Not infrequently, the Secretary of State for Work and
Pensions, Iain Duncan Smith, recalls being made redundant and facing life on
the dole. Of course, most people being sent down the road are not so fortunate
as to be able to rely on the wealthy in-laws.
Less frequently mentioned nowadays was his second enforced
redundancy after just two years as Leader of the Conservative Party.Why do I
mention this now? I will take IDS at his own words and, therefore, not underestimate the determination of a
quiet man. However, word on the street is that IDS’s welfare reform programme
is heading towards the rocks. If that results, he will be facing his own
interview on the Work Programme in the near future.
The Treasury has been consistently sceptical about IDS’s
welfare reform programme. Forget the objectives; forget the specific policies.
It’s the practical delivery of the programme within the financial parameters
that’s the key problem. However, it’s also important to look at the unintended
(or were they?) financial and social consequences.
Let’s just consider a few elements:
- DWP has already been
forced to ditch three of the four proposed Universal Credit pathfinders
because the IT systems – even for this limited application – are nowhere near
ready.
- Insiders are now
confirming that there is no chance of 1
million people receiving universal credit by April 2014, as IDS promised
in November 2011.
- Applications for
discretionary housing payments (DHP) in April, as a consequence of the
bedroom tax, leapt from 5,700 last year to more than 25,000 this year and
many more will claim when they find out about them. The budget for DHPs
will shortly be exhausted, or so constrained that arrears will take a
further leap.
- As the DHP budget runs
out, there will be thousands of bad news stories about the impact on
adults with disabilities and on children who are no longer able to stay
with one parent, after relationship breakdown.
- The costs of collecting
the bedroom tax, including managing arrears, could well take up most of
the extra income.
- A housing
association at the heart of the first direct payment pathfinder
experienced a 29 per cent rise in people contacting its financial support
team in the last year, and a 19% rise in the total amount of debt referred.
- Rent arrears in these
pathfinders are already increasing dramatically. The reality is that
‘direct by default’ is already being carefully ditched.
- The welfare reform
agenda will increase costs in a whole range of other service areas, say
95% of senior council officers. None of these costs were included in the
DWP impact assessment.
- It is clear that DWP
simply didn’t understand or take account of the frequency of changes in
personal circumstances which affect housing and some other benefits which
they are trying to incorporate into the universal credit system
Of course, if the government had really been serious about
subsidising under-occupation, they would not have excluded pensioners from the
scope of the bedroom tax. Not that I am advocating an expansion of the bedroom
tax, rather the opposite.
Perhaps the biggest unintended consequence of IDS’s plans is
that, because of the necessary extra provision for increases in arrears,
increasing costs of collection and advice, and possibly increased borrowing
costs social housing providers are cutting their investment plans for this year
by an estimated £1bn plus, mainly impacting on the construction industry and
building materials’ providers. So, at the very time that the government is
rushing around trying to find good-value infrastructure investment projects
that can be on site quickly, it scuppers over £1bn that fits the bill.
It has not been a good few weeks for IDS. He
- called for people to
voluntarily return winter fuel payments. Just 200 did so.
- lost a major court
battle to keep the locations of thousands of workfare placements secret.
The judge said the DWP had “a paucity of compelling evidence” to
back its claims. Sounds familiar!
- was defeated when the
Court of Appeal ruled that workers had been unlawfully made to do unpaid
work
- has again been rebuked
by the UK Statistics Authority over the deliberate misuse of statistics.
In November 2003, Iain Duncan Smith released his novel The
Devil’s Tune. The critics panned it. "Really, it's terrible ...
terrible, terrible, terrible" was one of the more generous. The
book never made it into paperback.
Now, with welfare reform being “terrible, terrible….”,
perhaps IDS is determined to mark his place in history with the greatest crash
on the rocks of all time. The dreadful prospect is that millions of the poorest
families will be the ones most affected.
This article was originally published on the Local Government Chronicle website on the 4th of June 2013. http://www.lgcplus.com/briefings/a-long-list-of-costs-and-casualties/5059171.article
