mimic standard work pay patterns, this fluctuation seems particularly cruel: no employer, after all, docks pay following every five-week month, or pays them less because they are on a weekly wage.So, for those on UC and getting paid weekly this December, Christmas is cancelled!
 |
| First Universal Credit targeted single Jsa claimants at Ashton-under-Lyne jobcentre making a fresh Jsa claim who met certain criteria |
 |
| Second, it rolled over similar Jsa claimants using Wigan jobcentre |
 |
| 2014: Divide and roll-over single claimants makingfresh Jsa claim elsewhere... |
 |
| .... then couples in Hammersmith, Bath... |
 |
| Universal Credit roll-out 2016 'Live Service Areas' and 'Full Digital Service Areas' defined |
 |
| November 2014: families — couples or lone parentswith children. "Anyone claiming Universal Credit as availy were entitled to Free School Meals for their children." |
 |
| 2016: Universal Credit roll-out 'Live Service Areas' and 'Fully Digital Services Areas' defined |
 |
| 2017: Universal Credit 'full roll-out' in 'Full Digital Areas' |
 |
| 2018: Universal Credit 'full roll-out' in 'Full Digital Areas' |
 |
| Yahoo News: Jeremy Corbyn calls for Universal Credit to be halted 'before millions of people are made worse off' |
 |
| Placard: Tell DWP to FoI! |
 |
| Placard statement: What is the point of public services that are democratically unaccountable? |
 |
| KUWG and friends with banners and placards outside DWP Caxton House HQ |
 |
| 'Universal Credit'? More like: "Shock & awe if you are poor!" |
Perhaps a potential advantage of 'being known to the authorities' can be identification as 'a person not to be messed with'?
When I had my second 'Work Capability Assessment' [Feb 2011] after three deferred appointments[1] and after having won ESA tribunal [Dec 2009] they had the realisation that I had a McKenzie Friend [the person who went to my second WCA with] who could write a very direct and 'this service [sic] was substandard and degrading' type letter. (That letter had been in support of my request for a further deferment on account of the icy conditions grounding her ComCab support, even while Atos call-centre operative treated me like 'the accused' who was obliged to attend 'court appearance', with Atos assuming the role of G4S. My friend has a law degree.)So this time round, despite the fact that the Atos 'Examining Medical Practitioner' claimed to have received none of the certification that I had sent separately from the ESA50 that I had completed with carefully customised word processed text boxes, I did not have to go to a tribunal. I was told by letter that the WCA had resulted in no change to my Support Group status.
 |
| DWP: (noun) UK-state-run modern slavery gangmaster |
Thanks for this, Kitty, especially as it is now written and can thus be referenced.
I commend you to send it to:
Stephanie Sarwar
Universal Credit Official Statistics team
Digital
Data & Analytics
Department for Work and Pensions
Benton Park View
Newcastle
NE98 1YX
stephanie.sarwar@dwp.gsi.gov.uk
Why?
A: “Open consultation [sic] — Universal Credit experimental statistics [sic!]: future developments:Endnote (for now): “Sir Bert [Massie, who died last week] once said that disabled people ‘have been invited to look up to the stars while having the rug pulled from beneath them’.”
“From: Department for Work and Pensions
“Part of: Universal Credit statistics
“Published: 13 September 2017
“Summary
“We are seeking views on plans to expand the range of our Universal Credit statistics….”
More at https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/universal-credit-experimental-statistics-future-developments
I met Sir Bert Massie after a Radar debate in 2008 in which he opposed David Freud’s motion: “Most disabled people can and should work.” (That was when David Freud was Labour's 'welfare reform guru' as one who had never been near the benefits system before his appointment.
(Massie and Kate Green — then of Child Poverty Action Group — in ensemble with the audience and questions and comments from the floor, heavily defeated Freud’s motion and replaced it with one that included reference to support requirements.)
In meeting Sir Bert I told that I had met an Occupational Psychologist [sic] at a Manpower Services-run ‘Employment Rehabilitation Centre’ (ERC) [sic] in 1978 at age 24, and she — with her MSc in Experimental Psychology — told me, “You will be terminated [sic] at the end of next week,” with no further help stemming from my six-week ‘vocational assessment period’ there.
Sir Bert Massie then responded that he had ‘been terminated from an ERC ten years earlier!
Universal credit behind rising rent arrears and food bank use, 'guinea pig' councils say
Research by Southwark and Croydon councils reveals devastating effect of new benefits system (2)
