Tag Archives: Social exclusion

UK must spend more on the vulnerable

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Again this is very important and worth a wider audience. 

Powered by Guardian.co.ukThis article titled “UK must spend more on the vulnerable” was written by , for The Guardian on Monday 16th March 2015 19.53 UTC

Day in and day out, we work with hundreds of thousands of vulnerable children facing many difficulties like abuse and neglect at home or problems at school.  While the state currently spends nearly £17bn per year on social problems affecting children and young people, the support they get is often too little, too late. ncreasing early help for families should be a top priority. It will save millions of children from suffering needless trauma and will save money in the long run. 

We want all political candidates in the 2015 general election to commit to championing early support for children and families.

Our charities understand the pressures on vulnerable children and families. That is why we are committed to providing a range of services at an earlier stage that help children and families cope better with life’s challenges. But we can’t do this on our own.

By making a commitment to early intervention, politicians can help lead a real, lasting, cost-effective transformation to the lives of vulnerable children across the UK, now and in the future.
Sir Tony Hawkhead Chief executive, Action for Children
Javed Khan Chief executive, Barnardo’s
Matthew Reed Chief executive, The Children’s Society
Peter Wanless Chief executive, NSPCC

• We write as organisations working with children and pensioners, disabled people and those with long-term health conditions, in- and out-of-work families, and those experiencing or at risk of homelessness. We have sent a letter to the leaders of the three main parties calling on them to commit to restore the value of all benefits, and to maintain this in real terms in the next parliament and beyond.

The UK’s social security system provides essential support to many of the people with whom we work. It should guarantee their dignity, protect them against poverty, and enable them to have a basic standard of living. 

Adequate social security provision benefits all of society, not just those who rely on it at any one time. If we do not protect the value of all benefits, significant numbers of people will be unable to participate fully in society, an outcome that surely none of us desire.
Alison Garnham Chief executive, Child Poverty Action Group
Caroline Abrahams Charity director, Age UK

Heléna Herklots Chief executive, Carers UK

Lesley-Anne Alexander CBE Chief executive, Royal National Institute of Blind People

Jon Sparkes Chief executive, Crisis

Matthew Reed Chief executive, The Children’s Society
Javed Khan Chief executive, Barnardos

Mark Lever Chief executive, National Autism Society
Disability Agenda Scotland (six member organisations)
Jolanta Lasota Chief executive, Ambitious About Autism
Fiona Weir Chief executive, Gingerbread
Geraldine Blake Chief executive, Community Links
Howard Sinclair Chief executive, St Mungos Broadway
Sir Stuart Etherington Chief executive, National Council for Voluntary Organisations
Liz Sayce OBE Chief executive, Disability Rights UK
Rick Henderson Chief executive, Homeless Link
Aaron Barbour Director, Katherine Low Settlement
Andy Kerr Chief executive, Sense Scotland
Anna Feuchtwang Chief executive, National Children’s Bureau
Marcus Roberts Chief executive, Drugscope

• On 19 March I will protest against benefit sanctions with Unite Community outside the DWP, whose ministers are in denial about the link between suicide and sanctions. Most people are in debt when the sanction stops all their income. Debt is unavoidable because housing and council tax benefits have been cut leaving the remaining benefit incomes in work and unemployment to pay the outstanding rent, created by the bedroom tax and £500 benefit cap,  and the council tax, plus court costs and bailiffs fees. Otherwise the sanction forces them into debt because they have no money on which to survive. That is the trap set by parliament for honest citizens who feel obliged to pay their debts; some despair and many call on their GPs. The NHS is now to receive an extra £1.25bn for mental health services while the DWP is creating an ever greater demand for them. 
Rev Paul Nicolson
Taxpayers Against Poverty

In answer to a parliamentary question by Stephen Timms MP, to the DWP, answered by Esther McVey MP, on how many people have been refused hardship payments since 2012, she answered that the information is not available. It is time that it was.
Gary Martin
London

