Stop the demonisation…..

So it’s more of the reactionary same from the Mail… Around 71% of the readership think that the benefits system helped contribute to the fire at the Philpott house. And now you have the Cameron and Osborne jumping on the right-wing populist bandwagon going on about “lifestyle choices”… And even more laughable is the frothy apoplexy where the Mail accuse the BBC as being left-wing.

Left-wing commentariat hysterically demonised anybody who dared suggest the over-generous welfare system had allowed Philpott to live a vile, base life, while his taxpayer funded existence – the equivalent  of a salary of almost £100,000 – was cynically ignored.

Laugh… I certainly did!

And it’s articles like this that stoke the fire of hate, lumping people together and engaging in divide and rule. People fall for this rubbish. With the constant bile, hatred and demonisation shown towards the unemployed and disabled people it is not surprising that disability hate crime, for example, has been increasing since the attacks on the benefits system. Combined with the fact that the criminal justice system is still failing victims of disability hate crimes.

Disability hate crimes remained significantly under-reported, which led agencies not to treat them as a sufficient priority, said the report today by the police, probation and CPS inspectorates, and when crimes were reported, they were often not identified as disability hate crimes.

I remember during the 90s where there was always some sensationalist story about mental distress where we were all lumped as “mad, bad and dangerous to know”… that fed into public perception about people living in the community labelled with mental distress by being targeted and demonised. One guy I met while working as an advocate explained that he has been constantly harassed by his neighbours because his partner had mental distress. If that wasn’t bad enough, the neighbours would encourage their kids to shout abuse at him. His partner rarely went out, the abuse they received made her even more scared to venture out. Eventually they were rehoused but nothing else was done to highlight this travesty of abuse and bullying. Their lives had been made a misery by ignorant neighbours.

What really worries me is with the constant attacks on the benefits system, demonisation and victimisation will create an even harsher society. The Philpott case feeds into the right-wing narrative of “benefit scroungers living the life of luxury” and “It’s a lifestyle choice”… Anyone who receives benefits for whatever reasons are potential targets for a hyped up salivating media. ConDems and previously New Labour were very successful in demonising the unemployed. As the purpose is divide and rule along with distracting people from the causes of austerity. The fingers are being pointed at the wrong people!!!!!

Let’s focus on the real cheats……

Millionaire Iain Duncan Smith thinks he can live on £53…. And a petition, which has been signed by thousands, calling on IDS to do just that… live on £53. Not just for a week but for months and see whether he still claims it was easy to do.

And of course yesterday, an apt day, the attacks on the benefits system started. Yet still the constant screaming headlines about benefits claimants on the scrounge. It’s always about getting tough on ‘em as well, especially with Esther McVey as parliamentary under secretary for Work and Pensions and she’s got a lot to say… about those so-called bogus claimants. While this article is rather coy about stating which official DWP stats.

Only 232,000 – one in eight of those tested so far – have been deemed by doctors to be too unwell to do any sort of work.

Another 837,000 who did take the test were found to be fit to work immediately, and a further 367,300 were judged able to do some level of work.

The figures showed that 878,300 people – around a third of the 2.6million who were claiming incapacity benefit – have chosen to drop their claims rather than face a medical. A Department for Work and Pensions document said 1.44million Incapacity Benefit reassessments have so far been carried out by doctors.

The Fail gets all frothy and apoplectic yet omits from this piece is that the medical assessment is essentially harder, narrowed the definition of “limited capability for work” and if this right-wing rag wants to throw around the word “bogus” they should in relation to the way these assessments are carried out by Atos. And neither the report mentions the successful appeals… funny that! These articles don’t give the full story, they distort the facts, mislead the reader, and are known to tell lies. Also, people may have dropped their claims not due to the fact they are lying about their medical condition but due to feeling victimised and distressed by the whole process. Shouldn’t the Fail be wondering where these people are going once they drop out of the benefits system? Somehow… I doubt it.

The reality of these myths and distortions create demonisation of the unemployed. People are believing this rubbish as seen with the research published by the TUC.  But what is appalling is the number of people who ring up, anonymously, these free benefit “grass up your neighbour you dislike” fraud helpline. Majority (96%) are apparently malicious or timewasting. What does this show? It shows the government is colluding and condoning this behaviour by encouraging people to make false allegations (and they can… anonymously). Not only anti-social but it rots away at the social fabric of society. It causes misery for the person under investigation and further victimisation. The problem is for the Left, is that the “benefit scroungers” narrative has been very successful. Language that stokes the fire of hate… and constant drip-drip of “benefit fraudsters” peddled on a daily basis is seen as true. It’s not challenged, it is accepted.. While Labour sits in silence and on their hands.

