Category Archives: Universal Credit

After coroner’s warning over death of disabled man, benefits process to get HARDER

[Image: Black Triangle Campaign].

What are the courts going to do about this?

The excellent Disability News Service is reporting that a coroner has ordered Work and Pensions Secretary Mel Stride to take action that will prevent flaws in the Universal Credit system leading to further deaths after a disabled man became overwhelmed by the application process and committed suicide.

Instead, it seems Stride is determined to increase the death toll exponentially.

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Here’s the DNS story:

It states:

An inquest into the death of Kevin Gale earlier this month heard from his psychiatrist, who expressed significant concerns about the way mental health service-users were supported with their universal credit claims within DWP.

The inquest also heard from the trust’s nursing director, who told the coroner that they considered the issues identified by the psychiatrist to be “national” and said they were “debilitating for service users”.

Kevin Gale, who is believed to have worked previously as a window cleaner, took his own life on 4 March 2022.

Coroner Kirsty Gomersal sent a Prevention of Future Deaths report to Stride.

She pointed to the “number of and length” of the universal credit forms that had to be completed which “can be overwhelming for someone with a mental health illness”, and which are “perpetuated if the applicant cannot get help to complete the paperwork”, while also highlighting the “long telephone queues to speak to a DWP advisor”.

She added: “Having to travel long distances for appointments can be detrimental for those with a mental health illness.”

And what’s happening to the benefit system?

Here’s The Independent:

Jeremy Hunt has warned those who “coast” on benefits will lose handouts if they refuse to take a job as part of a new crackdown.

Claimants deemed fit to work, but who fail to take steps to find employment, will be cut off from accessing benefits such as free prescriptions and dental treatment, help from energy suppliers and cheaper mobile phone packages.

Mel Stride, the work and pensions secretary, said that schemes to help people back into the workforce would also be expanded as part of a new £2.5bn five-year long back-to-work plan.

Under the plan, claimants will be forced to accept a job or undertake work experience to improve their prospects. Those who fail to do so will be hit with an “immediate sanction”.

At the moment, claimants can face open-ended sanctions where they have their benefits stopped. Those under this sanction for more than six months will now have their claims closed, the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) said, which would also end their access to other benefits such as free prescriptions and legal aid.

Mr Stride said: “…We are expanding the voluntary support for people with health conditions and disabilities, including our flagship Universal Support programme.

“But our message is clear: if you are fit, if you refuse to work, if you are taking taxpayers for a ride – we will take your benefits away.”

Overall, the government says expanded help-to-work schemes will help more than 1 million people over the next five years.

Part of this package includes plans to add another 100,000 people to the Individual Placement and Support scheme, which aims to get those with severe mental illness quickly into paid employment.

Mandatory work trials will be rolled out, meaning that claimants will be forced to accept a job or do work experience to improve their prospects, and those who fail to do so will be hit with “immediate sanction”.

Reform of the “fit note” system will also be explored under the plans. In a trial in certain, fit notes, an alternative to sick notes which set out what work someone can do, will be handed out by the benefits system, not doctors.

So, after receiving an order from the courts to make it easier for people with severe mental health problems to claim disability benefits, Stride and Hunt have chosen to make it many orders of magnitude harder.

And we can all see them:

The last of the ‘X’ posts above makes an extremely good point.

If these changes are being made in order to allow the government to make tax cuts in advance of a general election, then the Tories will once again be pushing the most vulnerable people in society to their deaths, to make already-comfortable people a little better-off.

Are you disabled or suffering from a long-term sickness? Do you want to die to boost the bank account of someone who is already wealthy?

Are you a Tory voter? Do you have sick or disabled relatives and/or friends?

Which of them do you want to see die, so you get a tax cut that will induce you to vote Tory again?


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Millions on Universal Credit may lose hundreds of pounds as Rishi Sunak threatens cut | Mirror Online

Rishi Sunak: he likes money but he doesn’t understand it. By giving benefit money to the rich in tax cuts, he is cutting away the foundations of the UK’s economy. How will you be able to afford anything?

Once again, the Tories are threatening defenceless benefit claimants in their endless campaign to bribe donation money from rich benefactors.

That’s about the size of this, isn’t it?

Sunak has already threatened people with long-term illnesses and disabilities with changes that are intended to get a million of them off the benefit books – or at least onto the jobs market.

More people looking for work relieves pressure on employers to increase wages, because jobseekers will undercut each other in their desperation – and I use that word advisedly – to get a regular wage packet.

Now Sunak is threatening more than six million Universal Credit claimants – most of whom are in work – with an effective cut in payments if he decides to make the annual benefit increase next April lower than the rate of inflation.

