72) Guardian Newspaper Discussion - Dysfunctional Welfare?

12th August 2014

Guardian - Iain Duncan Smith to signal more reform of 'dysfunctional' welfare system

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/aug/11/iain-duncan-smith-more-reform-dysfunctional-welfare#comments

ObiDanKinobi:- In response to Waraila

Just to pull you up on something. Having sanctions taken against you does in fact stop your housing benefit claim. You have to make a "change of circumstances" to no viable income, (which entails you having to disclose all bank details for that period).

I have been waiting for 29 days so far without any Housing Benefit, the delays are often over 3 weeks.

That's 29 days without any money for rent. Also i have had no money from jsa or hardship allowance (my jsa claim was "permanently suspended", which is far as i can tell a "grey-area" since February.)

I have requested a judicial hearing on this, and it is pending. (the last judicial hearing took around 4-5 months, to come about, and then was adjudicated on in my absence (i was running late due to train delays, i phoned this in prior to the tribunal hearing). This will be set-aside though, however the points that i need clarifying (the reason the claim was permanently suspended) are to do with the fact that i refused to sign a proposed variation of a jobseekers agreement, which amongst other things, involved the unreasonable mandation of creating a universal jobmatch account.

The reason it is unreasonable is because UJM is hosted by an American corporation (monster) which due to the snowden disclosures has been proven to be backdoored by the American government.

If i abided by this mandation, I would in essence by proxy be rendering my personal and private details to the American government.

I do not believe the citizens of a sovereign nation such as the U.K should be forced/mandated into handing over their private details to a foreign state, be it china, Russia or even seemingly allied countries such as Europe or the U.S.

I do not believe this to be unreasonable.

However i have no money, and have had to sell the meagre possessions i own and borrow money in order to pay rent.

It is not just that such things are delayed, however this plays into the hands of the DWP for they know by stalling such things, for people in seemingly bad financial situations, that they are essentially forcing them to comply with their demands.

I have mentioned this since my first sanction also.

We live in a country of law and order.

Innocent until proven guilty.

Why then does the sanction system work in a counter-way to this?

You are sanctioned and then must appeal these sanctions. This is not just and is I feel, a breach of amongst other things, human rights article 6 - a right to a fair trial.

Considering the fact that these benefits are literally a life and death thing for many, removing peoples ability to exist without even so much as a trial, is i think, extremely unjust.

Edited for spelling 28/10/15