Participation and the Practice of Rights (PPR): How to make the poor poorer

Dessie Donnelly, PPR Director, speaking at yesterday’s conference.

I plan to come back to this event which I attended yesterday, but I’d be interested in hearing people’s views on the issues in the meantime – Jude.

Press Statement – Wednesday 23rd March 2016

Contact sean@pprproject.org or Tel: 02890313315 / 07725829501 for more details

‘The People’s Proposal’ for protection from benefit sanctions launched by Belfast’s unemployed.

“This isn’t about Westminster. Stormont has the power to act NOW!”

Right To Work; Right To Welfare (R2W)*, today launched ‘The People’s Proposal’ (attached) calling for due process and protection against benefits sanctions which have driven many into homelessness and food banks.

The launch, in north Belfast’s Duncairn Centre, featured unemployed speakers alongside a representative from the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights; Christian Courtis and leading barrister, Laura Mc Mahon, BL.**

The testimonies of some group members were read by actors and high profile campaign supporters such as Dawn Purvis and Dr Colin Harvey, QUB, to protect their identities for fear of being victimised as a result of their human rights campaigning work.

Bertie Atkinson, a R2W member willing to speak out, said:

“Despite welfare reform not yet being implemented, between October 2014 – 2015 21,386 financial sanctions were carried out against people on unemployment and sickness benefits alone. Jobseekers are being sanctioned for being 15 minutes late or early for appointments or attending family funerals. Sick people are being told they have to find a job because decision makers don’t look at their medical evidence. It is driving people on to the breadline and has to stop. Today we have put forward simple proposals to protect people’s rights. All we want are the same rights to due process people get under the law or in the workplace”

The R2W group have spent three years researching the impacts of sanctions by surveying outside all of Belfast’s Social Security offices and have developed the proposals to be within the powers of the Stormont Executive to deliver immediately.

The proposals widely supported at today’s event by advice workers, food poverty campaigners, the Irish Congress of Trade Unions and legal experts call for:

a)    people’s right to due process in the social security system to reflect existing standards in the workplace and legal fields.

b)    ‘impact assessments’ to ensure no-one would be left without an adequate income to provide for their families as a result of sanctions.

R2W’s research, carried out at Belfast’s Social Security offices and detailed in ‘The People’s Proposal’ show the stark rising trend of sanctions in recent years:

•       In 2013 39% of people surveyed had their benefit stopped because of a sanction. In 2014 this rose to 50% and in 2015 it had reached 59%.

•       Many said they were denied basic rights of appeal; in 2013 64% of people sanctioned said they did not have appropriate information to appeal. This rose to 77% in 2014 and was at 83% in 2015.

Personal testimonies were given by people with disabilities describing the devastating impact of the Department for Social Development’s notorious ‘Work Capability Assessments’ currently carried out by private company ATOS*** at a cost of £Millions.

Unemployed people explained the role of private company Ingeus in implementing the sanctions regime. Attendees at the launch heard how the company is one of three private contractors being paid £Millions to deliver the Department for Employment and Learning’s back to work scheme – Steps to Success****.

The People’s Proposal outlines simple steps to be included in the stages BEFORE and AFTER sanctions are carried out to ensure people in receipt of social security have their internationally recognised rights to due process and a minimum essential level of benefits protected.

Seán Brady, a development worker supporting the group from Participation and the Practice of Rights (PPR) ^***** said:

“The welfare system is broken. Big companies are being paid £millions in public money to declare sick people fit and punish people on back work schemes, which aren’t working. Their actions lead to £millions being taken out of communities. Our local Political Parties and the Ministers in DEL and DSD can’t wash their hands and blame Westminster. This isn’t about Westminster. Stormont has the power to act now to adopt ‘The Peoples Proposals’ locally to protect the most vulnerable.”

ENDS.//

*The Right to Work; Right to Welfare group are made up of unemployed people in Belfast. In 2014 the group successfully campaigned for the adoption by Belfast City Council of REAL JOBS NOW social clauses, requiring that council use social clauses to ring-fence ‘real jobs’ (rather than back to work schemes) for the long-term unemployed in procurement contracts. The campaign has received support from the (now former) United Nations Special Rapporteur on Extreme Poverty and Human Rights, Ms Magdalena Sepúlveda Carmona who commented; “The important work being done by the Right to Work: Right to Welfare Group in Belfast, Northern Ireland to hold the government accountable … is crucial and should be praised as a promising practice to be followed.”

**Participants included Christian Courtis of the UN Office of the High Commission for Human Rights, Dr. Colin Harvey of the Human Rights Centre, QUB School of Law, Dawn Purvis, Laura Mc Mahon, BL.

***ATOS continue to hold the contract to carry out Work Capability Assessments in Northern Ireland until 2018 at a cost of £82.2 million. Their contract ended early in England and Wales following continuous reports of the disastrous impact the company’s implementation of WCA was having on people with disabilities, including suicides.

****In February 2016 DEL reported that 23% of those who took part in Steps to Success over the first four months of its operation were in employment, however no information was provided on whether the job was retained.  Information disclosed under Freedom of Information legislation in February 2015 revealed that in the first four months of Steps to Success operation, contractors were paid over £3.6 million.

*****PPR supports marginalised communities to use human rights to realise their economic and social rights and to participate meaningfully in government decisions made about their lives. Founded by renowned Human Rights and Trade Union activist Inez McCormack, PPR’s work has received international commendation. In November 2012 PPR was recognised as a best practice example of putting human rights into operation on the ground by the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights.

All documents and images attached for press purposes.

Seán Brady

Participation and the Practice of Rights (PPR)

Ground Floor

Community House

Citylink Business Park

6A Albert Street

Belfast, BT12 4HQ

Tel: +44 (0)2890 313315