One million of
Britain’s lowest paid
employees
will be classed as “not working enough” and could find themselves
pushed with the threat of sanctions to find more income under radical
changes to benefits, the Department for Work and Pensions has said.
DWP internal documents seen by the Guardian reveal that people
earning between £330 to around £1,050 a month – just under the rate of
the national minimum wage for a 35-hour week – could be mandated to
attend job centre meetings where their working habits will be examined
as part of the
universal credit programme.
Some of those deemed to be “not working enough” could also be
instructed to take on extra training – and if they fail to complete
tasks they could be stripped of their UC benefits in a move which
departmental insiders conceded is controversial.
The
DWP
said that their overall plans for those in low-paid work were not yet
definite and recognised that supporting working families to increase
their income was a complex area into which the state hadn’t previously
intervened. But the department estimates there are one
million people in this lower-paid bracket.
Not all of those will be forced into
jobcentres, with individuals with caring
responsibilities or other constraints preventing them taking on full-time work highly likely to be excluded.
The DWP said: “There isn’t any real clear, definite plan as to how this [part] would work.”
However the department did confirm that docking social security payments for those who are
categorised as “not working enough” formed part of their plans.
The shadow work and pensions minister, Liam Byrne, said that the
policy was attempting to push people into work that wasn’t there. “What
this out-of-touch
government
fails to realise is that there simply aren’t that many extra shifts to
go around. Millions are locked out of work and millions more are
desperate to increase their hours.”
The senior ministers involved in heading up welfare reform have
spoken about how their flagship reform would completely change the
culture of benefits.
Speaking in parliament during answers to urgent questions on
Thursday, Iain Duncan Smith said: “Universal credit isn’t just about IT,
it is massively about cultural change, to get people back to work and
to ensure those who do go to work, particularly the poorest, benefit the
most.”
Documents seen by the Guardian show how millions of people currently in receipt of some sort of benefit will be
categorised
into seven classes including, “too sick to work”, “too committed to
work”, a category including lone parents, and those deemed to be “not
working enough”.
UC aims to merges six different
benefits with the claimant receiving a single monthly household payment, although earlier this week the
National
Audit Office warned that the underlying IT project had been beset by
“weak management ineffective control and poor governance” and that £34m
of the £303m spent on technology had already been written off.
Sources say that new JSA claims will be “shut down” by July 2015
while the tax credits system – created by Gordon Brown as Labour
chancellor – will end for new claims by November that year. Meanwhile
income support for lone parents will be terminated by
October 2015. These benefits and others are planned to be folded into to one single universal payment.
One recent policy document sets out the rationale for placing
conditions on those who are in work: “Moving to universal credit will
not only remove systemic barriers to employment, it will also remove the
distinction between in and out of work, meaning that even one hour of
work would profit the claimant … the decision for the claimant will
therefore be simplified – do they want the additional income from
employment, or not?”
Reflecting the biggest change to social security since 1945, language
now being employed at the DWP includes describing the “claimant
journey” where getting into work “is just the first step”.
The TUC’s general secretary, Frances O’Grady said the DWP’s policy
would be forcing people from secure and into insecure work: “This unfair
move could force people on low-paid jobs to trade relatively secure
employment for work of a much more precarious nature, simply to justify a few weeks work on a slightly higher rate of pay.
“It shows how out of touch the
government
is with the problems facing low-income families – who already have more
than enough on their plates struggling to make ends meet. They will be
living in constant fear of being punished at a time when there are
simply not enough decent
jobs to go round.”
The DWP said:
“This is obviously a complex area where the state has not previously
intervened and supported people to increase their earnings. That is why
we are working on pilots to get this help right and to determine the
most
effective support for in-work universal credit claimants.
“Too many people in low-income work have no support to help them earn more and eventually move to independence.”