- Carole Haywood/Michael Holmes, Policy and Partnerships
Minutes:
Carole Haywood and Michael Holmes, Policy and Partnerships, gave the following presentation:-
The Big Things
- Child Poverty Act 2010 – national and local Government to reduce child poverty and mitigate its impact
- Welfare Reform Act 2012 – save money, “make work pay” and simplify the benefits system via Universal Credit
- After peaking at 29% in 1992, relative child poverty fell steadily from mid-90s due to rising employment/Tax Credits and, more recently, stagnating wages (i.e. reduced poverty threshold)
- Poverty projected to increase during this decade as a result of benefit changes; Universal Credit should reduce poverty but was behind schedule
- A recent study put the annual cost of child poverty at £29B including £15B in services to deal with its consequences
“State of the Nation”
- 2.3M UK children (1 in 6) in relative income poverty, absolute poverty up by 275,000 in 2011/12
- 2/3s of Britain’s poor children – compared to less than ½ in 1997, were now in working families
- Coalition’s approach to deficit reduction was:-
· Affecting young more that old and those with children more than those without
· Seeing low income families, especially lone parents, lose out by more than their peers as a proportion of their net income
- Report’s recommendations include:
· Increased focus on ensuring work pays so that parents who “do the right thing” were able to escape poverty
· Adapt Universal Credit and wider Welfare Reform Programme to better tackle in-work poverty (e.g. increase funding for childcare within Universal Credit to incentivise work)
· Work with employers to devise actions for lifting earnings without damaging employment
- Strong focus on emulating Nordic countries particularly in providing “universal, affordable and high quality” childcare
Impact of Welfare Reform
- Analysis by IFS suggested increase from 2.3M to 3.4M children living in poverty between 2010/11 and 2020/21
- Welfare Benefits Up-rating Act: 4.4M couples with children and 2M lone parents affected; CPAG suggested this alone would increase child poverty by 200,000
- Cumulative impact: Sheffield Hallam University research estimated loss of income in Rotherham to reach £91M per annum; 37% of this was due to IB/ESA and DLA/PIP changes
- Anecdotal evidence that increased “conditionality” and use of sanctions by DWP was a growing problem – families providing evidence to Council’s Scrutiny Review
- New Policy Institute’s annual report – level of benefits for families with children was around 60% of what the public considered to be a minimum standard of living
Real Life Reform
- Looking at impact of Welfare Reform on social housing tenants. Findings to date included:-
· 36% of participants had no money left over after paying for essentials
· Average spend on food per person per day was £2.10 in October down from £3.27 in July
· In October, 83% said that benefit changes would affect the health of people in the household (down from 88% in July)
· Over 60% feared that benefit changes would affect their children’s education
Poverty: the Local Picture
- 22.6% of Rotherham children lived in poverty (2011 figures) – 13,205 children
· 50% in poverty in 11 most deprived neighbourhoods vs 3% in least deprived
- Latest census: 16.7% of households with dependent children had no-one in work (14.3% nationally)
· East Herringthorpe/Canklow over 44%
- Lone parents – 42% not working though employment had increased significant due to benefit changes
- Over 30,000 working age people claimed DWP benefits (almost 1/5), 41$ of whom had been claiming for over 5 years
- Almost 1 in 3 adults in Rotherham were over-indebted, placing us amongst the highest 8% of local authority areas
Local Response
- Health and Wellbeing Strategy, Early Help and response to Welfare Reform all concerned with tackling poverty
- Child Poverty Needs Assessment – last produced in late 2010
- Need to ensure efforts were joined up working towards clearly defined objectives
- Allocation of “anti-poverty” resources should be evidence based with measurable impact/outcomes
Food Banks
- Demand had increased over the last year; issues with DWP benefits had been a factor
- Estimated that, in total, organisations provided around 600 food parcels and 2,200 cooked meals per month
- Citizens Advice Bureau referred 85 people in November/December many due to benefit delays/sanctions
- More detailed data on food bank users to be collected as part of new scheme with FareShare Yorkshire
Benefit Cap
- 27 Council tenants affected with weekly benefit loss ranging from £3 to £143. Similar number of non-Council tenants also capped. Most of the Council tenants were in rent arrears
- Direct support had been provided through existing family support structures and NAS Financial Inclusion Team
- Families given budgeting advice and helped to apply for DHPs
Housing
- Just under 4,000 Rotherham claimants affected by “Bedroom Tax” – 1,312 had children. Average weekly reduction of approximately £13
- Estimated that Bedroom Tax had increased arrears by £50K per month even with DHPs to mitigate
- Anecdotal evidence of increased stress and families struggling to cope/understand changes
