MPs: Protect Housing Allowance From Benefit Sanctions

The government must stop deducting money from Universal Credit claimants’ allowances if they have already been sanctioned, a group of MPs have said. The Work and Pensions Select Committee has recommended that deductions from a claimant’s allowance for things such as rent arrears be postponed if a person has already been sanctioned. The MPs argue that the combination of deductions and sanctions can have a knock-on impact on a claimant’s housing and child benefit allowance which is supposed to be protected under the current regime. Read more on Inside Housing.

https://www.insidehousing.co.uk/news/news/mps-protect-housing-allowance-from-benefit-sanctions-58927

May To Set Timetable To Reveal Foreign Owners Of UK Property

Theresa May will set out a timetable to break the secrecy surrounding the foreign ownership of British property worth billions after facing a House of Lords defeat at the hands of two Conservative peers. Lord Faulks, a former Tory justice minister, and Lord Hodgson have been calling on the government to establish a register exposing the beneficial owners of overseas companies and legal entities, and want it done within 12 months. The peers put forward an amendment to the sanctions and anti-money-laundering bill, which would have been likely to inflict a government defeat. Read more on the Guardian website.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/jan/17/theresa-may-set-timetable-reveal-foreign-owners-uk-property

Hardship Payments Available Immediately To Homeless JSA Claimants

From October 2017, Jobseeker’s Allowance (JSA) claimants who are homeless will have immediate access to hardship payments if their benefit is reduced because of a sanction. Universal Credit claimants who are homeless and have received a sanction already have immediate access to hardship payments. However, JSA claimants currently have to wait two weeks. The regulations will cover eligible claimants who are homeless, suffering from a mental impairment, including a mental health condition, and their partners. People who are pregnant, lone parents, and people with long term physical health conditions can already access hardship payments immediately. Read more on Homeless Link.

Call To Cut Cost Of Evictions

Government figures show 19,601 tenants were evicted by UK social landlords over 2016 – over 1,600 a month. The figures, from the Ministry of Justice, confirm that in England and Wales alone, 79,000 claims for possession were lodged with the courts, with 60% of which were from the social sector. In court fees alone, this resulted in a spend of £28m. With homelessness acceptances in England increasing to 59,250 last year one of the UK’s leading housing and support services companies says the approach of social landlords to sanctions against tenants can play a pivotal role in prevention – while at the same time significantly reducing spiralling escalation and possession costs. Read more on 24housing.

No Evidence Welfare Sanctions Work

Sanctions on welfare payments which have allegedly caused thousands of claimants to fall into hardship and depression are being handed out without evidence that they actually work, Whitehall’s official spending watchdog has found. The DWP is also failing to monitor thousands of people whose benefits are being cut or withheld while many are being pushed outside the benefits system, said the National Audit Office. Auditors concluded there has been a failure to measure whether the government is saving money while the application of the sanctions regime varies across the country and from job centre to job centre.  The report has been seized upon by critics of the government’s sanctions regime who say it is punitive, wasteful and not aimed at finding people work. Read more on the Guardian website.

Corbyn Slams Universal Credit As ‘Institutional Barbarity’

The government is once again under pressure from outside about cuts being made to a key part of the welfare system.  Jeremy Corbyn focused on the cuts being made to Universal Credit, which he accused Theresa May of trying to “slip them through the back door.” The PM replied: “The introduction of universal credit was an important reform.” Corbyn hit back on the cuts, saying they are the same ones David Cameron tried to push through on tax credits. He also highlighted research that stated three million families will be £1,000 worse off from the cuts.  Corbyn highlighted research, which underlined the relationship between benefits sanctions and the rise in use of food banks, as well as one in five UC sanctions ending in a claimant becoming homeless. Read more on 24housing.

