Elmore outlines opposition to proposed £20-per-week cut to Universal Credit
Oxfordshire mental health, complex needs, domestic abuse, and homelessness charity Elmore Community Services has today announced its opposition to the proposed £20-per-week cut to Universal Credit and concerns about the overall Universal Credit system.
Based on the insights of frontline caseworkers, Elmore has written to all Oxfordshire Members of Parliament and Council Leaders to explain its concerns about the cut and the overall system and encourage them to represent these concerns to the UK Government.
It’s hard to understand life without enough money if you haven’t ever experienced it. The social security system plays a critical role in meeting people’s basic needs, but instead of helping, it is getting in the way of people accessing support and things are set to get even worse.
With the £20-per-week cut to Universal Credit (UC) due in October, the Government is going to make life harder for thousands of people across Oxfordshire. Government statistics show that 7996 households in Oxford were in receipt of UC in May 2021, and Elmore Community Services, a local mental health and complex needs charity, supports many of these people.
The cost of living in Oxford, and across the county, is already one of the highest outside of London and the £20 top-up of Universal Credit has provided people with a better (but still not perfect) chance of making ends meet. And that’s just the situation today; things seem likely to get worse in the future.
The news is already full of stories about the increasing costs of food and essential goods and October’s big price hikes in energy bills, following the raising of the Government’s price cap, will disproportionately affect people on UC, many of whom spend much of their time at home due to disability or caring commitments. We know that Elmore’s service users will be among those who will struggle to meet these increased costs when UC is cut.
The problem is also bigger than the money. UC isn’t particularly accessible. It is ‘digital by default’ and its roll-out has highlighted that there are people who are not at ease or competent online. Many lack the ability to make and maintain a claim digitally. Making and maintaining a claim requires a smartphone and a fairly high level of skill with using apps, remembering usernames and passwords, and generally being very organised. Without support, individuals without these skills or equipment miss out through no fault of their own.
Digital assistance has fallen to charities like Elmore, as well as public libraries and advice and support organisations. On behalf of clients, Elmore commits significant amounts of time and energy to grappling with the digital welfare net. Frontline workers try alternative routes such as helplines, we can experience long waiting times, often more than an hour.
People making a claim have to provide a mobile phone number and an email address, but not everybody will have these. They could use someone else’s details to create a log-in, if they know someone they can trust, but either way, a log-in needs to be created to access the Universal Credit system to send or receive messages and report any changes.
However, problems arise when one of these is forgotten, as it is difficult to get back in. If both are forgotten it becomes extremely difficult, if not impossible. This system presents real problems for people with a disability. People with mental ill health or sensory or cognitive impairment routinely have to rely on someone else to make and maintain a claim and trust them with personal information, bank details, usernames, and passwords.
Everyone who claims UC is assumed to be fit and willing to work until proven otherwise using their own assessment procedure, no matter how severe their health problems. This is very different from Employment and Support Allowance (ESA), which assumed that the claimant had some limitations in the work they could do from the outset. Furthermore, information from a previous claim (for example, for ESA) is not transferred to the UC system. For example, someone may have spent a year passing a ‘right to reside’ and/or ‘habitual residence’ tests if they went to appeal during their ESA claim. When they have to claim Universal Credit due to the ongoing enforced ‘migration’ of benefits they would have to go through these tests again.
The combination of all of these longstanding issues in addition to the £20 cut to pre-Covid levels creates a big problem for the people we support. There is a real need for well-funded support to vulnerable individuals and families. Without it, there is no financial safety net for the vulnerable and disadvantaged members of our society to depend upon.
Elmore’s Chief Executive Tom Hayes was interviewed by BBC South News about Universal Credit. The video is available here.