A call for action!

We have always maintained that the UK Government’s welfare reform programme will have devastating consequences for communities in Wales.

It therefore came as no surprise when a recent Wales Audit Office report published evidence stating that welfare reform is having an adverse and disproportionate effect in Wales. The report found that a greater proportion of Welsh social housing tenants have had their housing benefit reduced than elsewhere in the UK, with 51% of tenants reporting an increase in personal debt. This was backed by evidence from social landlords showing a £5.3m increase in rent arrears in the first six months of the removal of the spare room subsidy and the introduction of the benefit cap.

For some Welsh social housing tenants, the welfare changes will have created a level of hardship and a spiral of social and economic deprivation that will be hard, if not impossible, to break.

This is easier to understand in the context of:

·                     higher (on average) unemployment than anywhere in the UK

·                     a heavy reliance on the public sector as an employer

·                     households paying 5% more for electricity than the rest of UK 

·                     higher rates of digital exclusion than other UK regions - 39% of social housing tenants have no access to PC 

·                     a five-fold increase in the use of foodbanks over the last 2 years – 29.7% by people who had experienced welfare benefit delays

·                     a £4.1m cut in specialist advice services, despite increasing need 

In 2013, the Welsh Affairs Select Committee also published evidence highlighting how the spare room subsidy had been a “policy failure” in the Welsh Valleys where, effectively, a social housing tenant moving to a smaller property in the private rented sector would cost the tax payer more money.  

  

So what are social landlords doing?

60% of Welsh social landlords have reported an increase in management costs as they refocus their resources to manage welfare changes. Most landlords are also prioritising tenants affected by the spare room subsidy to move, more tenant profiling, providing low level money advice and budgeting services, and investing significant amounts of money in awareness raising, and have programmes in place to help tenants back into work. A rise in rent arrears and the increased costs of managing welfare changes still means, however, that Welsh housing associations and local authorities are struggling to find effective and sustainable solutions to the challenges they face.

These challenges will be exacerbated by direct payments and the roll out of Universal Credit unless action is taken now. We need more control over welfare and the flexibility to provide: 

·                     choice to tenants about payment options 

·                     more investment in specialist services such as Your Benefit Are Changing - a service that demonstrates high levels of success in mitigating the worst effects of welfare reform

·                     local solutions tailored to local needs  

CHC and others have been highlighting the negative impact of welfare reform on Wales for some time and we will continue to make the call for a fairer welfare system for Wales to prevent further deprivation. Prevention is always better, and definitely more cost effective, than cure.

Amanda Oliver
Head of Policy and Research

You can read the CHC Group’s response to the report here, and you can read the report itself here

#HousingDay - Jemma's story

My name is Jemma Bere and I am a tenant and tenant board member of Wales & West Housing. I work for CREW Regeneration Wales, part of the CHC Group.

In 2001, my mother died in a car accident whilst in Andalucia, Spain. After the funeral in the UK, my brother and sister returned to Spain with their father where they began school. However, their father turned to drink and eventually became unable to care for them and in 2005, I was told that the children had been taken into the care of social services in Almeria. I went to Spain immediately to see them but there was very little I could do. After a couple of months, I received a phone call from the Spanish authorities who told me that unless someone in the family could take on the children, they would have to be put into foster care. They could give me no guarantees that they would be kept together or that I could visit them so I made the decision right there that I would look after them. I was 24 and had just graduated from university.

It took me two years to navigate the bureaucracy and go through the adoption process to get the children to the UK but I was determined and a few key friends and organisations took sympathy to my cause. On the 15th July 2008, I brought the children back to the UK and they were reunited with their nan and brother who they hadn't seen in 7 years. I had no house and no capital, just the conviction that it was the best decision I had ever made. We were given emergency housing at first but were offered a permanent house by Wales & West after a couple of months. I can't describe the feeling of security that that brought to us. Used to being shuffled around, the children only believed that they were here to stay when we got the house and the change in them from that point was amazing to see.

