ATOS

[go.oot.by.dog]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2013/mar/27/benefit-cuts-poverty-stopped-experts

 

Benefit cuts putting 200,000 children in poverty must be stopped, experts say

Letter signed by more than 50 social policy professors warns poorest tenth of households lose equivalent of 38% income

 

Senior welfare experts have urged the government to reconsider benefit cuts coming into force next week that will disproportionately hit the poorest families and push a further 200,000 children into poverty.

 

In an open letter to David Cameron, published in the Guardian, more than 50 social policy professors warn that the welfare reforms, coupled with previous tax, benefit and public expenditure cuts, will result in the poorest tenth of households losing the equivalent of around 38% of their income.

 

They say the changes will undermine public support for the welfare state – which they call "one of the hallmarks of a civilised society".

 

"Welfare states depend on a fair collection and redistribution of resources, which in turn rests upon the maintenance of trust between different sections of society and across generations.

 

"Misleading rhetoric concerning those who have to seek support from the welfare state, such as the contrast between 'strivers' and 'shirkers', risks undermining that trust and, with it, one of the key foundations of modern Britain."

 

The letter argues that such rhetoric does not reflect the reality of a UK where families move fluidly in and out of work and in and out of poverty.

 

It adds: "In the interests of fairness and to protect the poorest, as well as to avoid the risk of undermining the consensus on the British welfare state, we urge you to increase taxation progressively on the better off, those who can afford to pay (including ourselves), rather than cutting benefits for the poorest."

 

The letter follows growing concern among charities, campaigners and local authorities about the combined impact on vulnerable individuals and households of welfare changes and cuts to local authority budgets.

 

A separate report compiled by academics from six UK universities concludes that Britain's poorest are worse off today than they were at the height of the cuts imposed by Margaret Thatcher's Conservative government in 1983.

 

The Poverty and Exclusion project reports that 33% of British households lacked at least three basic living necessities in 2012, compared with 14% in 1983. These include living in adequately heated homes, eating healthily, and owning basic clothing items such as properly fitting shoes.

 

"Despite the fact that the UK is a much wealthier country, levels of deprivation are going back to the levels found 30 years ago," says the report, titled The Impoverishment of The UK.

 

Some of the findings are featured in an ITV Tonight programme titled Breadline Britain on Thursday evening.

 

The report found:

 

• Around 4 million adults and almost 1 million children lack at least one basic item of clothing, such as a warm winter coat, while 3 million adults of working age (including over a fifth of those looking for work) cannot afford appropriate clothes for a job interview.

 

• Roughly 4 million children and adults are not fed properly judged against what most people consider to be a minimally acceptable diet – meaning they do not eat three meals a day, including fresh fruit, meat, fish and vegetables. Over a quarter of all adults skimped on meals so others in their households could eat.

 

• One-third of all adults can't afford to pay unexpected costs of £500 (such as if a cooker breaks down), 31% can't afford to save at least £20 a month, and 1 million children can't afford to join sports training or drama clubs.

 

• About 11 million people cannot afford adequate housing conditions and nearly one in ten households are unable to afford to fully heat their home.

 

The project measures who and how many people fall below what the majority agree are "necessities for life" in the UK today. The list of necessities also includes consumer items such as a washing machine and a telephone, and social activities like visiting friends and family in hospital.

 

"The results present a remarkably bleak portrait of life in the UK today and the shrinking opportunities faced by the bottom third of UK society," said the head of the project, Professor David Gordon of Bristol University. "Moreover this bleak situation will get worse as benefit levels fall in real terms, real wages continue to decline and living standards are further squeezed."

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And i also read that people who are falling upon hard times and are applying for a crisis loan are now going to be offered food vouchers in some areas instead of money! Why not just give them a big pointy hat with "I AM POOR" written all over it and attach a wee microphone to that person which blasts out "I have had to go and apply for food vouchers today as i am poor" would you be happy then you F****** P**** Camoron

 

But remember Mr Camoron says "We are all in this together"...........

[go.oot.by.dog]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2013/mar/27/benefit-cuts-undermine-civilised-society

 

Benefit cuts and rhetoric undermine a bastion of civilised society

 

As the UK's leading experts on social policy and the welfare state, we urge the government to reconsider the benefit cuts scheduled for 1 April and to ensure that no further public spending cuts are targeted on the poorest in our society. We have two major concerns.

