London School of Economics: New Film and Research Expose the Long-Term Harm of Over a Decade of Austerity

Action is desperately needed to reform the social security system, according to new research that tracked the same individuals over more than a decade of austerity. The paper, supported by a British Academy/Leverhulme Small Research Grant, suggests five immediate policy fixes to alleviate suffering and severe hardship. This is especially timely ahead of next week’s budget, where the Chancellor has already trailed ‘tough decisions’ on ‘welfare’.

Researchers at the London School of Economics and Political Science, University of York and Nottingham Trent University conducted in-depth, repeat interviews with ten people over 12 years from 2011 to 2023, focusing on single parents, young jobseekers and disabled people. They found that ‘austerity’ reforms, introduced by the government from 2010, including a cap on benefits, the bedroom tax, tougher sanctions, tougher conditionality and the two-child limit, frequently contributed to mental health issues, extreme poverty and other negative outcomes.

As well as a briefing summarising research findings, the team are also releasing a new animated film, which documents how individuals’ lives have changed over the past decade, and the role social security systems have played here in often pushing people further and deeper into hardship. This film is a sequel to the 2013 Dole Animators film, which was an early exploration of how lives were being impacted by government reforms.

Typical responses from some of the participants looking back over the period were:

‘I feel like I were just let down. I tried, I did, I did try my hardest for opportunities and that, and just nobody were, like, letting me, give me a chance’ (Adrian).

‘It is not somewhere that you go to for support; it’s somewhere you’ve got to go to almost beg and plead to have some money’ (Rosie).

The paper’s five recommendations are:

• Stop speaking about ‘welfare’ and start talking about ‘social security’ as a force for good.
• Abolish benefit sanctions.
• Draw on the wealth of research evidence on the impact and consequences of welfare conditionality as a basis for developing a new approach to the role of conditionality within our social security system.
• Commit to reforming Universal Credit, with a focus on a) addressing issues of adequacy; b) making parenting and care work possible; and c) embedding dignified and respectful treatment (i.e., taking seriously the suitability of trauma-informed approaches (TIA) and initiatives within the DWP).
• Commit to working with and involving those with lived experiences of poverty and social security in policymaking and decisions that directly affect them.

The paper concludes: “There is a pressing need to completely transform our welfare state if it is to be made fit for purpose. We need to learn from and listen to the experiences shared here – which show the harms caused when the social security system and public services are simply not able to do their job properly. The creation of a suitable, supportive and compassionate social security system, which reimagines social security as a force for good should be a priority for the new Labour Government.”

Ruth Patrick, an author of the study, said: “Individuals are being failed by a wholly inadequate social security system, which is experienced as dehumanising and punitive. People cannot wait any longer for change. Improving and investing in social security needs to happen, and it needs to happen now. Let’s start the work of making life better from the millions currently struggling to get by’.