Category Archives: poverty

Food bank Britain: Thousands need charity handouts because of welfare system failings

THOUSANDS of people are relying on food banks to survive because of failings in the welfare system.

 Volunteers sort through some of the food donated by people to the Rochdale Foodbank

A Sunday Express investigation has uncovered scores of cases in which people need charity handouts after being denied benefits because of administration errors and punitive sanctions.

As many as 580,000 cuts to benefit payments were made between October 2012 and June 2013, a six per cent rise on the same period a year earlier, before rules were toughened.

Employment Minister Esther McVey said the sanctions, or cuts to benefits are used only against those who were “wilfully rejecting support for no good reason”.

Bishop wants research into welfare reform-food bank use ‘link’

Research is needed into whether government welfare reforms have caused more people to become dependent on food banks, the Bishop of Truro says.

Food bank Bishop Thornton said foodbanks were dealing with “a desperate need for food”

The Right Reverend Tim Thornton said it was vital to understand if there was any sort of link.
A study by Church Action Poverty and Oxfam said more than 500,000 people in the UK may rely on food banks because of benefit cuts and unemployment.
The government said its reforms aimed to improve the lives of poor families.
Bishop Thornton said: “We need to ask for the facts as to why people are in this situation, and why there is such a desperate need for food.
“It wouldn’t take much work to point out how these things are growing.”
In response to the recent Church Action Poverty and Oxfam study, the government said its welfare reforms would “improve the lives of some of the poorest families in our communities”.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-cornwall-23216487

Protecting older people with a disability from living in poverty

New research on attendance allowance says more should be done to support those receiving the benefit

 

There are around a million people in England receiving AA but not receiving council funded care.

Attendance allowance (AA) is a weekly cash payment to older people with disabilities by the Department for Work and Pensions, worth between £59 and £73. It is a contribution to the extra costs of living with a disability and rarely, if ever, receives any discussion in policy debate. This is odd given the scale of the AA – it is paid to around 1.5 million older people in the UK at a cost of around £5bn each year.

To bolster the evidence base on AA and explore how we can make better use of it, the Strategic Society Centre and Independent Age recently published some new research and policy analysis.

Analysing data from the government-funded English Longitudinal Study of Ageing, we found that most people receiving AA are female and aged over 80. The most common difficulties with activities of daily living experienced by recipients are dressing (including putting on socks and shoes) and bathing or showering. Over half are unable to do work around the home and more than 40% have difficulty shopping for groceries.