The children spoke little English at first and we lived on benefits whilst we were finding our feet. The rarity of the situation made the application process difficult and we lived on £90 a week child tax credit for the initial 6 months. I learnt to make everything from scratch, even shampoo! It was a hard time but the safety nets afforded to us through social housing and welfare gave us enough security to start to build a life together.

I'm very proud to be living in social housing and a tenant board member of my housing association. I am delighted at the opportunity to give back and help to make a difference in the sector.

I'm supporting Housing Day because it offered me a lifeline when I thought I had none. I don't want to think about where the children and I would have been without the opportunity for a affordable home. As a social housing tenant, I know my rent money goes toward others in need and providing them with the opportunity to build their lives just like it did with me. 

Jemma Bere
Regeneration Officer (CREW Regeneration Wales) and Wales & West Housing tenant

Read more about Jemma's story here.

The scandal of pensioner winter deaths

Why is society in Wales so prepared to put up with more older people dying in the winter compared to other months of the year?

In 2012/13, the Chief Medical Officer for Wales confirmed that this is the case with 1,900 more deaths in the winter months, with 70% of these attributed to our over 75 year olds. This pattern is repeated year on year.

Why? Because as we age, we become frailer, our bodies are less able to cope with low temperatures and we become more susceptible to respiratory and circulatory illness.

This is backed up by accepted figures in Wales that 140,000 pensioners are in fuel poverty, meaning they need to spend more than 10% of their income on fuel costs.

“Just turn the heating on”, I hear you say. It’s not as simple as that. With rising energy costs and many older people on a fixed income, many cannot afford to pay their fuel bills... so they don’t turn on the heating. Many older people face many difficult decisions, like choosing between eating or heating their home.

Many thousands of older people can’t survive on their state pension or are not claiming the benefits they are entitled to. They have boilers which are old, inefficient and use more fuel. They live in properties which aren’t insulated. They are on an expensive fuel tariff and don’t know how to change provider. They don’t know about the latest government grant scheme that just might be able to help them.

This isn’t good enough. It is clear that the system isn’t working because we still have older people dying in the winter who wouldn’t be dying in other months of the year.

While there are undoubtedly plenty of schemes that could help, there is confusion for older people about where to go and what help they can get, and we are not doing enough to find and help the people who need that help the most.

There have been numerous grant schemes, over many years, such as Home Energy Efficiency Scheme (HEES), Carbon Emissions Reduction Target (CERT), Community Energy Saving Programme (CESP), and now, the NEST and Energy Company Obligation (ECO). There is lots of evidence to suggest that these schemes have helped improve many properties, helped many people on low incomes and reduced carbon emissions, particularly in the social housing sector. Housing associations and local authorities have undoubtedly carried out some great work with energy companies for the benefit of their properties and their tenants.

We now need to focus on the people we haven’t reached. One particularly affected group is low income, older owner occupiers dispersed in urban, suburban and rural areas across all of Wales. Finding these people requires more up front effort and is not as attractive to energy companies who have legal targets on the quantity of carbon emissions they need to reduce, so instead have targeted geographic energy efficiency schemes at scale.

So, to combat older people dying of cold this winter, Care & Repair Cymru is running their Fighting Fuel Poverty campaign this week (October 20-24) to find older people who are most at risk and to provide them with practical advice.

We aim to help them access benefits and available grants to keep them warm, as well as assisting them directly with our “Health through Warmth” grants, delivered in partnership with Npower.

We’re also asking people who receive the winter fuel payment, but don’t need it, to donate it to a hardship fund at Care & Repair by calling 0300 111 3333 so that we can redirect this to older people in fuel poverty who need more help.

As we head into the winter months and look ahead to the UK elections next year, we believe that the UK and Welsh Governments need a rebalancing of policy focus so that tackling fuel poverty and stopping winter deaths amongst our older people receives as much attention as reducing CO2 emissions.

We need co-ordinated action by government and energy companies to target advice and energy efficiency grants based on specific need of individuals as well as wider need to reduce the carbon footprint.

