Introduction
Salford is ranked as the 22nd most deprived local authority in England and the third most deprived area of Greater Manchester, with around 70 per cent of Salford’s population reportedly living in areas classed as deprived and disadvantaged (Salford City Partnership, 2017). In response to the challenges experienced in Salford, in 2017 the Salford City Mayor and Salford Youth Mayor launched an anti-poverty strategy1 aimed at addressing inequality in the city (Salford City Partnership, 2017). Prior to COVID-19, existing research in Salford had begun to highlight intersections between reforms to the social security system and experiences of poverty and inequality, including increased food bank use (McEachern et al, 2019), concerns about the experiences of young people engaging with the benefits system (Jones et al, 2018), and intersections between welfare reform and housing (Scullion et al, 2018; Gibbons, 2019).
The introduction of UC was the flagship of the UK Government’s contemporary welfare reforms. However, since its introduction, UC has received criticism in respect of its underlying principles, adequacy of payment levels, and modes of implementation, which have raised concerns around the impact on some benefit recipients (Millar and Bennett, 2017; Wright et al, 2018; Dwyer et al, 2020). For Salford City Council and partners, there was a need to understand the experiences of UC within Salford from the perspective of Salford residents who are claiming UC and also those organisations who are supporting benefit claimants across the City. In response to this, the Exploring Universal Credit in Salford project was developed and began in the summer of 2019. The project forms part of a programme of research delivered by the Salford Anti-Poverty Taskforce; an innovative research and knowledge exchange partnership between the University of Salford and Salford City Council that works collaboratively to support the delivery of Salford’s anti-poverty strategy through a model of evidence-based policy making.
The project and methods
Exploring Universal Credit in Salford was designed as an 18-month qualitative longitudinal research (QLR) project, comprising two waves of interviews with UC claimants. QLR has become increasingly important in furthering understandings of the impacts of contemporary welfare reforms (Dwyer et al, 2018; Wright and Patrick, 2019; Griffiths et al, 2020; Scullion et al, 2021), enabling exploration of ‘varied and changing fortunes’ (Neale and Flowerdew, 2003) over time. A total of 20 people were recruited for the study, and baseline interviews were carried out between November 2019 and April 2020. However, the majority (16) were undertaken pre-COVID-19 (face-to-face), with just four baseline interviews taking place after the onset of the first national lockdown (via telephone). The first interviews focused on claimants’ experience of UC, from the process of applying through to their experiences of managing an ongoing claim. The interviews also explored broader issues around managing on a low income, and health and wellbeing. The participants were recruited with the support of a range of organisations in Salford, and efforts were made to ensure that those interviewed reflected the diversity of UC claimant groups (for example, ‘jobseekers’, ‘in work’ claimants, disabled people, lone parents). Although diversity was achieved in the sample, recruitment through support organisations meant that there was a high proportion of those who would be considered as having multiple and/or complex needs. In addition to interviewing UC claimaints, we also consulted with 22 stakeholders representing organisations that were providing support to Salford residents in relation to benefit claims but also a broad range of issues (health, housing, and so on). This consultation, which took place prior to COVID-19, primarily occurred through three focus groups (with a small number of indiviudal interviews) with representatives from the local authority, third sector, housing associations, and health care providers.
Recontact was attempted with all of those originally interviewed. However, some participants had changed numbers and had provided no other means of contacting them, while others decided that they would prefer not to be interviewed due to experiencing mental health issues and personal loss. In total, we were able to re-interview nine of the original 20 participants, and these interviews took place in April and May 2021. Eight of the nine interviews were undertaken by telephone, with one participant providing a written response. This individual did not want to be interviewed by telephone and expressed a preference for a face-to-face interview. At that time, the research team was still working remotely, and face-to-face contact required risk assessment and amendment to ethics. Although we began this amendment process, the delay this caused threatened to deter participation. Thus, when the participant made a request to submit a written account instead, we decided that this was the best approach. The sections that follow provide an overview of some key issues that emerged from our research.
Exploring pre-COVID-19 experiences
Before presenting our findings, we provide contextual information about our participants. As described earlier, the high proportion of people who had limited capability for work and work-related activity (LCWRA), were going through a Work Capability Assessment (WCA) or were appealing against the outcome of a WCA reflects the source of referrals for the study from those organisations providing support to claimants. Nonetheless, as illustrated in Table 4.1, our sample was diverse in terms of ages, household types, and types of UC claim.
