I'm going to start sending DWP a bill for my services
some beautiful tales about the legacy benefits migration to universal credit, currently occurring across the public sector
I’m going to post some posts (I like alliteration) over the coming weeks about the Department of Work and Pensions. Try to contain your excitement, and I’ll try to refrain from making these posts too thrilling.
This first one will concentrate on the “legacy benefits” migration occurring at the moment and some odd experiences at various visits to job centres and some even odder phone calls. Then the pinnacle, which is of course the meeting of superior minds where you discover how to navigate it all correctly. I mean of course, the meeting of “professionals” as opposed to citizens “the customers”.
I shall begin with some poetry to explain what I am writing about, that I feel equally sums up the beauty in our great state institutions;
The Department of Work and Pensions is migrating “legacy benefits” to Universal Credit.
I have been navigating this “journey” alongside some people who have been unhoused at some point (or to quote certain Labour council’s “street attached” - but we’ll cover that another time).
Of course all this is in the context of (mere?) rumours that the Chancellor is due to announce billions of pounds worth of welfare cuts, with a hinted focus on health-related ones (work incapacity benefits and PIP, or “personal independence payment”).
Alongside “fundamental” reform. Naturally. And yet have we not heard this before? Just a few years ago? Despite his numerous attempts at beating the poor when they were down, few of Osborne’s “reforms” actually led to the savings hoped for. As the Resolution Foundation has recently relayed, Osborne and his mates hoped that the introduction of PIP would save £1.4bn; the number has been more like 0.1.
Fantastic work George, you can add that to your list of many achievements, like Dave does with the National Citizens’ Service!
Why are you unfit to work? Do you fall over after 200m? (an actual question DWP ask people): The ever changing goalposts
Benefits, their entitlements, their criteria, are forever shifting these days. Which is wasteful of staff and bureaucratic time for one thing. It’s also a waste of my time, because as a senior DWP person recently told me when I fed back on various things, “is the issue that you’re not a trained benefits advisor”. Turns out, the issue is… me? Anyway I digress.
More importantly, endless goalpost shifting, when you have no other income to rely on, is a stressful experience for citizens (you don’t say?), many of whom may have only just passed assessments where a person, sorry “professional” (usually someone further up the class strata in a lanyard) has deemed them to be telling the truth about their ill health.
It seems almost as if when the government shifts the goalposts for what is defined as “ill health”, or “disability”, then citizens/society shift their own goalposts too (I’d like to just point out again, that PIP assessments involve asking you whether you “smell bad”, as well as “how far can you walk”... what until you fall over?? Sorry I digress…)
So, I am sure we can all agree that reform is needed. I remain unconvinced that DWP, or any government department for that matter, are fully aware of the waste in their systems, and I think the benefits migration is an example of this. Services do not bend enough to meet people where they are, and thus a “professional” seldom walks alongside people navigating dysfunctional systems. And then we complain when we never get actual helpful feedback.
Anyway so we know what will happen, the criteria will get stricter, it always does. And it seems it’s going to fall on health benefits (so punishing the sick, as well as the unemployed, nice, it’s almost poetic). And the benefits bill will rise once again, as people work out which mental health conditions they need to have to get a doctor’s note. It sometimes feels as if the Minister’s policy advisors think the British are stupid and don’t know how to manipulate manipulative systems. But anyway.
Very radical, very fundamental, well done. It’s exactly what Osborne tried to do - to be fair to the Tories at least they have simplified the benefits system in bringing it all under Universal Credit - but again, nothing remotely radical in targeting the poor once again.
Why do governments love spending so much money on employing people to help people pass the benefits system?
As a disgruntled taxpayer myself, forced to work in public service systems, I actually agree with the Chancellor that the current system is "letting down taxpayers". I’ve found the solution. I think the government needs to set its sights instead, not on the working poor, and those struggling with poverty-induced health problems; but rather another entitled group. I speak of middle class charity workers (like myself).
I feel like I might get some support in this area from the Health Secretary who recently targeted them too, calling charities “stakeholders, not partners”. If only! You’re literally outsourcing the work of the state to us, and we don’t come cheap!
But let’s forget political rants for a moment. So Universal Credit benefits migration, what is it?
Old style “legacy” benefits” are being moved into Universal Credit
People on the old style benefits receive letters and get given a deadline by which to claim
It’s an online system, all online. So hope you can use a computer mate!
If you need help, you need to have a script so you know exactly what to say. Don’t just walk into a job centre and say “I need help” - there isn’t any.
Saying (writing?) all that; I have to say that the process has been relatively fine on the whole. So I am trying not to do the usual public sector bureaucracy rant. Like I say, I personally support the streamlining of the benefits system, I think UC is probably… better. I have also found staff on the whole helpful (that is once we complained I have to say - it’s funny how mountains can be moved, people become so helpful, lack of ID sometimes not such a barrier - once you complain).
