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Re: The Brutality of the Torys

Posted: 12 Aug 2019, 1:53pm
by Mike Sales
al_yrpal wrote:If I remember rightly the benefit cap was to prevent claimants getting more in benefits than low paid working people,
Al


And yet the Tories fought hard against the minimum wage.

Re: The Brutality of the Torys

Posted: 12 Aug 2019, 2:05pm
by mercalia
al_yrpal wrote:If I remember rightly the benefit cap was to prevent claimants getting more in benefits than low paid working people, and to prevent benefit claimants living in costly publicly owned Knightsbridge mansions at public expense? No doubt those forcibly relocated to Merthyr Tydfil are pretty upset. Its clear that UC requires a sensible overhaul, the idea of it seems good but the execution has some serious faults which need addressing.

Al



well thats the headline view, bolstered with some well publicised examples. In reality there are few places in the country that housing benefit or UC will cover now and London & the SE isnt one of them. Remember it isnt just the jobless that get help to wards rent but also many of those low paid, who have to forgo other things to pay their rent, now? They all cant move to Wales?

Between them, Thatcher and Osborne have stitched up the poor - Thatcher undernmined social housing not just by selling them off but by pocketing 2/3 of the sale price into state coffers with the threat that if councils didnt use the remaining 1/3 to build replacement houses with in given time limit, that also would go to the state; and Osborne made renting un affordable for many by limiting benefits.

Re: The Brutality of the Torys

Posted: 12 Aug 2019, 9:04pm
by PH
al_yrpal wrote:As I understand it people on benefits get sanctioned for breaking the rules pertaining to benefits or recieving benefits to which they are entitled.
Is it only the Tories that would apply sanctions or is this simply the way a local official interpretted the rules in an inhuman fashion?
Al

At a time when Universal Credit has increased the workload of such officials, the staff have been cut by over 20%, who's decision was that?

Re: The Brutality of the Torys

Posted: 12 Aug 2019, 9:10pm
by PH
al_yrpal wrote: Its clear that UC requires a sensible overhaul, the idea of it seems good but the execution has some serious faults which need addressing.
Al

The Labour party was calling for those issues to be addressed before it was introduced. Plenty of independent research and the evidence from the trials showed that it wasn't going to work, even if you're good enough to credit the instigators with good intentions. It was a choice to press ahead and ignore all that advice.

Re: The Brutality of the Torys

Posted: 12 Aug 2019, 9:19pm
by PH
al_yrpal wrote:If I remember rightly the benefit cap was to prevent claimants getting more in benefits than low paid working people, and to prevent benefit claimants living in costly publicly owned Knightsbridge mansions at public expense?
Al

Pity there's no cap on tax evasion in Knightsbridge. you might then be surprised what can be afforded at public expense.
In the UK the figures for 2014 were £30 billion tax uncollected(HMRC estimate) Vs £2.6 billion benefit fraud and overpayments in error(DWP estimate) yet ten times more people were employed to deal with benefit fraud. That doesn't include the huge sums of benefits that go unclaimed, something that the complexity of the system encourages.

Re: The Brutality of the Torys

Posted: 16 Aug 2019, 4:46am
by thelawnet
I do not find journalists to be reliable sources on these matters

According to the source

https://www.understandinguniversalcredi ... sanctions/

https://www.gov.uk/government/publicati ... #sanctions

"If you fail to do what you have agreed in your Claimant Commitment without good reason, your Universal Credit payments may be reduced for a set period. This is known as a sanction."

"If you are asked to attend a work search review but don’t attend and don’t have a good reason why, you will receive a sanction until you arrange and attend another work search review.You will be sanctioned for 91 days for your first higher level sanction in any 364 day period, 182 days for your second, or 1,095 days for your third "

"You will be sanctioned for 28 days for your first medium level sanction in any 364 day period, or 91 days for your second "


So for the scenario described there should be multiple failings to meet obligations without good reason.

Whether that actually occurred, or whether the petty bureaucrats were too harsh, is impossible to say from the undoubtedly one-sided account in the newspaper.

