The Welfare Rights & Housing advice service has been taking calls & emails and giving advice remotely throughout the pandemic & lockdown, although only one worker has been doing this for social distancing reasons.
Despite much of the current DWP guidance – such as the lifting of work-search requirements, no face-to-face medical assessments, scrapping the required hours for Working Tax Credits and the dropping of the minimum income floor for the self-employed – demand has been steady. The huge increase in unemployment and Universal Credit claims, medical assessments continuing to be held by phone, and the even longer delays to the processing of disability benefits claims and appeals, especially PIP, where appeals took 13 months to get to Tribunal before the pandemic, are all factors in this. In effect, the many disabled people who fail a medical assessment conducted by phone are having their benefits stopped in the midst of a pandemic.
Other particular injustices have been the decision by the DWP not to apply the £20 per week increase in unemployment benefit to the disability benefit Employment & Support Allowance, thereby financially disadvantaging many thousands of disabled people, and the continued imposition of the benefit cap, now paradoxically penalising more claimants since the small increase in unemployment benefits.
Looking forward, we’re anticipating more demand than ever in the future, especially when the relaxation of DWP guidance is lifted and local authorities resume reclaiming Housing & Council Tax overpayments, including issuing of eviction proceedings from social housing, are combined with the massive increase in joblessness and Universal Credit claims.
None of the challenges presented by the future can be met without the expert advice given by our team of volunteer advisors who give up their time for free and keep the service running.
