THERE will be much suspicion at Iain Duncan Smith’s plans to put Department for Work and Pensions staff into food banks across the country.
Those who find themselves forced to use the support, the food, the sanitary products, and kindness offered to them by organisations such as the Trussell Trust will understandably worry that the person from the Government isn’t there to help.
Most food banks seemed to give the plan a cautious welcome yesterday.
To understand that, it is perhaps necessary to look at who suggested the partnership in the first place.
It was not Iain Duncan Smith or a DWP civil servant, or even UKIP, as they bizarrely seemed to suggest, but rather a Manchester-based nun.
Sister Rita Lee has served the Sisters of the Presentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary, for the last 50 years.
Since 2007 she has led the Lalley Welcome Centre, based in Collyhurst, one of the UK’s most deprived areas.
In the sister’s town, 57 per cent of children are living in poverty.
It is a part of the world that has suffered hugely under the Tory Government.
Sister Rita in her food bank does everything she can to help those who come to her, this including debt and welfare advice, food poverty, job applications and CV writing.
The sister told local press: “The people we find attending our food banks and drop-in sessions are young families where mother is at home looking after kids and father has a job with very low earnings and its either heat or eat for them.
“We want to help them, so they come in, they are assessed, we find out about their bills, their debts and we give them food in the meantime,” she adds.
“These are not homeless people, these are young families and people who companies are not even paying decent wages.
“The people being worst affected by Government cuts and sanctions.”
It was Sister Rita who wrote to Duncan Smith, and who didn’t let go until he responded.
It has been three weeks since the jobcentre advisers came to Sister Rita’s centre.
Already the feedback is, according to the nun and the secretary of state, positive.
As anyone who has found themselves in the bureaucratic nightmare that is unemployment or being dependent on benefits will know, help and knowledge can go a long way.
Having a DWP official who has the right understanding of the system and, as Dave Simmers from Aberdeen’s Food Bank Network says, the right attitude, might just prove to be a real help to some of the most vulnerable.
What is most depressing, however, is that the very act of placing DWP staff in food banks is a sign that the Government expects these places to be around for some considerable time yet. This should be challenged.
That families this Christmas will rely on food banks for presents from Santa and food on the table on December 25 is a national disgrace.
Black slams plan for DWP staff ‘outposts’ in UK’s food banks
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