My understanding of Universal Credit is that it is designed to prevent claimants from being workshy - there are hundreds of thousands or millions on tax credits who refuse to work more than 16 hours (or 24) because they get tax credits , and the extra hours are barely remunerative. Whereas on UC that's no longer an option - instead of taking £4000 from the government for doing nothing at all, you should instead take £5800 from your employer in return for working more hours.

How this works in practice is certainly up for debate, but the issue certainly exists, and I believe that it is seen as a public policy imperative by much of the electorate to address it, in that many know such people who live a relatively comfortable existence while working 9-12:30 5 days a week

Re: The Brutality of the Torys

Posted: 16 Aug 2019, 7:30am
by Oldjohnw
When my daugher left Uni in 2012 she made a claim. We kept her but she wanted to help with costs of going to interviews, mainly in London.

On one occasion she had her benefit stopped because she had not applied for sufficient jobs. The reason was because she was in London over 3 days for interviews.

She was told 'You Should be at home making job applications not attending interviews.' She got the job.

The only jobs she was directed to locally were cleaning caravans. She was willing but never got jobs because she was over qualified. She was told that she must not apply for an office job because they were for older people.

We made a complaint to the department afterward and were told how wonderful it was that the local office had found her a job!

It was evident that the role of the local office was to reduce the number of claimants, not get people jobs.

Re: The Brutality of the Torys

Posted: 16 Aug 2019, 9:13am
by bovlomov
thelawnet wrote:...people who live a relatively comfortable existence while working 9-12:30 5 days a week

Sounds reasonable. This was the bright future that Tomorrow's World promised us in the 1970s.


A random comparison from the Register of Members' Interests - Iain Duncan Smith
11 July 2018, received £500 for an article. Hours: 4 hrs.

Re: The Brutality of the Torys

Posted: 16 Aug 2019, 9:27am
by PH
thelawnet wrote:My understanding of Universal Credit is that it is designed to prevent claimants from being workshy - there are hundreds of thousands or millions on tax credits who refuse to work more than 16 hours (or 24) because they get tax credits , and the extra hours are barely remunerative. Whereas on UC that's no longer an option - instead of taking £4000 from the government for doing nothing at all, you should instead take £5800 from your employer in return for working more hours.

That's what we're told, your source is no more reliable than the ones you criticise. The theory bears little relationship to the low paid sector where short or zero hours contracts are the norm, the benefits system has never been able to cope with fluctuating incomes and UC doesn't address that, anyone working in the expanding so called gig economy is properly stuffed. It's easy to view tax credit as subsidising lazy employees, but the reality is it's the employers who are being subsidised. How can household names like Asda with profits counted in the hundreds of millions have so many of their employees requiring government handouts to survive? Why do they chose to employ two people on 20 hour contracts rather than one on 40? Then ask the government, successive ones there's no party point here, why when benefits are set at a level needed to live and people are better off on them than working they only look at one side of the equation?
The benefits system is a mess, it does need sorting out, there's nothing wrong in principle with the idea of Universal Credit, it works elsewhere. This implementation of it is wrong in so many ways, they were pointed out before it was rolled out, it isn't working, it's main purpose is to save money, it isn't intended to be fair. People are suffering and the message goes out that it's their own fault, while those who could do something about it don't, it is brutal.

Re: The Brutality of the Torys

Posted: 16 Aug 2019, 9:35am
by PH
bovlomov wrote:
thelawnet wrote:...people who live a relatively comfortable existence while working 9-12:30 5 days a week

Sounds reasonable. This was the bright future that Tomorrow's World promised us in the 1970s.

Going off topic - I used to love that program, the thing that spoilt it was my Dad always saying "That'll never happen" every time they told us how much leisure time we'd have and how much easier life would be, seems he was right, if there's no profit in it it won't happen.
I read or heard something a few years ago that it takes 11 hours to be as productive as someone working 45 in the 1960's. So it ought to be possible to work 22 and have twice the standard of living, anyone seen where all the rest has gone?

