Benefits system is just not working, says report

THOSE of us fortunate enough not to have to engage much with the UK social security system may have an idea it is Byzantine, even somewhat deliberately so.

But the extent to which it contributes to landing people in poverty can rarely have been so starkly laid out as in the Citizen’s Advice Scotland report Living at the Sharp End.

The headline findings were big increases in food bank use and a need for crisis grants. The benefits system is just not working, CAS said.

The detail is like something from Catch-22. Example after example shows how the system conspires to leave people with no income.

There are obvious problems, such as the six-week waiting time for anyone claiming Universal Credit. This benefit is not paid out straight away, in a bid to push people straight back into work if they lose a job. Unsurprisingly it is instead forcing people into debt, and despair.

But the report also highlights delays built into changing benefits. If someone is assessed as needing not the disability benefit ESA (Employment Support Allowance) but Job Seekers Allowance, ESA will stop while they are reassessed. Even with no delays, they cannot receive JSA for at least four weeks, leaving them to survive on £5.62 a day to cover food, bills and transport. But there are frequent delays.

Those who challenge a decision are also penalised. While a “mandatory reconsideration” is taking place, a benefit such as ESA is stopped and clients told to claim JSA instead. Whether they do or don’t a gap in income is likely.

There are many more such examples in the report. A huge number of delays are caused simply by the department losing mail, or communication errors. Sanctions quite deliberately leave people without money.

Many live with levels of fear hardly conducive to finding work. One CAB client twice asked for a food voucher before disappearing after a suicide attempt. He returned from hospital to ask for help phoning the Job Centre. “He had missed an appointment and was afraid he may have been sanctioned,” the report says.

It should be essential reading for new Work and Pensions Secretary Damian Green.