This is a rant but I need to vent.
I already claim my teacher's pension due to ill health and a few months ago I was contacted by another pension that I had paid into prior to becoming a teacher. I applied for ill health payment from that pension too and it was accepted. It pays me the grand sum of £33.62 each month.
I promptly declared this new pension to the Housing Benefit people and sent them all the documentation regarding payments that I had. They immediately stopped my housing benefit until I sent them more information. I didn't know what more I could send them so I phoned. They wanted to know what was the pension payable before 6th April and how much it had increased by since then. The pension people were very helpful and sent me the information which I forwarded to the Housing Benefit people. They reassessed my benefit. Told me I owed them money and how it would be deducted from the amount I was entitled to each month. About a week later I got a letter telling me they needed more information and were stopping my housing benefit. I again got them all the information they asked for and jokingly said the only thing left was my blood.
Guess what? Today I got another letter from Housing Benefit telling me they were stopping my benefit until they got more information. I phoned and even the person I spoke to said he'd never heard of this being asked for before. So I've contacted the Pension people again and they're now going to send me details of how much they'd have paid me in November 2014 (had I been claiming at that time) and May 2015 (just after I started claiming) even though if the Housing Benefit people did some basic arithmetic using the figures they already have they could work it out for themselves.
In the meantime I get no housing benefit. I pointed out that without it I can't pay the rent. The reply was that it would be back dated when it was sorted out. I'm sure my landlord will accept back dated rent (not).
This isn't the first time Housing Benefit have messed me about. It happens each time I tell them about a change in income.
I can't help thinking I'm too honest.
One of the (fictitious) examples I saw said something to the effect "I had a hospital appointment so I contacted the jobcentre in good time and got my review date rearranged."
Somehow, I think the appalling treatment vq told us about is more likely to be the case.
Sorry for repetition, I didn't preview my editing.
vampire I'm sorry for you caught up in the.system. it's a mess all right.
far north I don't know is the short answer, but I doubt it is representative of typical views.
eloethan I didnt see leaflets purporting to show people who were doing well despite benefit sanctions. The two examples I saw in the Press tried to convey a message about the importance of rescheduling appointments; and of having a CV. Well those are the two I saw anyway. Ridiculous, anyway.
It is dreadfully sad when people die or commit suicide because their benefits have been stopped and they have no recourse or can see no other way out.
So some poor little call centre clerk is suddenly going to have to decide how real the threat of suicide is and live with the consequences if they get it wrong. Typical of this caring government.
It's not about the photos. It's about concocting a "story" that purports to be a real life account of a person whose benefits have been stopped. Naturally, such "real life" stories don't include negative experiences of having benefits cut but promote the idea that benefit sanctions have actually helped some of the people affected. The photographs merely added to a false sense of authenticity.
For the sake of balance, perhaps they should have included this true account (from the Observer January 2015) in their leaflet:
"In July 2013, David Clapson, 59, was found dead in his flat in Stevenage from diabetic ketoacidosis, two weeks after his benefits were cut. And new information provided by the Disability News Service via a freedom of information request has uncovered that the Department for Work and Pensions has carried out 60 peer reviews following the deaths of customers."
Or this:
"Gillian Guy, chief executive of Citizens Advice, said: “Four-week sanctions are wreaking havoc with people’s ability to find work. People need a transparent system that can take into account their situation, set suitable work-search requirements and, where appropriate, apply sanctions at a level that won’t limit their chances of employment.”
That's true Grannyknot. Do you believe, tho, that the views expressed are typical of the views of benefit claimants?
DWP call centre staff have now been given "guidance" on how to deal with claimants who say that they feel suicidal.
m.heraldscotland.com/news/13620988._Suicide_guidance__given_to_benefits_staff_preparing_for_desperate_calls_on_welfare_reform/
People have had a field day re the "made up" stories for the DWP leaflets e.g.on Twitter this week and some of the responses have been very funny.
However, using 'stock photos' to illustrate (government) leaflets is and always has been common practice, can you imagine the outcry if real benefit recipients were photographed for this purpose.
Anyway the department's Comms Director and Department should be answering for this.
I don't like IDS nor do I think the leaflets were a good idea, in fact most leaflets like that are a waste of time and money. I'm just saying ... in the interests of "to be fair".
No wonder Ian Duncan Smith is laughing. Stop a veterans benefit. Yay look after the pennies and the pounds will look after themselves. More evidence of a) catching cheats and b) saving public money.
Come the revolution....
My housing benefit has been sorted out....well on paper. They're not going to pay me until next month.
