News

Teenagers are bracing themselves against a body blow which could push more on to the streets if benefit offices seek proof of their estrangement from their parents. Susannah Strong reports

Centrepoint recommendations

· a government rethink on proposals to tighten up severe hardship provisions. Benefit officers should not have to contact parents to confirm estrangement. This would not prevent collusion but would prevent vulnerable young people applying for benefits;

· a rethink on proposals in relation to the Job Seekers Allowance, which will increase the number of young people on low benefits.

· the restoration of benefits to 16- and 17-year-olds;

· an increase in the supply of affordable rented accommodation and supported hostel places for young people;

· a government commitment to keep its promise of guaranteed training places for all 16- and 17-year-oldsCentrepoint director Nick Hardwick went out as he came in - angry and with a sense of déjà vu at government proposals to cut benefits to 16- and 17-year-olds, which he predicts will result in an explosion of homeless young people to rival that of the late 1980s.

Centrepoint's new report They Don't Want Me Back contains statistics from interviews with 635 young people aged 16 and 17 staying in Centrepoint hostels between April and September 1994.¬ It is the timing as much as the content of the report that is crucial. Its release anticipates the proposed changes rather than reacts to them. Centrepoint is trying to the close stable doors before the horse bolts rather than afterwards.

The organisation's concern stems from social security junior minister Roger Evans' reply to a parliamentary question back in April. He said that the government proposed to 'issue an amendment to the guidelines on claims for income support under severe hardship provision'. In future, benefit offices would be encouraged to find evidence by 'careful enquiry' of 'estrangement' between young people and their families before paying benefit. If young people refuse to co-operate, the office should consider whether 'it has enough evidence on which to make a judgement as to the existence of severe hardship'.

The crackdown comes in the wake of an increase in benefit claims from 16- and 17-year-olds. It seems to be part of a general drive to cut costs and to reduce suspected cases where young people and their parents collude to defraud the social security department.

But the reality, says Hardwick, who is moving to another job, is that the only parents likely to admit to social security officers that they have chucked their children out are precisely those who are claiming falsely. Conversely, young people who have been genuinely thrown out of their homes are unlikely to apply for benefit at all in case they are sent back - particularly where they are victims of abuse. The new report asserts that 85 per cent of those interviewed had been evicted from their homes. Only 4 per cent could have returned on leaving a Centrepoint hostel.

Thus the new measures may penalise the most vulnerable young people. Without benefits, believes Centrepoint, they will once again be forced on to the London streets.

The agency's belief is founded on experience. In 1988, the government cut benefits for 16- and 17-year-olds. At the time, Hardwick predicted 'an explosion of street children in London'. He was right. The severity of the problem was such that in 1989 the government was forced to reintroduce benefits for 16- and 17-year-olds who were 'genuinely estranged' from their parents and to increase their income support payments.

The changes increased the number of benefit claims - that was its intention. Ironically, it is the continued effect of its own policy which Hardwick believes now provokes the new measures. He believes the move is due to 'cock up rather than conspiracy', combined with a belief among some Tory MPs that 'benefits encourage young people to leave home, that young people like living on the streets and are layabouts'.

This view persists, says Hardwick, despite research which shows homeless young people want jobs and affordable accommodation above all else.

There is also a glaring anomaly in the present situation given that the Department of Environment's new White Paper on housing extends the Rough Sleepers' Initiative beyond its 1996 deadline and to areas outside London. This is just as well because, if enforced, the new benefit will dramatically increase the numbers of those who sleep rough.

'It would seem,' says Hardwick, 'that the Departments of Environment and Social Security are not talking to each other'. The potential seriousness of the situation is compounded by the proposed Jobseeker's Allowance, which will reduce payments to those under 25 after they have been on unemployment benefit for six months. This move, says Centrepoint, is most likely to hit young people who have worked and are more likely to be living away from home. A benefit cut of around £10 a week could force them on to the streets.

At its launch, They Don't Want Me Back had all-party support. Conservative MP Charles Hendry said the report highlighted the possible 'side effects' the benefit changes might have. He added that it was not the government's intention to target vulnerable young people.

Has Centrepoint painted an over-gloomy picture? After all, the guidelines are not in place yet - and are unlikely to be a priority in the immediate future. Perhaps, but the agency was right in 1988 and Hendry's comment that the report 'means the government is looking at the needs of vulnerable young people at this stage rather than later' is not consoling.

¬ Centrepoint, They Don't Want Me Back, Centrepoint, 1995