 

First, as the government's own impact assessment has demonstrated, the 1% uprating in the Welfare Benefits Up-rating Act will have a disproportionate effect on the poorest. Families with children will be particularly hard hit, pushing a further 200,000 children into poverty. In addition, those with low to middle earnings and single-earner households will be caught by the 1% limit on tax credit rates. These new cuts come on top of the cumulative impact of previous tax, benefit and public expenditure cuts which have already meant the equivalent to a loss of around 38% of net income for the poorest tenth of households and only 5% for the richest tenth.

 

Second, the welfare state is one of the hallmarks of a civilised society. All developed countries have them and the less developed ones are striving to establish their own. Welfare states depend on a fair collection and redistribution of resources, which in turn rests upon the maintenance of trust between different sections of society and across generations. Misleading rhetoric concerning those who have to seek support from the welfare state, such as the contrast between "strivers" and "shirkers", risks undermining that trust and, with it, one of the key foundations of modern Britain.

 

In fact the divisions are not so simple. For example, the borderline between low and no pay is fluid. Families move in and out of work and in and out of poverty. Around one in six of economically active people have claimed jobseeker's allowance at least once in the last two years (almost 5 million people). The record level of youth unemployment accounts for most of those households where no one has ever worked. Around 6.5 million people are underemployed and want to work more. The 50% rise in families receiving working tax credits since 2003 reflects the 20% increase in the working poor, as one in five women and one in seven men earn less than £7 per hour. Now the majority of children and working-age adults in poverty live in working, not workless, households.

 

In the interests of fairness and to protect the poorest, as well as to avoid the risk of undermining the consensus on the British welfare state, the government should increase taxation progressively on the better off, those who can afford to pay (including ourselves), rather than cutting benefits for the poorest.

Professor Peter Alcock University of Birmingham

Professor SJ Banks University of Durham

Professor Marion Barnes University of Brighton

Professor Saul Becker University of Nottingham

Professor Tim Blackman Open University

Professor Hugh Bochel University of Lincoln

Professor John Clarke Open University

Professor Gary Craig University of Durham

Professor Guy Daly Derby University

Professor Alan Deacon University of Leeds

Professor Bob Deacon University of Sheffield

Professor Nicholas Deakin

Professor V Drennan Kingston University

Professor Hartley Dean LSE

Professor Simon Duncan University of Bradford

Professor Peter Dwyer University of Salford

Professor RS Edwards University of Southampton

Professor Nick Ellison University of Leeds

Professor Norman Ginsburg London Metropolitan University

Professor Ian Gough LSE

Professor Caroline Glendinning University of York

Professor Paul Higgs UCL

Professor Michael Hill

Professor Julian LeGrand LSE

Professor Ruth Lister University of Loughborough

Professor Linda McKie University of Durham

Professor John Macnicol LSE

Professor Nigel Malin University of Sunderland

Professor Nicholas Mayes London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine

Professor Jane Millar University of Bath

Professor Michael Noble University of Oxford

Professor JS O'Connor University of Ulster

Professor Jan Pahl University of Kent

Professor J Parker University of Bournemouth

Professor S Peckham University of Kent

Professor Lucinda Platt Institute of Education

Professor Randall Smith University of Bristol

Professor Tess Ridge University of Bath

Professor D Robinson Sheffield Hallam University

Professor Karen Rowlingson University of Birmingham

Professor Kirstein Rummery Stirling University

Professor Adrian Sinfield University of Edinburgh

Professor Peter Taylor-Gooby University of Kent

Professor Alan Walker University of Sheffield

Professor Carol Walker University of Lincoln

Professor Robert Walker University of Oxford

Professor Jane Wheelock University of Newcastle

Professor John Veit-Wilson University of Newcastle

Professor Fiona Williams University of Leeds

Professor Nicola Yeates Open University

 

• I was very worried to read that some councils in England will be replacing crisis loans for people experiencing a financial emergency with food vouchers (Report, 27 March). Not only is this deeply stigmatising for people who are already extremely vulnerable, it also doesn't take into account why they might need the emergency funds. A broken boiler or higher than expected fuel bill are often enough to push people into poverty, and forcing them to go to charity-run food banks for handouts is a Dickensian act.