‘Our sample’, Universal Credit in Salford project
Age |
Gender |
Ethnicity |
Household type |
UC ‘status’ at first interview |
UC ‘status’ at re-interview |
|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Rowan2 |
60–65 |
F |
White English |
Single |
LCWRA |
LCWRA but applying for work |
Rose |
50–59 |
F |
White English |
Single |
Jobseeker |
Furloughed from work with UC top-up |
Dave |
30–39 |
M |
White English |
Single, 1 child (9) |
Jobseeker |
|
Chimamanda |
50–59 |
F |
Black African |
Living with adult granddaughter |
Currently on sick note and PIP, waiting for WCA |
|
Victoria |
50–59 |
F |
White English |
Single |
Jobseeker – appealing against WCA outcome |
LCWRA having won appeal and also now on PIP |
Daniel |
30–39 |
M |
White English |
Single |
Currently on sick note, appealing against WCA outcome |
|
George |
40–49 |
M |
White English |
Single (son visits) |
LCWRA |
|
Phil |
30–39 |
M |
White English |
Single, living with parents |
Jobseeker |
|
Mo |
40–49 |
F |
Kurdish Iranian |
Single |
Jobseeker |
|
Betty |
40–49 |
F |
White English |
Single, 3 children (13, 5, <1) |
In work, maternity leave top-up |
Returned to work, UC in-work claimant |
Melissa |
30–39 |
F |
White English |
Single, 1 child (4) |
LCWRA |
LCWRA |
Susan |
30–39 |
F |
White English |
Single, 1 child (4) |
Currently on sick note, waiting for WCA |
LCWRA following WCA |
Jennifer |
30–39 |
F |
White English |
Single, 1 child (4) |
In work |
No longer on UC |
20–29 |
F |
White English |
Single, 2 children (5, <1) |
Currently on sick note, waiting for WCA |
LCWRA following WCA |
|
Barbara |
40–49 |
F |
White English |
Single, 1 child (12) |
LCWRA |
|
Michael |
60–65 |
M |
White English |
Couple |
LCWRA |
|
Joanna |
40–49 |
F |
White English |
Couple, 5 children (between 15 weeks and 15 years) |
In work but on sick note, two-child limit |
|
Mark |
50–59 |
M |
White English |
Single |
Jobseeker, once they leave supported housing |
|
Owen |
60–65 |
M |
White English |
Single |
Sick note, waiting for WCA |
Jobseeker (assessed as ‘fit for work’) |
Bob |
20–29 |
M |
White English |
Single |
Furlough top-up |
Financial adequacy
‘When you’ve got no bus fare … You’ve got no food in your cupboards, and also if you’ve got children, “Mum, can I have…? Can I have…? Can I have…? It’s half term. Can I have? …” You can’t feed your kids and you’ve got no food parcel … Last Christmas was horrendous … it was the week before Christmas I think they like switched the gas off. “It’s freezing.” “Go and get in bed,” kind of thing. Or I’d ring my dad up and say, “Can you have [daughter] for the day?” and he would. He’d come and pick her up … I think until you’ve been in that position yourself when you’ve got absolutely nothing, it is, it’s soul destroying. It’s really difficult to walk in a food bank and go, “I can’t afford to feed my child,” … It just strips your dignity right away from you.’ (Barbara)
However, as has been highlighted elsewhere (JRF, 2018; McBride et al, 2018; Innes, 2020), entering the paid labour market did not necessarily provide
Health and wellbeing
It was evident across our sample that where people had insufficient income to live on, it impacted significantly on people’s health and wellbeing, in a number of ways: through an inability to buy or cook healthy food; an inability to keep the home warm; an inability to pay for a bus or taxi to see the GP or pick up food, medication, and other necessities; fear of bailiffs; anxiety over housing costs and fear of homelessness; and depression from the social and physical isolation that often resulted from being unable to afford transport, leisure activities, and so on (see also Chapters 5, 8, and 11). Among those interviewed, turning off the heating was described as a common money-saving strategy, even for those who knew it would exacerbate their health conditions. Indeed, two people described spending much more of the day in bed to keep warm.