As the Older People’s Housing Champion for Wales, our “Fighting Fuel Poverty” campaign aims to highlight the scandal of pensioner winter deaths and find solutions to help those in need. We’re only a phone call away, so if you’re an older person or have a relative, neighbour or friend in need of help, please call one of our local agencies on 0300 111 3333. Care & Repair can reach out and spread a bit of human kindness and warmth this winter to those feeling left out in the cold.


Chris Jones
Chief Executive
Care & Repair Cymru

Your Big Book of Benefits

It was with mounting trepidation that I approached Llandrindod for the launch of Your Big Book of Benefits on 9 April. It was great to have the chance to explain myself and the book at CHC’s Welfare Reform Strategic Day and to witness Paul Langley’s shameless sales techniques, but thought I would explain a bit more about the book in this blog post.

Your Benefits are Changing is a way of acting together and I was delighted to join with the campaign to do something practical. The YBAC team liked our Big Book of Benefits and Mental Health for its practical toolkit content and friendly informal approach to give people the tools and knowledge to make a difference.

Your Big Book of Benefits is a broader, more comprehensive and more generic version of that same approach. Beneath its friendly cover – alternative suggestions included ‘Don’t Panic’ – there lurks 400 pages. BUT be not afraid – this is most definitely not a tome for the expert only.

Within it you will find full but simple explanations, practical page by page advice for filling in some of the trickier forms, sample completed forms, what to do next, Ten Top Tips, Benefits family trees (and I mean actual trees… well, pictures anyway) and case studies of a slightly mystical bent – Gandalf, Merlin and Hagrid all feature.

At the beginning you will find a useful overview of the system and the changes and a simple three step suggestion – with examples – as to how to navigate the complexities of an ever changing landscape of some 50 benefits.

This book is for the non expert with no prior knowledge assumed. It’s for housing officers and support workers, and tenants themselves. Of course, in this its first year, there may be the odd rough edge or something you feel could be better explained. If you have a comment, suggestion, spot an error, want to say what could be dropped or ought to be included, please let us know. There’s a feedback form in the back to make Your Big Book of Benefits truly yours.

And it’s not just a book! Dates will shortly be announced for a summer run of training days linked to (and using) Your Big Book. If you’ve read the book, why not see it live?

It’s been heavy going at times, with much cursing of Windows and Publisher 2013 in the wee small hours as .pdfs didn’t quite do their thing. However, though full of the ‘if only I had time to do this’ or ‘tweak that’ doubts of an anxious new parent, I allow myself some pleasure and small pride that it has got here.

I hope you and Your Big Book will be very happy together and that you can make a real difference in troubled times.

You can order your copy here. 

So long and good luck!


Tom Messere
Author of Your Big Book of Benefits

Hopkins v Hopkins... the debt debate

I watched the recent Channel 5 Debt Debate, shouting at the TV like so many others. Is the country full of irresponsible borrowers who are too ‘stupid’ to know what they’re doing and too ‘irresponsible’ to care? Katie Hopkins thinks so, but Kath Hopkins knows differently.

Debt is not just about reckless borrowing for PS4s and Christmas presents. It’s about life events that cause a drop in income; about struggling to pay rent, council tax, utility bills and food; about not being able to save because you have so little to live on and about lack of availability of advice services at an early enough stage to help prevent debt.


Here are the details of my last five clients... Are they the people portrayed on the debate?

Client 1 – Ill health meant this person could not work and had to claim benefits. He fell into mortgage arrears. His mortgage company said they would only accept interest only payments for six months, so now he has to pay £375 per month to cover the repayment part of his mortgage. He receives £303pm Employment Support Allowance. He hopes to be able to return to work but cannot afford to pay priorities at present from the £5.77 a week he has left.

Client 2 – Her husband suffered a stroke. He had been self-employed for many years, but is now unable to work. She has had to cease working in order to be his full time carer. They have mortgage and utility debt. They do also have non-priority debt, but have taken responsibility for it and have a payment plan via Step Change, but are still struggling to pay for essentials.

