The government in its war against the poor has now decided that it will withdraw funds towards local welfare assistance funds. In my area it’s known as the Tameside support for independent living. They say in shorthand terms that they want to withdraw these funds from local authorities. Let me explain what exactly this is and what exactly it means.
People who live depending on the uks social security scheme do not receive enough money to save or budget for unexpected or one-off expenditures. As a result for many years additional public funds have been made available for these.
In 2013 the discretionary social fund which performed this task for many years was “localised” and as a result responsibility for community care grants and crisis loans was given directly to the local authorities.
This money is used to cover the costs or to provide directly essentials such as beds and cookers for people leaving institutions or fleeing domestic violence. It provides goods for disabled people to help with independent living. It enabled families to replace broken white goods and essential furniture. It enables vulnerable people to afford food and heating. It was funded by the dwp….
Basically to condense this the government are now saying that as from next year they want the local authorities to pay for this out of their rapidly dissapearing budgets.
They cannot afford to do this. Indeed some councils have already disabled their schemes and others have said they cannot continue do this from their general funds.
How are people going to manage? They aren’t. Local authorities can’t keep up with the demand. People will starve, commit suicide and the most vulnerable of society will suffer greatly.
I sit here sometimes and think is it only a few of us that are willing to raise our voices? We have got to stop this total war against the poor. In my eyes this government are getting away with murder and will continue to do so.
This service is a lifeline to thousands and thousands of people a year.
When are people going to say enough is enough?
Please share this far and wide… This government is once again getting away with murder and we need to stop them.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.