Benefit Sanctions Forcing People To Use Food Banks, Study Confirms

Benefit sanctions, whereby social security claimants have their payments stopped for at least a month as a punishment for breaching jobcentre rules, are a key driver of hunger and food bank use, according to a study carried out by Oxford University academics. The study, which mapped official sanctions data against food bank referral figures, concluded that a “robust link” existed between increases in the number of benefit sanctions handed out and rising numbers of adults receiving food parcels. It found that every three-month increase of 10 sanctions per 100,000 of the population over a four-year period was associated with around five more instances of adults being referred for charity food parcels, suggesting a “strong, dynamic relationship” between the two. Read more on the Guardian website.

40% Of Homeless Young People Could Be Hit By Removal Of Housing Support

Housing Benefit provides a safety net to young people, without which they would not be able to access accommodation. For those at a point of crisis, removal of housing support could also push vital homelessness services out of reach. Young and Homeless 2015, a survey of homelessness service providers and local authority housing departments, indicates that the problem is compounded by wider welfare reforms and lack of affordable and shared housing:

·         95% of homelessness services reported that benefit sanctions have affected young people’s ability to access accommodation.

·         73% reported that the extension of the Shared Accommodation Rate has greatly affected young people’s ability to access accommodation.

·         On average, the time spent in homelessness services was 16 months, almost twice as long as in last year’s survey (8.5 months).

Read more on the Homeless Link website.

Benefit Sanctions Forcing People To Sleep Rough And Go Hungry

Drawing on a survey of more than 1000 people from homeless hostels and day centres in 21 cities, along with 42 in-depth interviews, a Crisis report provides detailed accounts of people being forced to sleep on the street, coping with severe hunger and going without heating in winter.  The report shows that where people had been sanctioned in the past year:

·         21% reported becoming homeless as a result;

·         16% said they had been forced to sleep rough as a result;

·         77% had gone hungry or skipped meals;

·         75% said it negatively affected their mental health;

·         64% had gone without heating;

·         60% found it harder to look for work

Download the report from the Crisis website.

UC Will Make The Benefits System Worse For People With Mental Health Issues

The Government’s new Universal Credit welfare reform is likely to make the benefits system more, not less, hostile for people with mental health issues, a leading mental health charity has warned. Policy experts at Mind say Iain Duncan Smith’s new programme could lead to a “sausage factory” approach in Jobcentres where ill people are deemed “fit-to-work until proven otherwise” and given inappropriate instructions backed by the threat of sanctions. Research by the charity publicised earlier this year found that back to work programmes backed by the threat of sanctions had significant detrimental effects on both a person’s actual mental health and their chances of managing to return to work. Read more on the Independent website.

DWP Finally Acts To End Housing Benefit 'Maladministration' Scandal

The work and pensions secretary, Iain Duncan Smith, has belatedly acted to end a bureaucratic bungle which caused thousands of sanctioned jobseekers to wrongly incur rent arrears and face eviction.  Guidance slipped out by the DWP last week clarifies that local authorities should not automatically stop a claimant’s housing benefit payment in the event of them having their unemployment benefit stopped by job centre officials.  The problems were caused by DWP computer systems wrongly informing local authority housing benefit departments that a claimant’s job seeker benefit had been cancelled when it had in fact been temporarily suspended. Read more on the Guardian website.

Cost of Homelessness in Hackney Doubles

A Freedom of Information Act request from the Green Party has discovered that the cost of homelessness in Hackney has doubled since the 2010 general election. According to the figures, the cost of homelessness in 2009/10 was £3,092,255 compared to £7,167,440 in 2014/15. There was also a cut on staff spending in the same period, from £3,239,653 to £2,608,491. Since 2010, government policies have cut jobseekers allowance, housing benefits and increased sanctions for people receiving support. Read more on 24dash.

Right to Rent Immigration Checks ‘Unworkable’

Landlords and letting agents lack the necessary know-how and training to enforce right to rent immigration checks, a leading London property firm has warned, as it condemned proposed sanctions as ‘disproportionate’. Right to rent checks were introduced towards the end of the Coalition government, to help combat concerns landlords were harbouring illegal immigrants in their properties. Those who fail to verify the immigration status of their tenants face fines of up to £5,000. The scheme has been piloted in the Midlands, where it has led to additional fees for tenants according to the Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants. Read more on the buildingconstructiondesign website.