 

Oxfam works in many of the world's poorest countries, where cash transfers are forming the basis of an increasing volume of humanitarian aid. In some countries that face chronic food shortages, cash transfer programmes have proven to be more efficient and effective than repeated emergency food aid. It is astounding that we would take such a backward step here in the UK and pick apart the safety net that the social fund was designed to provide.

 

We commend the scheme Manchester city council is running, to offer people low-interest loans through a credit union rather than food vouchers, and believe all councils should be taking this more humane approach.

[go.oot.by.dog]

http://i1359.photobucket.com/albums/q799/magnacube/67259318-e439-4022-8392-6654c02b02a5_zpse0522f07.jpg

[go.oot.by.dog]

http://i1359.photobucket.com/albums/q799/magnacube/ce78d4a3-88a4-4d80-a9cd-34688fd3923c_zps1f613d4a.jpg

[shetlandpeat]

Rabbi Debbie Young-Somers is one of our religious leaders who is seeing, and dealing with the ConDemNation policy.

 

http://rabbidebbie.blogspot.co.uk/2012/01/hearing-voice-of-moses.html

 

Sadly, within this thread, we do not see those who want to comment for the ConDem plan but have mentioned that this has to happen in other threads. Perhaps that this is the stark reality of those they support and their beliefs. I wonder how any one can support this. The Tories have always used provocative language that the right wing papers elaborate on to stigmatise groups. It has always been their way, from at least a time I remember taking an interest in their actions.

Never have I seen so many protests, marches, groups campaigning for social minimums to be maintained, strikes, millionaires, worried public sector workers, worried social tenants, the suffering of the elderly, the poor stigmatised, the young loosing the best part of their life and suicides.

The sad thing is, at a local level, you become a ConDem because of a social network you are in, not because you want to be the hammer of the poor. Yet, they will not change for fear of loosing the odd night out.

 

Nick Clegg said the Conservative Party were like a shopping trolley that continually steers to the right. Yet, he is the one sat in the baby seat shackled by the restraints of loosing power.

[go.oot.by.dog]

I am quite surprised\disappointed at the lack of interest shown by others at the way in which the most vulnerable are being treated by the Government but on the flip side i am happy that there seems to be little criticism against what i am trying to highlight for those who are unable to do so through ill health, disability and the inability to speak up for themselves so i do take that as a positive. I have always had Shetlanders down as people who are caring people i mean you only have to look at all the monies raised for Clan, Cancer Research, Children In Need and many other worth while causes so i just hope that they will also look out for their less well off in these very hard times that are being imposed on them, and please do not judge them all as scroungers and skivers as they are being labeled by the ConDems.

 

Unfortunately i have not heard or seen much support coming from our local MPs regarding these inhumane cuts which is very disheartening. I did see that Malcolm Bell was contacting Mr Carmichael regarding the bedroom tax but have not heard of any reply other than him saying something along the lines of "if the money does not come from there it has to come from somewhere else" which is not much support for anyone who may be facing eviction due to this disgrace of a tax which he actually voted for.

 

I do wonder if the voters here will still be giving their vote to the Lib Dems when the time comes as i think they have lost a lot of support due to their partnership with the Tories.

 

Maybe it is time to vote for Independence?

 

Can it be any worse than what we have now?

 

Benefits capped at 1% which means a real time loss when you take in inflation.

 

Yet Cooperation tax is being cut for businesses.

 

The bedroom tax taking money and more than likely peoples homes from them.

 

Yet no mansion tax.

 

Atos causing the deaths of more than 10600 people which is more than has been lost to terrorism in Britain. With 42 out of every 100 decisions being found to be wrong and overturned on appeal.

 

Yet they still manage to get more contracts from the Government with the new PIP assessments which are about to start.

 

And Mr Osbourne is not happy about the fact the EU are wanting to cap bankers bonuses at 100% of their salary as it is not enough for the poor wee chaps.

 

Yet it is mainly down to the bankers that we are in this mess.

 

Jobseekers being forced to work for nothing thus giving them no chance to actually look for work which will pay.

 

Yet if they do not comply and do it their benefits will be stopped. And they are working for multinational companies making millions of pounds and why would they give anyone a paid job when they can get free labour.

 

I could go on all day...........

 

But remember bairns "WE ARE ALL IN THIS TOGETHER"

 

Enough said will have to go as the old blood pressure is rising faster than the national debt.

[go.oot.by.dog]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/mar/28/problem-food-stamps

 

The problem with food stamps is that people need more than food

Prepaid cards have their use, but prescribing what they can buy is folly – what use is food when your boiler has broken down?

