Government new ‘Claimant Commitment’: no choice, no law, no money – no appeal ! In just a few short weeks, the new Universal Credit benefit system starts to roll out, albeit more slowly than originally planned (but already in operation in pilot areas). This new benefits system rolls a wide variety of benefits into a single process, including unemployment benefit – and crucially, it extends ‘conditionality’ even to people who are already working, so that penalties can be applied to people for not having enough hours, or if they are not considered to be trying hard enough to get more hours. The government’s ‘policy aims’ for this new system state that: "Universal Credit is designed to ensure that for people who can, work is still the best route out of poverty and an escape from benefit dependence. The aim of Universal Credit is to increase labour market participation, reduce worklessness and increase in-work progression. The conditionality regime will recast the relationship between the citizen and the State from one centred on “entitlement” to one centred on a contractual concept that provides a range of support in return for claimant’s meeting an explicit set of responsibilities, with a sanctions regime to encourage compliance". A ‘claimant commitment’ is a set of obligations placed on a benefit claimant in terms of actions that must be carried out in looking for work (or more work), the amount of time that must be spent and the results generated. These requirements, as the Department for Work and Pensions - DWP statement above indicates, are not negligible. For example, as one of the responses states: "A claimant will be expected to devote the same number of hours to work search in accordance with this action plan as we would expect them to be available for work (up to a maximum of 35 hours a week)". This might seem reasonable enough. But as one ex-DWP manager asked her MP: " Is affordability of the work search/preparation taken into account by the Adviser? The average cost of Job seeking prior to 2012 was around £2-£6 per week assuming no job interviews secured, the Jobseeker visited the Jobcentre once a week to look for work, checked the local press, made 1 or 2 job applications and asked family/friends. Claimants were not required to pay Council Tax" . £6 a week when you’re on as little as £56 a week in benefits is a huge amount of money. But now claimants can be expected to attend the JCP more than once a week – in fact, as often as the adviser decides is appropriate as part of the CC. Council tax support is far less available, and the price of essentials like food has risen steeply. The costs associated with the activities likely to be involved in a 35-hour work-seeking week are very likely to be (to use the government’s favourite word for NHS hospitals) unsustainable. Many, many people in this country will not survive a 2nd term of this government, or any part of it. And the way the rules are constructed shows that the Tories are ‘perfectly relaxed’ about that. They want to take us back to the 1920s of soup kitchens, means-testing and stigmatised poverty. We can’t let them. Please spread the word.
Posted on: Fri, 30 Aug 2013 00:56:40 +0000
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