Welfare Reform How is it affecting people? Yasmin Johnson Stockton CAB

Started with the Welfare Reform Act In 2012 over £115 Billion was spent on benefits. It has been created by the Government to help reduce the amount of money that the country spends on paying people benefits.

The main changes to benefits have affected: Housing and Council Tax Benefit Disability Living Allowance Income Based Benefits Tax Credits Most of the changes started in April 2013.

Jobseekers Allowance and Employment and Support Allowance There have been some changes to these benefits which allows the DWP to take away your money for a certain amount of time. This is called a sanction. The jobcentre is allowed to give a sanction for lots of different reasons. They can last from 2 weeks to 26 weeks (6 months) for Jobseekers’ Allowance. Or until you do what they’ve asked you to do for Employment and Support Allowance.

Not going to a work focused interview Not going to the Jobcentre Not applying for jobs Not going to a work related activity Not going to a work scheme or doing what they’ve asked you to e.g. Triage, Ingeus Some of the reasons you might get a sanction…

Sanctions, Work Focused Interviews & Work Programme Issues 171% Increase

Help from Charities There is not as much help available for people from the Social Fund. More people are coming to speak to Citizen’s Advice because they need help from charities. A lot of people don’t have enough money from their benefits to buy food.

Employment Support Allowance Since 2008 the DWP has been moving people from Incapacity Benefit and Income support to Employment and Support Allowance. The government is making changes about how you can appeal a decision that you think is wrong. This is something we will be keeping an eye on in the future.

Lots of people who have changed over to Employment and Support Allowance were not happy with the decisions at first. We have helped them to say that they thought this was wrong.

Disability Living Allowance and Personal Independence Payments From the 8 th April 2013 people in the North East of England will no longer be able to apply for Disability Living Allowance (DLA), they have to apply for the new benefit Personal Independence Payment. In October 2015 everyone who is still getting DLA will have to apply for Personal Independence Payments.

Personal Independence Payments This benefit is replacing Disability Living Allowance. There are still 2 different components and you can just get paid one component. Mobility Component This is paid if you need someone to go out with you or help with moving around Daily living Component This is paid if you need help with day-to-day activities such as preparing or eating food washing and bathing dressing and undressing reading communicating

More people are coming to speak to us because they’re worried about the changes to Disability Living Allowance We have been keeping an eye on some people who are changing over to PIP see how it goes So far no-one has had a decision if they are going to get paid PIP, some people have been to a medical assessment

Housing Benefit People who live somewhere that is owned by the council or a Housing Association have to pay a ‘bedroom tax’ if they have bedrooms that aren’t being used. This means that if you are a single person living in a 2 bedroom house or flat, you will have to pay some money for the spare bedroom. We have had 45% more people who have come to us for help because they have been made homeless.

Council Tax Benefit From April 2013 there is no Council Tax Benefit. It is called the Local Council Tax Support. In Stockton, our Council wants everyone to pay at least 20% of their Council Tax Bill. This means that people will have to use money from other things for Council Tax. This amount will be different in different areas.

Universal Credit This is the new benefit that will join lots of different benefits together. This means that all money you’re entitled to, including money for your rent, is paid directly to you or who ever is in charge of your money. You will only be paid your Universal Credit once a month.

Budgeting Advice We have already had more people this year coming to us to help with how to budget their money. Three times as many people have come to see us about help with their gas and electricity bills. We have a special project that helps people to look for the cheapest deal.