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The end of crisis loans.
Seeing as the refurbished route seems very unpopular does anyone have an idea of how to improve things?
I reckon that the LA should be compelled by a duty to ensure that there is a credit union in their area. There also should be a right for people in crisis to save and borrow with that union. The resources on crisis loans should be transferred to the credit unions. The govt should fund this for five years, after that the banks should in future fund any shortfalls, they do after all owe a massive debt to the taxpayer who helped them when they were in crisis…...
[ Edited: 2 Mar 2011 at 12:13 pm by Rehousing Advice. ]THe govt has decided to resrict crisis loans even before the local support is in place.
http://www.24dash.com/news/bill_payments/2011-03-03-TUC-attacks-Government-plans-to-restrict-emergency-loans-for-long-term-benefit-claimants
I reckon that the LA should be compelled by a duty to ensure that there is a credit union in their area. There also should be a right for people in crisis to save and borrow with that union. The resources on crisis loans should be transferred to the credit unions. The govt should fund this for five years, after that the banks should in future fund any shortfalls, they do after all owe a massive debt to the taxpayer who helped them when they were in crisis…...
Its a very sensible way forward.
Stockport has a credt union championed by the council.
I doubt the banks would to get too involved as it strips away at a very profitable side of their business with high interest weekly payment schemes whether for loans or goods. They would not understand interest free loans to low income borrowers as it’s totally alien.
I’m still minded that there are alternatives to be explored to help more people with less funding.
My first thought would be to ban *****thouse. Rhymes with…....... :-))
I’m sure .......house would say that they are offering a ‘service’ where no one else does.
I think there is a need to be clear about what is happening here. As far as I understand it:
1. A portion of the current crisis loan budget is going to be given to LAs. They can use it (or not) as they fit. So instead of a national discretionary system with the same rules for everyone (albeit with local budgetary constraints being different although to some extent that can be alleviated by allocating nationally to local areas based on need) we will have a localised system which LAs may or may not decide to dish out (they keep the cash if they don’t spend it) and which they can dish out in the degrading form of food parcels and second hand furniture.
2. Another part of the current crisis loan budgets will be given to the DWP so they can make payments on account….. Hello! They have a power to make payments on account at present and just don’t exercise it. That is where the increase in crisis loan applications that so upsets the government comes from (probably)- when delay creeps into the benefit system that puts pressure on the crisis loan budget because the DWP completely fail in their legal duty to consider making payments on account. So this is a straightforward cut in disguise- and we have no guarantee at all that the DWP will in fact make payments on account under the new system (they never did before).
3. At present the Social Fund Inspectors are (in my view) one of the rare jewels within the welfare benefit system- they make fairly good decisions very quickly (indeed the whole crisis loan system tends to work quickly) and they allow 40% of cases. With this new system then if your client is denied “outdoor relief” by the LA or is refused an interim payment what will the remedy be? Probably JR and we all know how accessible that is to claimants as a remedy….
....so there will be a corresponding decrease in rights to challenge decisions at the same time as a cut in the fund (by transferring it into an area which we know hasnt functioned in the past) and turning a large part of it into demeaning handouts (which don’t even have to be made).
I really can’t see how any of this is good at all.
I am going to stop now as I can’t guarantee to be “professional” if I carry on.
.....they can dish out in the degrading form of food parcels and second hand furniture.
Firstly.
If the current system worked then you may have a point.
Fact is the current system does not work, so there is no point.
The Network Food Bank project fed 41’000 people last year.
Secondly, to describe food parcels as ‘degrading’ I find insulting to both those who carry out the work and those who receive the food parcels.
Presumably all would be better had the 41’000 been left without food and continued claiming with the current system?
Well said Tony.
I do understand all of the above but in the current political and financial climate the money allocated to the SF budget will not increase.
In times like the present we need to think of positive ways to get the most out of a bad situation.
The debate has drifted somewhat into the confines of whether or not food parcels or secondhand furniture are a good thing.
Surely the the core point is to generate concern about the dismantling of the Social Fund which is a vital (though imperfect) safety net and its replacement by a completely discretionary “fund” administered by local authorities? This is a wholly retrograde step.
Local authorities also don’t appear to have realised just what a can of worms they are being told to take on with having to turn down most applications, probably being short-changed on the funds transfer and the implications for service demands.
