Is the DWP's under-resourcing of Universal Credit helpline a means of torturing poor people?

At Kilburn Unemployed Workers Group's weekly business meeting on Thursday 23 March, though we warmed to the page 2 prominence given to Camden New Journal's news story published the same day 'Universal Credit: Claimants "stealing food" to eat due to benefit delays: Finance chief warns people are being forced into new debt',(1) we were very concerned at what to us seems a fundamental error in one sentence of that report.

That error concerns the length of wait for Universal Credit payments to be processed. The CNJ's Richard Osley reports:

'In some cases, people are waiting up to six weeks before claims are processed....

'A Department for Work and Pensions spokesman said: “Under Universal Credit, people are moving into work faster and staying in work longer than under the old system. Our research shows the majority of UC claim­ants are comfortable managing their budgets. We’re working with local authorities and landlords to get extra support to people who may find themselves in arrears. “We’ve been rolling Universal Credit out gradually so we have time to ensure it works in the right way.”''(2)

Déjà Vu?

"Waits as long as six weeks for benefit claims to be processed" and "unacceptable" telephone helpline service standards are nothing new and pre-date Universal Credit and even the 2010 General Election. In November 2006 Community Care magazine reported:(3)

'Earlier this month, MPs slammed Jobcentre Plus for leaving 21 million calls unanswered. Despite government claims of improvements, stories of poor service continue to mount, Neil Bateman argues.

'Jobcentre Plus (JCP) is the arm of the Department for Work and Pensions that administers benefits and job search activities  or people under 60. It was set up in 2001 as a key part of the government’s welfare-to-work reforms, the aim being that people could obtain advice and help on benefits and job-seeking under one roof.
'Since the announcement in 2005 that DWP had to lose 30,000 staff over three years, on top of other spending cuts in the department, concern has been growing in the social care and welfare rights fields about the deteriorating standards of service provided by JCP. There has been concern about the effect on vulnerable customers, particularly care leavers, those with sensory impairments and people with mental health needs who have greatest difficulty with the JCP one-size-fits-all approach to customer service.

'Welfare rights advisers and social care specialists identify problems with JCP, including:

● Delays in processing claims and changes of circumstances – six weeks is common – leaving people destitute.
● Communications between different parts of JCP “not being received”.
● Huge difficulty accessing JCP by phone.
● JCP staff insisting that all benefit claims are made by phone, when the law does not state this.'

Is Universal Credit helpline's under-resourcing aimed at destroying the economically vulnerable? 

Where our 'experts by experience' would disagree with the CNJ's report is that we believe the report should state, 

'People wait a minimum of six weeks for claims to be processed.' 

Those delays are exacerbated by the income fluctuations caused by means-tested processing of Universal Credit claims in zero hours economies; and the DWP's deepening reliance on 'pay-as-you-go' call-centre service delivery that  penalises economically vulnerable people for their vulnerability and is arguably designed to discourage people claiming their entitlement.

Now, as the CNJ reports:(4) 

'Telephone calls [to the Universal Credit helpline] can cost up to 55p a minute from pay-as-you-go mobile phones, which are commonly used by people with lower incomes. Wait times to speak with an adviser can be very long – one claimant in Camden has reported that their phone bill for a month was over £140, used almost entirely on calls to the DWP.”' 

That is an all-too-common experience, leading in many cases to rent arrears and subsequent evictions. The reality is that such waits are now far more common and cannot be ignored, and also that 'austerity' cost-cutting in public services has eliminated council welfare rights units. As Neil Bateman has said in response to my sending him an earlier edition of this response to the CNJ article:

'If we thought things were bad back in 2006…'

This sickening system leads more and more people to sickness and suicide, while the DWP refuses to take lessons from coroners courts,(5) and insists instead that disability benefit claimants be reassessed every six months as standard. If this system is 'fit for purpose', what is its purpose?

For those who have fallen

Against that backdrop, Kilburn Unemployed Workers Group will be highlighting local benefits-related suicides on Monday 3 April as follows:

• 12 Noon: Assemble outside Kilburn Jobcentre, Cambridge Avenue, NW6 5AH for rally with 
• local Labour MP Tulip Siddiq, 
• PCS (jobcentre workers union) National Executive Officer Zita Holbourne and 
• Brent Trades Council Executive Committee.
• 12:45: Black Flag march to Paddington Cemetry via Kilburn High Road.
• 13:30: Address at Leon Brumant graveside by 
• Dawn Butler MP and 
• RMT Political Officer Cat Cray.
• 14:00: Prince of Wales PH, Willesden Lane NW6 for Tea & Sandwiches.

Notes

1. http://camdennewjournal.com/article/universal-credit-claimants-stealing-food-to-eat-due-to-benefit-delays
2. ibid.
3. http://www.communitycare.co.uk/2006/11/16/jobcentre-plus-poor-service-continues
4. http://camdennewjournal.com/article/universal-credit-claimants-stealing-food-to-eat-due-to-benefit-delays
5. http://www.disabilitynewsservice.com/?s=dwp+coroners

Coroner: 'Fit-for-work' cert. cued suicide

Placard designed by Dude Swheatie of Kwug

Coroner's ground-breaking verdict: Suicide triggered by 'fit-for-work' test —
Disability News Service

Disability News Service reports:

Coroner's ground breaking verdict: Suicide was 'triggered' by 'fit for work' test

A coroner has demanded that the government takes action to prevent future deaths of disability benefit claimants, after concluding in a "ground breaking" inquest that a disabled man killed himself as a direct result of being found "fit for work."