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David Clapson’s awful death was the result of grotesque government policies

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Re-blogging this because its important. This kind of thing can happen to anybody at anytime… 

Powered by Guardian.co.ukThis article titled “David Clapson’s awful death was the result of grotesque government policies” was written by Frances Ryan, for theguardian.com on Tuesday 9th September 2014 08.24 UTC

The coroner said that when David Clapson died he had no food in his stomach. Clapson’s benefits had been stopped as a result of missing one meeting at the jobcentre. He was diabetic, and without the £71.70 a week from his jobseeker’s allowance he couldn’t afford to eat or put credit on his electricity card to keep the fridge where he kept his insulin working. Three weeks later Clapson died from diabetic ketoacidosis, caused by a severe lack of insulin. A pile of CVs was found next to his body.

I’ll resist calling Clapson’s death a tragedy. Tragedy suggests a one-off incident, a rarity that couldn’t be prevented. What was done to Clapson – and it was done, not something that simply happened – is a particularly horrific example of what has, almost silently, turned into a widespread crisis. More than a million people in this country have had their benefits stopped over the past year. Sanctions against chronically ill and disabled people have risen by 580% in a year. This is a system out of control.

A petition for an inquiry into benefit sanctions, started by Clapson’s sister, Gill Thompson, is now on the verge of its 200,000th signature. This Thursday there will be a day of action against benefit sanctions across the country. If inspiration is required, you need look no further than the latest Department for Work and Pensions pilot scheme launched last week. The unemployed are set to have their benefits stopped if they don’t sign in at a jobcentre in the morning and spend the whole day there, every day. Breach the rules once and you’ll lose four weeks’ worth of benefits; twice and you won’t be able to feed your kids for three months.

Yes, some reasons for sanctions are almost laughable: going to a job interview rather than a meeting at the jobcentre that it clashes with; not completing an assessment because you had a heart attack during it. But let’s not convince ourselves the rest are credible – punishment sensibly bestowed on the scrounging unemployed. A government that deems it a success to stop the money someone needs to eat is a government of the grotesque.

Sanctions are a product of an attitude towards benefit claimants that says they are not people struggling to find work but suspects: lazy, stupid and in need of a DWP-kick to get them out of bed. The lazy are going hungry. Eight in 10 Trussell Trust food banks report that benefit sanctions are causing more people to need emergency food parcels. This, I suppose, is what Conservatives call motivation.

It doesn’t matter that sanctions are disproportionately hitting the most vulnerable. Nor that the DWP’s own commissioned report says that they are being imposed in such a way that vulnerable people often don’t understand what is happening to them, and are left uninformed of the hardship payments to which they are entitled. Six out of 10 employment and support allowance (ESA) claimants who have had their benefits stopped have a mental-health condition or learning difficulty. Are these the chosen victims of austerity now? By definition of being in receipt of ESA, many will struggle to do things such as be punctual for meetings or complete work placements with strangers in environments they don’t know. It is setting people up to fail and then punishing them for it.

Sanctions are not an anomaly. Rather, they are emblematic of the wider Tory record on welfare: one of incompetence and, at best, indifference. The work programme fails to find work for 95% of disabled people, but enforced, unpaid labour or loss of benefits is the DWP’s answer. More than a quarter of a million people are still waiting for PIP, the benefit needed to help cover the extra costs of disability. Seven hundred thousand people have been left waiting for an ESA assessment. Locking people out of their rightful benefits is becoming a theme for this government. The consequences are human; the response from the government is inhumane.

Clapson had only left his last job to care for his elderly mum, and before that had worked for 29 years. On the day he died he had £3.44 to his name and six tea bags, a tin of soup and an out-of-date can of sardines in his kitchen cupboards. Benefit sanctions are aimed at ending the “something for nothing” culture, as the DWP’s press release brags. I vote for ending the demonisation of the unemployed, disabled and poor.

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