 

This week, the Guardian exposed a worrying development in the localisation of the discretionary payments of the social fund. On reviewing several local schemes to replace this soon-to-be scrapped national system, it found that many were opting for food stamp-style payments, which can only be used to buy food.

 

There are several issues to raise here. The first is that, in expressing concern about this, I don't think anyone would suggest that local authorities ought not to carefully account for this money. The clue is in the name – these are discretionary payments, not like benefits, which are an entitlement for people in return for national insurance contributions. This is money provided by the state for those in an unexpected financial crisis. So there is an in-built assumption that emergency grants are only given for essential purchases – a replacement fridge, for example.

 

Under the old system, applications for community care grants (one of the payments in the social fund) required people to list the items they needed, and managers would award a grant based on an estimate of the cost. It is important to remember that non-essential items were excluded – beds were in, pot plants were out. And it worked pretty well – a National Audit Office report in 2010 found that, while many applications included non-essential items (8% applied for money to buy a TV), they only found two individual cases in a sample of 1,000 where a grant had been awarded for non-essential items – and there were extenuating circumstances in both cases.

 

The NAO did conclude, however, that fraud wasn't monitored, and managers rarely checked to see if the money they awarded was actually being spent on the items in the application form. There are simple techniques to remedy this – the requirement of receipts, for example, or even a "prepaid card", like that mentioned in the news story.

 

But there are prepaid cards and prepaid cards. As I've argued previously, giving cash on "unrestricted" types of cards can be really useful in an emergency, as there's no delay in bank clearing. So when someone has a boiler breakdown on a Saturday night they can be given a card with money preloaded to get it sorted as soon as possible. These were handed out in stacks to displaced New Orleans residents after Hurricane Katrina, for example.

 

The problem with the new proposed systems is that they prescribe, in advance, precisely what those grants can be used for. So no longer do you list what you need and are assessed on an individual and discretionary basis – you are told what you can get, regardless of whether you need it. And it seems the majority of those reviewed by the Guardian have identified food, nappies and in some areas a bit of furniture. In some instances this might be administered via "restricted" cards – which presumably are blocked from use on anything other than the prescribed list.

 

The folly of such a system is obvious – what use is a food parcel for someone who needs an emergency grant because their boiler has broken down? The gap between what is needed and what is provided is where the danger lies. Black markets to resell the goods (or the cards) people don't need to purchase goods they do, and doorstep lenders to make up the inevitable shortfall, will proliferate. Moreover, using restricted cards can be administratively burdensome – the technology is such that you can block a shop, but not a product. You might be able to block an off-licence, but supermarkets sell alcohol. These practical difficulties, alongside ethical concerns, are why we at Demos advised against restricting how benefits are spent using prepaid cards, in our report The Power of Prepaid earlier this year.

 

And it perhaps seems obvious, but those who can't afford groceries are already being referred to the rapidly growing networks of food banks across the UK (opening at a rate of three a month). The local social fund replacement schemes seem only to be duplicating this process, rather than considering the range of non-food (often housing or child-related) emergencies faced by many. Perhaps the message is – use your last pennies on getting that hole in the ceiling fixed, and then apply for a grant to buy dinner?

 

It's a ludicrous situation, but we shouldn't blame local authorities. The localisation of the social fund – like council tax benefit – comes with a huge reduction in the amount available. This is not devolution of power, but a passing of responsibility to meet (growing) demand with drastically less money.

 

Local authorities are struggling on with a variety of solutions, and need to rely on local infrastructure for delivery – while food banks are now all over the place, furniture swap shops are harder to come by. Councils are to some extent bound by what's available in their local voluntary sectors in order to make the money go as far as possible. It is also entirely understandable that they have to use rather arbitrary eligibility rules to ensure the dwindling cash is reserved for the most urgent, life-threatening needs.

 

It's a sad state of affairs when the only emergency local authorities feel able to tackle is people having no food.

[go.oot.by.dog]

Tory ‘something-for-nothing’ culture: The real reason the economy has bombed

by Mike Sivier

 

"Getting them off-benefit is what we're going to do," yelled Iain Duncan Smith on Question Time last year. But why bother, when they can be so profitable for companies taking part in Mandatory Work Activity schemes?

 

"We're going to end the 'something-for-nothing' culture."