While the right-wing uses “benefit fraud” as a distraction, wielding the ideological axe to smash the working class as well as indulging in good old divide and rule… whatever about true fraudsters…

At the end of 2011 Tax Justice Network published a report on tax theft:

The total lost to tax evasion globally as $3.1 trillion. The figure for the UK in the report is £69.9 billion in the UK.

Now that’s something to get really angry about…..

Subversion of the government by the government….

IDS denied it. But the proof is here. Scorecards are being used to monitor precisely just how jobcentre districts are doing sanctioning people.

It breaks down the sanctions performance by district, and includes a column headed “direction of travel”, with red and green arrows showing whether a district is up or down on the previous month’s performance.

DWP ministers have acknowledged that they collect this data, but on Monday night Lord Freud told peers this was purely in order to “correct the anomalies”.

Furthermore

But the mounting documentary evidence and reports from staff suggest that on the ground these scorecards result in targets and pressure on staff who are not meeting apparently expected levels of sanctions.

Numerous jobseekers who have had their benefits stopped for weeks or months after being told they are not doing enough to find work have told of the hardship of being penalised and have disputed the fairness of the sanctions.

The numbers in the scorecard are revealing. They indicate that in January alone more than 85,000 sanctions were applied or upheld against claimants, and that most districts were down on the previous month’s performance.

The spreadsheet shows detailed further information on sanctions: 24,000 of these “adverse decisions” came from referrals by work programme providers. Almost 1,400 decisions were made against recipients of employment and support allowance (sickness benefit).

The figures include referrals to mandatory work activity (MWA), with 1,442 claimants sent to work for their benefit during January. Arrows show almost all districts were increasing the numbers of people they sent to MWA.

This is how it works

To illustrate, a claimant who receives a four-week sanction for failing to show proof of actively seeking employment may then fail to attend the jobcentre to sign for their benefit, as no there is no financial benefit.

“After the sanction is served, they will make a fresh claim to jobseeker’s allowance. The office in question will claim the off-flow, and the statistics look favourable. However, the cost of making a fresh claim to benefit in real terms is around £500 and is therefore [a] false economy at its worst in order to try to climb up the league table – which, despite all assurances, do exist within clusters, districts and regions for all departmental targets.

“Simply put, the targets imposed for sanctions is a way for district managers to fudge figures in order that they are seen to be doing their jobs, whereas the government continues to stress that the off-flow should always be into sustainable employment and is being kept in the dark about the reality. All advisers at my place of work and most in the district have been given mid-year review statements (on which performance-related pay is based) which include a target to achieve 6% DMA referrals, although again this has been widely denied.”

The existence of these targets is denied by politicians such as IDS. The government line in public at least is that they do not exist and that any manager enforcing such targets will themselves be in trouble. What is being uncovered here is a secret subverting of the governmental process. How can such subversion be said to represent the democratic will? How can any decision about sanctioning be made in a way that is accountable?  How can the civil service be acting in an impartial way?

Why the TUC is wrong on benefit sanctions…..

The TUC believes that the lessons of the success of the Future Jobs Fund and the problems faced by the Work Programme provide strong arguments for the introduction of a job guarantee programme, initially limited to young people who have never been employed or who are long-term unemployed but gradually extended to other disadvantaged groups. Job guarantees should be real jobs, paid at least the minimum wage and with full employment rights to avoid exploitation and minimise the risk of displacing other workers. They should be limited to six months, so that participants are not trapped in a low value-added ghetto. At the same time, they should allow at least half a day a week for job search – applicants are far more likely to get another job if they apply whilst still working on their job guarantee job than after they have returned to unemployment. Because they are real jobs, the same benefit rules that apply to other jobs should also apply; claimants who turn down a job guarantee job without good cause should face benefit sanctions. Investment even only on the scale set aside for the Youth Contract would soon produce the strong results we saw with the Future Jobs Fund.