Client 3 - Worked solidly since leaving school until a mental health condition meant he was unable to continue working at age 47. He is managing to pay all of his priority bills but has catalogue debt and a very high oil bill as he is not on the mains gas supply. He tried to get advice, but had only heard of the Citizens Advice Bureau and, as his local office had closed, he thought there was nowhere else to  go.

Client 4 – Her husband was made redundant then, shortly after, found he had a critical illness. She needs to care for him full time so is unable to work. They have utility arrears only and are struggling to pay bills.

Client 5 – Separated from her husband, she is unable to work due to a disability. She applied for PIP in September, but is still waiting for a decision. Meanwhile she is surviving on £70 a week ESA. She only owes the council for dinner money as no-one told her she was eligible for free school meals.

Yes, Katie Hopkins, in an ideal world we would all work in well paid jobs. We would all save up for non-essential purchases. We would all insure against ill health and redundancy. However, I live in the real world and this just isn’t possible for most people who live here too. Wages are stretched too thin to be able to think about saving. Sickness and redundancy insurance are non-priorities and not available to the self employed.

Not all debt is due to reckless spending and irresponsible lending, it’s also caused by not having enough money to be able to manage day to day. Are people who work and borrow from the bank to buy a car so they can travel to work any better than the person who buys a sofa from Brighthouse? No, they are just the same. They are just luckier to have more options available to them.

Saving is even harder for those on benefits. How can you save when you have £70 per week to live on and are not able to find work or are not in a position to look for work due to ill health or caring responsibilities? How can you save when out of your £70 a week you have to pay £23 'bedroom tax', £10 gas, £10 electric, £10 water, £3.50 TV licence and £5 child support, leaving £8.50 for food, travel, phone and clothes?

What were your thoughts on the Debt Debate? Do you agree with Katie Hopkins or with Kath Hopkins?


Kath Hopkins
Money Advisor 

Why the Care & Repair Service is essential to Occupational Therapy intervention

Being discharged home from hospital can be an anxious and worrying time for some individuals. At times people are concerned that they may be unable to get around their home and care for themselves as they did previously, and individuals are often concerned about how they are going to meet the financial burden of not only maintaining their home but also for funding essential care services. The Care & Repair service has played an integral role in enabling occupational therapists to discharge people home from hospital efficiently and safely and in alleviating some of these concerns.

Care & Repair is a reliable and efficient service that, through the installation of small adaptations such as handrails and stair rails or through major building work such as adapted bathrooms, allows people to live in their own homes independently. The comprehensive service that Care & Repair provides enables smooth transition from hospital to home, reducing their length of stay in hospital and preventing readmissions.

Work is consistently completed to a high standard and in a timely manner by qualified technicians who understand the needs of the patient.

As well as providing practical assistance with repairs and adaptations, Care & Repair also provides advice and information regarding benefits, home safety and security.

Without the Care & Repair service, occupational therapists would be unable to address many of the concerns and needs of their client group.


Rachael Gdesis
Advanced Practitioner Occupational Therapist
Princess of Wales Hospital

Challenging the Benefits Street stereotypes

The Channel 4 documentary Benefits Street focuses on people living in one particular street in Birmingham – a city where we, the Accord Group, work.

It has immediately become the subject of hard hitting headlines, the hot topic on Twitter and Facebook and reignited a topic that polarises Britain – the benefits system.

Having worked in social housing for 25 years, I’ve had the pleasure of meeting hundreds of people in Birmingham and across the Midlands from many different walks of life.

I’ve met pensioners, young single mothers, women who have fled domestic violence, ex-offenders, people with disabilities and people in low paid jobs, just to name a few.

What do all these people have in common? They’ve all, in some way, needed state support to get by in life and a helping hand at a difficult time. Should they all be labelled as 'scroungers' as a consequence? We don’t think so.


Here are some facts you may find interesting:

• In 2012, 18% of working-age households were workless, but only 2% of cases demonstrated that no one had ever worked – dispelling a myth that we are overrun with generations of feckless families who have never had gainful employment.

• It is estimated (for 2011-12) that 0.8% of total benefit expenditure was overpaid as a result of fraud, again challenging a common view that benefit expenditure is high because of fraudsters and cheats.

