PCS is campaigning to keep a fair and just welfare state and oppose the government’s brutal welfare changes that penalise the poor.
We know from pay surveys that many members claim tax credits, child benefit, disability living allowance and other benefits that supplement their income.
The welfare state, which was established to provide social security to those unable to work is being dismantled through privatisation. The government is waging an ideological war on the welfare state.
Fighting the attacks on social security benefits is a key part of our national campaign. When tens of thousands of civil service jobs are being cut, we know people are made unemployed through no fault of their own.
Large cuts
Large welfare cuts were imposed from 1 April. This is not about cutting the deficit, but paying for tax breaks to millionaires and big business. To justify these cuts, the government is spreading myths about the ‘lazy’ unemployed and those unable to work, trying to create prejudice and division. But the reality is cuts will affect those in work as well those not in work.
Just as the government tried to divide public and private sector workers, so it is trying to divide those in work from those out of work. Most of the changes are being brought in under the deceptively named ‘Universal Credit’ (UC) – a single benefit that combines jobseeker’s allowance, employment and support allowance, income support, housing benefit and tax credits. It will be frozen at an uprating of just 1% in its initial years – effectively a cut.
As UC is phased in across the UK over the next four years, parents with young children, carers, disabled people and those with mental health issues face tougher tests to qualify for benefits. If they fail they could be cut off without support.
For the first time since our welfare state was introduced, the principle of people having a right to welfare is being undermined. Many of the changes will hit women, BME groups and disabled people hardest.
Limited access
The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) wants 80% of UC claims to be made online – but nearly 20% of adults and 32.8% of disabled adults have never used the internet and many more do not have regular access.
PCS believes the best way to help people claim the benefits they are entitled to, and help them back into work where appropriate, is through face-to-face contact.
Unique threats to PCS members
It is a shocking fact that 40% of the DWP staff who work on UC receive some form of it and may be assessed and sanctioned by their own colleagues. To compound the problems, automating functions currently carried out by staff could lead to massive job cuts at DWP and HMRC.
The terms and conditions of staff being moved between HMRC and DWP have not been guaranteed. Long-term provision of UC has not been decided, leaving open a real risk of privatisation. If UC goes live with an inadequate IT system, there are likely to be severe delays to benefit payments and greater staff stress will result.
Campaign objectives
Our key objectives of a united campaign include organising a week of activities around welfare as part of the national campaign from 29 April to 5 May. This includes highlighting our alternative vision for welfare and protecting public service delivery, while defending members’ jobs from cuts and privatisation.
We are also stressing the need to defend claimants’ rights and entitlements and bust welfare myths put forward by the government and sections of the media.
Campaign activities have already taken place – on 13 March. PCS supported a demonstration organised by campaign group Disabled People Against the Cuts to challenge the closure of the Independent Living Fund.
Protesters were outside the High Court to support six disabled people challenging the fund’s closure. A joint rally with Unite is also due to take place on 29 April in Manchester – one of the places UC is being trialled before being rolled out nationally in October this year.
- DWP wants 80% of Universal Credit (UC) claims to be made online
- Nearly 20% of adults and 32.8% of disabled adults have never used the internet
- 40% of DWP staff who work on UC receive some form of it and may be assessed and sanctioned by their own colleagues
