Will we get more results?

We were told that more Work Programme performance data would be published this month.  I would be very surprised if that happens.  It would be only four more months after the last lot, and one cannot imagine that there's been such a dramatic improvement that the government will be keen to publish.  Without that improvement, A4e and the other providers will be in real difficulties.  The attachment fees were just about keeping them ticking over, and we know that A4e were in trouble a year ago.  So, will we soon hear about contracts being ended?
While we wait and wonder, you might care to read a couple of DWP documents.  There's an impact assessment justifying the legislation to ensure that they don't have to pay back the £130m wrongly taken from people who were sanctioned while the compulsory work schemes were illegal.  Then you could look at a number of documents which tell "the DWP reform story", downloadable from their website.  They call it a "communications toolkit".
Last week we were told that under Universal Credit, enquiries would have to be made via an 0845 phone number - in other words, expensively.  In fact, this was raised a year ago by the Mirror.  Last November the DWP confirmed this but said that "free claimant access phones" would be available in "a large number" of Jobcentres.  So that's all right, then.
One other item: there's an article about the Trussell Trust and food banks on the Independent's website.  What caught my attention was a comment by someone calling himself Marchie1053 - scroll down and find it.    He draws attention to the close links between the Trussell Trust and the Conservative party.  Interesting.  

A brief history of "social housing"

Forgive me for straying well away from the main focus of this blog.   In the current controversy over the bedroom tax or "spare room subsidy" no one seems to recall the history of what is now contemptuously called social housing.

A hundred years ago the large majority of the working class lived in private rented housing.  There were charities which had built "model dwellings"; some big employers like George Cadbury and James Reckitt had built estates for their workers.  But for most, housing was overcrowded and often squalid.  An inside toilet was an unheard-of luxury.  People moved house surprisingly frequently, perhaps doing a "moonlight flit" to escape rent arrears.  There were no regulations to protect tenants.  A few councils began to construct decent housing for rent.  But the real impetus for this came with the end of the Great War in 1918.  A big building programme was intended to create "homes fit for heroes" and the age of the council house began.  There was an added surge after the destruction of World War II.

Millions of us grew up in council houses.  There was no stigma attached to this.  The vast majority of tenants were working, but would never be able to afford the deposit on a mortgage.  Even if they could, most had a horror of taking on that sort of debt.  They were content to pay their rent and let the landlord take care of repairs and maintenance.  In the 1970s government encouraged other housing providers to enter the field, as housing associations.

And then came Margaret Thatcher.  A whole new lexicon was created, reflecting the free-market vision.  Anyone with aspirations would want to "get on the housing ladder".  Only life's losers would want to live in rented accommodation, and only those with special needs should be in "social housing".  Thatcher decided to dismantle the whole structure (and, in the process, destroy the power of local councils) by forcing the sell-off of houses at discount prices to their tenants.  Councils were not allowed to use the proceeds of the sales to build more housing, so the stock declined much faster than HAs could supply the deficiency.  People were encouraged to take on massive debt, and twenty-somethings were given a dozen or more mortgages for buy-to-let properties.  The only people who could get the tenancies of social housing were those perceived to be unable to afford to go private but in urgent need.

It has been a resounding victory for the political right.  As in other areas of our national life, a century of progress has been rolled back.

Can we afford Iain Duncan Smith?

Yet another policy of the Work and Pensions Secretary has had to be altered after a period in which he has refused to listen.  The "bedroom tax" is still a disaster.  But Iain Duncan Smith has conceded changes to allow foster carers and the parents of armed forces personnel to keep their "spare" bedrooms for when they are needed, without financial penalty.  But confusion still reigns, as they're now saying (I'm watching BBC's Newsnight) that the money is coming out of the discretionary fund.  And as the Guardian points out, it's only 3 weeks until this all kicks in.  And despite claims from Cameron and other Tories that the families of disabled children and others are exempt, that isn't true.  It's up to the local authorities to find enough from the one-off inadequate fund to cover those who apply.
As we pointed out last month, this is just the latest in a long list of messes which Duncan Smith has created. And another is looming.  A pilot of Universal Credit, in which social housing tenants on housing benefit were paid the HB directly rather than it going to the landlord, has resulted in a big increase in people defaulting on the rent.
Can you imagine keeping your job if you did it as consistently badly as IDS is doing his?  The country can't afford to have this man in any position of power.

Thank God for the bishops

It's Sunday.  So it's appropriate that the letter from the Church of England bishops condemning what the government is doing to welfare benefits should be in the news today, together with a statement from the new Archbishop of Canterbury.  Welby chose to focus on children.  According to the Telegraph, he said, "As a civilised society, we have a duty to support those among us who are vulnerable and in need. When times are hard, that duty should be felt more than ever, not disappear or diminish. It is essential that we have a welfare system that responds to need and recognises the rising costs of food, fuel and housing. The current benefits system does that, by ensuring that the support struggling families receive rises with inflation. These changes will mean it is children and families who will pay the price for high inflation, rather than the Government.”

