Bye bye to the Social Fund

SuziQ

Do the asylum seekers get any money from anywhere, and are they living somewhere where the rent is paid do you know?

The situation around asylum seekers is really difficult to get a handle on. In my back to practice work placement, I see some asylum seekers who are receiving £240 a fortnight, already have their rent paid in the (nice) hotel they are living in, and they also regularly get vouchers for food, formula and nappies. One lady I visited who had come into the country on a visitors visa, immediately got pregnant and refused to return home as she stated her family would kill her for being pregnant outside marriage. She was complaining to me that she didn't like the brand new twin buggy that she had been donated via a charity.Other asylum seekers also get their rent etc paid but are only getting £50 a week. Funnily enough, in my experience the ones getting the most are the ones complaining that they aren't getting enough, whilst many of those getting very little seem to be very grateful and are just having to 'make it work'.
The vast majority of those I have seen have no need to take food from food banks however, whilst I see a lot of indigenous families who, due to low income, poor planning,debt, unforeseen circumstances or a million other reasons, need to use a food bank.

Also in my experience, many of the families I have been working with who have applied for social fund money ( for very good reasons in my opinion) have been turned down, so the scheme was problematic in itself.

[Deleted User]

seven-day-weekend wrote: »

I think the re-cycling of things like fridges, etc is a good idea, there is nothing wrong with second-hand stuff, regardless of what some may think. I still am happy to have second-hand, after over forty years of marriage and having the wherewithall to buy new.

I jsut hope though that people won't be going without essentials.

Talking of foodbanks, I was talking to the administrator of ours the other day and she told me that the main recipients are asylum seekers. Presumably under this scheme there will be more poor resident families receiving stuff. More strain on the charity then, and more need for us more fortunate people to keep donating.

I agree in 31 years of marriage we have only ever had one new washing machine and that was a wedding present,we have also bought reconditioned fridges and freezers at a fraction of the cost of new,same goes for alot of stuff over the years

SuziQ

Same here, Woodbine. I currently drive a pretty old Ford KA that was a repossession, it's battered and ugly,but very good on fuel and I am so very grateful to have it, as the job I am trying to get back into requires you to have a car.
A lot of people get rid of perfectly good white goods these days. I have a friend that threw out a perfectly good dishwasher, freezer and washer as she was having her kitchen redone. I persuaded her to contact a local charity to collect them so other people could make use of them.I shop in charity shops and donate to charity shops.

I just don't think the majority of us can afford to be proud, these days!

WantToBeSE

I think that to a certain extent its a good idea to have food vouchers/seconhand goods etc.
I know that when i was on benefits about 6 years ago, you used to hve to say what the budgeting loan etc was for, and they had boxes to tick, such as school uniform, household appliances etc.
If you have kids, you automatically know that they are at some point going to need school uniform, so there is no harm in saving £5 a month (for example, or more) to be able to afford it when they start school.
And as for household appliances, you can pick them up cheap/free from freecycle, the local recycling centres etc.
I dont think they had to show proof of what they bought either, so they could say its for ANYTHING!

skintmacflint

I read about this on another forum a few weeks ago. Suggested that yet again UK seemed to be following in America's footsteps with this new scheme of vouchers. And that councils had discretion over how much of the money allocated was actually spent on this purpose.

Also suggested voucher use could be restricted to certain items in particular shops, as in America.

And in America, all that happened was the minority of people who abuse the system (which probably prompted the change in the first place) just sell the vouchers for 75 cents to the dollar to buy the things they're not supposed to.

Always the minority isn't it, at the top and the bottom, who cause the problems through abuse. And they ususally find a way round any system while the majority feel the effect.

fluffymovie

I prepared a report for my head of service on this recently.

We haven't been told how much money we will get to administer so it's still up in the air.

Some authorities I know of are going to link this to adult social care, housing departments or devolve the funding to outside agencies such as CAB or welfare rights but no decisionsafe anyway as far as I know!

missapril75

GrungeMeister wrote: »

Personally, I think the Social Fund (for all it's faults ... and for all the abuse the scheme has suffered) has proven to be one of the more civilising aspects of the social security system.

The grants system (Single Payments) that used to operate was quite good. Of course that was replaced by the social fund due to so many abusing the grants system. I remember a minority used to get the majority of payments as with the SF system.

But that was the fault of the rules which could easily have been tightened up. Applications for certain items were paid, virtually without query, simply because one had been on benefit for 12 months. That was crazy.

If you needed a buggy, for example, it was daft to say yes if you'd been claiming for 13 months but not 11.

Back in Supplementary Benefit days "clothing deductions" were made (with agreement) from weekly payments and saved for issue when people wanted the money.

Simple to administer. No application forms needed. It met people's need for whatever their need was and grant applications (Exceptional Need Payments) were rare.

As with so many aspects of the benefits system successive governments make wholesale changes when a bit of adjustment would have done the trick.

A whole new department - the CSA - was set up to collect maintenance not simply because the DSS was failing to collect but because DSS offices were never adequately staffed and the staff whose job it was to go after maintenance (Liable Relative officers) were the first to get taken away from their work to go and cover benefit payment work.

It was the same for Overpayment staff with millions written off simply because an overpayment identified could rarely be calculated and followed up quickly. They were listed for calculation as and when and, if they ever did get calculated, it looked a bit silly saying "dear sir, you were overpaid benefit (for a period ending 5 years ago)" so they just got written off rather than embarrassing the department. :eek:

All that money wasted on CSA and write offs when an extra 3 or 4 people per office would have recovered sums vastly in excess of their salaries.

Criminal, really.