Posts Tagged ‘welfare benefits’

Guest blog: why conditionality isn’t working

October 23, 2017 Leave a Comment

In a topical blog on the welfare benefit system, researcher Ruth Patrick examines the flawed assumptions behind policies intended to incentivise benefit recipients to take up paid work. She offers five ways in which the current system either does not help or is actively counterproductive – and calls for a rethink. Read her blog

Why conditionality isn’t working

October 23, 2017 Leave a Comment

Researcher Ruth Patrick examines the flawed assumptions behind policies intended to incentivise benefit recipients to take up paid work – and calls for a rethink

In a brief radio appearance recently, I was involved in a discussion about the role of welfare conditionality in today’s welfare state. One of the participants defended conditionality’s role, citing what he described as a wealth of evidence that suggests that conditionality does work in supporting transitions from ‘welfare’ into ‘work’. I responded emphasising the punitive edge that conditionality brings to encounters at the Job Centre or in employment ‘support’ provision, and how this can harm relationships between claimants and their advisers. But that was all I had time to say.

Project gives evidence to National Assembly for Wales

September 21, 2017 Leave a Comment

The Welfare Conditionality Project gave evidence to a session of the National Assembly for Wales’ Equality, Local Government and Communities committee, held in Cardiff. The committee is inquiring into ‘Poverty in Wales: making the economy work for people on low incomes’, and wanted to hear more about welfare benefits, sanctions and Universal Credit. The project’s Dr Lisa Scullion from the University of Salford, and Dr Sharon Wright, from the University of Glasgow, gave evidence in person. Watch the televised session. Our written evidence was also submitted.

Call for papers

July 5, 2017 Leave a Comment

We welcome proposals for papers from those working within and beyond the social sciences on any aspects of welfare conditionality and associated debates

New blog: Gamers or victims – how can you ‘play the game’ on benefits if you don’t know the rules?

February 9, 2017 Leave a Comment

Welfare Conditionality Project researcher Dr Jenny McNeill has co-authored one of the Journal of Poverty and Social Justice’s ‘top five’ most read articles of 2016. In a new blog she summarises the main issues. In contrast to long-standing caricatures of scroungers and skivers, she argues, our research shows the real hardships faced by many claiming welfare benefits. That includes people who are stigmatised, sanctioned and struggling to get by, turning to foodbanks, to other sources of support, and to ‘survival crime’. Read the blog here

Gamers or victims: how can you ‘play the game’ on benefits if you don’t know the rules?

February 9, 2017 Leave a Comment

Welfare Conditionality Project researcher Dr Jenny McNeill has co-authored one of the Journal of Poverty and Social Justice’s ‘top five’ most read articles of 2016. Here she summarises the main issues

Media and government are fixated on the pervasiveness of so-called ‘scroungers’: people cheating the benefits system for welfare they are not entitled to, or those who do not properly take steps to end their dependency on benefits. In 2012, the then-Employment Minister Chris Grayling defended the use of benefit sanctions on the basis that they provide ‘a real deterrent for some people who are either not trying or who are gaming the system’.

Policy makers have also denied structural reasons in favour of emphasising people’s behaviours in explanations for the causes of poverty, unemployment, and social marginalisation. They have thus endorsed a need to ‘nudge’ targeted individuals to reduce welfare dependency. This heightened sense of panic over welfare abuse has in recent decades been called ‘scroungerphobia,’ but fears over the poor subverting the foundations of state or charitable support have much older roots (Rousseau, 1762).

You also have an exact and clear idea of how all this affects people who are actually caught up in it. Unfortunately, the people who are responsible for these policies and decisions have never had to deal with it so there is no understanding and no empathy. We are losing our humanity in today's society.
Jeanette Smith posted this comment on Bedroom tax, benefit cuts and sanctions – the fear factor and the cumulative effects

Why would people then bother to make a home and spend money on it? We have to get away from this mindset that has now taken hold that Social Housing.....hate that term, is just temporary to suit your immediate needs. People should not have to up sticks all the time because a child gets older etc. When the old system was in place ie older people with larger homes than they needed they were offered incentives to downsize. In the 90's more Older peoples accommodation was built. Bungalows, Sheltered Housing etc. People were given help with removal costs. This has all changed. To make someone move from a home they have been in for years is cruel if it is not voluntary. I have been in my home since it was built. My daughter moved out as she should when grown up to make her own home. So after 23 years with roots well and truly down, should I be made to move? I have my granddaughter to stay. My daughter's room is now for her and was also an office when I worked from home. I could not fit my home into a small 1 bedroom flat. I do not want people living above me. This idea that if you live in Social Housing it is just accommodation but if you own it is your home is totally wrong. My parents moved willingly into Sheltered Housing but the change affected them drastically. My dad became stressed and ill and died a year later and my mother never settled and died a few years later. This was because they uprooted themselves and left their home and all the memories and familiar surroundings. Unfortunately like most issues these days, the humanity is being taken out of it.
Jeanette Smith posted this comment on The fear factor - Bedroom Tax and benefit cuts

Great resources on linking welfare sanction and conditionally and key social policy considerations with human rights principles (including dignity, non-discrimination). These considerations have a huge impact in narratives around poverty and vulnerability, and should be closely looked at by policy decision-makers and street-level bureaucrats.
Alexandra Barrantes posted this comment on International conference - presentations

Ok. I don’t agree with the bedroom tax but I do feel it would be a better option if housing rules were changed. For example why do they wait until kids are over 10 until giving families two bedrooms? Then I also think housing should be fit for purpose so I believe when they move someone from a one bedroom to a 2 or 3 it should be with the understanding only until the children grow up and leave home then they should have their Tennancy moved back to something more suitable again like a one bedroom.
Tabatha Gracie posted this comment on The fear factor - Bedroom Tax and benefit cuts

A fine well written and clear example of what is broken in our welfare system. They are asking for submission for the next select committee meeting on welfare and I would submit this post if it were my choice. It is a vicious cycle for some who have no chance of finding work however hard they might try. It is the employers who ultimately make the decision if employees are fit and ready to work, not the DWP. Having a budget of £2 per day for food , job searching activities, keeping your appearance and strength up, and having to jump through hoops and tick boxes on all those strength zapping, soul destroying schemes courses and programs that do nothing but heap yet even more pressure and stress. The affects of stress on both mental and physical health are well documented and nothing can be more stressful than not knowing week in, week out, that your hand to mouth existence is constantly at risk. Sanctions are death sentences for some, no getting away from that fact, those charged with administrating the regime should hang their heads in shame, it is those who should make the stand to bring about change. Or do they deceive themselves into believing long time shirker Jim who they sanctioned last month and who has not been seen again at the local JCP, Is now enjoying the fruits of his labor thanks to the Works Coaches helpful push they so desperately needed. So clearly sanctions work and a good done job done by me, high five everyone.
paul posted this comment on Bedroom tax, benefit cuts and sanctions – the fear factor and the cumulative effects