Today, I spoke about why social security is a trade union issue at the PCS Conference in Brighton. Unite the union: join a union StevePreddy pauline doyle Ben Claimant 💚 Join a Union

John McDonnell: The DWP is a killer organisation because of the number of suicides that have taken place... the govt is causing so much harm'

#PCS #PCS ADC24

Phil Clarke from the NEU says education is in crisis... 'it is totally unacceptable for 200 children to be sat in a hall with one adult trying to teach them'. This is the situation this govt has forced schools into by constantly cutting funding.

#PCS #PCS ADC24

Busy week this week. Off to Brighton later for a fringe at the #PCS conference and then up to Liverpool to meet disabled workers. I'm keen to talk about our campaign against in-work conditionality that is largely focussed on women, disabled and vulnerable workers.

'Wren Seaward, a full-time carer for her husband John who relies on a wheelchair because of severe osteoarthritis, must pay back £245 a month after unwittingly receiving £5,000 in overpayments.'

bbc.co.uk/news/uk-690311…

Homelessness is a political choice. Poverty is a political choice. And the 350 people in Sunday Times UK rich list whose combined wealth of £765 billion is larger than entire GDP of Poland - & the list includes UK Prime Minister—is a political choice. Let’s make better choices.

According to this clickbait story when DWP tested bank surveillance 63,000 (9%) of the 713,000 accounts checked were in breach of the rules, (and this is the bit I find really difficult to believe) with the average balance being £50,000.

uk.news.yahoo.com/dwp-checks-63-…

The U.K. is the sixth largest economy in the world and yet our towns…

Latest from me: on the worsening crisis in special educational needs provision, & what's really going on - councils' SEND budgets are now deep in the red, and Whitehall is pushing them towards cuts that will tilt the system even further into failure theguardian.com/commentisfree/…

I am going to spend the next couple of hours playing an online game with my nephew where I get to kill the 'alliance' who are all dressed in blue. It's going to be quite cathartic.

Instead of paying back the amount exceeding the threshold, Department for Work and Pensions claws back all £81.90 for each week in breach. This means a carer earning £1 above the £151 threshold for 52 weeks would typically repay £4,258.80 rather than £52.

But all this can be stopped with a pen. 🖊️

This new bank surveillance scheme will either be automated or run by AI. DWP will not do it themselves. Disability Rights UK warns that a low 1% error rate could result in 200,000 claimants being wrongly flagged to the DWP.

manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/cost-of-l…

There's an article suggesting that the AET changes pushing people to work over 18 hours was 'widely praised' on social media. I must be living in a bubble as I haven't seen that.

edge.media/people-claimin…

Britain has by far the highest rate of homelessness in the developed world.

The homelessness crisis is at its heart a crisis of housing supply and affordability, and on both scores Britain fares the worst.

ft.com/content/24117a…

New figures that show more than 5,000 disabled people spent time sleeping on the streets of London last year are “truly shameful”, according to the capital’s leading disabled people’s organisation.
buff.ly/3yxhD43

Britain has by far the highest rate of homelessness in the developed world.

The homelessness crisis is at its heart a crisis of housing supply and affordability, and on both scores Britain fares the worst.

ft.com/content/24117a…

Ben Claimant 💚 Join a Union They told me to sleep in my car …. My application was submitted in January.

'Turn2us is deeply concerned that the PIP reforms outlined will harm disabled people’s financial security and dignity.'

turn2us.org.uk/about-us/news-…