Radio prog on benefits

[MeSci]

Sorry about short notice but kept forgetting! It should be available to listen online here after broadcast.

Benefit Sanctions
File on 4

Benefit sanctions are supposed to be part of a system helping people back to work. But critics say they penalise the vulnerable and are among the reasons for the growing use of food banks. So how fair is the Government's system of withholding state payments for those who don't comply with welfare rules? Allan Urry hears from whistleblowers who allege some JobCentrePlus staff are setting claimants up to fail in order to meet internal performance targets. Why did a recovering amputee lose his benefits because he didn't answer the phone?

Today (Tuesday 20th Jan 2015) 20:00
BBC Radio 4

repeated Sun 25 Jan 2015 17:00
BBC Radio 4

 

[worldbackwards]

I just got round to listening to this - I had to work myself up to it, but I think it's important to know the system as much as possible.

What is striking about this business is the government's constant obfuscation, stonewalling, no-shows and generally bad faith in the whole process. Welfare 'reform' has been characterised by an persistent inability of ministers to front up for their decisions or provide data on their consequences in all settings, safe in the knowledge that the public are either apathetic to claimants or, in fact, openly hostile. In the meantime, everyone either suffers or has the next round of Kafkaesque viciousness potentially hanging over them.

There was a point at the end where the presenter asked an expert what part of the sanctions regime worked well. He replied 'Nothing'. I'd almost find it funny if, after the period of grace provided by the reassessments backlog, my head wasn't going to be back on the block.

 

[MeSci]

I'd almost find it funny if, after the period of grace provided by the reassessments backlog, my head wasn't going to be back on the block.

Good luck.

I'm just metaphorically sprinting towards November next year when I will finally get my state pension, and hoping to get there before they decide to reassess my Working Tax Credit for Universal Credit, and decide that I'm not making enough from self-employment to qualify.

If I were making the kind of amount they seem to expect, I wouldn't need tax credits. I would probably be making more if I hadn't been made more ill by a prescribed drug, which I stayed on for 7 years as no doctors picked up on why my health had worsened, and I was blamed for it instead.

Everything is our fault, of course.

Will they really start chasing over-60s eventually...?

 

[worldbackwards]

Will they really start chasing over-60s eventually...?

No, you all vote!

 

[Esther12]

So far, the stuff from the BBC on this has been pretty bad. Pleased to hear it sounding like this dug a bit deeper than normal.