Veiled Threat to Remove Children.

Demanding Money with Menaces.

Posted on 02/11/2013 by Giles Peaker 

We all know that the bedroom tax has created huge problems for both tenants, desperately trying and often failing to find the additional 14% or 25% of rent, and for social landlords, watching arrears spiral rapidly upwards.

But I don’t think there is anything that is capable of excusing the actions of South Ayrshire Council in the letters it is sending out to its tenants with ‘Notice of Proceedings’ (Scottish version of Notice seeking Possession). Here is the letter. Fairly standard until you reach the sentence after the passage in bold.

Nearly Legal Blog

The passage threatens tenants with the possibility that the landlord will report them to Social Services about their children because getting into arrears and being evicted could be seen as making themselves voluntarily homeless and therefore putting their children at risk. The big threat behind that is: You may lose your children.

 

Now consider the news that 80,000 children may be homeless at Christmas according to Shelter and reported by the BBC:

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-24798498

 

There is no discussion about the bedroom tax and why certain families are economically distressed.  But at least there is recognition from the BBC that families are going through hard times in large numbers, which makes the letter from Ayrshire Council all the more disgusting.

After all, it was the Government who introduced the bedroom tax and insist that austerity must continue. So it`s a case of the Government creates the policy which leads to the problem and then the Council picks up the baton to blame and punish the victims of the policy. Every move in this cycle is a dishonest one.

As for community planning partnerships and joined up working, it is easy to see where these collaborative relationships lead. Every department learns to threaten parents with social work interventions.