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| The secret life of a benefits officer: we are the human face of bad government decisions | The secret life of a benefits officer: we are the human face of bad government decisions |
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| When I tell people I work at a benefits office they often wince, as if I’ve just shown them a really nasty scar. | When I tell people I work at a benefits office they often wince, as if I’ve just shown them a really nasty scar. |
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| It probably comes as no surprise to hear that working in these frontline services means you get a lot of flak from angry people. “I know it’s not your fault, but … ” is often followed by a litany of sharp, sometimes heart-rending, sometimes abusive complaints, which can leave you emotionally drained by the end of every shift. To these people we are all the same. And who can blame them really? | It probably comes as no surprise to hear that working in these frontline services means you get a lot of flak from angry people. “I know it’s not your fault, but … ” is often followed by a litany of sharp, sometimes heart-rending, sometimes abusive complaints, which can leave you emotionally drained by the end of every shift. To these people we are all the same. And who can blame them really? |
| Since the Welfare Reform Act a couple of years back, with the introduction of the spare room subsidies and the benefit cap, the lives of those on the breadline are getting significantly worse by the year. Desperation is the new normal, and we are the human face of the government’s bad decisions that put them there. | Since the Welfare Reform Act a couple of years back, with the introduction of the spare room subsidies and the benefit cap, the lives of those on the breadline are getting significantly worse by the year. Desperation is the new normal, and we are the human face of the government’s bad decisions that put them there. |
| I think all benefit officers – from central to local government – have a reputation for being unhelpful and deliberately obstructive. Yet for those of us who have not yet been poisoned by the toxicity of the environment and undertaken a siege mentality to get by, we are, believe it or not, actually trying to help. | I think all benefit officers – from central to local government – have a reputation for being unhelpful and deliberately obstructive. Yet for those of us who have not yet been poisoned by the toxicity of the environment and undertaken a siege mentality to get by, we are, believe it or not, actually trying to help. |
| Most people tend to think the “benefits office” is one department that deals with all of your different benefit affairs. I work for local government assessing housing benefit, and not jobseeker’s allowance or income support (which are administered by central government). While it’s part of a housing benefit officer’s job to know about all the different welfare benefits available and their specific criteria, we can’t help if you’ve been wrongfully deemed fit to work by an assessment, or if you can’t claim JSA because you’re on an unpredictable zero-hours contract and you’re not getting enough work. What we can do, however, is make a decision as to whether we can pay your rent for you or not, interpreting the regulations to fit our agenda, regardless of what the Department for Work and Pensions has decided. | |
| I started working in housing benefit in 2005, as a fresh-faced youngster happy to undertake a seemingly undesirable job. Starting off as a customer services officer, there was so much to learn in terms of the law and benefit regulations, who qualified for what and why. It was like having a really difficult yet interesting puzzle to solve, which was constantly evolving with every year that new benefit laws were passed. | I started working in housing benefit in 2005, as a fresh-faced youngster happy to undertake a seemingly undesirable job. Starting off as a customer services officer, there was so much to learn in terms of the law and benefit regulations, who qualified for what and why. It was like having a really difficult yet interesting puzzle to solve, which was constantly evolving with every year that new benefit laws were passed. |
| After a few years, I progressed to becoming a housing benefit assessment officer. All local authorities do things differently but where I work the role is a mixed bag of back office assessments (where it’s easier to make difficult decisions regarding people’s lives when they’re not sat in front of you) and frontline, which is seeing brand new claimants, dealing with urgent enquiries (evictions, bailiff action etc) and generally helping people best navigate their way through a system that’s ultimately set up to fail them. | After a few years, I progressed to becoming a housing benefit assessment officer. All local authorities do things differently but where I work the role is a mixed bag of back office assessments (where it’s easier to make difficult decisions regarding people’s lives when they’re not sat in front of you) and frontline, which is seeing brand new claimants, dealing with urgent enquiries (evictions, bailiff action etc) and generally helping people best navigate their way through a system that’s ultimately set up to fail them. |