 

Sometimes a phrase stands out from everything else that's said around it, launches itself at your face and forces you to confront the enormity of the lie it encapsulates. You knew this was going to end badly, the moment Iain Duncan Smith (Vox Political's Monster of the Year, 2012, let's not forget) opened his face and uttered the words.

 

He was trying to say that people on Jobseekers' Allowance (JSA) should not expect to get the benefit without putting something back into society - totally bypassing the fact that they have either already paid towards it, via taxes paid while they were in a previous job, or they will in the future, when they manage to get a job (if such a thing is still achievable in a Tory-led UK).

 

This was to justify the many 'Mandatory Work Activity' schemes onto which jobseekers are currently being put by the thousands, and for which they are being paid only in JSA.

 

It was only a matter of time before someone identified the flaw in the logic, as Alex Andreou did in the New Statesman when he, rightly, wrote: "Such schemes do not end the “something for nothing cultureâ€. They simply elevate it to the corporate level."

 

How many weeks was Cait Reilly supposed to spend stacking shelves at Poundland - was it four? Let's say four. So assuming 30 hours a week, if she had been employed on the minimum wage, she would have earned £742.80.

 

Instead, she would have received JSA at, what, £56.25 per week? That's £225. From the taxpayer, not Poundland.

 

So Poundland, which runs more than 390 stores and whose annual profit in 2010 was £21,500,000, would have had the benefit of nearly £750 worth of work, for nothing. But the gravy train doesn't even stop there!

 

Employees of all profit-making companies are taken on because they add to the firm's profits in some way. Therefore we can assume that, as a result of a person stacking shelves at Poundland, a shopper will come along, see something the stacker has stacked, and buy it - creating a profit for the company.

 

How many times would this happen during a jobseeker's four-week tenure on 'Mandatory Work Activity'? There's no way of knowing. Let's apply a conservative estimate based on the standard levels of a fiscal multiplier, at the low end, and say that adds a further 60p to the value of every pound that Ms Reilly would have earned.

 

Total: 1,188.48 profit for Poundland.

 

Now multiply that by the number of people going through 'Mandatory Work Activity' and you'll see how much these companies are making, courtesy of the taxpayer - because, don't forget, working people are paying for jobseekers to make money for these firms. We know 878,000 people were put on these schemes between June 2011 and July 2012 - that comes out as 752,571 in a year, on average.

 

Total profit for companies using people on 'Mandatory Work Activity' should therefore be: £894,416,090. Nearly £1 billion.

 

Loss to the taxpayer: £16,933,000.*

 

If that isn't enough to get you hot under the collar, consider this: The profits created for companies by 'Mandatory Work Activity' go to company bosses and shareholders, all of whom may be expected to be rich already. They won't be putting that money back into the economy; they'll be banking it. Possibly offshore.

 

If they had employed those jobseekers and paid them at minimum wage, that would have put £559,010,060, per year, back into the economy. These workers would have spent the money in their communities, on commodities that they needed, thus providing a valuable boost to shops and businesses that have been deprived of this support by Coalition government policies.

 

And the companies concerned would still have made £335,406,030. More than a third of a billion pounds - not to be sniffed at!

 

It's mathematical proof of the Conservative Party's economic incompetence. Making the rich richer and the poor poorer will ruin the country.

[go.oot.by.dog]

Breadline Britain: Tonight

 

http://player.stv.tv/programmes/tonight/2013-03-28-1930/

 

Was not aware of any scroungers or skivers, however there were strivers, and what they all had in common was they were all living in abject poverty.

 

And that is before the dreadful cuts that are due next month are imposed on all of them.

[go.oot.by.dog]

http://www.gla.ac.uk/news/headline_273841_en.html

 

The Poverty and Social Exclusion in the UK Survey 2012: Headline results for Scotland

 

Issued: Thu, 28 Mar 2013 09:23:00 GMT

The Poverty and Social Exclusion in the UK Survey 2012:

 

Headline results for Scotland

 

The Poverty and Social Exclusion report is the result of two surveys undertaken in 2012 that spoke to over 2700 individuals in Scotland (and 14,000 across the UK). It is the largest and most authoritative study of poverty and deprivation ever conducted in the UK. The surveys asked people what they thought the minimum standard of living should be, and what standard of living they actually had. These headline results for Scotland highlights some of gaps between these two.