- Joint CYPS/NAS proposal developed for an outreach service targeting families with evictions pending
Council Tax
- Under new local scheme, around 11,300 people were now required to pay having previously received full benefit; further 4,400 had to pay more than previously
- Nearly 8,000 of them had dependent children
- Around 6,600 Summons had been sent to the customers and over 4,000 Liability Orders obtained
- Overall significant rise in defaults with 80% increase in the numbers of both reminders and Summons issued and a 57% increase in Court cases for non-payment
DWP Sanctions
- Increase in sanctions of – particularly – JSA claimants for not meeting increasingly stringent requirements
- Families for Change, Citizens Advice Bureau, food banks, reporting that this was causing major problems
- From July, 2013 to 014, the Citizens Advice Bureau had dealt with 1,092 clients of whom 313 identified themselves as having dependent children. The total number of clients supported with all areas of law, including benefits, housing, employment etc. was 2,795 of whom 871 identified themselves as having dependent children
- Council’s Scrutiny session with sanctioned claimants outlined problems/stress and important of support from FRP/FFC
- Exacerbated mental health problems, worried about food and heating, panicked, problems snowballed, harder to find work
Laser Credit Union
- Around 4,500 members, large number of whom are single mums
· Increase in emergency loan requests due to DWP sanctions
· Estimated 70% in arrears with rent and/or Council Tax
· Tended to be prioritised over other debts so could be assumed that overall debt was increasing
· Fund for Change had paid out over 1,100 crisis loans for total of £140K with 70% needing money for food and bills
- Citizens Advice Bureau had seen 333 people for debt issues since July, around 40% of their clients had dependent children
Building Resilience in Newham
- “We need a welfare state that helps grow personal, community and economic resilience so that people are able to overcome life’s challenges and participate in the good life”
- Life Changing Fund – interest free, flexible loan fund to help people make a positive change
- Workplace – one-stop-shop for careers advice, training, recruitment
- “Every Child” Programme – universal provision for primary school children, including music, sport and reading based initiatives
Future Policy Direction
- Chancellor: “the next government will want to undertake further reductions in the welfare budget”; housing benefit likely to be targeted
- New welfare cap could see further cuts to working age benefits
- Possible further reductions to benefit cap and child benefits
- Government have axed funding for local welfare provision
- Universal Credit off track and Autumn statement’s freezing of Universal Credit Work Allowance will hit the working poor
- Labour unlikely to change course dramatically though have opposed the Bedroom Tax and, on a positive note, have talked about moving towards free universal childcare
Discussion ensued on the presentation with the following raised/clarified:-
- A review had been conducted regarding the advice on money and debt issued in the Borough. In June a contract would be commissioned that brought together all the different elements with 1 provider
- There were some very large families which were substantially affected by current and future benefit cuts and where it would never be worth the parents working because of the number of children they had – greater use of Section 17 payments by families to prop up other means of support
- There was evidence that the Government’s overall aim to change people’s attitude to work and employability was working in Rotherham – the Job Seekers Allowance number had reduced significantly particularly within young people (16.4% from November, 2012 to November, 2013)
- The National Work Programme tended to focus on people closer to the job market and isolated those furthest away. The European Structural Fund was minimal so a long term solution was required. The key was to help more people get the skills they needed to find employment and not for the Partnership to replace income lost through the Welfare Reform Programme
- Although some of the families were the ones worked with through Families for Change, a number were those that were “under the radar”, never came forward for help and were desperately trying to do what they could with the money they had. They may be struggling financially but socially fine
- Need for the Child Poverty Needs Assessment to be updated within the context of the Health and Wellbeing Strategy
- To date a lot of the work had been supporting those who were in receipt of benefit when actually the whole picture needed to be considered
- £91M of spending power was being lost to the town. How could the environment be stimulated and jobs generated which would link back to a community moving from dependent to independent
- For many employment was hindered by the payment for child care
- The DWP could assist with preparing CVs, access to the internet and training courses. Universal Job Match was a matching service available to all
Carole and Michael were thanked for their presentation.