Questions Of The Day (Politics)

[Wile E. Coyote]

Many of Universal Credit's problems stem from the fact that it was devised and delivered by good people, who want to help others, and opposed by even better people, who do not trust the other good people to get things done.

A case in point.

There have been problems with the delay over the payment of UC.

Why is this so? It comes about because the idea of UC was to roll 6 benefits into 1, to help the claimants. That's got to be good hasn't it? It is just one application.

Unfortunately it does mean that when you stop these six benefits, folks have no money at all. In the old days you stopped one benefit and you had 1,2,3 benefits remaining, folks still had some coin.

UC is all or nothing.

Still why on earth should it take six weeks to assess a UC claim? The answer is complicated, but it is mainly verification, it takes no time to assess a bog standard fit 20 year old, who is living with Auntie Longknickerleg. But the guy with 12 children, 1 disabled, two wives living in a council house, with a border is a different matter. That is complicated. Still the DWP staff recognised the problem, they (because they want to help) signpost all claimants to the local food bank whilst their claim is assessed.

Quel horror.....The use of foodbanks is now going up. Now in actual fact this, contrary to orthodoxy, does not create problems at all. Folks at food banks want to help and, say it quietly, so do supermarkets as they have plenty of food that they would otherwise dump. It makes a lot of sense to fill in the gap in the benefit system like this as it leads to nationally less waste.

But oh dear. UN rapporteurs, who are the best of the better people, do not like this feeding of those waiting for UC. No, it is far better that we pay in coin than help people with goods in kind, like food, clothes furniture. Give the poor money, and chuck unwanted stuff in landfill, is the modern way. So of course that is what our shamed politicians do.

Yes, our politicos (they are after all good people) decide to extend a system of advance payments to folks whilst their claims are being assessed before they are verified. Everybody is happy, particularly the scammers who have now encouraged unwitting folks to take out these new "interest free loans" which require no proof at all. It is of course for a cut, to the scammer, who has encouraged the dupe... but as you know. Nobody is all good. Are they?

[Mick Harper]

Actually there is a little Tory wickedness involved here. In ye olden days it was two weeks because it was assumed when you lost your job you had one week and one in lieu. Then, when most people were paid monthly, it became a month, and UC adopted this. Then George Osbone in an early cost cutting budget made it six weeks without consultation. Still not disastrous except, as you say, six weeks in civil service time, is 'when we get round to it'.

UC has been bedevilled since its inception because nobody can decide whether it is to a) save money or b) make sure benefits go where they need to go. These are entirely compatible objectives except that they involve millions of people getting a different amount than they got before and the half that are getting less talk to Panorama while dangling a cherub on their knee. This is an example of your

[Wile E. Coyote]

Well I can't decide if George was a little bit evil as he was a Tory or a typical Chancellor. He certainly was clever enough to know that the DWP was not likely to be able to deliver UC on time and on budget, as no big govt IT projects ever are.

[Mick Harper]

I can testify it is not (primarily) an IT problem since I started signing on when they were using quill and ink. I don't know if they do it now but then, if you had "O" levels and were still signing on after a few months, they offered you a job on the other side of the desk. Refusal meant suspension of benefits for not taking up a suitable and available job. If you did become a government clerk you could never resign and claim benefits because you would have made yourself intentionally unemployed. This week's quiz question: get out of that one!

[Mick Harper]

Answer: you refused, you had your unemployment benefit stopped by the DoE (Department of Employment), you applied for social security (from the DHSS, Department of Health and Social Security) which was about the same in cash terms, until the suspension was lifted after six weeks and you went back on the dole. The clerks in the DoE and DHSS were quite sympathetic, they used to be you. Next!

[Wile E. Coyote]

UC is a massive IT problem, because let's call them programmers do not understand lawyers, and lawyers do not understand programmers or claimants. Politicians are basically good people, with no clue about anything, their nearest equivalent is something like a social worker, ie they want to help folks, who basically don't want to be helped in anything other than more coin.

Let's put some lawyers and programmers in a room to write some UC regs and get it installed on the IT.

The programmers want it clear in "yes" and "no" and the lawyers don't. You cannot have clear laws. You would have a revolution. The programmers clearly do not understand the subtlety of when an EEA national who is self-employed, but unable to work because his granny is ill in Lithuania and he now wants to visit her, but yes, it is for an unspecified time...and he wants to claim his UC.

This is pretty frustrating as it was clearly explained to the programmers by the lawyers last week, and they actually after 3 hours finally got it. It was all sorted. They just now need to understand that the European Courts have reversed the decision, so it's all changed. People with sick grannies can be helped some of the time, providing a Work Coach has been made aware of the circumstance and has a copy of a letter confirming Granny is sick. Why are the programmers so tetchy? It's the law, we are subject to laws, even the Prime Minister.

Clearly the software company are only doing it for profit, while the lawyers are motivated by justice. It's either that or the Lawyers are total wankers. It just depends on which side you sit. They are in fact all good people..

[Mick Harper]

This too is very familiar. What the system likes is boxes ticked so claimants soon learn how to tick boxes. This often requires lying on the part of the claimant and a "We know you're lying but as long as you don't push it we'll tick your ticked box because there's a dozen people behind you in the queue and we've got homes to go to" attitude from the system. I'll give you an example.