 

The first results from this study will be broadcast on ITV at 7.30pm on Thursday, March 28 in a special Tonight programme on ‘Breadline Britain’.

 

Inadequate housing

 

Over 1-in-5 people (21%) suffers from a damp, inadequately heated and/or poorly decorated home.

1-in-14 people lives in a damp home (7%).

1-in-12 people (8%) cannot afford to heat the living areas of their home.

1-in-7 people (15%) does note have enough money to keep their home in a decent state of decoration.

The majority of Scots (over 50%) think that everyone no one should have to suffer any of these things.

1-in-6 children (16%) lives in a home which is either damp or not adequately heated.

 

Going without food

 

Almost 1-in-20 people in Scotland (6%) is unable to afford an adequate diet.

The great majority of Scots (over 75%) think that all adults should be able to afford: two meals a day; fresh fruit and vegetables daily; and meat/fish or vegetarian equivalent every other day. 7% of adults lack at least one of these food item.

The great majority of Scots (over 75%) think that all children should have: three meals a day; fresh fruit and vegetables daily; and meat/fish or vegetarian equivalent every day. 3% of Scottish families contain children who lack at least one food item.

In all of the Scottish households where children lack a basic food item, at least one adult reported that they skimped on their own food so that others could have enough.

 

Insufficient clothing

 

1-in-14 adults (7%) cannot afford basic items of clothing: a warm, waterproof coat; and two pairs of all-weather shoes.

1-in-12 working-age adults cannot afford appropriate clothes for a job interview (8%). Among unemployed adults, the figure is more than 2-in-5 (41%).

The majority of Scots (over 50%) think that everyone should be able to afford all of these things. 1-in-9 adults (11%) lacks at least one.

The majority of Scots (over 50%) think that all children should have: a warm winter coat; new, properly fitting shoes; some new, not secondhand, clothes; at least 4 pairs of trousers, leggings or equivalent. 1-in-20 children (5%) has to go without one or more of these items.

 

Financial insecurity

 

Overall, almost 1-in-3 adults (32%) suffers from at least one of forms of financial insecurity.

1-in-12 households (9%) cannot afford household insurance.

1-in-4 adults (28%) is unable to save £20 a month for rainy days.

1-in-4 working age adults (23%) cannot afford to make regular payments into an occupational or private pension scheme.

The majority of Scots (over 50%) think that everyone should be able to afford all of these things.

 

Household goods

 

The majority of Scots (over 50%) think that everyone should be able to afford: a washing machine; a phone; curtains or blinds; a table and chairs; and to replace or repair broken electrical goods.

Almost 1-in-4 adults (24%) cannot afford one or more of these items.

Social activities

 

The majority of Scots (over 50%) believe that everyone should have sufficient money: to visit family/friends in hospital; to celebrate special occasions; to attend a wedding or funeral; to keep up a hobby; and to take part in sport or exercise. Almost 1-in-8 (13%) cannot afford one or more of these activities.

The majority of Scots (over 50%) believe that there should be enough money for children 5 and over: to be able to join in celebrations on special occasions; to keep up a hobby; to take part in clubs or activities; to go on day trips with the family once a month; to go on a school trip once a term; and to have a holiday away from home one week a year. Almost 1-in-3 children (32%) lack one or more of these activities. 1-in-6 (17%) lacks two or more.

 

Comparisons with the UK as a whole

 

In comparison to the UK as a whole, the picture of deprivation in Scotland is not quite as severe. For example, there are 22 items which the majority of the UK population thinks all adults should be able to afford. For the UK as a whole, 33% of adults lack 3 or more of these ‘necessities’ is 33%. For Scotland, the figure is 29%. Further work is needed to establish the reasons for this but one factor is likely to be the higher cost of housing in England, particularly in London and the South East. Other factors may be the differential impact of the economic downturn since 2009 on different areas.

 

Commenting on these findings, Nick Bailey of the University of Glasgow said:

 

“These findings paint a very bleak picture of life for large numbers of people living in low income households in Scotland today. There is little comfort in the fact that levels of deprivation appear to be even worse in the rest of the UK. The absolute numbers in Scotland are still shocking.â€

 

Trends over time

 

For Britain as a whole, we can compare the results for 2012 with those for similar surveys in 1983, 1990, and 1999. These show that the situation today is worse than it has been for the past thirty years. In 1983, 14% of the British population suffered from multiple deprivation by the standards set by the public. Today, it is 33%. For a significant and growing proportion of the population, living conditions and opportunities have been going backwards. Housing and heating conditions, in particular, have deteriorated rapidly.