The apparent reason is to fund another tax cut for the very richest, in time for the next general election; he’s buying support where he wants it by harming those he doesn’t ever expect to help him.

Here’s the Mirror:

the Prime Minister refused to commit to inflation-proof benefit rises next year, arguing that payments had already gone up by a “huge amount”.

For clarity, it doesn’t matter how much payments have already increased. Inflation is always a measure of how fast prices are rising. If the inflation rate slows, prices are still rising, only more slowly. Increasing benefits at a rate lower than inflation means millions of working people and benefit claimants will not be able to afford basic necessities.

Chancellor Jeremy Hunt is thought to be considering a real-terms cut this autumn. Payments usually rise each April by the inflation figure of the previous September – expected to be 6.9%. But the Government is looking at a lower figure, leaving 6.1 million on UC worse off.

A rise 1% below inflation would result in a low-income working couple with two children losing £220. Asked if he could guarantee benefits continue to rise with inflation, Mr Sunak declined but insisted he would “make sure we look after the most vulnerable”.

That has to be a lie; Sunak has already attacked “the most vulnerable” with his plan to push long-term sick and disabled people off benefits.

Be in no doubt: this is an attack on you.

The fear is that, by buying support from the rich, Sunak will be able to rely on their influence to persuade – or coerce – you or people like you into supporting yet another godawful Tory election win.

Source: Millions on Universal Credit to lose hundreds of pounds as Rishi Sunak threatens cut – Mirror Online


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Ending the Work Capability Assessment means the end of its good features too

Smug: Jeremy Hunt’s decision to end the Work Capability Assessment could endanger the lives and well-being of many thousands of sick and disabled people. It isn’t even likely to get more of them into jobs.

Chancellor Jeremy Hunt’s announcement – that the Work Capability Assessment for people claiming long-term sickness benefits is ending – provoked a strong knee-jerk reaction from many of us.

It is good that this tick-box assessment that has led to many thousands of wrong decisions (including in the case of the now-legendary Mrs Mike) is to fall out of use.

But we’re now starting to look at the underlying consequences – and some of them are not good, as a letter to The Guardian has stated:

The WCA has features that it is important to retain. One is the right of appeal to an independent tribunal. By contrast, there is no judicial oversight of decisions about work-related requirements made by work coaches; the new proposals leave claimants at the mercy of Department for Work and Pensions officials with no medical training.

Another is the regulation whereby someone who does not otherwise satisfy the criteria can be exempted from work if there is a substantial risk that working would harm their health. There is no equivalent provision in the rules for personal independence payment (Pip), the disability benefit that would serve as the passport to the health-related top-up.

The government’s proposals leave many questions unaddressed: about people too ill to work who don’t meet the criteria for Pip; people on contributory benefit, rather than universal credit; people with short-term conditions, not covered by Pip. Confusions and omissions abound. I can think of better uses for white paper.

In addition, I am told that the ESA regulations of 2008 included sections 29 and 35, which allowed GPs to deem a patient ‘unfit for work’. That is no longer included in the government’s new proposal.

Put it all together and we see that decisions on whether a person should be seeking work or not are to be removed from anybody with specialist understanding of the issues and denied judicial oversight.

People who may be endangered by being forced to seek, or go to, work will have their future decided by unqualified civil servants and will have no opportunity to seek reconsideration.

This is not an improvement. It is an escalation of the danger to the UK’s most vulnerable people.

Expect many deaths – and when they happen, blame Hunt.


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Tory benefit changes mean around 1m people may be forced into work they can’t do

[Image: Black Triangle Campaign].

The Tories are bringing this nightmare back again.

Jeremy Hunt’s Budget announcement that he is ending the Work Capability Assessment has turned out not to be the relief so many benefit claimants with long-term illnesses thought it would be.

He is ending the Limited Capability for Work-Related Activity element of Universal Credit, meaning that people who received it may now have to seek work under the new Personal Independence Payment system.

They’ll need to claim the new UC health element, and to do that they must also be eligible for Personal Independence Payment – and under this system they may also be required to seek work or accept job offers.

Additionally, assessments will now be carried out by work coaches from the Department for Work and Pensions, rather than the (so-called) health professionals who currently carry out the much-maligned WCAs.

There are fears that these civil servants will not have the proper training to identify claimants’ conditions and needs, and may be set target numbers of people they have to try to force into work, which they will impose on disabled people.

The Institute of Fiscal Studies think tank has estimated that a million people could be forced into work and 600,000 could lose an estimated £350 per month in support as a result of the change.