So the TUC believe that if a claimant turns down a job without “good cause” then they should face benefit sanctions. I don’t know who wrote this document but I have attended a fair few TUC and have heard Richard Exell (senior policy officer at the TUC) spout that line. And on one occasion I made a contribution criticising Exell’s argument and was pleased I got a rapturous applause from the audience. Benefit sanctions don’t work, they are punitive form of punishment. Exell/ TUC are siding with an ideology that believes people can’t be trusted so should be punished. Even if you oppose the overall ideology of the right (which Exell claims he does) supporting sanctions still puts you on the side of the right. Sanctions (and conditionality) are wrong and don’t work!

Contrary to the belief that sanctions are a deterrent coupled with the “workshy” ethos, many claimants have a number of valid reasons for turning down a job from ill-health, child care responsibilities and simply not wanting the job. Can’t claimants be allowed to pick and choose jobs!!

Benefit sanctions don’t work instead they create far more desperate situations and misery for people who are already just about existing, further poverty and people simply dropping out of the benefits system. TUC ought to be ashamed of supporting such a right-wing bullying ideology.

During the 1980s people thought unemployment was about shortcomings in economic policy along with the Tory government. Right ideologues created a reactionary theory called, “culture of dependency” and this links in to the idea that unemployment is about personal choice and nothing about austerity. People become unemployed when there’s a downturn in the economy, when the economy recovers unemployment drops back. If culture dependency was right what you would see would be continuous and sustained rise in unemployment. But that doesn’t happen. Unemployment tracks the changes in the economy. Culture of dependency has caught on massively along with the support from the media. And this theory taps into the view that sanctions are an ideological necessity. And it’s class divisive. Unfortunately the TUC is buying into this reactionary rubbish.

Trade union activists should put pressure on the TUC to drop their support for benefit sanctions as it goes against the principles of the labour movement. TUC is going with the divide and rule ethos.

TUC Budget Submission 2013

 

NB: This TUC submission goes against TUC policy as passed at Congress 2012… see Composite 8 (H/T Andrew Fisher)

Tim Page edits the TUC Budget Submissions.

The ongoing IT saga and Universal Credit….

Universal Credit is apparently meant to be rolled out in October 2013…. Well, that’s if they can get the IT together ‘cos at the moment it looks like a complete fiasco. Where to begin to explain this doomed IT adventure? That really should read £2.2bn doomed IT adventure…

• Rumours that IT contractors have walked off the project.
• To lose one Universal credit programme director may be regarded as a misfortune but to lose both in a space of 4 months looks like carelessness.
• When Universal Credit rolls out next month in Manchester and Cheshire.. the calculations will be done using spreadsheets. Well, I suppose that’s one up from using a quill!

Indeed this looks like one almighty train wreck… an almighty expensive train wreck of £2.2bn.

Furthermore

Scott Mckinven, financial inclusion manager at Affinity Sutton Housing Association, said there are concerns that many residents will be unable to access the internet to receive welfare payments.

“We are finding a lot of residents can’t afford to get online, their phone lines are not active, which cost £100 to activate and then there are the line rental fees, when all they want to do is use broadband for £3-£4 per month.”

He added the body was finding it difficult to get a full-picture of who will be affected because local authorities have different approaches to data sharing. “The data sharing side is complex. Some local authorities share data happily, while others won’t. How can we work with [them] if [they] won’t give us the data,” he said.

But it seems like the DWP have got their heads firmly in the sand when they state, the programme will be delivered on time and on budget.

I’ll see it to believe. Watch this space for further trials, tribulations and trouble….no doubt.

 

Confronting women’s poverty….

 

I attended an event in Bristol on International Women’s Day, Confronting Women’s Poverty: Turning Things Around. Unfortunately, I missed the morning session but was able to catch the afternoon discussions. Jane Emanuel from Bristol Advice Network gave an excellent talk on ‘Welfare Myths’. There was lots of information and stats about the attacks on benefits and the appalling myths orchestrated by the government and the media.

She quoted from TUC research about the perception people have about welfare benefits, perceptions fed by the media. There’s around 0.7% benefits claimed fraudulently yet people interviewed in the research by the TUC think it’s more like 27%

The benefits cap will come into force on the 15 July 2013, it will impact on 377 families in Bristol.