Re: The Brutality of the Torys

Posted: 16 Aug 2019, 10:04am
by mercalia
PH wrote:
bovlomov wrote:
thelawnet wrote:...people who live a relatively comfortable existence while working 9-12:30 5 days a week

Sounds reasonable. This was the bright future that Tomorrow's World promised us in the 1970s.

Going off topic - I used to love that program, the thing that spoilt it was my Dad always saying "That'll never happen" every time they told us how much leisure time we'd have and how much easier life would be, seems he was right, if there's no profit in it it won't happen.
I read or heard something a few years ago that it takes 11 hours to be as productive as someone working 45 in the 1960's. So it ought to be possible to work 22 and have twice the standard of living, anyone seen where all the rest has gone?


Where do you think all the wealth has come from that the rich have? you work the same hours but create more wealth for the rich?

Re: The Brutality of the Torys

Posted: 16 Aug 2019, 10:10am
by mercalia
thelawnet wrote:I do not find journalists to be reliable sources on these matters

According to the source

https://www.understandinguniversalcredi ... sanctions/

https://www.gov.uk/government/publicati ... #sanctions

"If you fail to do what you have agreed in your Claimant Commitment without good reason, your Universal Credit payments may be reduced for a set period. This is known as a sanction."

"If you are asked to attend a work search review but don’t attend and don’t have a good reason why, you will receive a sanction until you arrange and attend another work search review.You will be sanctioned for 91 days for your first higher level sanction in any 364 day period, 182 days for your second, or 1,095 days for your third "

"You will be sanctioned for 28 days for your first medium level sanction in any 364 day period, or 91 days for your second "


So for the scenario described there should be multiple failings to meet obligations without good reason.

Whether that actually occurred, or whether the petty bureaucrats were too harsh, is impossible to say from the undoubtedly one-sided account in the newspaper.

My understanding of Universal Credit is that it is designed to prevent claimants from being workshy - there are hundreds of thousands or millions on tax credits who refuse to work more than 16 hours (or 24) because they get tax credits , and the extra hours are barely remunerative. Whereas on UC that's no longer an option - instead of taking £4000 from the government for doing nothing at all, you should instead take £5800 from your employer in return for working more hours.

How this works in practice is certainly up for debate, but the issue certainly exists, and I believe that it is seen as a public policy imperative by much of the electorate to address it, in that many know such people who live a relatively comfortable existence while working 9-12:30 5 days a week



well if this short report is true 80% of claims that go to trubunal are reversed
https://www.thecanary.co/uk/2018/05/16/ ... -they-see/

here a breaks down of sanctions

http://benefitsaware.centralenglandlc.o ... sanctions/

It seems that there is lots of room for individual judgement in making decisions whether to apply a sanction?

Re: The Brutality of the Torys

Posted: 16 Aug 2019, 10:12am
by Tangled Metal
But you're still sharing in it just a small share.

What I mean is all the growth in productivity and economy results in wealth but also jobs and pay. That's where you benefit. If you don't like your level of benefit then that's another matter and one that left and right will argue about for a long as politics exist on society.

Re: The Brutality of the Torys

Posted: 16 Aug 2019, 10:34am
by mercalia
A Case Managers story The Reality

It is not uncommon for charities and support workers to inform case managers – the ones whose job it is to assess people for universal credit and other benefits – of the law, rather than the other way round.

https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/un ... 98196.html

Re: The Brutality of the Torys

Posted: 16 Aug 2019, 10:36am
by Vorpal
The UN and the British government have identified systemic failings and abuse in the use of sanctions where people have notified them that they will not attend appointments because of job interviews, medical appointments, training or exams, etc. and still receive sanctions.

https://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pag ... 1&LangID=E
https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/c ... 3/1703.pdf
https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/c ... /95509.htm

p.s. edited to add (due to posting at the same time): I am not surprised that most DWP workers are conscientious but overworked. I am sure that most of the fault lies in the rules, lack of clarity, and poor direction for those applying the rules. Closing offices and overloading case workers is certainly not going to help. But they get to save loadsa dosh :roll: