The Benefits Crunch Spotlight

We are one of the poorest parts of the UK and big change is coming. In

the midst of economic gloom, or we face cutbacks in benefit payments.

How dependent do you feel on the welfare state? 100 %. There is no

other way I could get an income. The national government cannot

afford the current welfare bill, so it needs to find ways to cut it

down. But it is hard times for the hard up. You can't buy what you

want when you want it. And Northern Ireland's four main churches are

worried? It there are no jobs, why are we penalising them for not

getting into work? Northern Ireland is facing a Perfect Storm. It is

the biggest ever shake-up of our benefit system as the Government

slashes welfare spending to tackle the deficit. It also meant to

encourage people to work at a time of growing unemployment. Stormont

has endorsed the cut, but what they used it and if they do, at what

I am visiting a scheme which is keeping families above the

breadline. This warehouse in Dunmurry on outskirts of Belfast

axe as a fee is centre operated by a church run a charity. Its

volunteers are sorting emergency suppliers for delivery to people

struggling to get by. People do get benefits, but it does not meet the

need of their household. Families are choosing between heating their

home and eating. The his initiative is small compared to the scale of

our problems, but it helps 60 households in Belfast each week.

But food is being parcelled up for collection by individual charities.

This place have been busy for the last hour or so. You get a sense

that yes, there is a benefit system which helps many people, but in

some cases it is simply not enough and many people have become

dependent on this kind of charity. People have mortgages and net

income. We have had families tried to sell their goods, at their car,

put things on eBay, just to get by. -- their car. The entire UK economy

is struggling and the downturn shows no sign of ending. The UK is

in the red and the government is determined to get the deficit under

control. In times of increasing hardship and high inflation, people

are feeling the pinch. Pensioners like Alan and May McFarlane have

seen the cost of living assault. They live in Rathcoole on the

outskirts of north Belfast. haven't got a drop of oil. It is it

their existence. People do not realise just how bad it is for

pensioners. We do not like to talk about it. It is a taboo subject

because if your family hears about it, they turn round and say, we

will do this, we will do that. But it is depriving them if they do.

This is a single heater. I go to bed early because I think upstairs

is warmer. I got up there every night at 6 o'clock and bring a

couple of hot water bottles with me. That is just the way it is.

Electric has gone up, the oil has gone are, everything has gone up,

except the pension. Saying that, they did give us a massive rise of

�2. It is in this climate that the government has launched a

widespread reform of our benefit system. Westminster is targeting

savings in welfare by reforming disability allowances and housing

benefit. Under the reforms the total that is being spent could be

reduced by 500 million. Some say the full extent of the gloom is

only beginning to emerge. There is a gradual a wakening of the impact

of all of this. We know that inflation pressures are pushing up

bills. Every household is finding it difficult to make ends meet.

People have yet to realise the full extent of the cuts that are

happening. As well as reducing spend, Westminster is determined to

stamp out eight benefits culture. It promises a simpler, fairer

system book she -- which aims to get people off benefits. People who

think it is a lifestyle choice to be on benefits, it will come to an

end. The what could it mean for us? One thing is clear, change will be

felt in Northern Ireland where one in every 10 households is totally

dependent on benefits. And this is one of them. It is a single-parent

household. Are you not meant to be going for a sleep? Kirsty is 20

years old, unemployed and raising a young toddler. The cost of

childcare is one reason why she is in no hurry to find work. Kirsty

lose in a Housing Executive property in Newtown art. She get

�550 a month in benefits, but says it is not enough to live on.

Newtownards. -- Newtownards. How dependent do you feel on benefits

and the welfare state? 100 %. There is no other way I could get an

income. I have to get my self in debt with family and staff to meet

the needs of Kimberley and myself. The Government is targeting people

like Kirsty. To its mind, she typified a welfare state which can

sometimes be an easy alternative to working. But she disagrees and is

going to night school to improve her chances in the job market.

got a standard jobs with no qualifications, I would be worse

off than what I am at the minute. By the time I was to pay for

childcare, rents, essentials and everything else, if you are making

200 a week, �70 will be gone on rent. After childcare, there is

nothing. Do you get annoyed when you hear people talking about

benefits punchers. Yes. Don't get me wrong, some people do it, but

not everyone and we should not be stereotyped. They do not know how

we are struggling. Hard times are really hard. They will not have a

clue if they had bobbin on benefits. Little Kimberly was born into

financial hardship. Just like her mother, her father is also

supported by benefits. Her father, who has two other children, is on

good terms with Kirsty, but lives separately. He says he's

jobseeker's allowance pays hint sixes �7 every fortnight. Had he

been living on benefits for a long time? - Mark �67. A for most of my

life. How old are you now? 24th. ever since you left school? More or

less. The money from the dull, you cannot live off of it. I would

rather be working. I have got three children. I would rather be out

working to support my children and myself rather than the state

supporting them. The dull, it just isn't enough money to live off. --

The statistics show how higher our reliance on benefits is in Northern

Ireland. One in seven children live in a household where no-one is in

employment. The number of households without an adult in a

job stand at 121,000. Plans to reform the benefit system includes

the creation of a universal credit. A welfare reform bill currently

before Parliament will accelerate changes. The full impact is two

years ago, but already reductions in social security are biting and

it is uncertain how we will absorb the cuts, given hour level of

poverty. Eileen Everson is an expert on the welfare state.

think Northern Ireland is in the gravest position I have seen for

many years. We are facing a Perfect Storm. First of all, we have got

climate change. The prospect of another harsh winter. Secondly, we

are still in recession and there is rising unemployment. Thirdly, the

cut in benefits. It is a recipe for disaster. Others believe belt-

tightening reform is necessary and argue it there is evidence the

Even from the research that we have done, you will see people when they

give you figures for how much money they would need to come back to

work, you are talking �300, maybe �400 a week in some cases, because

that is the equivalent money that they are able to get on the benefit

system. Now, if we think about that, we have a society here where it is

possible to get more money not working than it is in the minimum

wage. The financial reality is that the national government can't

afford the current welfare bill, so it needs to find ways, quite

urgently, to get that cost down. One cost is specifically high on

the hit list. It's Disability Living Allowance, or DLA, which

last year in Northern Ireland set the Exchequer back �753 million.

It's claimed by one in every 10 people, the highest proportion of

the population anywhere in the UK. Primarily for this reason, the

Institute for Fiscal Studies predicts we will be among the worst

hit by reform measures in the years ahead. And the job of selling this

benefits revolution is underway. I've about 20 minutes to outline

the basic plans for the Welfare Reform Bill in Northern Ireland and

I'm sure you appreciate that this Bill represents one of the largest

pieces of legislation enacted in Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

This event is organised by campaigners who want to protect DLA,

which will be re-versioned as a Personal Independence Payment.

Fewer people will qualify because of reassessments, in particular

those with mental health problems who make up our largest proportion

of DLA claimants. I've come here to find out more about the concerns of

people like Alan and Heather Owens, both of whom are blind yet have to

go through a process of re-testing. We are proud dignified people. This

helps us to the proud, independent lives. I would like to say that Mr

Cameron talks about benefits not being permanent. I would like to

say our disabilities are permanent. The Coalition Government has

announced last year in the Budget statement last year that it

intended to see a reduction up to 20% in the expenses and costs of

DLA. I'm not sure if that remains the policy intention, but they

certainly are looking to ensure that the resources are focused on

those most in need. At home in Belfast, Alan and Heather are

uncertain if they will be worse off under the new benefit. But they are

worried and have joined a national campaign called the hardest hit.

went to London to lobby MPs at Westminster. I think if these

proposals come into place there are a lot of people who are going to be

very, very wary regarding their benefits. They could be vastly

reduced, or even some of them could be removed. Yes, I worry. It is a

big fear factor, it is a big unknown factor. It is the not

knowing what's going to happen. It's being reassessed again. I

would be very nervous, although I have nothing at all to hide. But I

am very nervous in going through the process again because I have

gone through it once. And, you know, it is the thought of answering

questions, filling forms in, all this. It's just basically the fear

of the unknown. We are not spongers. We are not chancers. We have a

genuine disability. Some people are losing out already.

Patricia Lyons works on the frontline of debt crisis. She's an

advisor at the Citizens Advice Bureau on Belfast's Springfield

Road. Hiya, Stephen. Are you in for your appointment? Take a wee seat.

Almost half of the people helped through this office rely on

benefits. I'll just give you these. I mean these forms are just a

minefield. In my opinion, it's designed to actually confuse you

and without these people, well, we'd just be going nowhere.

workload has increased as a result of one of the benefit cuts already

introduced. No, at the minute you are not entitled to any Housing

Benefit at all. Your income is too high. OK. Sorry about that. No

probs, 'Bye. The rates of housing benefit have been cut, so they have.