In Bristol 17, 429 council houses were bought under the “right to buy” scheme . That means they are not let by the local authority instead it’s about the transferring of wealth from people who need housing to private landlords/wealthy

From April 2013 – Bedroom tax will cause misery, rent arrears, homelessness, court proceedings

Number people affected          Annual increase for 1 extra bedroom (14%)           Annual increase for 2+ bedrooms (25%)

Bristol E	870	£526	£938
Bristol NW	881	£526	£938
Bristol S	973	£526	£938
Bristol W	1,029	£526	£938

Source: National Housing Federation

It is also estimated that around 26,000 people in Bristol on Disability Living Alliance (DLA) will be transferring over to Personal Independence Payment (PIP) from April 2013 onwards which will cause problems in itself.

Statistics regarding women in Bristol

Women form the majority of public sector workers in Bristol, for example, 63% work for the council.

Public sector has experienced severe job cuts therefore this will disproportionately affect women.

44,460 of women receive out of work benefits in Bristol. The 2010 budget cost women £44 million.

43,340 women in Bristol are likely to be raped or sexually abused at some point in their lifetime.

55,000 women in Bristol are likely to experience domestic violence in their lifetime.

Because of cuts services provided to support women are under threat, loss of funding, budget cuts to the court system, legal aid cuts, cuts to welfare benefits and housing benefits.

Women in Bristol are two ad a half times more likely than men to suffer anxiety and depression.

Again, with the cuts women will be disproportionately affected.

Discussion

There was an interesting discussion about the way forward. It was excellent to see and hear contributions from women trade union activists (PCS and Unison had stalls). There were ideas setting up claimants’ unions, general discussion on class, poverty, representation of women, media, defending the welfare state, feminism, labour and trade union movement, Unite Community Membership, tax avoidance and evasion.

One woman asked where was the outrage? Good question. It will get worse for women. There is activism but this needs to be linked up, alliances to be built. Bristol Advice Network says that around half a million will be made in legal aid cuts. There will be only ONE advice centre in the whole of the South West who will be able to deal, free, with immigration issues. The speaker from Bristol Advice Network spoke about how the attacks on legal aid will have an impact. I saw a very long queue outside an advice centre on the bus to work the other day, that will get so much worse. Obviously, with the attacks on benefits will precisely mean more people needing advice. Bristol Advice Network are setting up support groups and as part of highlighting these attacks is to get people who need advice down to their MP surgeries (especially ones who voted for these cuts) and to clog those surgeries up! And indeed this will ram the impact of these attacks home to MPs.

There’s a protest on the 16th March – Bristol Bedroom Tax protest – 1pm @ College Green

See also: Cutting Women Out of Bristol 
.

Nobody voted for the ‘bedroom tax’….

So… Scotland’s Housing and Welfare Minister Margaret Burgess has argued that the ConDems should abandon the bedroom tax. She says:

It is completely unacceptable that vulnerable people in Scotland should bear the brunt of this ill-considered and damaging tax. Our clear position is that this punitive and unfair policy should be scrapped.  However the UK Government seems determined to press ahead, and the current constitutional arrangements mean there is nothing we can do to stop them.

And the increasing justification that the policy is all about reducing overcrowding simply does not stand up to scrutiny. For a start it is disproportionate, with a much smaller number of people living in overcrowded homes than will be hit by the tax. And second, it assumes that geography is no issue and people can simply swap houses.

Very true. But you have to remind yourself that the instigator of this oppressive policy is an unelected minister to the ConDems, Lord Freud. Freud has never stood for an election and was never voted for. He’s never had to sit in a constituency surgery being confronted by ordinary people. He’s not a democratically elected politician yet an important policy was pushed through parliament. Nothing about the bedroom tax in Tory 2010 manifesto. Nothing in the Coalition Agreement. The bedroom tax was not put forward to the electorate, the ConDems were therefore not democratically mandated to implement this regressive policy. Freud said the major problem with social housing was under occupancy. What is this based on? Where is the research?

Nobody voted for the bedroom tax!

The ideology of the bedroom tax is an attack on social housing. ConDems want us to see having a home of your own as being a luxury that should be denied to ordinary people. If someone else has a home of their own let alone one with a spare bedroom as a result of the policy of having social housing you are meant to bitterly resent it. The demand that should be made of the economy of course is that there should be enough housing for all. Housing should mean having a home of your own i.e. a dwelling that is for the exclusive use of one household.

And according to Joseph Rowntree Foundation Chief Executive Julia Unwin warns that with the bedroom tax, attacks on council tax benefit, benefit cap, food prices rising, benefit sanctions regime and the list of attacks is endless will lead to:

…a decade of destitution. I believe we will witness people in the sort of poverty we did not expect to see on these shores.