 

The number of households unable to heat the living areas of their homes is at a record high – now 9% compared to 3% in the 1990s and 5% in 1983.

Overcrowding is as high as it was in 1983: today 9% of families cannot afford enough bedrooms for every child aged 10 or over of a different sex to have their own bedroom (back up from 3% in 1999).

The number of households unable to afford damp-free homes has risen from 6% in 1983 to10% now.

Increasing numbers of children lack items considered essential for a stimulating environment and for social participation and development. For example, the proportion of school age children unable to go on school trips at least once a term has risen from 2% in 1999 to 8% today.

[go.oot.by.dog]

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[go.oot.by.dog]

Amnesty UK to protect the human rights of the sick & disabled

 

The sick & disabled are being denied their basic human rights by the British government. On the 13-14 April 2013 Amnesty UK will be holding their AGM. Let's give them something to talk about. Let's give them millions of signatures they cannot ignore.

 

http://www.avaaz.org/en/petition/Amnesty_UK_to_protect_the_human_rights_of_the_sick_disabled/?pv=7

[ArabiaTerra]

http://www.monbiot.com/2013/03/25/line-of-battle/

[go.oot.by.dog]

http://www.monbiot.com/2013/03/25/line-of-battle/

 

That is a very good find and just shows how different their opinions were when the tax was suggested it could have been placed on the more well off.

 

 

I see the SIC have put up a webpage offering some advice on the changes which are happening and can be found at this link -

 

http://www.shetland.gov.uk/Welfare_Reform_Employability/Introduction.asp

[go.oot.by.dog]

5000 People With Cancer Declared Fit For Work Boasts Grant Shapps

 

Internet con-man Grant Shapps has been crawling all over the papers today as the Government used Easter Sunday to launch an all out attack on sick and disabled people.

 

Tory party chairman Shapps claims in the Telegraph today that he will do his job from the pub from now on and his bizarre diatribe suggests that he’s already well on the way to being pissed. The notorious get rich quick scammer rants that sickness benefits are ‘evil’ whilst brandishing figures attempting to smear all those out of work due to illness or disability as scroungers.

 

Once again the Tories are suggesting that most claims for Employment Support Allowance are not genuine based simply on the fact that many people give up a claim for ESA before they are assessed. This is the exact same trick that the DWP tried to pull last year which simply reveals that for many people sickness is temporary and when they get better they end their claims.

 

Digging into the numbers however reveals some tragic statistics. Shapps’ pub bore rhetoric is based on figures which breakdown claims for ESA by condition, and provide details of the results of their assessments.

They make for depressing reading. Almost 5000 people with cancer were found ‘fit for work’ between 2008 and 2011, including ten people with malignant brain tumours. Over 1000 people diagnosed with schizophrenia were also deemed scroungers and had benefits stopped.

 

Two and a half thousand people with MS were found fit for workfare if not paid work and placed in the Work Related Activity Group. A further 800 MS sufferers were thrown off sickness benefits altogether.

Confirming that many claims are temporary in nature, the figures include many people who had broken a limb or suffered some other short term injury or condition. Unsurprisingly many of this group came off benefits before being assessed which can take place several months after making an initial claim.

 

There are many other reasons a claim might stop before an assessment takes place. Claimants could marry someone and no longer be eligible, or in many cases reach retirement age.

 

In a predictable spittle-flecked outburst, the right wing press have crowed that almost 10,000 people whose primary conditions was associated with drug use ended their claim before assessment, A similar number were found fit for work – as if employers are suddenly rushing to hire currently using heroin addicts.

Whilst some of this group may have stopped using drugs and therefore ended their claim, some may have found themselves in prison. Others may have slipped out of the benefits system completely due to the chaotic nature of their condition. Some will probably have died from an overdose before the assessment took place.

 

And it is this that reveals the truly nasty face of this Government. Around 14,000 people with cancer ended their claim before they were assessed. It should be hoped that this is because many of them went into long term remission. The sad truth is that some of them will have died whilst awaiting a benefit decision.

 

It is these tragic deaths that the vile Tory party are only too happy to exploit in an attempt to prove that half of people on sickness benefits were faking their conditions. They truly are beneath contempt.

 

By johnny void