Hunt has been up-front about the intention behind the change: it’s to push people into work who would not otherwise have sought it.

The problem is that it may push people into work who simply cannot do it.

Experience has shown us what happens when the government forces people with long-term illnesses and disabilities to seek work:

They are rejected by employers – or find that they simply cannot do the work. Unsuitable for employment, and unable to claim benefits, they either starve to death or die of their health conditions.

We have seen it before – many times, in the years since the Tories came back into office in 2010.

It is scandalous that Jeremy Hunt is talking up a change that may make unendurable the lives of people who are already among the UK’s most vulnerable.

Source: Disability benefit changes: ‘My disability means I cannot work but I worry I’ll be forced to by the new rules’


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Changes to Universal Credit rules may mean visiting the Job Centre every working day for two weeks

The big downsides of the Tory government’s plan to push Universal Credit claimants into more work are starting to be seen now.

These follow on from the decision to change the Administrative Earnings Threshold (AET) for the benefit, by hours worked, to 15 hours per week for single claimants and 24 hours per week for couples.

It means 120,000 people have been moved from ‘Light Touch’ into an ‘Intensive Work Search’ group since February 27.

They’ll be required to attend more face-to-face meetings with a work coach – but I bet they didn’t bargain on the number of meetings they’ll have to take on.

The move means Universal Credit claimants could now be forced to attend jobcentres 10 times in the space of two weeksaccording to the Daily Record.

What if a single person is working three hours a day, at awkward times, and the Job Centre is a long way away?

Bear in mind that after receiving UC for 13 weeks, failure to attend Job Centre meetings will mean a benefit sanction – or possibly the loss of it altogether.

The Public and Commercial Services (PCS) union, whose members in the civil service are likely to have to administer this change, has damned it as an attack on UC claimants.

It has stated: “We oppose the introduction of any regime that results in more sanctions for claimants and that there is a mass of evidence that the threat of sanctions does nothing to help claimants find work.”

That’s a bit of a blow for Chancellor of the Exchequer Jeremy Hunt, who allegedly intends to increase benefit sanctions hugely in his Budget.

The Tory government is insisting that its new regime will help UC claimants get back into work, or increase their earnings – by tailoring its support to focus on specific steps.

But This Writer has seen no evidence to support its claim – and evidence against benefit sanctions has been widely available for many years.

Is this just another attack on the most vulnerable people in the UK?

Source: DWP: New changes for benefit claimants mean you will be forced to attend the job centre ’10 times over a 2-week period’


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Universal Credit isn’t enough to live on – and the DWP is making it more conditional

Research has shown that people can’t afford to live on Universal Credit – and the Department for Work and Pensions is responding by making it harder to hold onto a claim.

The DWP’s policy was recently articulated as ensuring that work always pays more than living on benefits – and this is increasingly a problem for poverty-stricken individuals and families, because wages are being pushed through the floor.

The reason for this is to maximise profits for big firms; if they keep their wage bills down, they can pass more profit to their shareholders.

They don’t care about employees’ ability to pay bills because they make most of their money abroad – or the bill-payers are practical hostages, with no alternative options for the services they are being pushed into poverty to buy.

That’s why this has happened:

Universal Credit payments are well short of the amount needed for people to afford essentials, two of the UK’s most prominent anti-poverty organisations warn.

Joint research… by the Trussell Trust and Joseph Rowntree Foundation found that the standard allowance is £35 too low for a single person and £66 for a couple.

Nine out of 10 people on low incomes are going without essentials, the JRF found.

Researchers estimates a single person needs at least £120 per week, while couples have to have at least £200 a week, just to afford essential items.

You might expect the DWP to change direction. You’d expect wrong.

The latest development from the government department is to make receipt of UC conditional on jumping through even more hoops than people already do.

Individuals working at least 15 hours per week and couples working 24 hours or more between them will be moved from the ‘Light Touch’ group to the ‘Intensive Work Search’ group.

They will have increased scrutiny placed on them to find work and develop a career. It also means they are expected to search for opportunities to take up more or better paid work and research new career options.

Combined with a previous increase in September, this will mean around a quarter of a million more people will have been moved into ‘Intensive Work Search’.

Failure to meet the new conditions will mean sanctions and possible denial of the benefit altogether.

The DWP and its ministers talk up the change as though it’s an opportunity; it isn’t.

It is merely piling more stress onto people whose minds are already overtaxed with simply trying to make ends meet.

