Edward's reality
Edward from Bristol
I was working as a freelance engineer in the South of England, based out of Bristol in the South West. In April 2021, the tax law changed and the freelance engineering market changed overnight. As I couldn’t secure any more freelance engineering contracts I started to interview for lots of permanent roles all across the South of England. As I was unsuccessful for such a long time I decided to try Job Seekers Allowance (JSA) to help me with travel costs for interviews etc.
It was quite straight forward to apply and the only requirement was for me to go to regular meetings at the Job Centre in Bristol. My job coach was really nice and we reviewed my job application progress each week. I also received online training, such as CV workshops and interview techniques, which I found very useful – I even received one-to-one coaching over Zoom with a specialist job coach working remotely – I couldn’t fault them in terms of the amount of support offered.
However after three months, I had still been unable to find anything suitable and the JSA payments ended, meaning I needed to apply for Universal Credit (UC). I had heard bad things about Universal Credit and, whilst it was surprisingly straightforward for me to fill in the forms online, the amount of financial support I was eventually offered came somewhat as a shock, particularly because I am a homeowner and do not qualify for housing benefits or similar payments to help with housing costs - it was simply not enough to live on or even to keep me afloat until I found another engineering role.
I was lucky that I still had some savings at this point but really had to cut back on outgoings, including food shopping and I noticeably lost weight over this period. Ironically it was my remaining savings that meant I wasn’t eligible for the full support and instead had a £100 deduction per month (£230 per month instead of £330) – clearly the government would prefer people use up all of their savings before offering more support, which only puts them in an even more desperate situation and forced to consider unsuitable employment opportunities in the short term.
Eventually I decided just to take any job going and started working as a delivery driver in the Bristol area. I enjoyed it but realised that not everyone has the fitness and health to do these kinds of jobs which usually require lots of heavy lifting and often helping people with mobility issues or health problems of their own.
On reflection it was obvious that the benefits system is badly broken in this country. Whilst all the job coaching, training and help getting back into work is very useful, the payments on Universal Credit are completely divorced from reality and the real costs of living in the UK. The social contract is clearly broken in this country and it took this experience for me to see it so clearly - I understand now why so many people in the UK need to use food banks etc.
Fundamentally, if someone falls on hard times, I believe that there should be adequate support to prevent them losing their home or falling into social isolation and having to skip meals just to keep their head above water – it’s a slippery slope towards home insecurity and even homelessness, which is becoming more and more visible in our society … it’s clear that we need fundamental change to reverse this course of increasing poverty and homelessness across our towns and cities in the UK.