They're hassling you about getting a job so you get one. You become self-employed. Now this is a nightmare for the system which was designed when everyone was either an employer or an employee so they have special rules to cope and special rules always mean special opportunities. Since you are not really self-employed, you don't have an income and if you don't have an income you are entitled to the full panoply of the state's largesse. But if you are 'self employed' you must have an income -- otherwise you're just a skiver claiming to be self-employed -- so occasionally instead of "Any income to declare, Mr Harper?" "No" you have to say, in my case, "Well, I got some royalties this week."

In theory this means a pound-for-pound deduction from your benefits and a number of forms to be filled in involving you, the front desk, the DHSS office manager, DHSS HQ in Newcastle, the computer that sends out your fortnightly Giro and your local Post Office. In two weeks' time it will be "Any income to declare, Mr Harper?" "No" and the whole machinery will have to be put in reverse. Everyone involved, from me to the Secretary of State, would much prefer, "Yes, well, considering the time it took to write the book and the fact that this is the first payment in six months this will certainly be beneath the allowable income threshold when spread over the appropriate period but thank you for reporting it, Mr Harper, I have made a note. Next!"

[Boreades]

Well, look on the bright side, you'll tick the boxes for the IR35 tests easily.

[X] Financial risk
[X] No employment contract
[X] No Mutuality Of Obligation (MOO)
[X] Not directed (except by Hatty, but sshhh...)
[X] Work with their own materials
[X] Can provide substitutes (cue Hatty)
[X] Not treated as an employee by publishers (company car, sick pay, benefits, etc)

[Mick Harper]

They were right and we were wrong. It is clear that the backstop was exactly what the crazies said it was all along and not 'an insurance policy'. Since the EU won't accept any arrangement that differentiates north from south in Ireland, the two halves must be in the same single market and customs union forever. And if Northern Ireland wishes to remain part of the UK we also will have to remain in the single market and the customs union forever.

However, I have long pointed out that it was us and nobody else that created this situation with the Belfast Agreement but even I didn't really believe it. I should also point out to the crazies, now they have taken over the madhouse, that they are still bound by the Belfast Agreement. Get out of that one if you can. Leaving without a deal makes no difference. Ask the Queen, Rees-Mogg, if you don't believe me.

[Mick Harper]

The Queen is technically self-employed but her assets would put her over the limit for means tested social security. However, should she abdicate she would be entitled to six months of unemployment pay, which is not means tested. Rees-Mogg on the other hand is both employee and employer. The first as an MP paid a salary by the state and the second because, notoriously, his parliamentary assistants, which are also paid for by the state, are in the books as being employed by him not Parliament. The welfare system requires everyone to be in a box if boxes are to be speedily ticked.

There are always good historical reasons for any of this and one of the good historical reasons is that a government at some time in the past needed to massage the unemployment figures to show what a good job they were doing.. As you have seen, self-employed people are not unemployed people even though they mostly are. That is why when you hear the newsreader say, "Britain's several million self-employed people got a boost today..." and "According to figures issued today Britain has the lowest unemployment rate in Europe/since before the slump/ in its history etc " you should always be doing lots of mental re-assignment.

Retired people are not unemployed people either and I once benefited, no pun intended, from this when I was asked whether I wanted to continue applying for Jobseekers' Allowance in the ordinary way or would I prefer to be shifted onto a new category of 'no longer actively seeking work for age-related reasons' which would double my money and mean I no longer had to sign on every fortnight armed with a list of all my attempts to get a job during the previous two weeks. I weighed it up and decided I probably did and the unemployment figures for that month went down by one.

But the biggest category re-assignment of all is...

[Wile E. Coyote]

[Mick Harper]

I agree with some but not all of this. Until quite recently, housing benefit was automatically paid to the landlord. The whole thing was entirely automated and (in welfare terms) worked extremely well. Welfare tenants were sought out by landlords because the rent was guaranteed, tenants could not get into arrears by spending the rent money on other, seemingly more pressing, needs and evictions were kept to a minimum and in any case were not very serious because the claimant could simply move to a new home. There was a side benefit in that landlords had to keep rents reasonable or they might hear all about it from the Housing Benefit people.

Then some busybody on Panorama claimed that claimants were people too and should have control over their own money, learn to stand on their own two feet etc etc.. So now housing benefit was paid to the claimant who used it to pay his rent. Only s/he often didn't because buying the kiddies Christmas presents took priority over this month's rent and British housing law makes evicting non-paying tenants such a lengthy and expensive business the kiddies would have a roof over their heads at Christmas.

Within an astonishingly short time, welfare claimants were absolutely not sought by landlords. It didn't matter that the great majority of claimants paid their rent on time, the ones that didn't were such a nightmare who's going to take the risk? Cue the rise of an entire rented housing sector devoted to welfare recipients in which high rents and crap conditions make it worthwhile if you are a landlord prepared to get down and dirty. Cue the rise of homeless welfare families on the street requiring re-housing by the local authority. Cue the rise of the welfare hostel industry. Cue the switching of the entirety of local authority housing stock to the needs of welfare claimants.

You're right, Wiley, these people are geniuses in their way.

[Mick Harper]

Imagine somebody popping up on Panorama and saying, "Welfare recipients are not people they are charity cases, they manifestly cannot stand on their own feet, they cannot be relied on to pay their rent, it is imperative that Housing Benefit goes nowhere near their grubby little hands. Now if we turn Housing Benefit from being a box-ticking bureaucracy spending tens of billions of taxpayers' pounds into an arm of the charity industry intent on helping welfare recipients while reforming Britain's archaic housing arrangements..."

[Wile E. Coyote]

[Mick Harper]