‘It works out easier for me and less stress for me … the money would be going to the rent either way. If it’s going straight to them before I even get it, say if there’s a month where I’m thinking oh my God, I can’t afford to do this or I can’t afford to get baby milk or feed my kid, I might think I’ll just take money out of it for now.’ (Michelle)
‘I can’t go anywhere because the money that I’m on, I can’t travel to the areas where my family live. My family lives in [another area of Greater Manchester]. I can’t get away from here. It takes two hours on the bus, and I haven’t got the money for the buses. I get stranded here. I get stranded and isolated, and it’s not really good for my mental health anyway.’ (Rose)
‘I often see different forms of depression. There’s one thing that I call a reactive depression, which is probably not actually a depression at all, it’s probably, if I was in your situation, and all of these things were happening to me, how would I feel? I say to people, this is a normal feeling because of all the things that are going on in your life, rather than just a chemical imbalance that could be corrected with a pill.’ (Health care professional)
Housing professional 1: ‘Over the summer, I had a case where I would dread opening up my emails because I thought this particular person was going to commit suicide, and I would get an email to tell me she’d ended her life … we’ve just had the suicide training because it’s needed now.’
Housing professional 2: ‘Yes, I had somebody that I was supporting and I was ringing up to check to make sure that their payment had gone in, and when I was ringing them, they were actually in the middle of killing themselves. I had to try and keep them on while they were trying to hang up on the phone.’
‘For the part of – God of – I’ve got [my daughter] and I think nobody else would look after her, and on a number of occasions that has stopped me thinking, I can’t do this any more. With all the stuff that’s going on at the minute, people with mental health and committing suicide, I get it.’ (Rowan)
Although these discussions were less common across our interviews with both stakeholders and UC claimants, they provide a sense of the issues that professionals were responding to with some of their low-income residents. Further, these discussions illustrate how some of our UC participants had reached a crisis point where they had, even if momentarily, (re)considered their future.
Experiences during COVID-19
An overwhelming finding from the pre-COVID-19 interviews was the high level of financial and individual hardship that people were experiencing. The accounts of those who we re-interviewed in April/May 2021 highlighted that despite living through a global pandemic, for the most part, people appeared to be faring better than they had before. This was primarily due to the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) raising the basic element of UC and Working Tax Credit by £20 per week (aka the £20 uplift) combined with decreased spending due to the various lockdowns and restrictions in place. Many also spoke very positively about the support they had been able to draw upon during the pandemic from family and friends. Indeed, most had family and close friends nearby and had created small support bubbles to care for each other to minimise the negative impacts of the isolation rules they otherwise followed. It would be inaccurate to suggest that there were no negative impacts for our participants and people referred to a range of issues that have been reported elsewhere in this edited collection, relating to the difficulties of home schooling and the impact on children (Chapter 11), and depression and increased anxiety stemming from isolation and the pandemic itself (Chapter 5). Although people often described these as being offset by the increased payments that people had received, it was evident that
The ‘£20 uplift’ and financial ‘stability’
When asked about the £20 uplift, participants welcomed this increase and reported an improved sense of financial stability. Interestingly, however, none of the participants could recall being told that their payments would increase, and only those closely monitoring their journals realised that their payment had changed. Rowan, for example, who had LCWRA, stated that she did not often check her journal and had been slow to realise she was receiving more, and had contacted her work coach to query it: “I just noticed, because when there was a rise last year – oh, I might have contacted her [work coach] then about that, about the rise, and … She just said, ‘Oh, you get’ – yes, that was it … about £20 was the rise.” Rowan felt that the increase in her payment, despite the lack of communication about it, was “the one thing the government got right”. At the same time, although she was more positive about her UC payments, she indicated that she was still dependent on a Discretionary Housing Payment from the council to cover the costs of her housing due to the bedroom tax/under-occupancy charge.
‘at the minute there’s been times where I’ve not been paying certain bills. They’re just literally mounting up sometimes because they’re through like, direct debits. If they are bouncing then I’m like, right, well, if I need food, I’m going to be buying food over paying my electric if it’s not going to go off.’ (Michelle)
It was evident that Michelle was reliant on support from her parents, who were regularly bringing food and helping with her children. She also described being in the process of moving onto an electricity meter to help
Three of those who were re-interviewed were in work and for that reason felt that they were managing better financially. Two of them (Betty and Rose) were newly working (or had found work and then been furloughed). Betty had originally been on maternity leave (and in her first interview described cooking for her three children using a microwave after her cooker had broken and she couldn’t afford to replace it). She was now back in work and claiming UC as an in-work claimant. She described being able to afford to replace the cooker and even being able to begin saving a little money again. Rose, despite her frustration at not being able to earn enough either working the 30 hours she was given or with the furlough provision, described still being ‘better off’ than when fully relying on UC. The third participant, Jennifer, had decided to leave the benefits system altogether after what she described as a ‘long battle’ to get the housing payment she felt she was eligible for. She had subsequently moved back to her parents’ house and with their financial support had been able to recover from the debt that an abusive relationship had left her with: “I’m now back where I was five, six years ago … I’m in a good place, but I’d like to have thought that Universal Credit would have been more willing to help, certainly with the housing cost.”
The continuing importance of family and support networks
‘My mum’s retired. She retired at Christmas, so that’s helped. So she’s done a lot of the home schooling, so that’s eased a lot of my stress. So it’s good being at home with my parents, that it meant that I had that added support to do that. There’s no way I would’ve been able to do it on my own.’ (Jennifer)
‘Yes, she’s started to have to help out quite a lot, like with my kids and having to manage stuff like that as well. When I’m trying to deal with that sort of stuff, especially if I’m off my medication or I’m having a bad day, I can’t handle it. I’ve had to ask her to end up being more involved, so she can know what to do if I am in those states. She knows what medication I’m on and she knows who does what and whatever else.’ (Michelle)
Additionally, people referred to receiving support from other family members such as siblings, but also close friendship networks. Participants had therefore created support bubbles to best suit their specific needs. Many also mentioned both the positive and negative aspects of home schooling and/or children being sent home to self-isolate, with the stress of having to provide that support when you are unqualified to do so, alongside the opportunity to grow closer as a family. However, reflecting the findings of other chapters and wider debates about the impact of COVID-19 on gender inequalities (Power, 2020), the gendered nature of care during the pandemic was apparent in many of the accounts of our participants.
Illness, isolation, and mental health
Although those we interviewed described feeling ‘better off’ financially and talked positively about the support bubbles they had created, the pandemic impacted more broadly on people’s physical and mental health, and limited the wider support that they could access. These impacts were felt acutely, for example, by two participants (Jennifer and Susan) who had contracted COVID-19. Reflecting the potential longer-term effects associated with chronic or long COVID (Halpin et al, 2021), Jennifer described the ongoing pain that she was experiencing: “I’m still not 100 per cent right. I’m still very achy … because my fibro is triggered by infection and stress, it’s just never gone away. So, my body’s always been in that heightened pain state, just since I’ve had [COVID-19].” All of those who were re-interviewed described the impact of increased isolation on their mental health (and sometimes that of their close family). Rowan, for example, who had LCWRA, was keen to be able to work in the future. However, during the winter she felt she had been unable to ‘shake off’ her depression, and additionally described how “it’s made – I’ve even gone more anxious about working”. She had waited a year to access support for her depression and post-traumatic stress disorder but had finally been allocated a counsellor. Although the sessions had been undertaken over
Policy implications
This chapter provides insights into key findings from our qualitative longitudinal research in Salford. There are key policy implications here, relating to (i) communication with claimants; and (ii) financial adequacy. It was evident that changes to the UC system that occurred during COVID-19 (for example the £20 uplift) were not fully understood or had not been explained to participants. There is therefore a need to ensure that any future changes to the system are communicated clearly and that claimants fully understand what will happen and when.
Although this study is exploring experiences of UC, and so was approached through the lens of the benefits system, the qualitative longitudinal interviews were illuminating in relation to change and continuity across an array of complex needs and circumstances facing the participants, including significant health issues, caring responsibilities, housing insecurity, domestic abuse, and debt. In those situations where UC was described as working for people, this was articulated as one less thing to worry about and related primarily to the process of claiming. Ultimately what appeared to dominate the interviews were the challenges of life on a low income while managing a range of complex circumstances. Although many articulated feeling ‘better off’ financially during COVID-19 (as payment levels increased and spending decreased), this was often from a starting point of significant financial insecurity or crisis. It is therefore misleading to suggest that people were ‘better off’; rather they had moved from ‘crisis’ to ‘just about managing’. Reiterating other research (Summers et al, 2021) and chapters in this edited collection, this signals the need to review the financial adequacy of the benefits system.
Notes
Participants have been given pseudonyms to protect anonymity.
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