• Interesting, the proportion of housing benefit claimants who are in work is rising to fast approach the one million mark. These are those people who work but are on low pay. A sign perhaps that wages are not keeping up with the ever increasing cost of living?

• It is estimated that over 55% of the local government workforce are entitled to some form of in-work benefits* and yet help to provide some of the most essential services in the country.

There will also be a significant percentage of health services workers also in receipt of state benefits. Are these people 'scroungers' too?

It’s time to put down the labels and challenge the knee-jerk assumptions and stereotypes about people who claim benefits.

Concentrating on creating sustainable, well-paid jobs, economic growth and affordable housing that really is affordable, would be far more profitable than constantly attacking those individuals and households for whom a benefit claim is the only way they can survive.

Dr Chris Handy OBE
Chief Executive of the Accord Group (www.accordgroup.org.uk - @theaccordgroup)


*New Policy Institute Report - TAX CREDITS: POLICY ISSUES FOR UNISON

Three things we should learn from Benefits Street

Apart from the unfortunate title, Benefits Street is pretty good.

Having seen the first two episodes I genuinely can’t understand what the fuss is about.

It’s a great piece of commercial television (think – My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding) that’s designed to shock.

And , boy , have we fallen for it.

Primetime TV + Benefits = Bang: The Twitter Liberal Left erupt in a perfectly predictable frenzy.

But by dismissing the show out of hand (I reckon less than 10% of people tweeting about it have actually watched it) we miss vital opportunities.

• We don’t learn from people who are superb storytellers and know how to construct a genuinely populist narrative. (Something the social housing sector has failed to do time after time)

• We don’t learn lessons about the way our organisations have failed to connect with some communities, and have contributed to their social exclusion.
• We get distracted and start indulging in petty campaigns (petitions to get it taken off air – for heaven’s sake!) rather than thinking big and innovating.
  

If we did more listening and a little less talking we would pick up three important lessons:


1. You change hearts and minds with stories not statistics

The past couple of weeks have seen a number of infographics and articles that aim to challenge the actual size of the welfare problem or show that tax avoiders are the bigger issue.

All of which are very interesting and probably correct but serve no purpose whatsoever in moving the debate forward.

Does anybody think that someone with an entrenched belief that welfare is a lifestyle choice gets one of these things in their inbox and says “Oh. I see. I was wrong all along. Apologies”.

Of course not. The producers of Benefits Street know that storytelling trumps statistics every time. As Thom Bartley points out in his latest post:

“The public doesn’t respond to blah blah million lost off a balance sheet, they respond to the story about a mother losing benefit because her disabled kid uses an extra room”


2. Real people tell a better story than professionals

This is the master stroke of Benefits Street. They’ve allowed people to speak for themselves. The professionals who help and, sometimes, hinder their lives are mercifully absent.

Here’s how we are referred to:

• Letter from Work Programme provider: “What f*****g work programme? I’ve never worked in my life”

• DWP changing payments: “There’s going to be riots soon unless people start getting paid”

• Housing: “These landlords think they are clever (chasing rent). They’ll have to pay to go court and it’ll take you about a year and a half”
  

So – not a great level of advocacy for the agencies who are paid millions to support them.

The residents come across as likeable, aware of their own shortcomings and display a deep sense of community.

It’s refreshing to hear the impact of reforms – positive and negative- untainted by professional bias. We need more of this.


3. The best ideas come from communities

The greatest thing about the programme are the many innovations that residents employ to get through their day to day lives.

These are not people without talent.

They are people who have existed in a system that has concentrated on what they can’t do rather than what they can.

I see more innovation on display on James Turner Street than I see across many organisations. Some examples:

• Neighbourhood mouthpiece “White Dee” using a community favours scheme to get a guy to save money for clothes and not blow it on drink and drugs.

• The “50p Man” who sells household essentials like washing powder in smaller affordable portions. He came up with the idea in prison and dreams of turning it into a national franchise.

• The Romanians turning trash into cash – literally going through bins.
  

