By Julia Slay
On Monday, we published ‘’Everyday Insecurity: Life at the End of the Welfare State’’, which paints a bleak picture of the impact that the new austerity – the combined impact of the recession, cuts and welfare reform – is having on people in some of England’s most deprived communities.
Ironically, next week also marks the 70th anniversary of the founding of the welfare state. At a time of unprecedented cuts to public spending, I have found myself wondering what our public services will look like in 2020.
To date we have seen proposed public sector cuts of £81 billion and cuts in welfare spending amounting to £18 billion, with a further £10 billion proposed this month by George Osborne. More is to come, of that we can be certain. But what do these numbers really mean for people and communities? Our research tries to get beneath the figures to find how people are living through this experience.
Many core public services, such as housing and social care, are facing huge reductions in spending, leading to the tightening of eligibility criteria and cuts in services. In 2005 thirteen of London’s local authorities provided social care support to people with ‘moderate’ care needs. Now only four local authorities provide this and in the others you won’t get any support until your needs get significantly worse. Youth services, which local authorities do not have statutory duties to provide, are seeing cuts of up to 90%.
While vital services are in retreat, welfare is also changing, making many groups more dependent upon the very services that are being swept away. We’re seeing the conditionality of benefits increasing, a more punitive benefits regime developing, tighter eligibility and reduced overall funding for individuals and families. This will result in millions of people on the lowest incomes seeing their economic resources decrease at a time of rising costs of essential goods and services. Early signs of this are already showing, and a bitterly ironic article published today revealed that a Norfolk based food bank has been awarded £5,000 from Norfolk Council’s Big Society Fund to expand its efforts to provide emergency food supplies to people being affected by this new austerity.
What’s the long term impact of these changes and how might they change all of our lives?
The reductions across public services, and particularly in housing and social care services, mean that people will not be able to access support unless their needs are more intense and acute than at present and therefore much less easily preventable. In housing, for example, we are already seeing dramatic increases in the number of families being placed in temporary accommodation and a rising number of people who are homeless. This costs more and substantially reduces people’s quality of life.
As social care services are cut, and benefit reductions take their toll on people’s health and well-being, demand for NHS services will increase. Indeed, it is likely that the NHS will be hit hardest by the cuts in the long run. From cuts to respite services for carers to reduced benefits and insecure housing, all these things take their toll and GPs will be the first port of call. The increased demand for services will be largely driven by more acute needs, more stress and an increased burden of caring and material deprivation. Mental ill health, already reaching crisis levels, looks set to escalate even further as the material conditions that shape people’s lives change over the coming decade. The demand for health services may increase so much that, without radical reform, costs will spiral out of control. We may be told that we can no longer afford a universal health care service at all.
Though I suspect the NHS faces the biggest hidden threat, it doesn’t stop there. By 2020 we are unlikely to have many youth services at all in England. Have you ever needed help with managing debt or resolving a financial dispute? Well, access to Legal Aid will be a distant memory and so with it any notion of equality of justice. Got a debt problem or need financial advice? Depending on where you live, you may have to begin queuing at 6am to see someone, or you may have nowhere at all to go and get advice as Citizens’ Advice Bureaux across the country see their funding slashed.
Changes to housing benefits mean that many of those who are on a low income and rent their home will be forced to rent in the private sector and see their incomes stretch to breaking point, or move out of the area they live in, widening social inequalities. Some 50,000 families are currently accepted as homeless, a number which has risen by almost 50% in the past year. If this trend continues, we could expect many hundreds of thousands of families likely to be living in temporary accommodation by 2020, with devastating consequences for the lives of those individuals.
Through this complex combination of cuts and welfare an entire layer of infrastructure and support is being taken out the state: your needs have to be more acute to access support, and the safety net of support for when times are toughest is starting to develop some gaping holes. What is more, we are only two years into at least five of sustained cuts in public funding. Some projections suggest that austerity is here to stay for at least a decade, and in the past few weeks we have heard of a further £10 billion in Welfare reductions. By 2020, will we have any safety net left at all?
