This is probably the most offensive thing I have read in a so-called left wing newspaper, here from The Guardian, ever. A visceral attack on the British benefits system which turns into a full-frontal attack on staff who work for the DWP, many of whom will be my former colleagues. I understand that Britain’s faltering benefits system lets down millions of people and in some instances actually adds to poverty rather than alleviating it. But this attack, ghost written by Guardian writer Simon Hattenstone; piss poor, I reckon.
The main point in benefit claimant Liz’s piece is that she has been penalised by the DWP for declaring that she worked 16 hours in a week. It has long been the case that you can work up to 16 hours a week. Not up to 16 hours and one second: up to 16 hours. Is that not a warning signal? So, she declares she has worked 16 hours a week, which is over the limit, and her benefits get stopped, costing her £1165 in benefits. Who’s fault is that, then? Not Liz’s, apparently. Then she, with the assistance of a newspaper hack, puts the boot in. Let’s pick out some examples:
- Because I tried to be honest and because sadists at the Department for Work and Pensions decided it would be fun to destroy someone like me. No. What happened is that DWP staff made a decision on the basis of information provided by a benefit claimant, a decision that was factually correct. What does Liz think would happen to a staff member who deliberately ignored information provided by a claimant? Let’s put it this way: the staff member would not be praised.
- Now, in a functional, humane country, the DWP would look at my form and say, “Poor/daft Liz didn’t know that the extra second takes her beyond her legal limits, but obviously we’re not going to remove her Esa her for that – we’ll carry on as normal, and write to explain to her”. But oh no. Not in Britain, where the qualification for working in the DWP appears to be a degree in cruelty, a masters in pedantry and a PhD in bastardology. Where to begin? No one says anything like that. Those processing benefit claims are, in my experience, carrying out often difficult and stressful work under great pressure. Their only thought will be to ensure that the claimant gets the correct rate of benefit on the basis of information provided by said claimant. The last bit about staff being cruel, pedants and bastards is simply pathetic and unworthy of Hattenstone and The Observer. Liz and Hattenstone are missing out on a simple fact but I’ll come back to that later.
- Now, I know you might think I’m an idiot, but if I’ve made this mistake, there must be tens of thousands out there just like me, and the DWP has just been waiting to pounce on our ignorance, on a technical error, to break us. And I’m lucky. Other people can’t tell their story through the Guardian like I can. It’s pure vindictiveness. I don’t think you’re an idiot but you’re making me wonder if I might need to reconsider my opinion. No one is waiting to “pounce on (your) ignorance” on what isn’t a “technical error”. If someone gives the DWP information and acts on it, then how are they trying to “break us”? And it’s not “pure vindictiveness”. It’s called doing the job properly.
- If the penny-pinchers at the DWP are determined to break me, they’ve done a pretty good job of it. I’m back at the food bank for the first time in two years. I’m proud of the food banks and the work they do, but at the same time it is making me feel I’ve failed again. I’ve had the rug pulled from beneath my feet. I’ve got this hunched look about me, and my mental health has taken a hammering. I just want to pull the quilt over my head and not come out, but of course I can’t, because of the kids. I’ve gone from relatively cheery to feeling lower than pond scum. All this is very sad. No one should feel like this. It’s how this government treats benefit claimants. And here, Liz is at last getting nearer to the truth. If she has a good think about who the “penny-pinchers at the DWP” really are, maybe it will come as a surprise to her.
Throughout this hatchet job on hardworking civil servants Liz misses a simple truth. They are carrying out, as best they can, usually on very low pay, the regulations as decided by parliament. It is what civil servants do, it’s what they are for. Blaming them for DWP regulations is a bit like blaming tax collectors for the rates of tax, doctors for NHS waiting times or police officers for excessive crime rates.
As a lifelong civil servant, I became used to, resigned to even, this kind of criticism. In the end, knowing the reality of the work we did, it became water of a duck’s back. The journalist Libby Purves once compared people who worked behind the front desk in DWP offices – people like me! – with slugs. We were the “faceless pen-pushers”, the “bone idle bureaucrats” and worse, none of whom lived in that “real world”. In truth, we were models of fairness, even under the greatest provocation from angry and sometimes violent claimants. That unreal world! In other words, we were, and today’s civil servants are, the easy targets, the ones to blame for what really happens at the top. If a civil servant messes up, a civil servant gets the blame, If a politician messes up, a civil servant takes the blame. Simples.
I just think Hattenstone’s piece – because it is his piece, not Liz’s – is a disgrace to journalism. It’s punching down at people who cannot, by virtue of their jobs, answer back because if they do, they’ll get the sack. Even though answering back in this case would merely be telling the truth.
Liz shouldn’t be in this mess but Hattenstone shouldn’t be publishing stuff like this without checking facts. It seems that you don’t have to be a hack with The Sun or the Mail to punch down at people who can’t reply.