It is a relatively simple process (for me, I suppose, but then I am very efficient). The UC form is not massively long, although it can take time to list all of one’s health conditions. There’s some other good stuff (imho);
DWP will talk to your landlord / local authority to check you ain’t lying about your rent etc
Housing benefit is also ending, and now comes under UC, so it’s generally more efficient (and hopefully longer-term allows DWP the room to stand up for their customers (citizens) rather than landlords, though perhaps I’m getting too excited)
The form is a lot for someone not computer savvy. And when someone asked me to support them with it, we called the phone line and asked if we could get support from DWP. They told us we had to register online first, then visit a job centre. Turns out, you can’t have an appointment with DWP unless you are registered for UC. If you are unable to register for UC, you have to go to the CAB (do you like my rap?)
I wonder what would have happened if I had said “they can’t use a computer”, I have a feeling the chap on the end of the line would have done it for us. But again, with DWP, you need to be very specific with your language.
Anyway, with the deadline looming, the stress looming too; over a period of sessions, we eventually submitted the form.
But because that is not my role, I resented this quite a lot. Not *her*; she’s a delight, and she did a fab job. But I resented the fact, that because she masks (a lot, I’ve come to realise, I’ve known her a while); she is articulate, smart, etc etc - she manages to mask the fact that she is also disabled, has learning needs. Yet she was offered zero support in claiming.
But not just that. She was also fully expected by DWP to submit all the claims for various family members, who had never used a computer before.
When she suggested to a chap on a desk that she didn’t wish to do this, she was rudely accused of being “unwilling”. We complained and suddenly things became much easier, a home visit was booked in for her family members. (Turns out we just didn’t have the right phrasing).
So, looking back, I would have given different advice. And I’ve met plenty of people who have been given this advice too. You want support from DWP to claim UC? Simply ignore them! But I’ll cover that soon (I’m sure you can hardly wait).
A caseworker free-for-all
There was another attempt to claim recently that I was involved with. This person had mental health issues, as well as a cognitive disability, and was unlucky enough to have been born before the computer age. They had a mild anxiety attack at the idea of doing it over the phone, and like I say, literally did not know what their rent was because of how it mixes together with service charges and housing benefit. I looked at one of their bills and could not believe it but then I am not dependent on the state, so luckily for me, I don’t have complex bills and statements in my life.
Because DWP refused to speak to the council themselves to work it out, as suspected, we were sent away from yet another job centre, to go visit Citizens’ Advice. Which was in itself a terrible experience, involving weeks of waiting, multiple caseworkers, referral filling, box ticking. In the end (obviously), despite this person having the following workers (funded by the taxpayer) supporting them, I just did it (yes I’m great).
Here is a list of their current workers;
A social worker (NHS)
A key worker (through a homeless charity - it’s taken them a year to order a carpet btw)
A CAB person (or several, depends on the day you visit)
A Disability Advisor at DWP
Between all these people, no-one managed to support this person to claim. But there is something else to say here.
The problem is, the turnover is quite high; the social worker, they have only met once. People reliant on these services are always expected to trust these people to go rooting through their stuff, their back catalogues. The fact is, they didn’t want these near strangers doing it, so they asked us to, because they’ve known us for more than a couple of months.
So we submitted it, fairly quickly (they of course did the hard work pulling together the info). It went okay - except for another panic attack when the “Claimant Commitment” appeared on screen.
So yes, not great. Not wholly terrible. But the point I am trying to make is actually not about DWP. It’s about all these charities, all these other services. Paid, employed “professionals” whose job description includes helping people to claim the benefits they are entitled to. When we talk about money, our taxes, the fiscal black hole, we should be talking about these services too.
I remain unconvinced by state bureaucracy as I have probably previously alluded to.
Perhaps it would be too sensical to allow DWP staff themselves support people to claim Universal Credit (though we need to remember this is a government department we are talking about, and sense is not a common theme when one is courting the Mail reader). So, instead the DWP outsource support to Citizens’ Advice. But it is also outsourced to the NHS. Mental health workers, social workers also support people to claim benefits; to attend PIP appointments.
They coach them on how to pass these assessments, I do it myself.
I’m still struggling to work out why. One DWP worker told me it’s a “conflict of interest” to support customers to claim. Why? You’re a government department, not a court. It’s this perpetual assumption that citizens are always lying. Notwithstanding the fact that it’s simply professionalisation of knowledge. Citizens’ Advice staff are told “all the secrets” and hints and tips on how it all works, leaving actual citizens in the dark.
So, in conclusion, I would like to know how much money the Treasury saves through endless criteria and goalpost shifting, particularly when it comes to health-benefits (rumoured to be in the Chancellor’s sights). And I’d like to know on other hand the salaries; NI contributions, and other costs of pen pushers like myself, employed to focus on people’s strengths, who are instead spending most of their time navigating state bureaucracy.
I shall be sending DWP my bill!