Minutes:
Darren Moore, Team Manager (Advice Services), attended the meeting and gave an overview of changes to welfare benefits and also circulated copies of ‘A Guide to the Welfare Reform Changes’.
Darren informed those present that the changes outlined would affect all working age persons’ currently in receipt of benefits and stated that, apart from the much publicised ‘Bedroom Tax’ and Council Tax changes a ‘Benefit Cap’ was to be introduced in September 2013 that would affect local people in this area by imposing a cap on benefits earnings. The current estimate of the cap was £350 for single claimants and £500 for lone parents and couples. Further cuts to benefits were also in the pipeline.
Darren stated that there was, at present, a backlog of some 4,000 Appeals into the notified reduction/refusal of benefits, this represented a 1 year wait for claimants and was because of the cutback in funding received for Advice Services in the City.
A transition period, to move all benefit claimants onto Universal Credit, the new means tested benefit that would replace the current system of working age benefits and tax credits, by replacing them with one benefit, would run until 2017. Universal Credit would be paid monthly, although there would be certain exceptions, and there would be a discretionary approach to applying the credit. Those wishing to have Universal Credit paid weekly would have to apply direct to the Department for Work and Pensions (DwP).
The Chair stated that some 792 households in the immediate area had been identified as being ‘in difficulty’ as a direct result of the changes outlined, some of the families concerned were struggling to find enough money to eat. The news reported at the meeting was not good for anyone currently in receipt of benefits. In the meantime work was underway, with Community Meeting funding, to facilitate the implementation of a soup kitchen at Netherhall Neighbourhood Centre, and maybe introduce food parcels.
Members of the public present were urged to make their views of the Welfare Benefits changes known and it was stressed that it had been the Government that had introduced the changes outlined and that it was the respective Council’s across the country that were having to administer them.
Darren stated that a booklet, mapping out where help was available to benefits claimants was currently in the final stages of publication and would be made available at numerous City Council venues, including Community Centres and Libraries.
The Chair stated that the relevant forms to apply for the new benefits were extremely complicated, although the DwP had claimed that it would be simple to apply online, taking no account of those who did not have access to a computer, or even the necessary skills to complete an application online.
In concluding Darren stated that the Government had stated that some 80% of people across the country were in favour of cuts to benefits, and the changes were being driven by this demand.
RESOLVED:
that the information be noted.