This Government’s not for turning!

The UK Government’s Welfare Reform Act is far reaching, and as one speaker at the Welfare Reform Conference (19th April 2012) stated: ‘unprecedented’, and will have a devastating effect on communities like those in the Dulais Valley. Communities are already struggling to make ends meet, trying to cope with the rising cost of petrol, food and utilities, it is estimated that up to 50% of people residing in our poorest communities will be adversely affected by the reforms.

Despite solemn warnings from respected agencies and organisations like the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, Oxfam and Citizen Advice Bureau about the repercussions of the reforms on those who are most vulnerable in our society, it is clear from the Government’s rhetoric that the reforms are ‘doomed to succeed’!  We all recognise that the current system needs to be changed, we have argued  to put incentives in place to encourage the move into work from worklessness,  however when did we start defining the word incentive as making life more difficult for the very people we want to help?

The impact of the reforms will not only affect those on benefits, their families and communities ( less money, less local trade), but will put a tremendous strain on the public sector and third sector organisations like DOVE. It will be the work of these organisations that will have to meet the growing demand for support, at a time when we are all facing potential reductions in our budgets.  In our community we are already experiencing an increase in the number of people who need support, and we fear this is the tip of the iceberg.

At the end of the Welfare Reform Conference, which was excellent but sobering, I had formed the opinion that if a person was fortunate to have well paid work and did not claim a benefit they were entitled to a good life, which included having a spare bedroom or two, if for some reason however a person was reliant on our benefit system all their rights to having a reasonable quality of life has been put under threat.

Lesley Smith, DOVE Workshop