The Vision Project

THE BENEFITS SYSTEM IS
PERFECT JUST AS IT IS
AND NOBODY SHOULD PANIC; IT’S FINE
WRITTEN BY EMMA KERNAHAN
Emma is a blogger and writer from Gloucestershire who works in the third sector.
She can be found on Twitter @crappyliving.
I’m a Support Worker. I help people
to access social security and move on
positively in their lives. This is an easy
job, because government benefits are
generous and easy to access and social
security is highly valued, as are the
people who receive it...
The government invests heavily in services to
make sure they lift people out of poverty, even if
doing so goes against individual, donor or party
interests. Doing that is what they are known for,
because it’s their job. When they have agreed
work commitments, they stick to them.
The system has been designed by people who
have received social security themselves, and
used it to progress into training and well-paid
government jobs. They work in offices that provide
flexible working, and on-site childcare. There are a
few people who work as policy makers who have
no experience of living on a low income, and that’s
great for diversity.
I have a case load of five people - not 30, and not
90 if I work in London. I work with five people
intensively to ensure they have enough money to
control their own lives, and to connect them to
other well-funded and effective services, because
this is literally the only thing that works. Nobody
needs to have a local connection to use essential
services, because that’s a system that underpinned
the Elizabethan Poor Laws of 1601, and it is not
1601.
Today I’m meeting Kate. Kate has a three-yearold
son and is seven months pregnant. Kate is
funny and clever and wants to be a journalist. Her
ex-partner is abusive, and even though she doesn’t
have family nearby, Kate was able to leave that
situation because high quality social housing is
plentiful and easy to access. She and her son have
never been housed in one room above a boardedup
pub, in a remote area with no public transport.
Her son does not have chronic respiratory illnesses
caused by damp living conditions, because that
would be unacceptable for any child growing up in
the fifth largest economy in the world.
We are meeting at the social security office. The
social security office is a bright and welcoming
place in a nice part of town, because that’s how
much we value the people who use it. Their success
benefits everyone. They are allowed to use the
toilets.
We are meeting there because Kate has debts.
These debts are not a result of having been
unlawfully fired from a poorly paid job in the care
industry because she was pregnant. Nor are they
the result of three months with absolutely no
income while her eligibility for state benefits was
assessed.
Kate has rent arrears because for years her partner
controlled her finances. He made unreasonable
demands of her in exchange for small amounts of
money. Sometimes, he withheld money from her
for long periods without explanation or redress,
trapping her in her relationship and making her
physically and mentally ill. This was humiliating
and abusive. The government does not do this.
Instead it provides Kate with a Basic Income. The
Basic Income is paid straight away, fortnightly and
in advance. It is not means tested and it covers
all of her needs, including those of her children,
however many children she has. It allows a little
extra to save, cover unexpected costs and make
long term plans, because being unable to do this
would make poverty inescapable. No government
would set out to make poverty inescapable for a
large proportion of the electorate, or to benefit
from that process in any way.
At the office, Kate is Kate. She is not a customer, a
client, a scrounger or a cheat, she is not bone idle
or playing the system. She’s also not in the library,
because that’s a place for borrowing books, not
for people in crisis to discuss the details of their
personal life with strangers, even in a glass booth
that is called a pod.
Kate, like all people claiming social security, is working
a little harder to get by than others who have been
luckier in their circumstances. This takes skill and
resourcefulness and she is actively celebrated for it.
Not vilified, not tolerated. Not even simply supported.
Celebrated.
On the wall is a reminder that every person is
entitled to the realisation of the economic, social
and cultural rights indispensable for their dignity
and the free development of their personality. It
does not feature a list of reasons the police may be
called and sixteen posters about chlamydia.
Together, we speak to Kate’s regular adviser
in person, and call a debt specialist on a single
Freephone number. We spend one minute on hold,
not 90, which means everyone still actively enjoys
hearing Vivaldi, and Kate does not miss any of
the university course that she attends for free. Her
son has had free access to an excellent nursery
since his first birthday, so she will soon be able to
complete her journalism studies and find well-paid,
secure work.
Her rent arrears are cleared with a grant, and debt
does not stop her and her children from having a
home, or from heating it. As survivors of domestic
abuse, Kate and her son receive regular, high
quality care, often in their own home. So does the
perpetrator of the abuse. She is not put on a six
month waiting list for counselling, or given a leaflet
for the anger management hotline with the wrong
number printed on it, or offered a series of free
shiatsu sessions, at the library.
This is done because everyone wants Kate to fulfil
her enormous potential. They know that a good
social security system does not mean a budgeting
sheet and a lecture about ready meals. It does not
mean food bank vouchers, or calling a sick note
a ‘fit note’, or disguising funding cuts with words
like ‘empowerment’. It does not cut holes in the
welfare safety net, and then briskly toss people into
it. Also, nobody knows what the benefits cap is, but
it sounds terrible.
A good benefits system is fundamentally
redistributive. And what it redistributes is value,
making those at the bottom as important as those
at the top. It means a huge number of highly
trained staff, a well-connected infrastructure and
a clear and transparent line of responsibility, so
that nobody sinks beneath the weight of poor and
unjust decisions.
10
THE VISION PROJECT