On TV, the spokesman for the bishops was the Bishop of Ripon.  He was pugnacious, vehement and in command of the figures.  He slated the use of derogatory language like "scroungers" to describe those forced to claim benefits.

Iain Duncan Smith has had to respond.  According to Sky News he is "a committed Christian"; no wonder that on TV he looked a bit hurt and bemused.  But he repeated what he obviously believes, and which he spelled out in the Independent:  “This is about fairness. People who are paying taxes, working very hard, have hardly seen any increases in their salary and yet, under the last government, the welfare bill rose by some 60 per cent to £200bn.  That means they have to pay for that under their taxes, which is simply not fair.  That same system trapped huge numbers, millions, in dependency – dependent on the state, unable, unwilling to work.  What is either moral or fair about that? That’s my challenge to the bishop.  There is nothing moral or fair about a system that I inherited that trapped people in welfare dependency, some one in every five households has no work, that’s not the way to end child poverty. Getting people back to work is the way to end child poverty. That’s the moral and fair way to do it.”

His argument is ridiculous.  By far the largest part of the welfare bill is pensions.  People are without work because they can't get work.  Nothing he and his government are doing is going to help that situation, and pushing individuals and families into deeper poverty and hopelessness, dependent on charity for food and eventually homeless, is going to conjure jobs which pay wages which people can live on.

I don't want to get embroiled in religious arguments.  Throughout the centuries Christians (as well as adherents of other faiths) have been able to persuade themselves that anything they wanted to do could find justification in Holy Writ.  I could point IDS to Matthew chap.25 v. 31 onwards; and then he might try the epistle of James, chap.5.  But I suspect that it wouldn't shake his conviction or trouble his conscience.

But thank God for the bishops.

"Enlighted women"?

There's a very odd little item on A4e's own website, on its news page.  It's headed "Supporting International Womens [sic] Day with Jessica Lee MP".  (Lee is a Conservative, by the way.)  Under that it simply says, "A4e are delighted to welcome Jessica Lee to our Derby office, on International Womens [sic] Day, to help empower our female customers to aim high!  The day will consist of a series of talks from our panel of enlighted [sic] women."  There's an awkward link to an agenda.
It really is time that A4e improved this sort of thing.  They have a new website, but apparently still no proofreader.
(In case you're wondering, it should be Women's.)

Universal Jobmatch mandatory from Monday 4 March

Thanks to the poster who pointed us to this on the PCS union site.  From next Monday, 4 March, it will be compulsory to sign up to Universal Jobmatch.  The DWP is supposed to be announcing it today.  You should note the following:

• It is supposed to be at the discretion of the adviser rather than a blanket approach.  But you can be punished if you "unreasonably refuse", so assume that every claimant will be forced to sign up.
• Because of EU laws on cookies, you cannot be forced to sign up on your own home computer - so don't.  Use the computers in the Jobcentre, the WP provider office or a public access place such as a library.  The PCS says that fixes are being worked out to enable cookies to be removed from home computers, and when that's done they will make it compulsory to register there (assuming you have a computer at home).
• It is still the case that you don't have to give your adviser access to your account.  Don't tick the box.  You are allowed to provide alternative proof of sign-up and jobsearch, such as screenprints.

If you are going to be affected by this, I recommend printing off the PCS page.

The law of unintended consequences

We have written about the likely consequences of the "bedroom tax", the deduction from the housing benefit paid to people in social housing who are considered to be "under-occupying", i.e. have spare bedrooms.  There is a severe shortage of smaller accommodation in the social housing sector for them to move into, and falling back on private rented housing will cost more in housing benefit.  But now we hear that Universal Credit is going to cut the amount of private rented accommodation available.  According to the Telegraph, the Nationwide, the biggest buy-to-let mortgage provider, is not going to offer any more loans to landlords.  The reasoning is that under UC the housing benefit is paid not to the landlord but to the claimant; so the likelihood is that a lot of rent won't get paid and so landlords will default on their mortgages.  Net result - a lot of homeless people.  I don't think that's quite what Iain Duncan Smith intended.
And there's another hole which the government has dug for themselves, or rather for local councils.  Those councils have had their support for means-tested council tax benefit cut by £500m, and many councils have had to charge people on benefits who currently don't pay anything.  The Guardian reports that up to 84% of those hit with the charge are not likely to pay it.  While some councils will pursue people for payment, others will consider that the cost of going after what are small sums is just not worth it.
Another snippet of news: new figures from the ONS show that in 2012 a quarter of all workers earned less than £12,800 a year.
Finally, hats off to a group of churches, the Methodist and United Reformed Churches, the Church of Scotland and the Baptist Union, who have published a study called The Lies we Tell Ourselves.  They accuse the government of deliberately misusing evidence and statistics to misrepresent the plight of the poor. There's a summary on the BBC's website.  (Be careful, BBC, they'll be complaining about bias again.)