And it is leaving them massive shortfalls for people to make up

the rent. And where do they make it up? Because private landlords are

increasing the rents year on year, they are not decreasing them. It is

just a vicious circle at the minute. That change to Housing Benefit

caused a stir at Stormont recently. It's all to do with the concept

that benefit entitlements are identical throughout the UK. It's

known as the principle of parity, but of the devolved administrations

only Stormont has the autonomy to break it. It dates right back to

the formation of Northern Ireland. So say, for example, the Assembly

decided to make a particular payment more generous, or indeed

ignore a benefit cut. Well, the cost of that difference would have

to be found from within the Executive's block grant, not by the

Treasury in London. Economist Esmond Birnie was once an MLA and a

special advisor to an Executive Minister. The logic eventually may

be that to some degree we begin to run our own system of social

security and welfare benefits to, after all, reflect our own

particular local circumstances which may not be, and certainly are

not, identical to those in the South East of England. But it has

to be said this is a big ask. And it will be very challenging, and it

is ultimately a political decision and a political dilemma for the

Executive in Stormont. DUP Minister Nelson McCausland is responsible

for Social Security. He is the man who could drive any move to go it

alone, but three weeks ago he backed the status quo. In the

Assembly, Sinn Fein pushed to reject changing Housing Benefit but

was rebuffed because it would have taken �9 million of Stormont money

to fund annually. Parity is not rigid. Members should not treat the

issue as though it is. It can be contested without being broken, and

that is what we need to do. obvious consequences for the

Northern Ireland block if parity were breached cannot be

underestimated. Without parity and the associated funding, the

Northern Ireland Social Security system would probably be

unsustainable. So, the Minister has ruled out using Stormont's unique

power to break with parity. But there is something Nelson

McCausland is prepared to do, that's fight fraud. His department

is cracking down on benefit cheats, with more than 50 convictions last

month alone. Fraud seems to get us exercised. Members of the public

were behind a third of tip-offs made about swindlers to the Social

Security Agency last year. The sums involved added up to nearly �20

million. Big money, but yet it's less than 0.5% of our total benefit

spend. Nelson McCausland has his own blog and on it he says that

welfare reform is one of the biggest issues facing Northern

Ireland. He's not short of opinion, but he declined the opportunity to

be interviewed by Spotlight. We wanted to talk to him about the

issue of parity in particular. Instead, his office sent us a

lengthy statement. In it he says he is very conscious of people's

concerns. He believes that the Bill does afford Northern Ireland the

opportunity to reduce the number of people dependent on benefits and,

crucially, he says, that breaking parity could have serious

implications for Northern Ireland. He said that breaking parity could

even lead to a situation where a claimant in Newcastle County Down

could get less than another claimant in Newcastle and England.

We can reveal concerns from another quarter. Our four main church

leaders recently met Secretary of State Owen Paterson and told him

the cutbacks would create greater hardship. In a joint statement made

This cleric explains the thinking behind the meeting with Mr Paterson

two weeks ago. Nobody wants the lifeboat of welfare to become a

lifestyle, a permanent lifestyle for anybody, but here in Northern

Ireland that lifeboat has over 100,000 children on income poverty

in it, with their families. It has the highest levels of rural poverty

fuel poverty and so on in the UK. Lets create opportunity, that's the

challenge. If there are no jobs for these people to go to, why are we

penalising them for not getting to work? There is no reason why

welfare reform, which is a welcome development, shouldn't be sensitive

to regional needs, not just in Northern Ireland, but in other

parts of the United Kingdom. So, our politicians, either in

Westminster or locally, should be lobbying for that and looking

creatively at how they can address the needs of the incredible number

of very vulnerable people here in Northern Ireland on welfare. Could

Northern Ireland not argue that it's a special case? Therefore, it

needs more money, not less? That's an argument that's been trotted out

a lot and I have to be quite frank and say I don't think it can make a

special case. I don't think it can make that case. If you spend any

time in the North East of England or in Wales or in other parts of

the economy there are places in just as much difficulty and

economic challenge as we have here today. And we have almost got used

to the idea that we have some sort of special dispensation. The honest

answer is, we don't. And if we think we need to do something

differently it's in our heads and not on the Westminster Government's.

But our politicians stand accused of being uninspired, of failing to

explore other practical ways to help. I think the Executive and the

MLAs, the Assembly as a whole, need to understand what's going on, and

then think about what they can do to alleviate the hardship we face.