Continue reading on Disability News Service website

North London Coroner: vulnerable person took his own life as a direct consequence of his being evicted by Genesis HA

North London Coroner's Court Letterhead

Page 1 of the Rule 43 regarding the death of an ex-Genesis HA tenant

I am required under the terms of Rule 43 of the Coroners (Amendment) Rules 2008 to report to:
Claire Murdock,
Chief Executive,
Central and North West London NHS Foundation Trust,
Stephenson House
75 Hampstead Road
London NW1 2PL

---

And following the inquest touching the death of Nigel* Firminger heard before Coroner Andrew Walker at The Coroners Court sitting at Barnet on the 10th day of July 2013** and having heard evidence the Coroner had found that (b) the evidence gives rise to a concern that circumstances creating a risk of other deaths will occur, or will continue to exist in the future and

(c) In the Coroner's opinion, action should be taken to prevent the occurence or continuation of such circumstances, or to eliminate or reduce the risk of death created by such circumstances,

the coroner may report the circumstances to a person who the coroner believes may have power to take such action.

The Circumstances

On the second of April 2012, Nigel Patrick Firminger was found at his former home having taken his own life as a direct consequence of his being evicted and the effect that the eviction had on his mental health.

Mr Firminger was suffering from a mental health issues that were not known by the organisation providing his accommodation or the court dealing with the eviction.

It is against this background that H M Coroner begs to report that:

Consideration to be given to:-

A form that may be filled in by the staff conducting an assessment that the patient can take away with them that identifies that the person is to be considered vulnerable that can be passed to other agencies such as those providing accommodation.

Your attention is drawn to the following provisions:

Response to report under rule 43

---

Page 2 of the Rule 43 regarding the death of an ex-Genesis HA tenant

43A, —(1) A person to whom a coroner sends a report under rule 43(1) must give the coroner a written response to the report containing—

(a) details of any action that has been taken or which it is proposed will be taken whether in response to the report or otherwise; or

(b) an explanation as to why no action is proposed

within the period of 56 days beginning with the day on which the report is sent.

Extension of time

43B. A coroner may extend the period of 56 days mentioned in rule 43A(1) (even if an application for extension is made after the time for compliance has expired).

---

Signed this the 25th day of July 2013
(Coroner's signature and stamp)
by Coroner Adrew Walker

---

Notes

* The coroner's spelling of Nygell's forename as 'Nigel' is as presented on the Rule 43 document, and differs from the 'Nygell' spelling given on the cremation service programme from September 2012.
** This was an adjourned hearing. The original November 2012 hearing was adjourned because, following KUWG's presentation of a leaflet outlining the circumstances leading to Nygell's death and the fact that Nygell's relatives were unable to attend on that occasion, the Coroner had declared that "new evidence" had come to light.

Protecting the vulnerable — listen to people who know by firsthand experience

By Swheatie of the KUWG

Induced by debt related to a JSA sanction and then eviction, Nygell Firminger's eviction was followed by his suicide in the same week that the Welfare Reform Act of 2012 was passed. Our campaigning and casework for the living continue.

There is a line in the play 'The Trojan Women' as adapted by Jean-Paul Sartre from the original by Ancient Greek playwright Euripides: "Those who give the order seldom see the mess it makes."

Revd Paul Nicolson of Taxpayers Against Poverty in the piece linked below, cites how bad UK poverty was as far back as 2001 for vulnerable people. Yet — established in 2010 — the KUWG has its own, more local stories.

Nygell Firminger of the South Kilburn Estate committed suicide in April 2012 after being evicted by his so-called 'social landlord' Genesis on account of rent arrears. That was after he had fallen into the clutches of loan sharks and thus into rent arrears after Kilburn Jobcentre had sanctioned him for a period of time and he had fallen into rent arrears over which he had attempted to negotiate reparations — accumulating volumes of correspondence.

Tragically, by the time he was sanctioned even, he had left the Kilburn Unemployed Workers Group in the expectation that the job he had been offered or given would 'see him through'. When we eventually heard of what had transpired since his departure from the group, we — meaning mostly people who had never met him — determined to seek 'justice for Nygell' who was 'all too human'. So we gathered evidence from the people closest to him who we met at his funeral.

To cut a long story short:

1. In May 2013, Haringey Solidarity Group reported further heartlessness by Genesis Housing Association toward tenants who could be made vulnerable to rent arrears by "significant changes ... to the Welfare Benefit system." — Genesis Housing Association to evict benefit cap families
2. The North London Coroner eventually ruled on 10 July 2013 that Nygell's death had been the result of "suicide due to the threat of eviction," severely criticised Genesis Housing over their handling of Nygell's case and issued a 'Rule 43' notice saying that landlords should implement measures to protect tenants in such circumstances who have mental health problems. (It was clear from his friends' testimonies that he should have received Employment & Support Allowance as a person with mental health problems, rather than a sanction from the jobcentre and an eviction from a 'social landlord'.)
3. In December 2013, Genesis Housing reportedly sold the flat that Nygell had committed suicide in after he'd been evicted from it, for £375,000.
4. Building expertise from within, and with currently no paid staff, the Kilburn Unemployed Workers Group acquires collective expertise to help people get the state benefits they require.

I wonder how many coroner's reports on the deaths of vulnerable people those politicians who say that they will protect vunerable people have read in their research toward the welfare reforms that they are now implementing? (Note that the first case presented in the piece linked below is from as far back as 2001, and Revd Paul Nicolson launched a petition for UK Government to consider the implications to the UK in the 21st Century of Revd Dr Martin Luther King's 'I Have a Dream' speech that was made on the 28 August 1963 centenary of the Gettysberg Address 'emancipation proclamation'. Martin Luther King petition.)

How many coroners reports have those who say they will protect the vulnerable read in their research?

Continue reading on the website of Taxpayers Against Poverty....