See the following articles/research:

The Links Between Housing and Poverty

The Lies We Tell Ourselves

The practice of “creaming and parking” is “endemic” within the work programme…..

We’ve got a guy who carries around a mirror in his pocket to ward off evil spirits. Okay he might be on JSA but he’s a long way from the job market isn’t he?’

So we are going to have these numbers of customers that perhaps may never find employment in the two years. We’ll never be paid for them either but we’ll be paid for the other 50% that are likely to go on into work so there’s a level of parking going on which we’re not particularly comfortable with but we also need to achieve what we need to achieve and what the Primes need to achieve so it’s trying to get a balance really.

Furthermore

Parking and creaming” is “endemic within the programme” and is a “rational response” by providers given that the scheme uses a payment-by-results model whereby “a proportion of customers would always be very unlikely to get a job. 

Moreover

The study says the government attempted to control creaming and parking in the programme by introducing higher payments for harder-to-help clients, but researchers found no evidence that this had incentivised providers to take on problem cases.

Well, is anyone really shocked by this?

In a nutshell it is all about targets and profits, the needs of the individual are not at the forefront neither is training good quality staff. What is the central tenet  is incentivising staff to ‘cream’ off the profits from people that can be placed in work and ‘parking’ the ones who need further and more complex help. In the language of the market and the corporate sector, why spend time on these people when profits are to be made?

Money should be invested in the public sector instead we have the private sector taking over in a turbocharged manner, running roughshod and destroying public services. Accountability, transparency, openness and democracy don’t particularly exist in the private sector. They cannot run the benefit system. They’re clueless. They’re useless.Say it once, say it again…the private/third sector can’t run the public sector. Need not greed!

The law around the war upon the poor….

This is S.I. 2013 No. 276 – Social Security replacement regulations for the work programme. Now what struck me was not so much the legal language but look at the top of the page:

Made 4.19 p.m. on 12th February 2013

Laid before Parliament 6.15 p.m. on 12th February 2013

Coming into force 6.45 p.m. on 12th February 2013

It was “laid before Parliament” at 6:15 and came into force by 6:45pm. So much for meaningful debate. The Court of Appeal criticised the government due to bypassing Parliament, surely they have done it again with these rushed through replacement regulations? Legal issue leads into a wider concern such as sanctioning an individual’s benefit. These people have not committed any criminal offence yet they are being penalised and punished in a serious way i.e. taking away their benefit. But the ConDems don’t care as we can see with them pushing these regulations through Parliament bypassing democracy.

Ideologically, it’s the poor who are being blamed. Unemployed people are blamed for being unemployed. The poor blamed for being in poverty. Mandation and sanctions are giving out this ideological message. Rules of social security operate by secondary legislation, when regulations get rushed through the rules get rushed through. And that’s not good for democracy.

 

 

War on the poor!

 

The benefit cap will come into force in April 2013.

According to the DWP:

This will mean that workless households should no longer receive more in benefits than the average earnings of working households.

This will apply to the combined income from the main out-of-work benefits, plus Housing Benefit, Child Benefit and Child Tax Credit.

The cap will be: • £500 p/wk for couples and lone parents • £350 p/wk for single adults

The ideology is designed to make people believe that unemployed people are claiming £25,000+. It is about pitting the working class against each other and as a distraction tactic, it is highly successful. Coupled with the right-wing media reporting stories about unemployed people living it up on state benefits, this will enter the collective psyche so opposed to blaming the mismanagement of capitalism it’s about life style choices of the unemployed. It’s the welfare state that is providing these “shirkers”, “scroungers” a living while “strivers”  pay their taxes to give this so-called life of luxury to the unemployed. And this scapegoating and fully fledged witch hunt is paying dividends to the ConDems. Unfortunately, the Labour Party has a tactic to say as little and do as little as possible and hope the ConDems mess up royally. So much for a credible opposition.

The benefit cap will be rolled out in 4 London boroughs; Bromley, Enfield, Haringey and Croydon. This will be a phased roll-out with the remaining local authorities implementing the cap by the end September 2013. Reason why these four boroughs were chosen was because the benefits go through the Stratford DWP benefits office.

But all is not happy with these 4 chosen boroughs arguing they will be disadvantaged by the cap.