Hello Neil
I dont disagree, the only thing i would add is that the collection of any loan due to be repayed, is going to be administratively difficult, as there will not be the option of deducting direct from benefit (as LAs will not be paying any benefits out)?
A bloke came to see me a couple of years ago. He was 90 years old. He told me how his father left when he was young just after the First World War leaving his mother to raise him and his brother alone. Times were hard and when the depression struck in the 1930’s, were even harder.
He told me the story of how his mother applied to the local authority for assistance. His memory is still seared with the day that a local authority officer visited his home in connection with the application. He could even still remember his name after all these years. He told me how the officer looked around the house making an inventory before informing his mother that she was not eligible for assistance while she still had items of furniture she could sell. He told me how, that as a fairly well built boy of 14, he threw the man bodily out of the house.
Do not give discretionary powers to local authorities.
Trouble is, the thinking behind the majority of the ongoing reforms is (I think) inspired by the American model of making reliance upon benefits and handouts so shameful and awful an experience that people will do almost anything not to go there. Removing cash payments and reverting to ‘deserving poor’ local authority handouts is one sure-fire way of doing that.
I am sorry- I really didn’t mean to drag the debate down to the issue of whether or not food parcels and second hand furniture were degrading. That is a matter for the people who receive them to have a view about I guess and a matter of opinion for the rest of us which it seems we can’t all agree on.
The important points I was trying to make was that these changes represent:
1. End of social fund inspectors and reduction in rights to challenge decisions.
2. A real cut in benefits as there is no guarantee the LAs will dish out the money (or parcels ok) and also as the DWP will be stealing a bit of the money to do something they already have a duty to do (make interim payments) but unlawfully fail to do at present.
3. We have no guarantee the interim payments will be made- they have never been made previously.
Martin
I can sincerely agree with both sides to this debate. having in a previous guise worked for Social Security there are many many Social Fund claimants who regularly abuse the system for Crisis, Budget loans and CCG’s. They have spoilt it for the masses unfortunatley.
As for the dignity issue , I agree that when you are short of money, you chose what you can afford, my partner earns an excellent salary and mine’s not bad , but having come from divorce and paying maintenance etc, we cannot get a mortgage, can only save a small amount and have alot of second hand furniture. Alot (not all) of people on benefits feel they have the right to have an excellent standard of living often despite never having worked in their lives apart from to produce alot of children. Ive been to many a house where the children look Dickensian, the house is disgustingly filthy , but they have a massive TV , Sky , Laptop and Mobile phones and the adults smoke and drink alcohol. They are chosing their own standard of living and looking from the outside in these people never had an ounce of dignity in the first place.
On the other hand there are people out there with geniune problems and need. I explain to these people that we all give to charities so why should we then feel bad if we need to approach them for help-thats what they are there for. The food parcel idea is brilliant, but yes the claim process should be clear and non judgemental.
Having read Angela Ashes ( a brilliant read) where the family struggled terribly to support their children and often relied on church handouts, the grown up child that wrote that he never asked but wondered why he did without when his parents both continue to smoke and drink-says it all really.
Darlington:
Well yes, we can all find examples to prove anything: “A lot of doctors are murderers - look at Dr Shipman”, “A lot of MPs are on the fiddle - look how many have been prosecuted”, “English weather is mostly wet - it rained again this week”, “Toyota cars are rubbish - they had a recall”.
Even so, I find it surprising that a welfare rights adviser can say: “A lot (not all) of people on benefits feel they have the right to have an excellent standard of living often despite never having worked in their lives apart from to produce alot of children. Ive been to many a house where the children look Dickensian, the house is disgustingly filthy , but they have a massive TV , Sky , Laptop and Mobile phones and the adults smoke and drink alcohol. They are chosing their own standard of living and looking from the outside in these people never had an ounce of dignity in the first place.”
As advocates for benefit claimants we have a special responsibility at all times, let alone in the current climate to only advance generalisations about claimants which are based on objective evidence. What research evidence can you cite to support your view that this applies to “a lot” of benefit claimants?
I have to say that my experience of working in this field in one guise or another for over 30 years is that the description you offer of “a lot of” claimants is extremely unrepresentative of the people I have worked with and does a huge disservice to most who are the same people as you and I, but trying to get by in often very difficult circumstances.