Text from the FT article
May 8, 2018 11:20 am by Laura Hughes in London
When “Anne” and her family were enrolled in the UK’s new universal credit benefits system, she and her children went hungry.
Instead of helping the family with their expenses, the new lump sum was paid into the bank account of her abusive husband, who “allocated” a tiny amount to her each month.
With the help of friends, Anne (who has asked that her real name not be used) escaped her husband and has applied for her own universal credit. But the process has been torturous, with a staff member at her local jobcentre confessing that she was “unsure of what exactly to do but they’d learn together”.
The idea of universal credit is to simplify the welfare system — to help claimants and to cut fraud — and encourage work, but its rollout has been plagued with delays and the policy has been blamed for increasing hardship. Now experts are warning that the system is increasing the risk of abuse for thousands of women such as Anne by paying money for couples into a single nominated household bank account.
“The new system provides scope for perpetrators of domestic violence to control a victim’s access to money,” said Dr Nicola Sharp-Jeffs, founder and director of the charity Surviving Economic Abuse. “If you have no money, that makes it very difficult to leave, in the sense that you might not be able to afford petrol for your car, a bus, or a train fare.”
Universal credit merges six existing benefits, including housing benefit and child tax credits, into one monthly payment. As of December 2017, 46,000 of the 500,000 households receiving UC were couples, according to the government.
Experts and some MPs are arguing for a “default separate payment” system for couples, which would automatically enable each person to nominate their own bank account. One suggestion for dividing payments is to have the child credit element payable to the main carer, usually the mother, which is currently the case with child tax credits.
Last month the Scottish government adopted a system of automatic split payments, following a campaign led by domestic abuse charities and MSPs.
Theresa May, the prime minister, has so far rejected any change in policy and said in the House of Commons that women can instead request to have their household universal credits payments split.
But a survey of domestic abuse victims by the charity Women’s Aid found almost 85 per cent of respondents feared the abuse would get worse if their partner found out they had asked for their benefit payment to be divided.
“Sara” recounted how her partner would receive all the benefit money and then provide her with “allowances”. Left with no income of her own, she escaped with the support of a few family members. But while she was with her partner, she was too scared to disclose to the case worker at her local jobcentre that she was in an abusive relationship — nor did she know that split payments could be requested.
Dr Mary-Ann Stephenson, director of the UK Women’s Budget Group, said it is “disingenuous” to suggest that women in abusive relationships can simply ask for their own payment, as doing so can put them in danger.
“Our concern is that a single payment reduces women’s access to any sort of independent income and makes them far more vulnerable to economic abuse,” she said.
“Social protection can’t necessarily stop abuse from happening, but it can make it easier or harder. Paying money into that single bank account makes it easier for abusers to assert control.”
Demelza Lobb, technology abuse lead at Refuge, a charity that provides services for women and children escaping domestic violence, said they had already seen women struggling with the new UC system, with the single payment going to the perpetrator and the money “controlled” and “monitored”.
Ruth George, a Labour MP on the Commons work and pensions select committee, criticised the government for introducing a system that could prevent victims of abuse — who are predominantly women — from escaping an abusive relationship.
“Under the UC system, a man is entitled to receive all the money for children, for rent and for childcare, while the woman would have to ask for money each time she needs to buy nappies, food, children’s clothing and shoes, even sanitary items,” she said.
It’s not hard for a man to fill in an online UC claim form and opt to receive all these payments — sometimes thousands of pounds a month — while his partner has to ask him for every expense she pays.”
However, the Department for Work and Pensions said there was no evidence that paying into one account increases the risk of domestic violence.
“Abuse in any form is completely unacceptable, and Jobcentre Plus staff do everything they can to make sure people fleeing domestic abuse get the help they need as quickly as possible.
“That includes fast tracking advances so that people are not left without money and transferring a person’s claim to a different jobcentre.”