Source: Universal Credit ‘at least £35 too low for buying essentials’ government told and DWP issues new rules for people working while receiving Universal Credit – all you need to know</a


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Lee Anderson sticks his foot in his mouth yet again (Universal Credit)

Lee Anderson (right): he wants to starve the children of people on Universal Credit who can’t afford to feed them properly, it seems.

Tory deputy chairman Lee Anderson has made a fool of himself yet again.

In a Westminster Hall debate on the cost of food, he claimed it is a myth that people on Universal Credit are in poverty – as an excuse not to provide free school meals to everybody on the benefit.

He said some had “household incomes of over £40,000 a year” and “loopholes” in London allowed them to “top their wages up” by a further £30,000.

Maybe it’s true – but I doubt it. Universal Credit is paid to people on low incomes. For every pound earned above a defined allowance, 55p is removed from the amount a household receives.

With UC set at £334.91 a month for single claimants aged 25 or over, or £525.72 a month for joint claimants with either aged 25 or over, it is impossible for people to bring in £40k a year and still be on the benefit.

(It is also worth noting that the DWP stuck its own departmental foot in its spokesperson’s mouth when they said benefits are designed to ensure that “working always pays more” – because government policy for the last 13 years has been to push wages below the poverty level.)

Source: Tory deputy chairman claims it is a ‘myth’ people on Universal Credit are in poverty


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If you’re long-term sick, brace yourself: Labour wants to send you back to work

Is Labour actually trolling people on long-term sickness and disability benefits?

Shadow Work and Pensions Secretary Jonathan Ashworth has given a speech about “encouraging” people with medical conditions off state benefits and into work – at the Centre for Social Justice, the think tank founded by Iain Duncan Smith, the former WP secretary whose ‘reforms’ are believed to have killed off thousands of sick and disabled people.

He said Labour would abolish the requirement for claimants to re-take the hated Work Capability Assessment if they take a job that doesn’t work out for them and have to quit.

A Labour government would let them return to claiming benefits without reassessment if they do so within a year.

That’s all very well – but how much pressure would a Labour government pile on people claiming those benefits, to take jobs in the first place?

Read more here in the BBC article, here.

Notice there are no comments from anybody representing disabled people or those with long-term illnesses.

Have YOU donated to my crowdfunding appeal, raising funds to fight false libel claims by TV celebrities who should know better? These court cases cost a lot of money so every penny will help ensure that wealth doesn’t beat justice.

https://www.crowdjustice.com/case/mike-sivier-libel-fight/


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‘Universal Credit Sanctions Back With A Vengence’ – and we know why, don’t we?

The words of Charlotte from The Poor Side of Life speak for themselves:

It was recently announced during a Commons debate in parliament that Universal Credit sanctions (UC) are “back with a vengeance”.

According to the released figures the sanction rates are now 250% higher than they were for the three months before the pandemic.

In layman’s terms it amounts to 2.5% of UC claimants being sanctioned each month which is almost double the amount when compared to 1.4% before the pandemic.

In June 2022 £34 million was taken away from claimants as a result of being sanctioned. This was followed in July 2022 by £34.9 million and then in August taking the total to over £36 million.

This totals … £100 million which has literally been taken from vulnerable claimants that were already struggling to pay for basic necessities.

According to pensions minister Guy Opperman, 98.2 per cent of sanctions are for missing a meeting with a work coach.

Charlotte rightly says this makes no sense, because Universal Credit claimants are generally desperate for their payments; it is a condition of the benefit that it is not paid for at least five weeks after a claim is submitted (a whole calendar month plus seven days).

This means many have to apply for an advance payment – on loan – beforehand, and consequently receive much less than they need to survive, for a long period thereafter.

And then we’re expected to believe that they wilfully miss meetings with the people who control those payments?

It doesn’t ring true, does it?

This Writer has covered a series of cases in which failure to attend meetings was alleged. The claimants themselves said either that they had been given late notice of a meeting, that it was deliberately timed to clash with another appointment (most commonly medical) that they could not miss, or that they simply had not been informed about it at all.

The implication is that the Department for Work and Pensions, which administers Universal Credit, is not to be trusted.

The problem with that is, often claimants either don’t have the financial stability to launch a challenge against an unfair decision, or they simply don’t have the mental or physical energy.

Source: Universal Credit Sanctions Back With A Vengence ‹ The poor side of life ‹ Reader — WordPress.com

Have YOU donated to my crowdfunding appeal, raising funds to fight false libel claims by TV celebrities who should know better? These court cases cost a lot of money so every penny will help ensure that wealth doesn’t beat justice.

https://www.crowdjustice.com/case/mike-sivier-libel-fight/


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