What problems do you face when benefits are delayed or underpaid?

UKParliament

Hi Everyone,

Just to update you on the progress on this inquiry.

The Work and Pensions Committee has published the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) response to its report on Benefit delivery, published on 21 December 2015.

Read the Government's response: Government Response to the Committee's Fourth Report of Session 2015-16

The Committee's report recommended that the Department publish statistics on Mandatory Reconsideration clearance times and DWP have said official statistics are being developed. However, the Department has rejected the Committee's call to publish data on ESA and WCA clearance times, as well as statistics on Short-term Benefit Advances.

The Government accepts that the transition from asylum support to mainstream benefits can be difficult. It has committed to carrying out a study later this year on the impact of recent changes to the system. The Department will consider introducing a landlord portal for Universal Credit if user feedback demands it.

The Department considers that setting a target for reducing underpayments is unnecessary, despite the Committee and the Public Accounts Committee's recommendations on this.

Chair's comment
Frank Field MP, Chair of the Committee said:

"We note that the DWP took six months to respond to this report, the central point of which was about delivering the correct benefits on time, and the hardship that is caused by delays.This response is very timely in one sense though, in that the NAO has just reported that total underpayments have increased to their highest level to date.

The DWP has said it considers setting a target for reducing underpayments unnecessary despite our recommendation, and same recommendation by the Public Accounts Committee. That low income people and families struggling to make ends meet were underpaid £1.8 billion in benefits last year strongly suggests otherwise.

The Auditor General has also refused to sign off the Department’s accounts for the 24th year running, at least partly due to unacceptably high levels of benefits error. We welcome the additional pledges DWP has made but will be watching to make sure they act on them."

jobbingmusician

I'm not sure whether a review of DWP payments actually includes HB.

In my professional life I run a charity which, among other things, housed 3 vulnerable people. Their HB was paid direct to us as a result of them being seen as vulnerable. This was a low support project, however, and we tried not to be intrusive into our residents' lives unless we knew they were having problems.

It took the local council 8 weeks to notify me that HB had been stopped for one of our residents. During this time he started self harming as a result of his worries about money. Problems with benefits led to direct and serious effects to his mental health but, despite the fact that we had requested that all communications to him were copied to us (with his signed authority, of course) this was not done.

Mersey_2

A report on DWP delays etc and the DWP takes 6 months to respond.


Priceless!

Fluffybunny80

And what about babies nappies? Sanitary towels??

kimplus8

For us as a family it means maybe not eating well, missing bills and getting defaults, it also means the kids miss out on things we have planned if I need bus fare and/ or entrance fees

Gypsywoman

The whole system is wrong. To attempt to build on what are now shaky and pretty rotten foundations is not to build but just to further botch up.

There is always one poster, at least who speaks of 'cigarettes and beer'. If someone is able to budget their benefits to be able to be able to afford 'cigarettes and beer' that is their business and people who have never walked in anothers shoes should learn to keep their mouths shut.

I am one of the 'disabled scroungers' that IDS labelled and incited others to do so also. I do not get asked if I am disabled for it is very obvious.

I also have bipolar and like a earlier poster said the thought of my benefits going wrong in anyway is of great concern. The chemical imbalance in my brain is treated with Lithium. I would hope it would hold me but I could not say and so I worry. I cannot go there again. I will not.

Soon I will be changing from ESA to PIP and I feel sick and more sick each day. I worked all my life. I come from a family of workers. All my children work and their partners. None claim any benefits other than child benefit and so they do not understand my concerns, my worries. They have offered financial help if needed though.

I remember helping my Mum when she was on just £62 a week pension after serving this country during the war and worked for 40 odd year in all. I had a high paid job and could do so. What of the ones who have no help, who are isolated and do not understand this broken system?

Bringing the needs of people for financial support down to if they cannot afford 'cigarette and beer' is all that is wrong with the system and the way those who are, lets say for politeness sake, at best ill-informed of the truth of existing on benefits. That is the way they re-act to what can be life threatening situations and many have taken heir own lives due to this mess.

My Mum smoked 3 cigarettes a day and hated alcohol. Had you asked her if she smoked she would have simply said "Yes" and it would be up to the one who posed the question to decide how much of her benefits went on cigarettes.

What is and what can be assumed can be worlds apart. It says more about some than others when they base their little digs on nothing more than - hearsay and trash TV.

I use to be involved in a charity that distributed food to single parents and their children. They budgeted fine until their benefits got screwed up and their children needed food/utilities needed paying/nappies needed.

If by my taking that food to them it allowed them to choose to buy 10 cigs or a bottle of cider and that was what they wanted. I am glad. You want to keep people who are on benefits on the minimum so they have no choice what they can or cannot buy and yet they are in position where they cannot work? Shame on you for not being informed enough to know the truth for the situations many find themselves in.

Victims of domestic abuse move for safety when they can and when they need to. It was to them we distributed food. Few find the safe place on the first move and so they live in transit for however long is needed and the benefit system is not able to cope with that and so they get caught in yet another mess. Some choose to return to horrific abuse so their children are fed and warm.

The whole system needs changing and it needs changing so it is responsive to need. Society needs educating that claiming benefits is often a necessity and not a life-style choice. The stigma is not earned it is built around myths. "I know this person who get x amount for this". Yes, there is fraud and that is happening everywhere and not least in government departments.

Out of work or in work benefits are open to fraud. Yet look how quickly the government put the brakes on the proposed change to working tax credits and left those of us who are the real fraudsters, the real scroungers to carry the can. Us the mainly sick and disabled. We had already been handed it and I am sick of carrying it while others rip off the taxpayers of today while blaming the taxpayers of yesterday.

Who do some of you think you are? Who do you think paid in while you were not paying in. Into your child benefits? Education? NHS? and so on. Do you think it was the bloody tooth fairy? Some of you seem to believe some total garbage about ALL who claim benefits. I guess it is possible you do think it was the tooth fairy.

To the govt you have got it all wrong for so long I would suggest you scrap the crap and start again on solid foundations in consultation with those who live by your welfare policies and weed out those who think they know and do not have a clue.

Good luck you are going to need it.