Ahmet Oykener, cabinet member for housing at Enfield Council, said: ‘Our homeless families will be competing in a highly competitive private rental market with residents from other London boroughs and elsewhere who will be able to pay higher rents.’ 

Mr Oykener warned addressing this could cost ‘millions of pounds’ and said the borough will lobby the government to ask the DWP for extra funding.

Croydon Council is also concerned and is considering taking legal advice about whether the decision can be challenged. Jon Rouse, chief executive of Croydon Council, this week confirmed the four boroughs are talking about how to ‘relay our concerns back to the government’.

Bromley and Haringey councils confirmed they are looking at the impact of implementing the cap.

 

The grim reality of these attacks is that it is estimated that 54 per cent of families who will be hit by the overall benefit cap live within London. Plus  the impact of overall benefit cuts; around 55 per cent of cuts to financial support have not yet hit families. This is one oppressive double-double whammy… too many bedrooms, receiving too much in benefits, problems in appealing, you are expected to contribute to your Council Tax (some councils are expecting you to pay 25%), benefits have only been uprated by 1%… at the same time food prices are increasing along with energy increases are running higher than 1%. It will possibly be easier to experience benefit sanctions now. It has been shown that people are being sanctioned for not applying/accepting jobs they are not qualified to do. And sanctions are far more severe.

We are witnessing a wholesale attack on people on benefits. People at the moment just exist on benefits not live. With these attacks they will find their paltry amount of money will not stretch. Basic necessities will be too expensive. People are already skipping meals, reducing food budgets, going without food so that their kids can and so on. People will find themselves in a quandary; buy basic food, taking money from their food budget to pay for the bedroom tax, finding the money to pay for the extra Council Tax, ending up in arrears, facing court, bailiffs, homeless families. Where will it stop? It won’t as the ConDems haven’t finsiged their class war… not by a long way…

ConDems state they will save money doing this but will they? Housing benefit cuts will cause massive public expenditure. People being chased for relatively small amounts of money. The administration will possibly outweigh the savings. The multiplier effect on local economies will be quite strong. Some worse than others.

In April, the social fund is will be devolved to local government. The pressure on local government will be immense. Already, in London,  4 in 10 children live in poverty this will inevitably rise with the attacks. Demand for crisis loans has risen significantly since 2006. There has been a 109% in the use of food banks.

More London grim statistics:

In 2011/12, the total loss to families from welfare cuts was £3.360 billion. This year it will be well over double that, at £8.985 billion. However, this still is not even half the full amount of cuts that families will be experiencing by 2014/15. During the current year, families will still be waiting for 55 per cent of the full cuts to hit them.

133,000 unemployed households in London, 20 per cent of the total, will be unable to afford their current rent as a result of either the household or LHA cap.

Almost two-thirds of these households will face a shortfall equivalent to more than 10 per cent of their living cost benefits. Over a third face a shortfall above 20 per cent and one in six of over 30 per cent.

Currently, 30 per cent of community care grant expenditure, and just under 20 per cent of that on crisis loans, goes to people with a disability. Changes to disability benefits might also therefore be expected to increase demand.

Around 700,000 people are expected to lose out by 2015/16 from the abolition of contributory employment and support allowance for those in the work-related activity group after one year, with the DWP estimating net losses at £36 of week.

As I live in Bristol I have been researching information about poverty, unemployment and deprivation. The provision of the social fund by local government won’t be ring-fenced. In Bristol, for example, the £1.7million allocated will be a financial drop in the ocean. Just look at the statistics below:

The number of Bristol residents claiming JSA increased by 1.1% between June and July 2012, from 12,408 to 12,539.

Bristol as a whole 69,500 – 16% of the population – suffers from income deprivation ranging from 51% of people living in ‘Ilminster Avenue West’ to 1% of people living in ‘Clifton Down’.

20,700 (28%) of children live in income deprived households;

16,000 (22%) of older people live in income deprived households;

With the attacks on benefits there will be impact on areas like Knowle West and Lawrence Weston regards to the bedroom tax due to there being social housing. It has also shown that food banks in Bristol have been used a lot more. So no doubt there will be applications for the Bristol Local Crisis and Prevention Fund therefore £1.7m is woefully WOEFULLY inadequate (coupled with the fund being privatised which will, possibly, add extra costs).

These attacks on benefits amount to a savage ongoing class war against the poor. People need to organise and fight back!

Bristol statistics

Delivering the social fund at London-level: opportunities and risks (Child Poverty Action Group)