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The end of crisis loans.
the govt reply to the call for evidence is here http://www.dwp.gov.uk/docs/social-fund-localisation-response.pdf
Lets take a sneak look…........
106 One of the design issues raised by a large number of respondents is whether provision should be in the form of cash payments or goods and services, including for example food parcels and both new and re-conditioned household items. The majority of respondents favoured provision being made in the form of goods and services rather than cash payments.
107. The need to offer recipients choice or control over the item they received was not generally considered a requirement and by a number of respondents it was thought to be undesirable. There was a strong sense that if there is a genuine need recipients will accept the support that is offered. This reflects the approach that is taken by a number of projects who supply new and or reconditioned household items.
Sorry….. Run that past me again…... yep i did see it….... “There was a strong sense that if there is a genuine need recipients will accept the support that is offered”.
Amazing that “if”...........
Not far beyond the realms of possibility to see some LA’s giving the money to parish councils to give out to the parish poor.
What price human dignity?
Some of your folks in parliament have a dry sense of humour.
“In a previous report in this session, we welcomed the Government’s commitment to localism and decentralisation. We also commented that “some policy areas appear to have been granted an exemption from decentralisation”, noting in particular the apparent resistance of the Department for Work and Pensions to the devolution of power to local institutions. If welfare reform is regarded as a case study in localism, the results are decidedly mixed. There will be devolution of unringfenced funds for the delivery of new forms of Social Fund and Council Tax Benefit, but the latter within some very tight policy and financial constraints. On the other hand, Housing Benefit, a local authority function which is working well for customers and which helps councils to manage their other responsibilities, is to be centralised”............
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201012/cmselect/cmcomloc/1406/140602.htm
A couple of excellent point by point breifings on delivering a replacement…....
http://www.cpag.org.uk/sites/default/files/CPAG-Delivering-the-social-fund- London-0612.pdf
http://www.antp.org.uk/PDFs/Localisation of Social Fund ANTP briefing July 2012.pdf
The end of crisis loans…will now be March 2015
http://www.localgov.co.uk/Leader-hits-out-at-grant-axing/35280
The end of crisis loans…will now be March 2015
http://www.localgov.co.uk/Leader-hits-out-at-grant-axing/35280
Thanks Dave.
I think its now time to reflect on what went wrong.
There is going to be a lot of shifting the blame between councils and central govt.
From where I am sitting, the real problem, is that we are drving ahead new policies without dealing with practicalities.
Crisis Loans and CCGs were transfered over, without the LA,s ever having systems in place, there was no working IT, no established way of doing this locally, no established way of recovering loans. There were no pilots.
UC has been in effect been (delayed) as the IT is not in place, but with Local Welfare Assistance, the transfer just went ahead.
There was no recognition, of local problems, or that councils, are politically accoutable bodies, that work round different timscales.
In my opinion a local safety net, might have worked if the funding and timescales were different. As it is we have a variety of schemes (A postcode lotterty) some which are better than others, but I see no one claiming that what is in place, is better than what was before.
Nice to know if RN advisors think things are better now?
We now look like being left with a void, with any safety net needing to be funded out of an unringfenced grant.
It makes you long for the Exceptional Needs Payments of the 1970’s and the single payments of the 1980’s.
Agreed that the political/policy context is relevant. One quibble: they did not win the election. The Man With No Mandate did all this with the help of - well, see Tony’s point 2.
I note that the government has trumpeted this as a great success. Depends upon one’s defintion of ‘success’....‘we got away with it’ is how I construe it.
I too yearn for the good old days of Single Payments….
Homeless Link have given some very general advice on how to reply to the Governments consultation.
http://www.homeless.org.uk/sites/default/files/site-attachments/Local Welfare Assistance consultation guidance.pdf
My own feeling is that this guidance is right. The timetables and budgets to deliver local welfare provision have so far been totally unrealistic. Given that it is impossible, at the present time, to sensibly choose between the four options provided by the governmenmt, I think that the only proper response is to argue that the government should provide another £178 million funding for another year whilst a full and proper consultation can be assessed.
The Govermnet has accepted the need to delay and reform universal credit to deliver it safely. It is surely not unreasonable that they now safeguard local welfare provision, which is after all only just bedding in, whilst a proper consultation take place…..
Just my view….....
Another link to the Guidance
http://www.homeless.org.uk/connect/blogs/2014/oct/31/farewell-to-welfare
It looks like, unless Councils are going to fund these schemes, then this is the end.
We have moved from national provision, to centrally funded local provision, to..unfunded local provision ?
It does make you wonder, if the Localism agenda, is worth pursuing.
I mean, if true it appears that, we will be providing less, as a Nation, than in the Mid 80s for folks or low income in “crisis”. The resullt will probably be, that already stretched Social Care departments will be put under further pressure? Which is what no one wants.
That is until someone (in a few yeras time) comes up with the very reasonable idea of a National system of affordable loans for folks, on low income in crisis, to be reclaimed from UC ?