Despite my best efforts it seems that I now owe them money so, although I only qualify for housing benefit because I am deemed to be officially poor and therefore need all the money I am entitled to, someone has decided that I will repay the amount owed at the rate of £11.45 a week. This will be deducted at source so I have no choice in the matter.
This is on top of the 14% reduction they make because I have two bedrooms.
... and we are the sixth richest country in the world ...
I have heard of so much hardship caused by this "sanctioning" its a total disgrace,I have a lady volunteer who works with me twice a week who has been sanctioned because she did not complete what they thought was a full job search result for two weeks,she was told to get herself on-line with the internet and do her searches on -line,this lady can't afford the line rental for a phone but is worrying herself sick as the library which she uses now is only open 2.5 days a week at her last interview she had hand written all her searches which she found in local papers and shops she had visited to be told this was not acceptable and it should be in printed format,I dispare for her and her situation,she is on her own and has no close family for back up and has had to go cap in hand to CAB to be referred to foodbanks until her benefit claim is sorted at the end of this month as she has been moved onto universal credit and its a new claim for her.Its a pity a Government Minister has not been put through the same scenario to see how this stupid system is supposed to work.
It's the way the system works.
That is completely disgusting, vq.
He should be but he won't. Each £1 that the DWP doesn't pay out to a genuine claimant is £1 saved as far as the government is concerned. It doesn't matter to them how the claimant who lives week to week is supposes to survive. Sink or swim as far as they're concerned. Sink and that's one less claimant. Swim and it proves you didn't need it in the first place.
I know a person who had her benefits stopped twice for not signing on at the correct time. The first time she was in a job interview. She told the Job Centre well in advance but it made no difference. The second time she was in a and e miscarrying. Again this made no difference. However, on both occasions, they used their discretion and 'only' stopped her benefit for two weeks as they deemed her excuses to be acceptable and therefore did not require a six week disqualification.
Despite this 'generosity' she still had to rely on friends, family and the foodbank and ended up owing money to people who had loaned her money to pay her rent.
When will Iain Duncan Smith be held to account?
voxpoliticalonline.com/2015/08/21/lie-after-lie-over-sanctions-and-foi-duncan-smiths-head-should-roll/
I do understand what you are saying VQ. I feel the same, to some extent, with any help, financial or physical, we get for my mother and my mother is certainly frightened if she thinks any negative comment would be made.
It's is so wrong that you are in this position though. They are really just using, or rather misusing the system to intimidate as many people as possible into dropping out. Heaven knows what happens to those who do not have your staying power.
I do not have that option without a problem with transport. I have been at the surgery since 1968 and feel quite bitter at the way it has gone.
I complained on Facebook about my poor excuse for a surgery. Then I changed Surgeries.
I think it's a problem right across the system. They have the power and if you make a fuss they close ranks and get you.
My sympathies vq and I know just what you mean,it applies to lots of areas . I made a complaint to my GP surgery when I was told lies by receptionists on 3 occaisions and it is now obvious that I am treated with disapproval by them. I know of people whse relatives were neglected in hospital and wouldn't complain because of the consequences. Sorry I went off topic.
Whilst I agree that a complaint could well be in order I'm not brave enough to do it.
When you're in the benefits system you very quickly learn that they have far more ways of getting at you than you have at them. Unless I was desperate I'd no more take them on than I would have taken on the Gestapo.
vampirequeen, I'm afraid I don't know anything about this area but reading what you have written I wonder if it is now time to take what must be a large file of correspondence along to your MPs surgery.
As has been said this seems to be delaying tactics and is wrong, wrong, wrong 
It appears from FarNorth's link that it is deemed acceptable to damage the health of a person, though not to such an extent that it might cause the individual to suffer a physical or mental health crisis and thus bring the DWP into disrepute. How a decision maker is supposed to arrive at such an assessment I really can't imagine. Is there some sort of algebraic formula whereby x degree of vulnerability will lead to y amount of damage to health?
So far as vampirequeen's situation is concerned, I agree with Flutterby123's advice to write down in chronological order everything that has happened and then to take such a report to the CAB and ask for their help in making an official complaint.
It's not about sending them the stuff they really need. I'm totally upfront with my claims. The minute something changes I phone and follow up with paper document. It is at this point that 'someone' decides they need more information even though you've already sent them everything you have. The pension providers are so used to this they're never surprised at what they're asked for.
It seems to me that the extras they ask for are just a way of delaying payment for some reason. It's OK for them the say they'll backdate the payments. Claimants still have to pay their rent.
The DWP instructions previously mentioned talks about being without accomodation for two weeks. When you lose your home they don't give you it back after two weeks. If you're evicted then that's it. You're homeless.
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