Many critics of the govt have noted that in many ways the results of their welfare policies is that we seem to be going back in time, back to the 1930’s or even to the 19th C Poor law, In an excellent and detailed article, the Herald reports that in Scotland, because of what is claimed are 'major failings by the DWP to deliver',Stirling Citizens Advice Bureau (CAB) are to launch a food voucher scheme because of the numbers of people they are seeing who are left penniless due to ‘catastrophic failures and hold-ups in the benefits system’ The scheme is to be launched by Alex McLeish, coach of Scotland's national football side. While it is good news that a CAB is supporting people in this way, clealry charity is back on the cards as way of supporting the poor as New labour begin to remove their states reponsibilitys though their draconian welfare cuts and reforms.

as a sidenote, the CAB in Scotland would certainly appear to be more progressive than here in England where the national CAB is to collude with the Govt in sharing information on clamants and only weakly criticisng the welfare reforms.

From the Herald

Charity food plan fills the poverty gap

 stephen.naysmith@theherald.co.uk

 http://www.theherald.co.uk/features/features/display.var.1778637.0.0.php

When asylum-seekers first started arriving in Scotland they were given temporary support to help them survive while their claims were being assessed. This support was given not as cash, but as food vouchers, with restrictions on what they could be used for and where they could be spent.The voucher scheme was widely disliked and was abolished five years ago, after being branded discriminatory and stigmatising. But now a leading charity is to launch a similar scheme in Stirling, not for refugees and asylum-seekers, but for destitute Scots. Stirling Citizens Advice Bureau (CAB) says its food voucher scheme is necessary because of the numbers of people they are seeing who are left penniless due to catastrophic failures and hold-ups in the benefits system.

Due to cost-cutting and job losses in the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP), the bureau says, delays in processing benefits are so lengthy that clients are regularly left in desperate circumstances. Alex McLeish, coach of Scotland's national football side, is to kick off the initiative today, presenting bureau manager Craig Anderson with a cheque from ethical investor the Unity Trust Bank. Anderson said: "A lot of people are coming to us in abject poverty. They are not receiving benefits very quickly and often can't access Crisis Loans. We were increasingly having to direct people to churches and charities like the Salvation Army. "Sometimes, being a big-hearted organisation we would - inappropriately in my view - delve into our own pockets to help people out."

The new initiative will prevent volunteer CAB workers being put in this position, he says, but is far from an ideal solution. "It is a dynamic illustration of how social policy works in Britain today." Stirling CAB has persuaded some local stores to accept the vouchers for food and household items. Negotiations are also advanced with local branches of chains including Iceland and Poundstretcher. The vouchers will be guaranteed by CAB and valid only for food and household items. Clients won't be able to spend them on tobacco or alcohol and won't be given change if they underspend, making them similar in all respects to the much-criticised asylum voucher scheme.

Anderson is in no doubt as to where the problem lies, blaming cuts and the introduction of a call centre system by the DWP. Benefits claimants now make initial applications by phone to a Middlesbrough call centre rather than having face-to-face contact at a Job Centre Plus. "The main reason appears to be the time it takes to get benefit paid since the Department for Work and Pensions have adopted a call centre model," Anderson said. "It can take up to eight weeks to receive money from the date you call to claim. In the intervening weeks, people can claim a Crisis Loan, but it is often very difficult to get through to this telephone helpline due to the volume of calls. Stirling CAB felt it was important to develop this food voucher initiative to ensure that these clients do not go hungry.

"But in the 21st century, in a supposedly affluent society, why are organisations like CAB picking up the tab for the failures of statutory services?"
The vouchers scheme highlights the shocking levels of real poverty that exist across the country, he claims. "Despite the fact that it currently only opens for three days a week, Stirling CAB alone is seeing three or four people a week who are in need of emergency funding", he says. "In the past 26 weeks we have seen 60 cases where we've needed to look at emergency funding through Crisis Loans or referring people to churches, and 50 people who have been actually homeless or threatened with homelessness. That's 110 people. There are 200 sites in Scotland where the CAB have services and I think you could easily multiply the two figures. You are talking about a lot of people; it makes me angry."

The food voucher initiative is taking place in Stirling only - all the CAB services are independent charities - but the umbrella body Citizens Advice Scotland (CAS) highlighted nationwide problems relating to Job Centre Plus and benefits delays in a report last year. CAS warned: "The length of time taken to process claims and get them into payment seems to have increased significantly and in some areas is taking several weeks. Hold-ups are evident at various points in the system, including delays in scheduling initial appointments and backlogs of unprocessed forms.

"The resulting financial hardship can be very severe and is felt particularly harshly by lone parents, people with physical or mental health problems and other vulnerable clients. "The problem of delayed payments is exacerbated by ongoing difficulties accessing crisis loans. Many of the problems arise from the fact that both clients and advisers are simply unable to get through on the telephone claim lines."

However the DWP denies this. A spokesman said claims for Income Support, Jobseekers' Allowance and Incapacity Benefit were being cleared in an average of nine, 10 and 12 days respectively. "There are currently no significant backlogs of work in processing benefits claims in Scotland ... and these performance levels are ahead of target," he said.

"Customers who experience delays in receiving benefit can apply for emergency payments and these are normally paid within 48 hours. However, in any emergency a customer can claim a Social Fund Crisis Loan, by telephone, and currently these are normally cleared within three hours of receipt."

Nevertheless, Peter Kelly, director of the Poverty Alliance, says problems with the DWP's telephone helplines have been well-documented, and that while the initial idea of handing out food vouchers is alarming, it is a response to a problem not of CAB's making.

"It is a desperate response to a desperate situation. My initial reaction is that the CAB shouldn't be going down that route but it is only doing what it needs to. In the 21st century we should be well beyond a situation where people are having to turn for handouts to charities. There should be a safety net as a matter of right."

Kelly says the problems are a logical outcome of reshaping the welfare system to focus on pushing people back to work. "I agree with the intentions behind that. People are better off in work and less likely to be in poverty. But that approach means many people who are not ready for work are in danger of suffering and losing entitlement because of an institutional pressure to move them on.

"The worrying thing is that we are going to see more of this coming with another phase of welfare reform," he adds.

Scott Harris, a 58-year-old former hotel manager from Stirling, lost his job earlier this year. After being diagnosed with post-traumatic stress syndrome and depression, he went off sick from his work in May but agreed to voluntary severance after discovering that sick pay barely covered his rent and bills.Then matters got worse. He couldn't sign up for benefits until his first day of unemployment, but his claim took months to process.

"Between May and the end of July I essentially had no income. On the 14th of June I tried to kill myself."

Scott took a large quantity of sleeping pills, diazepam and antidepressants. He ended up in hospital, and at this point his sister stepped in to help. Although she doesn't live in Scotland she was able to shop for him online, using a supermarket home delivery service to ensure he had food. He was also referred to Stirling CAB, which two weeks later was able to help him claim a Crisis Loan to tide him over. It wasn't until September 7 that Scott received his first benefit cheque.

"My sister supported me all the time. I was lucky; if I hadn't had that I don't know what I'd have done. I might have made a second suicide attempt. I might have been successful."

It is hard, in retrospect, to know what he might have done without his sister and the CAB, Scott says. But he fears other people might also take drastic action.

"The prospect of going without food can drive people to desperate things. I think the food voucher scheme will be invaluable. I know if it had been in place a few months ago, then it would have helped me."
·
Scott Harris is a pseudonym

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