Sanctions Link to One in Five Benefit Claimant Deaths

One in five benefit claimants whose deaths were subject to official reviews had been sanctioned by the DWP, it has been revealed. In response to a freedom of information request from Anita Bellows, a researcher with Disabled People Against Cuts, the DWP admitted that of the 49 peer reviews carried out into benefit claimant deaths, 10 had received a sanction "at some point in their claim". At the same time as the response to the freedom of information request was published, the DWP issued a press release showing how the number of benefit sanctions issued against claimants had gone down. Read more on 24dash.

The DWP's Solution to the Problem of Low Pay? Blame Working Families

How many hours should low-paid parents be expected to work? Universal credit (UC) pilots provide an insight into government thinking on this question. Over the next year or so, 15,000 working families in receipt of UC will be randomly subject to different levels of ‘in-work conditionality’ requiring them to look for more or better paid jobs. Some will receive the light touch: a couple of phone calls every now and then encouraging them to increase their hours. Others will have to participate in a more intensive programme of ‘challenging’ interviews. All will be at risk of losing at least part of their benefit if they fail to comply. Read more on the Child Poverty Action Group website.

Migrants Who Won't Learn English to Be Stripped Of Housing Benefits

Foreigners will be stripped of housing benefits if they refuse to learn English under a Conservative majority government. Doctors and nurses will also have to tell migrants who cannot speak English where they can learn the language under proposals being drawn up by the Conservatives. The details emerged after Theresa May made a manifesto pledge to implement “new incentives and penalties” to get migrants learning English if they are re-elected.  Theresa May’s officials have met with the DWP advisers to discuss how to widen current sanctions to include to housing and sickness benefits after May’s election. Read more on the Daily Telegraph website.

Sanctions Deaths 'Should Be Independently Investigated'

Suicides which occur following a benefit sanction should be investigated by an independent commission, a parliamentary committee has said. The Work and Pensions Committee report into benefit sanctions recommends suicides linked to sanctions should be scrutinised in a similar manner to deaths in police custody. The report also called for a review of the systems of benefit sanctions – which see unemployment benefits stopped or reduced if claimants fail to adhere to a wide range of criteria – in the next parliament. The government previously rejected a call for an independent review in January. Read more on the Parliament website.

Tories Must Not Look Like We Want To Punish People on Benefits, Says IDS

Conservatives must show they are not driven by a desire to 'punish' people on benefits, Iain Duncan Smith has warned.  The Work and Pensions Secretary used a speech in Washington to warn that for too long his party has addressed the poor with 'fingers wagging' instead of offering them 'hope'. He insisted the Tory pitch to voters has to be about more than tax, immigration and crime to show they are driven by 'fairness, opportunity, and compassion'.  He said: 'Historically, perhaps our main contribution to the subject was that whenever Conservative politicians did speak about poverty, they did so with fingers wagging and harsh punitive language.” Read more on the Daily Mail website.

Welfare Delays Cause Soaring Numbers Using Food Banks

Delays and gaps in the welfare state are behind the soaring numbers turning to food banks, according to new research into those relying on charity in Britain. Minor adjustments to the benefits system could prevent many from needing emergency food, research commissioned by Oxfam, Child Poverty Action Group, Church of England and The Trussell Trust has found. For more than half of those interviewed, the immediate trigger which sent them to a food bank was linked to problems with welfare, including waiting for benefits to be paid, sanctions, problems with Employment Support Allowance or missing tax credits. Read more on the Independent website.

Welfare Sanctions Make Vulnerable Reliant On Food Banks

The YMCA, the UK’s oldest youth charity, has warned the government that its changes to welfare policy are driving vulnerable young people to become reliant on food bank handouts rather than preparing them for jobs. About 5,000 young people were referred by YMCAs to food banks last year, it said in a report, with benefit sanctions cited as the main reason for what it called a “significant increase” in the number of clients falling into food poverty. Read more on the Guardian website.