From Touchstone
Subscribe in a reader
This Austerity Agenda is Evil
It must Not only be Opposed it Must be Stopped
Forget Circuses of Fireworks Displays and Christmas We Need a New
Government We Need Redistribution of Wealth from Rich to Poor
We Need an End to the Dictatorship of the Millionaires
Now Not Never
We Need Mass Rallies Every Week Not just People Assembling for the
Turning on of Christmas Lights
No Austerity and Rebuild the Welfare State
Sack the Tories Not over 200,000 Public Sector Workers
Legal Aid being Messed About With Bureaucracy and Gormless Politicians
The Answer is Resistance to Change the Course of Direction and to Stop
this Regime in it’s Diabolical Tracks to Bring About a Political and
Social Climate in which it is Impossible for them to Remain in Office
No More Burying the Head in the Sand
Billions of Pounds Taken From Welfare is a Serious Matter
Welfare Before the Bloodshed of Warfare in Afghanistan
The Right to Peaceful Protest is Our Basic Human Right
Politicians who Mess with This Violate Our Human Rights
WHY THE MEDIA AND OPPOSITION ARE QUIET ON WELFARE REFORM CUTS Blair following Clinton and Bush Jr adopted the method of ‘non medical assessments’ for disability claimants ,the model was designed by UNUM and the assessments are carried out by ATOS .Blair in 2006 appointed Lord Freud to provide an independent view on the Welfare to Work system .Freud called for private sector involvement in the Welfare System to help those on Incapacity Benefit and single parents back into economic activity .After his findings two UNUM employees a Doctor and an Occupational Therapist were invited to join the Technical Working Group that carried out the review of the personal capability assessment .In 1994 Mansel Aylward was the chief Medical Officer of the DWP who designed a stringent ‘all work test’ and approved doctors were trained in UNUM’s approach to claims management . It was a Labour Government in 1999 that introduced the Welfare Reform Act .All new claimants had to attend a compulsory work focussed interview and it was Aylward who revised the test to the Personal Capability Assessment ,emphasising on not what was your entitlement but what work you were capable of .In 2009 Freud joined the Tory party and was made a peer .UNUM in 2004 opened a £1.3 million centre for Psychosocial and Disability Research at Cardiff University Mansel Aylward was appointed Director after he retired from DWP .No wonder the Tories are so smug they are carrying on what Blair started ,that’s why Miliband ,Balls and Harman are very quiet on the subject .The Media’s hands are tied because both Political Parties are as guilty as each other on the subject of Welfare Reform. http://www.brokenbritainundertories.com
THE BIG LIE ON CORPORATION TAX Corporations dictate to Governments ,Starbucks is a prime example hence the G 20 summits attended by politicians and Government Leaders ,Finance Ministers ,Central Bank Governor’s, Employment and Labour Minister’s ,large Company Directors and Corporation heads .We live in a Global economy so each individual country has to adhere to a general policy arrived at by these secret meetings .The minimum wage in this country increases approx 80p per year ,whereas inflation over the last 30 years has risen by approx 360%.The working man pays every time .Under EU rules Corporations can pay their Taxes to any Member State ,therefore they don’t pay here in the UK but cheaper tax rated countries .
Why do the public seem to be swallowing the hook and line of Osborne and the coalition cronies? I was just doing some surfing with Austerity and the Deficit etc in mind and came across this graph from the Telegraph…
http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2010/oct/18/deficit-debt-government-borrowing-data#zoomed-picture
… You can see clearly the jump in 2008 the year after the Northern Rock crisis and then the astronomical leap in 2009 due to the massive banking bailout.The Deficit prior to this has always fluctuated regardless of who was in government,but the cause of all of this Austerity business falls clearly at the feet of the Bankers and financial institutions! and now the poorest most vulnerable sectors of British society are paying a despicable price whilst the people that caused this ballooning deficit are still suggesting that they should receive fat bonuses and ‘well done old boy’ pats on the back.Where is the media to tell the truth about all of this? where are the constant brainwashing news bulletins to convince Joe Public about Who is Really to Blame and where the money should be coming from to correct this situation??,whilst at the same time massive corporations avoid paying their tax in this country,and billionaires use offshore banking havens to avoid their taxes in this country and employment agencies push ordinary people into umbrella schemes to avoid paying their employer NI contributions,where are the Hounds when it’s time to chase down these people and make them fulfil their obligations????