Glasgow : Welfare changes will ‘hit every corner of the city’

WELFARE cuts will have a lasting impact on all corners of Glasgow, not just those on benefits, warned the city council’s social care leader.

Cuts to housing benefits, changes in payments to a single monthly Universal Credit, Child Benefit freeze and a benefits cap with limited increases are expected to hit the local economy and damage communities.

The Evening Times has been looking at the UK Government welfare reform agenda and has highlighted the bedroom tax cutting housing benefit and published details of organisations offering help and advice.

Today we look at what Glasgow City Council and the Scottish Government are doing to try to alleviate the most damaging of the cuts.

Councillor Matt Kerr, the city council’s executive member of Social Care services, said the reforms would have “devastating and far reaching” consequences.

The city council has begun a campaign to ensure people are claiming their full entitle-ment of current benefits, particularly Disability Living Allowance, before the changes as it will affect future eligibility and payments.

For new claimants DLA is due to be replaced by Personal Independence Payments (PIP) on June 1. However, the level of benefit received under DLA will be carried over after June 1 if a person has claimed in time, and will last until a new claim has to be made.

Welfare Rights Officers and Social Work staff have been trained to offer the most up-to-date advice to ensure maximum uptake of current benefits, and help with applications.

A Welfare Reform Working Group has been set up with several city council departments, Glasgow Housing Association and Glasgow Regener-ation Agency to prepare for reforms that will affect the council’s work.

Mr Kerr said: “The most vulnerable will un-doubtedly feel the brunt of the changes to the welfare system, but school children, working families, pensioners and local businesses will all suffer.

“The council will also be caught in the upheaval and we fully anticipate that we will face far greater demand on our support services despite having fewer funds.”

HE continued: “Rent arrears with registered social landlords are predicted to be a big issue.

“And they could have huge knock-on effects as housing associations struggle to fund programmes. It is hard to think of a corner of Glasgow that will escape the impact. Our analysis shows the effects will be felt far beyond those who receive benefits.”

The Scottish Parliament has set up the Welfare Reform Committee to hear from people and organisations affected by the cuts to ensure the Scottish Government and local authorities are doing all they can to ease the pain

The committee has invited UK Government Work and Pensions Minister Iain Duncan Smith to appear to explain the motivation and answer questions on the consequ-ences, but he has declined.

The Scottish Government has allocated £5.4m to advice centres to deal with an anticipated rise in calls for help.

Michael McMahon MSP, committee convenor, said: “When the welfare state was created everyone talked about how it would change lives for the better. Now here we are with people talking about people being smashed.

“From listening to people we, as a committee, need to keep on top of the Scottish Government to ensure what mitigations are appropriate and are maximised. There is money for the advice services and we want to know if that is the equivalent sum comp-ared to England and Wales.”

MR McMAHON added: “Is it pro rata when England and Wales received £65m? We are getting a patchy message from local authorities to deal with this.”

Deputy convener Jamie Hepburn MSP said: “We have written to the Big Lottery about match funding. The £5.4m is a godsend for services. It is visible to us as MSPs that there’s a lack of awareness to what’s coming down the line.”

The Scottish Government said it has allocated tens of millions of pounds to help mitigate the welfare cuts but has admitted it is not possible to guard against the full raft of the changes.

A deal with Cosla sees £33m given next year to make sure no-one is affected by the 10% council tax benefit cut, which was estimated to hit more than half a million people.

Deputy First Minister Nicola Sturgeon announced a £33m Scottish Welfare Fund for an extra 5600 Community Care Grants and 100,000 Crisis Grants when responsibility is passed to the Scottish Government.

Its spokeswoman said: “Where the Scottish Govern-ment has responsibility, we are investing to mitigate the worst impacts of UK cuts to people and organisations.”