One of the problems across the social sector is there’s too much top down innovation and an over reliance on tech based solutions.

We need to listen to communities, seed fund some grass roots projects and get out of the way.

The only real problem with Benefits Street , as Charlie Brooker has pointed out , is that title.

It’s designed to get your back up.

So let’s stop falling for it.

Now is the time for big transformational innovation.

Now is the time for our very best social innovators to work with the residents of James Turner Street and others like them.

• We could fund the likes of White Dee to become a Community Connector.

• We could try a localised approach to job creation and a resident led Work Programme.

• We could create a new deal for tenants rather than just moving them in and leaving them to it.

• We could have a social accelerator programme to scale up business ideas – like the 50p man.

• We could attempt to pilot a whole new system of benefits and help the Government out rather than sitting around willing Universal Credit to fail (Matt Leach outlines just such an approach in his excellent post here)
  

Or we could just get angry on Twitter, do battle with Daily Mail readers and become ever more polarised in our views.

I know how I want to spend my time.

How about you?


Paul Taylor
Innovation Coach

Read Paul's original blog post here.

I don't buy food

CHC hold training events at our head office and there's often leftover food at lunchtime. We’re informed about this in an email… Come and get it! What happens next? Yes, there's an almighty scramble to the kitchen for the chance of a free lunch or a nibble of a piece of cake. But, hold on, how many people need this? Those who haven't prepared lunch, the majority, will say they need this food. Others will say it will only go to waste, the cheese sarnies always do. But is this real need? The numbers taking advantage of this meal are increasing. Would you turn down a free lunch? Or would it be any different if someone told you that they’d do your weekly shopping today for free and deliver it to the end of your street for free? I for one can be honest enough to say I would never give up the chance of free food.

Foodbanks and food parcels have become an established part of communities across the UK. Many communities need them to survive the deep cuts to welfare, and some communities who run them are 'doing their bit for the poor as part of the Big Society'. But what experiences have tenants had with them? Is it a free meal, as Lord Freud describes it, or is there a real need? A tenant living in Blaenau Gwent told me about the food parcels that arrive at their local Community Centre every other week. 'It’s chaos, like a scene from Africa. Everyone runs out and opens up the packages, trying to get the best things. You know, sweets and stuff.' There's no assessment of need and the whole thing lives up to the free meal stereotype. Another tenant tells me of having to pray before receiving a parcel, as most foodbanks are run by religious organisations. Finally, a tenant asks me, ‘What would you do with 12 bottles of tomato ketchup with a hint of balsamic vinegar?’ Ideas on a postcard? Contrary to Zoe Williams' belief, food parcels do contain luxuries. Champagne is the most expensive product I’ve been told about.

The reasons for increasing use of foodbanks have been cited as a change in benefit, a sanction or a delay, or use of payday loans. However, these have all been around for several years now, therefore the recent welfare reforms are not the reason. The problem lies with benefit take up, application and processing. Payday loans are another problem altogether. Welfare reform is exacerbating these reasons for use, and this is set to get worse with possible 7 week delays for Universal Credit payments which will see the desperate Friday become a desperate week. Weekly or fortnightly payments often leave households in desperate financial situations in the last days between payments, and stories of parents not eating on a day or weekend prior to payment is common. However, when monthly UC payments start these days will accumulate into the 4th week, and there is a real danger of parents trying to go several days without food. Food parcels will therefore become an essential need for many.

One of the reasons UC is being rolled out is to increase personal responsibility of finances and to combat the 'I don't pay rent' belief. However, the ever increasing use of food parcels is creating the same problem. Last month, I heard the phrase ‘I don’t buy food, I get one of those voucher things’ for the first time when asking someone about their expenditure on food. What Lord Freud doesn't understand is that changes to welfare benefits are not recognised by claimants in the same way that policy makers see them. Advice agencies used to assist people in desperate need to claim a crisis loan or community care grant, but now they pass on a food voucher. Has the social fund been replaced by foodbanks? Claimants are beginning to believe so and are therefore seeing food as another entitlement. 'I don't buy food'.


Paul Langley
Senior Money Adviser