This talk for Sheffield's Citizen Advice Burea explores the lies behind the UK Government's account of welfare reform and offers thoughts on what real welfare reform might look like.

1. The Future of
Welfare ‘Reform’
Dr Simon Duffy of The Centre for Welfare Reform,
CAB Sheffield, 22 September 2015

2. • Dr Simon Duffy, Director of The Centre for Welfare
Reform.
• The Centre is an independent think-tank based in
Sheffield.
• We believe the welfare state is a good thing that
needs to be defended and improved.
• Find out more at www.centreforwelfarereform.org

3. • Universal Credit, benefit simplification and better
‘incentives’
• WCA and the privatisation of assessment and
support
• The Work Programme and ‘support’ into work using
sanctions, stigma and psychological motivation
• Benefit and tax credit cuts to make welfare
‘affordable’
‘Reform’ seem to mean

4. • Political - the use of stigma and scapegoating
• Economic - to protect high levels of and inequality
• Social - and the growing privatisation of poverty
In fact this ‘reform’ is

5. The politics of stigma

7. Hard-working families
skiver
problem family
lazy
feckless
Tax payers
scrounger
Alarm clock Britain
The squeezed middle
benefits lifestyle
benefit fraud
workshy
faker
Vs.

8. What is the purpose of
the scapegoat?

9. • Identify a powerless group that is incapable of
offering effective resistance
• Avoid responsibility for social problems and shift
‘blame’ on to powerless group
• Create a false sense of superiority and
entitlement for more powerful groups
• Weaken and distance the powerless group from
the possibility of protection

12. a few economic facts…

13. The level of public
expenditure has hardly
changed in many decades.

15. But inequality has
grown significantly.

18. That means about 6 million
people live on about £40
per week after tax.

20. ‘Austerity’ has seen
Government target people
on low incomes for cuts.

22. Disabled people have
been especially targeted.

25. Instead of gathering
crumbs at the rich man’s
table the poor must now
start to dodge his kicks.
The logical result of entrenched inequality

26. • Do we accept the way in which the story of welfare
is told or do we tell (reframe) that story truthfully?
• Do we accept or resist the new ‘reforms’ or do we
try to develop real solutions that promote social
justice?
• Do we accept that power lies in the hands of a
small elite or do we try to change the balance
through constitutional change?
How should we go forward

27. Positive change requires
• A shift in the rhetoric towards the universal rights
and responsibilities of citizenship
• A shift in thinking about policy: away from stigma
towards universal solutions
• A shift in the constitutional balance of society to
better represent the interests of disadvantaged
groups