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| While there are various complex situations and legal provisos that may make the task of assessing housing benefit a difficult one, the actual job as a “decision-maker” is fairly straightforward. To be eligible for housing benefit, all an applicant needs is a rental liability, a national insurance number and for their weekly income to be low enough (in comparison to their weekly cost of living – something that is determined by the government). Before any money can be paid out, the claimant must provide sufficient identity proof, recent income documents, proof of rental agreement, and anything else that the assessment officer deems necessary. This is something of a moot point among officers, as in my opinion some abuse their discretionary right to ask for more evidence than is required, and as a consequence, the claimant misses the deadline date and their benefit is never assessed. | While there are various complex situations and legal provisos that may make the task of assessing housing benefit a difficult one, the actual job as a “decision-maker” is fairly straightforward. To be eligible for housing benefit, all an applicant needs is a rental liability, a national insurance number and for their weekly income to be low enough (in comparison to their weekly cost of living – something that is determined by the government). Before any money can be paid out, the claimant must provide sufficient identity proof, recent income documents, proof of rental agreement, and anything else that the assessment officer deems necessary. This is something of a moot point among officers, as in my opinion some abuse their discretionary right to ask for more evidence than is required, and as a consequence, the claimant misses the deadline date and their benefit is never assessed. |
| This might seem rather controversial, but throughout the decade that I have worked here a debate has raged between officers as to what constitutes being good at their job. Depending on your own political viewpoint, or even which local authority trained you, your role can either be seen as that of a person who facilitates the needy to pay their rent, or that of a person who sees it as their duty to weed out the fraudulent claimants and to protect the public purse. | This might seem rather controversial, but throughout the decade that I have worked here a debate has raged between officers as to what constitutes being good at their job. Depending on your own political viewpoint, or even which local authority trained you, your role can either be seen as that of a person who facilitates the needy to pay their rent, or that of a person who sees it as their duty to weed out the fraudulent claimants and to protect the public purse. |
| When I was less experienced and needed help on particular cases that weren’t clear-cut, I’d often get contradictory advice from whoever was in charge: some pro-claimant, others anti. Sooner or later, you learn to trust your own instinct in your decision-making. Mine was always to find a way to pay the claimant, if I could. Knowing that your decision will help somebody out who is genuinely struggling is perhaps the only reward in an otherwise unrewarding job. But some people don’t feel that way. | When I was less experienced and needed help on particular cases that weren’t clear-cut, I’d often get contradictory advice from whoever was in charge: some pro-claimant, others anti. Sooner or later, you learn to trust your own instinct in your decision-making. Mine was always to find a way to pay the claimant, if I could. Knowing that your decision will help somebody out who is genuinely struggling is perhaps the only reward in an otherwise unrewarding job. But some people don’t feel that way. |
| If anything, it has become harder to help those claimants who are struggling. Recently I met a very teary woman who had been on the council’s downsizing list for two years. It is unable to find a decent one-bedroom property for her until she sorts our her rent arrears. Her reason for having rent arrears? She’s been under-occupying by two rooms since her grown-up children flew the nest a few years back, and she’s having 25% deducted from her weekly housing benefit as a consequence. She’s tried to rent the spare rooms out, but the only people to respond to her advert have been young men, and she doesn’t feel comfortable living with them. I wish I could say that this particular catch-22 was a one-off, but unfortunately, it’s rather common. | If anything, it has become harder to help those claimants who are struggling. Recently I met a very teary woman who had been on the council’s downsizing list for two years. It is unable to find a decent one-bedroom property for her until she sorts our her rent arrears. Her reason for having rent arrears? She’s been under-occupying by two rooms since her grown-up children flew the nest a few years back, and she’s having 25% deducted from her weekly housing benefit as a consequence. She’s tried to rent the spare rooms out, but the only people to respond to her advert have been young men, and she doesn’t feel comfortable living with them. I wish I could say that this particular catch-22 was a one-off, but unfortunately, it’s rather common. |
| With local government cuts and departments shrinking (some disappearing altogether), a lot of our work has been outsourced to an external agency, who are seemingly too quick in their decisions to cancel claims. Furthermore, with the government deciding that universal credit will soon take over all existing benefits, every housing benefit assessment officer I know is counting down the days until they are made redundant and their job is passed over to central government. | With local government cuts and departments shrinking (some disappearing altogether), a lot of our work has been outsourced to an external agency, who are seemingly too quick in their decisions to cancel claims. Furthermore, with the government deciding that universal credit will soon take over all existing benefits, every housing benefit assessment officer I know is counting down the days until they are made redundant and their job is passed over to central government. |
| Morale is at an all-time low, yet despite some of the best officers jumping this sinking ship, some of us are still trying our best to plug the remaining holes and help people keep a roof over their heads. | Morale is at an all-time low, yet despite some of the best officers jumping this sinking ship, some of us are still trying our best to plug the remaining holes and help people keep a roof over their heads. |
| • Are you a GP, a carpenter or a traffic warden? We want to hear your candid accounts of what work is really like. Find full details on submitting your story anonymously here | • Are you a GP, a carpenter or a traffic warden? We want to hear your candid accounts of what work is really like. Find full details on submitting your story anonymously here |
| • This article was amended on 13 July 2016. An earlier version referred to Atos fit-to-work assessments. Atos no longer carries out these assessments. |