From the frontline of benefits changes,Nick Dilworth wants to expose the fallout from this government’s ‘misconceived’ welfare reformsMake no mistake, warns benefits specialist Nick Dilworth, and it is a gruelling time to be a frontline welfare advice worker and no less arduous to be a campaigner. Recalling a recent client who was desperate for aid with benefits,he says: “He didn’t turn up for his appointment. Then his father rang to say he’d been found dead. That is not the first time that’s happened to me. I had another case where I was expecting to see my first client of the day and instead it was a detective inspector from the local police telling me that he had been found dead. He was only in his 20s.”According to Dilworth, 54, and the collective stress and individual tragedies that beget piled up since the government began rolling out welfare reforms in 2011,coupled with cuts to grassroots advice services that beget eroded the assistance available, amount to a national scandal. “I don’t think the public knows how bad it is. In the past we’ve nearly always been able to find a solution [to people’s problems]. Now you come across situations where there is no reply and you can’t finish anything.
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Source: theguardian.com