If we have a very harsh winter, the principle of parity does not mean

we couldn't open up leisure centres and provide places for people who

are elderly or disabled or whatever to go to so they are in a place

that's safe, that's warm, where they can get a hot meal. While

Stormont appears to feel helpless in the face of Westminster, the

blow from benefit cuts is beginning to affect everyday lives. This is

Tullycarnet in East Belfast, where the community centre is a venue for

benefits advice clinics. Adrian Glackin is well-placed to offer a

frank analysis. I would invite Mr McCausland to come to any of my

advice clinics and actually see what it is like on the front line.

I accept that the deficit budget does need to be reduced and the

benefit budget probably is too high. But is it right that the Government

save the money at the expense of the most vulnerable? That is the

problem that I have with the benefit cuts. It's not the fact

that the money needs to be saved. If it is in a fair way, and its

phased in over a period, that people do not suffer, but at a time

when inflation is now 5.2% and the cost of utilities has increased

massively, and it's up maybe 30% in terms of things like electricity,

and benefits are being cut, then individuals who are on benefits are

being squeezed both sides. They are finding it hard to get benefits and

they are also finding it hard to pay their bills, which they need to

pay as a result of the benefit cuts. Our recovery from recession will

lag behind the rest of the UK, costing more jobs. Unemployment has

been rising. The recent figures show more than 61,000 people

claimed unemployment benefit in September. It's going to be a hard

cycle to break. I've come to a project in West Belfast to meet

some longer-term unemployed. They're attending a course designed

to boost their confidence and self- esteem. You have been out of work

for about four years? Over four years now. Existing on benefits, is

it an easy life? No, it's hard. Especially when you are used to

your own independence and bringing in your own money. It's very hard.

But you just have to get on with it. It wouldn't bother me at all taking

a lower paid job. Just to get back to work again. But there are no

jobs out there, virtually none, and if there is, there are usually

about 300 or 400 in for the one job. Earlier on we had a chat about

perceptions of the unemployed people. The mentors run these

workshops regularly. They say the overwhelming mood is one of

frustration. People genuinely don't want to live on benefits. I have

yet to meet somebody who says, look, this is a brilliant way to be. I

love this life! You don't hear those stories. These people

genuinely want to get out and get into employment, but for whatever

reason, and they are multiple, they haven't been given the support or

backing. Whether that be financial and just through training, they

haven't been given that support. The Government wants its benefits

reform to encourage people back into work. But the timing couldn't

be worse. The predictions are that the unemployment rate is going to

increase. People are going to lose their jobs and become reliant on

the benefits system and they may get a shock. I mean, our advisors

hear on a daily basis for people that are new to the benefits system,

they would hear clients say to them, is this it? But the squeeze is

wider still. The bigger picture is there will be a lot less money in

the local economy. The coalition in London is talking about reducing

benefit spend in Great Britain by about �10 billion or more over the

next four years. If you read that across to Northern Ireland, in very

crude terms that could be �400 to �500 million per annum. Now that

would be quite a challenge to the Northern Ireland economy in terms

of reduction in, obviously the most notably, spending power and income

for households and individuals, reading across into general

conditions in the economy. Back at the charity food centre, they can

only do so much. A bit like the welfare system, they are feeling

the strain. We are finding people from every part of Belfast, and

actually every sort of social group. We have had families that you would

have probably called middle class who have found themselves in need.

People who have never been on the benefits system before, people who

have worked all their lives and through redundancy and through

changes in lifestyle circumstances are in desperate need. At least the

pension is safe from cuts and the Winter Fuel Grant will soon come to

the rescue of Jimmy and May McFarland. But there's a catch.

They'll be getting less thanks to the Chancellor's budget in March.

And you're simply waiting it till you get your Winter Fuel Allowance?

I am waiting until I get my Winter Fuel Allowance and then I will put

that to what money we have saved to get a larger amount of oil at the

best price we can. That's just where we are at the moment.

long will that last you? That will probably last me, maybe with a bit

of luck and if the winter is anything like last year, that will

probably maybe last me up until about February. And then there will

still be a lot of the winter to come, I would think. Back to square

one. Back to square one, again. That's just the way it is for

pensioners. You just don't look that far ahead. You just take every

day as it comes. So, too, does Kirsty McChesney.

Benefits dependency can affect a family generation to generation,

but she has ambitions, both for herself and for Kimberley. Would

you be concerned or worried that you will become dependent on

benefits? There is a lot of talk about welfare, benefit dependency,

being how that's all people know. No, I'm not worried that I will be

on benefit for life. I don't want to be on benefit for life and I

will make sure I am not. I will hopefully have some qualifications

behind me to get a job to provide for myself and Kimberly. But at the

minute it's out of the question. Nelson McCausland has improved at