subscribe: Posts | Comments

Fawcett, women and the jobseeker’s allowance

0 comments

fawcett society, report, inquiry, women and JSA‘Some groups of vulnerable women even more likely to experience poverty, ill-health, exploitation and abuse’.

The UK’s job seeking benefit system is making some groups of vulnerable women even more likely to experience poverty, ill-health, exploitation and abuse, an independent inquiry has found.

The inquiry also found that aspects of the Jobseeker’s Allowance (JSA) system is damaging hard won gains for equality between women and men and putting some women and their families at risk.

The inquiry, which was chaired by Amanda Ariss, chief executive of the Equality and Diversity Forum, and co-ordinated by the Fawcett Society, found evidence of failings in both the design and the implementation of the JSA system.

Where’s the Benefit? An Inquiry into Women and Jobseeker’s Allowance, published last month, was a culmination of months of work examining how changes made the benefits system and specifically the job seekers allowance (JSA), have impacted women.

The results were very concerning.

The Fawcett Society found that the job seeking benefits system is making some groups of vulnerable women even more likely to experience poverty, ill-health, exploitation and abuse.

Lone parents, women who suffer violence at home and women who have difficulties with English are being particularly hard hit.

Research also found evidence of failings in both the design and the implementation of the JSA system.

For example, although special arrangements can be made to protect claimants who are experiencing violence from a partner, claimants are not routinely told that this is possible.

Lone parents, 9/10 of whom are women, are often expected to look for full-time work involving three hours travel every day even when this makes it impossible for them to also look after their children.

The Committee found the JSA system, as it is currently operating, is unnecessarily punitive, and is causing considerable unnecessary hardship and stress to claimants – both women and men – and their children.

While the current system is having a detrimental impact on both men and women, the fact that it does not take the lived experiences of particular groups of women into account is making certain women exceptionally vulnerable to sanctions – with the knock-on effects of food and fuel poverty, mental and physical ill-health, and insecure housing amongst others – through no fault of their own.

The report’s main conclusions are:

The JSA regime takes insufficient account of the distinctive circumstances of many women’s lives, in particular their higher risk of getting stuck in low-paid jobs, the impact of their caring responsibilities and the fact that they are much more likely than men to be at risk of domestic and sexual violence.

Those features of the JSA system that are intended to take account of these differences are not working well. There are flaws in both their design and implementation. Consequently, the requirements included in Claimant Commitments and Jobseeker’s Agreements are often difficult if not impossible for women to comply with.

As a result, particular groups of women (including single mothers, women facingsexual and domestic violence, and women who have difficulties with English) are exceptionally vulnerable to sanctions through no fault of their own. This is affecting women’s safety, their mental and physical health, and the health and wellbeing of their children.

Some groups of women appear to be being sanctioned without good reason more often than other groups.

Lone parents, 92 per cent of whom are women, are significantly more likely than other claimants to be successful when they appeal against a sanction, suggesting that they are more likely to have been sanctioned unreasonably in the first place.

There is anecdotal evidence of women who have difficulties with English being sanctioned repeatedly simply because they do not understand what the system requires of them.

Because JSA is focused on getting people into any work regardless of claimants’ skill level and experience, it is contributing to a growing pattern of women being over represented in low paid jobs with poor prospects from which they will struggle to progress.

This is not just a waste of women’s potential economic contribution, it also makes it more likely that they will need other forms of state support to survive and that their children will grow up in poverty.

In some respects, the way in which the JSA regime is being implemented in relation to women risks directly undermining other government goals or strategies.

For example, the policy of not telling claimants about the Domestic Violence (DV) Easement so that they will only benefit from it if they happen to find out about it appears to be at odds with the government’s overall strategy for reducing the impact of domestic violence.

The inquiry made 12 recommendations in all, including:

Specialist advisers should be available to support claimants such as lone parents, women experiencing domestic and sexual violence and women with difficulties speaking and understanding English. These advisers could ensure that the policies already in place to protect vulnerable women are followed in practice.

The conditions demanded of claimants should take sensible and appropriate account of the impact of caring responsibilities, language barriers and the impact of domestic and sexual violence.

Claimants should be told about policies in place to take account of the specific needs of lone parents and of people experiencing domestic or sexual violence.

All claimants should receive a thorough diagnostic interview after three months of claiming JSA, to ensure they are receiving the support they need to move into sustainable, quality employment and are not being required to take up activities, at a cost to the public purse, that make little or no contribution to their job search.

Further research is needed into:

The reasons that sanctions are overturned, as the high proportion of sanctions overturned at appeal indicates a considerable misapplication of sanction referrals.

What happens to the ‘hidden group’ – those who are sanctioned and then do not move into known employment or continue to claim benefits.

This group, especially the women within it, appear to be particularly vulnerable to exploitation, and the lack of knowledge about what happens to them is of grave concern. It is also likely to have a distorting effect on figures about claimants moving ‘off benefits’.

The extent of financial hardship caused by benefit sanctions, including in relation to food and fuel poverty and the impact of sanctions on child poverty and development (as suggested by the House of Commons Work and Pensions Committee report, ‘The role of Jobcentre Plus in the reformed welfare system,’ January 2014).

What happens to claimants after they have been sanctioned, in order to assess the efficacy of sanctions and understand their long-term impact in a UK context.

The inquiry’s chair, Amanda Ariss, said: “It is deeply worrying that a benefit that exists to support us all if we find ourselves out of work is putting vulnerable groups of women and their children at risk of unnecessary financial hardship, mental and physical ill-health and, in extreme cases, exploitation and abuse.

“This makes no sense,” Ariss continued.

“These women are not being provided with the support they need to move into work, which would benefit the women themselves, their families and the wider economy.

“Instead they are forced to meet conditions that are sometimes close to impossible, with the constant threat of sanctions should they slip up.

“It doesn’t have to be this way,” she pointed out.

“With some modest changes to the design and implementation of JSA we could have a system that supports women to move into quality, sustainable work.”

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *