Food banks - what is the real story
Discussion
Jasandjules said:
It may be the case that this person only told his friends of his plight later on, once he'd got a job or somesuch, as he was ashamed at the time.
For example, I lent someone £250 because of something I heard rather than anything being given away by them to me...
fair enough - still intrigued as to how someone who was working cant conjure up enough food for 2 weeks either by selling bits, overdrafts, friends, family etcFor example, I lent someone £250 because of something I heard rather than anything being given away by them to me...
petemurphy said:
Jasandjules said:
It may be the case that this person only told his friends of his plight later on, once he'd got a job or somesuch, as he was ashamed at the time.
For example, I lent someone £250 because of something I heard rather than anything being given away by them to me...
fair enough - still intrigued as to how someone who was working cant conjure up enough food for 2 weeks either by selling bits, overdrafts, friends, family etcFor example, I lent someone £250 because of something I heard rather than anything being given away by them to me...
petemurphy said:
fair enough - still intrigued as to how someone who was working cant conjure up enough food for 2 weeks either by selling bits, overdrafts, friends, family etc
Chances are you come from a more fortunate background than many.Plenty of people live hand to mouth in this country. Not everyone even has friends or family who can assist them in such circumstances, they may also be living hand to mouth.
Food banks are a supply driven system, not demand driven..
The food banks receive donations of food and will give away everything they receive, so if they get more donations, they will simply move the goalposts in order to make sure there are more "needy" people to give it to.
So blaming "the benefit cuts" for more people using food banks just doesn't stack up. I guess the reason they have more to give away is increased awareness of them, and the generosity of the British public.
The food banks receive donations of food and will give away everything they receive, so if they get more donations, they will simply move the goalposts in order to make sure there are more "needy" people to give it to.
So blaming "the benefit cuts" for more people using food banks just doesn't stack up. I guess the reason they have more to give away is increased awareness of them, and the generosity of the British public.
Jasandjules said:
petemurphy said:
fair enough - still intrigued as to how someone who was working cant conjure up enough food for 2 weeks either by selling bits, overdrafts, friends, family etc
Chances are you come from a more fortunate background than many.Plenty of people live hand to mouth in this country. Not everyone even has friends or family who can assist them in such circumstances, they may also be living hand to mouth.
Her: "If they're homeless why don't they buy themselves a flat."
Me: "Well, maybe they don't have the money love"
Her: "Why don't they borrow it off Mummy and Daddy then"
Bright as a button that one. Keen between the sheets though.
Camoradi said:
Food banks are a supply driven system, not demand driven..
+1. I think the Mash sums it up perfectly .. http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/news/society/drink-b...NicD said:
Is this true? The majority reading this?
It is hard to know even your friends financial circumstances but hard to imagine the majority needing a food bank for one missed pay check. Some bills may well go unpaid, the current account may go overdrawn, but more?
Quote 'A friend of mine was made redundant. He had some savings but like the majority reading this, he lived from one month's pay day to the next.'
I bet a good number of people have a smaller safety net than they would prefer. wages haven't kept pace with inflation so the saving pot either fills more slowly stops being filled or actually starts getting eaten into.It is hard to know even your friends financial circumstances but hard to imagine the majority needing a food bank for one missed pay check. Some bills may well go unpaid, the current account may go overdrawn, but more?
Quote 'A friend of mine was made redundant. He had some savings but like the majority reading this, he lived from one month's pay day to the next.'
Assessing people by their sky subscription, phone etc is bs all of these a contracts that generally cost the remaining balance to end early, so redundancy at the wrong time and you could be looking at food banks yourself.
Engineer1 said:
NicD said:
Is this true? The majority reading this?
It is hard to know even your friends financial circumstances but hard to imagine the majority needing a food bank for one missed pay check. Some bills may well go unpaid, the current account may go overdrawn, but more?
Quote 'A friend of mine was made redundant. He had some savings but like the majority reading this, he lived from one month's pay day to the next.'
I bet a good number of people have a smaller safety net than they would prefer. wages haven't kept pace with inflation so the saving pot either fills more slowly stops being filled or actually starts getting eaten into.It is hard to know even your friends financial circumstances but hard to imagine the majority needing a food bank for one missed pay check. Some bills may well go unpaid, the current account may go overdrawn, but more?
Quote 'A friend of mine was made redundant. He had some savings but like the majority reading this, he lived from one month's pay day to the next.'
Assessing people by their sky subscription, phone etc is bs all of these a contracts that generally cost the remaining balance to end early, so redundancy at the wrong time and you could be looking at food banks yourself.
I was in Tesco today in a middle class part of London near to Wimbledon. A trolley was brought out with reduced stuff and a dozen very normal looking people piled in with elbows flailing (think seagulls squabbling over food).
Was a shock for me and OH seeing this aggressive scrum- I've been many a times in Asda in poor areas where in the same circumstances people have waited their turn or gently stretched over others shoulders. Can only think some people are in serious money issues having stretched too far.
Was a shock for me and OH seeing this aggressive scrum- I've been many a times in Asda in poor areas where in the same circumstances people have waited their turn or gently stretched over others shoulders. Can only think some people are in serious money issues having stretched too far.
Harry H said:
Reminds me of a conversation I had about the homeless with an old girlfriend of mine many years ago.
[b]Her: "If they're homeless why don't they buy themselves a flat."
Me: "Well, maybe they don't have the money love"
Her: "Why don't they borrow it off Mummy and Daddy then"[/b]
Bright as a button that one. Keen between the sheets though.
If some demented bint ever said that to me I would hoof her in the clunge and then boot her useless arse out into the street no matter how good she was between the sheets.[b]Her: "If they're homeless why don't they buy themselves a flat."
Me: "Well, maybe they don't have the money love"
Her: "Why don't they borrow it off Mummy and Daddy then"[/b]
Bright as a button that one. Keen between the sheets though.
Some people just don't deserve to live.
Was she a southerner perchance?
Yazar said:
I was in Tesco today in a middle class part of London near to Wimbledon. A trolley was brought out with reduced stuff and a dozen very normal looking people piled in with elbows flailing (think seagulls squabbling over food).
Was a shock for me and OH seeing this aggressive scrum- I've been many a times in Asda in poor areas where in the same circumstances people have waited their turn or gently stretched over others shoulders. Can only think some people are in serious money issues having stretched too far.
I see it in Waitrose in Wimbledon. Was a shock for me and OH seeing this aggressive scrum- I've been many a times in Asda in poor areas where in the same circumstances people have waited their turn or gently stretched over others shoulders. Can only think some people are in serious money issues having stretched too far.
Suffice to say, the ones doing it only arrive when the reductions are happening, and their trolleys don't contain anything without a reduced sticker.
They go from shop to shop, I'm told.
Politicians are back playing politics with food banks again. And now the Church of England is involved too.
FT.com said:
Food banks report deepens coalition tension
A report on the use of food banks by impoverished Britons is expected to deepen long-running coalition battles over future cuts to welfare and the penalties for those who breach benefits rules.
The report, published on Monday by the all-party parliamentary inquiry into hunger and food poverty, puts forward a strategy to eliminate hunger in Britain by 2020.
Proposals include a new publicly funded body called Feeding Britain and a bigger network of government-backed food banks called Food Banks Plus, which also give advice to benefits claimants.
The research found that benefit-related problems were “the single biggest reason given for food bank referrals by almost every food bank that presented evidence to us” and called on the government to “urgently reform the benefits system” so it is able to deliver payments within five working days.
In an interview ahead of the report’s publication, Nick Clegg, the deputy prime minister, welcomed the “very telling findings” and seized on one of the ideas put forward: a “yellow card” system to prevent those who break welfare rules from immediately being stripped of their benefits.
“There is some evidence that I suspect might be borne out in the report that people who are subject to benefit sanctions are using food banks for a temporary period of time,” Mr Clegg, the Liberal Democrat leader, told the BBC’s Andrew Marr show.
“While, of course, it is necessary to have sanctions in the benefits system, I think we should introduce a sort of traffic light system so that the sanctions are not imposed quite as overnight as they sometimes are.”
Westminster blog
westminster blog
From the corridors of Westminster: Jim Pickard and Kiran Stacey blog on the UK’s political scene
However, aides to Iain Duncan Smith, work and pensions secretary, argued that the yellow card warning system was “not necessary” because jobseeker’s allowance claimants were now required to sign a “claimant commitment”. This left them in no doubt as to the obligations they were required to fulfil in return for their social security.
Conservative officials also distanced themselves from the idea of the state playing a bigger role in food bank provision, making clear that this should remain separate from the safety net provided by the welfare state. “There is a system of support for the unemployed. If community groups want to do something additional we should celebrate it .?.?. It is David Cameron’s Big Society in action,” added one insider.
Matthew Hancock, a Tory business minister, also suggested that food banks had only increased “because more people know about them” and that poverty in Britain “coming down”.
But it emerged over the weekend that the report’s findings had won the support of the Archbishop of Canterbury, who admitted that he had been more shocked by the plight of Britain’s hungry poor than by refugee camps he saw in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
In a piece for the Mail on Sunday, Justin Welby outlined his concerns that UK commercial suppliers were wasting food at “astonishing” levels and said it needed to be made “easier” for such companies to give edible surplus food to charities and send inedible food for energy production.
“The big names in the food business have a moral obligation to communities,” Mr Welby wrote. “We need to make sure that the financial incentives in their industry don’t act against their moral instincts.”
The MPs’ report gives a particularly stark warning about the effects of smoking, drinking and gambling on the precarious finances of some of the poorest families, suggesting these habits are being “fed and defended by some very powerful lobbies”.
Alison Garnham, chief executive of the Child Poverty Action Group, said the report “rightly identifies low pay and rising costs as key drivers of food poverty, but the missing piece of the puzzle is that benefits have lost real value too, leaving families increasingly exposed to hunger”.
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/191e08ce-7e06-11e4-b7c3-00144feabdc0.html#axzz3LKO5AsLrA report on the use of food banks by impoverished Britons is expected to deepen long-running coalition battles over future cuts to welfare and the penalties for those who breach benefits rules.
The report, published on Monday by the all-party parliamentary inquiry into hunger and food poverty, puts forward a strategy to eliminate hunger in Britain by 2020.
Proposals include a new publicly funded body called Feeding Britain and a bigger network of government-backed food banks called Food Banks Plus, which also give advice to benefits claimants.
The research found that benefit-related problems were “the single biggest reason given for food bank referrals by almost every food bank that presented evidence to us” and called on the government to “urgently reform the benefits system” so it is able to deliver payments within five working days.
In an interview ahead of the report’s publication, Nick Clegg, the deputy prime minister, welcomed the “very telling findings” and seized on one of the ideas put forward: a “yellow card” system to prevent those who break welfare rules from immediately being stripped of their benefits.
“There is some evidence that I suspect might be borne out in the report that people who are subject to benefit sanctions are using food banks for a temporary period of time,” Mr Clegg, the Liberal Democrat leader, told the BBC’s Andrew Marr show.
“While, of course, it is necessary to have sanctions in the benefits system, I think we should introduce a sort of traffic light system so that the sanctions are not imposed quite as overnight as they sometimes are.”
Westminster blog
westminster blog
From the corridors of Westminster: Jim Pickard and Kiran Stacey blog on the UK’s political scene
However, aides to Iain Duncan Smith, work and pensions secretary, argued that the yellow card warning system was “not necessary” because jobseeker’s allowance claimants were now required to sign a “claimant commitment”. This left them in no doubt as to the obligations they were required to fulfil in return for their social security.
Conservative officials also distanced themselves from the idea of the state playing a bigger role in food bank provision, making clear that this should remain separate from the safety net provided by the welfare state. “There is a system of support for the unemployed. If community groups want to do something additional we should celebrate it .?.?. It is David Cameron’s Big Society in action,” added one insider.
Matthew Hancock, a Tory business minister, also suggested that food banks had only increased “because more people know about them” and that poverty in Britain “coming down”.
But it emerged over the weekend that the report’s findings had won the support of the Archbishop of Canterbury, who admitted that he had been more shocked by the plight of Britain’s hungry poor than by refugee camps he saw in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
In a piece for the Mail on Sunday, Justin Welby outlined his concerns that UK commercial suppliers were wasting food at “astonishing” levels and said it needed to be made “easier” for such companies to give edible surplus food to charities and send inedible food for energy production.
“The big names in the food business have a moral obligation to communities,” Mr Welby wrote. “We need to make sure that the financial incentives in their industry don’t act against their moral instincts.”
The MPs’ report gives a particularly stark warning about the effects of smoking, drinking and gambling on the precarious finances of some of the poorest families, suggesting these habits are being “fed and defended by some very powerful lobbies”.
Alison Garnham, chief executive of the Child Poverty Action Group, said the report “rightly identifies low pay and rising costs as key drivers of food poverty, but the missing piece of the puzzle is that benefits have lost real value too, leaving families increasingly exposed to hunger”.
An actual founder of a food bank has a different take on things.
mail said:
Don't let the Left ruin our crusade... writes food bank pioneer ROBIN AITKEN
There’s a regrettable tendency in Britain that whenever something good is brought about by the energies of private individuals, the cry goes up for the State to get involved.
Food banks are the latest example. They are one of the great success stories of the voluntary sector in the past few years, and now the Archbishop of Canterbury wants to stuff their pockets with public money.
The Most Reverend Justin Welby has given his support to a paper published today by the All-Party Parliamentary Inquiry into Hunger and Child Poverty.
The report calls for a new publicly funded body, Feeding Britain, co-ordinating state-backed food banks across the country and providing free school meals during school holidays for children from poorer families.
There are no costs given in the report, but one estimate has been given as £150million a year.
Though I have great admiration for Justin Welby – a decent, thoughtful and intelligent man – I respectfully have to take issue with him.
Food banks are a marvellous example of how the best instincts of society can be harnessed into voluntary, grassroots action to help people who are most in need. Far from helping, I think state involvement would be toxic.
Let me tell you the story of the Oxford Food Bank, because it illustrates the point well. Five years ago, a few of us started with two aims. First, to get good, fresh food to the poorest people in our community. Second, to prevent food waste.
The set-up we have created we call a ‘sustainable’ food bank, because all the food we distribute would otherwise have been thrown away. And the quantities are huge.
Most weeks, we give away around five tonnes of food to hungry families – and in the past year we have given away more than one million pounds’ worth.
The food is donated by supermarkets and wholesalers. And it’s all been done without a single penny of public money coming our way.
Whatever the Left say about the Conservative-led Coalition’s cuts ‘fuelling’ the rise in food banks, the poorest people in any decade have always gone hungry, regardless of which party was in power.
It is to our credit, not our shame, that there are now many industrious, caring people setting up and running food banks to provide food to those who need it.
At the same time as knowing that there were many people who were going hungry, we were appalled by the truly colossal scale of food waste. We wanted to put those things together to combat hunger.
From the outset, we decided we would raise all the money for the operation from local businesses and volunteers.
It hasn’t been difficult to find good volunteers. Our workforce – we have more than 100 – come from every background and political persuasion.
Their joint effort adds up to the equivalent of nine full-time jobs. They haul around sacks of spuds, sort the food, and drive the vans.
I cannot see, for the life of me, why the model we have pioneered in Oxford should not be copied across the whole of Britain.
The one thing that would surely stop the whole thing in its tracks is if the dead hand of the State were to get involved.
It is striking that the Archbishop’s call for state involvement should come in a week when the Chancellor warned in his Autumn Statement that cuts in public spending will be with us for years to come. In this age of austerity the State has to shrink, not expand.
It is exactly the wrong moment to be talking about taxpayers’ money for food banks.
I am tired of hearing from the Left how food banks ‘disgrace’ Britain, as Jack Monroe, the food blogger and Guardian columnist – who recently accused David Cameron of using the death of his son Ivan as a front to privatise the NHS – has said.
They do no such thing – in fact they do the exact opposite. They demonstrate that our society is still humane and conscience-driven; aware of the plight of the underdog, and of the collective moral responsibility to do something about hunger, need and deprivation.
We should celebrate the fact that we have food banks – they show we still care. But chucking public money at them will not make them better – it will merely engulf them in an already over-extended welfare state.
And we certainly don’t need food banks to be enlisted by the Left in a wider debate about changes to welfare.
Politicians should butt out. If they want to help, they should encourage people to harness the compassion of their communities to set up independent, sustainable food banks.
And – while I admire Justin Welby in many other respects – my question to him on this occasion would be: in what way would our food bank in Oxford have been improved by state funding and a smart new office in Whitehall?
Robin Aitken was a co-founder of the Oxford Food Bank. He was awarded an MBE this year for his work.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2864820/Don-t-let-Left-ruin-crusade-writes-food-bank-pioneer-ROBIN-AITKEN.htmlThere’s a regrettable tendency in Britain that whenever something good is brought about by the energies of private individuals, the cry goes up for the State to get involved.
Food banks are the latest example. They are one of the great success stories of the voluntary sector in the past few years, and now the Archbishop of Canterbury wants to stuff their pockets with public money.
The Most Reverend Justin Welby has given his support to a paper published today by the All-Party Parliamentary Inquiry into Hunger and Child Poverty.
The report calls for a new publicly funded body, Feeding Britain, co-ordinating state-backed food banks across the country and providing free school meals during school holidays for children from poorer families.
There are no costs given in the report, but one estimate has been given as £150million a year.
Though I have great admiration for Justin Welby – a decent, thoughtful and intelligent man – I respectfully have to take issue with him.
Food banks are a marvellous example of how the best instincts of society can be harnessed into voluntary, grassroots action to help people who are most in need. Far from helping, I think state involvement would be toxic.
Let me tell you the story of the Oxford Food Bank, because it illustrates the point well. Five years ago, a few of us started with two aims. First, to get good, fresh food to the poorest people in our community. Second, to prevent food waste.
The set-up we have created we call a ‘sustainable’ food bank, because all the food we distribute would otherwise have been thrown away. And the quantities are huge.
Most weeks, we give away around five tonnes of food to hungry families – and in the past year we have given away more than one million pounds’ worth.
The food is donated by supermarkets and wholesalers. And it’s all been done without a single penny of public money coming our way.
Whatever the Left say about the Conservative-led Coalition’s cuts ‘fuelling’ the rise in food banks, the poorest people in any decade have always gone hungry, regardless of which party was in power.
It is to our credit, not our shame, that there are now many industrious, caring people setting up and running food banks to provide food to those who need it.
At the same time as knowing that there were many people who were going hungry, we were appalled by the truly colossal scale of food waste. We wanted to put those things together to combat hunger.
From the outset, we decided we would raise all the money for the operation from local businesses and volunteers.
It hasn’t been difficult to find good volunteers. Our workforce – we have more than 100 – come from every background and political persuasion.
Their joint effort adds up to the equivalent of nine full-time jobs. They haul around sacks of spuds, sort the food, and drive the vans.
I cannot see, for the life of me, why the model we have pioneered in Oxford should not be copied across the whole of Britain.
The one thing that would surely stop the whole thing in its tracks is if the dead hand of the State were to get involved.
It is striking that the Archbishop’s call for state involvement should come in a week when the Chancellor warned in his Autumn Statement that cuts in public spending will be with us for years to come. In this age of austerity the State has to shrink, not expand.
It is exactly the wrong moment to be talking about taxpayers’ money for food banks.
I am tired of hearing from the Left how food banks ‘disgrace’ Britain, as Jack Monroe, the food blogger and Guardian columnist – who recently accused David Cameron of using the death of his son Ivan as a front to privatise the NHS – has said.
They do no such thing – in fact they do the exact opposite. They demonstrate that our society is still humane and conscience-driven; aware of the plight of the underdog, and of the collective moral responsibility to do something about hunger, need and deprivation.
We should celebrate the fact that we have food banks – they show we still care. But chucking public money at them will not make them better – it will merely engulf them in an already over-extended welfare state.
And we certainly don’t need food banks to be enlisted by the Left in a wider debate about changes to welfare.
Politicians should butt out. If they want to help, they should encourage people to harness the compassion of their communities to set up independent, sustainable food banks.
And – while I admire Justin Welby in many other respects – my question to him on this occasion would be: in what way would our food bank in Oxford have been improved by state funding and a smart new office in Whitehall?
Robin Aitken was a co-founder of the Oxford Food Bank. He was awarded an MBE this year for his work.
jonah35 said:
Perhaps every benefit for everyone should be online for us to see. That would show us who is getting exactly what. Benefit fraud would soon stop.
I'd go along with that. On condition that everyone's income and the amount of tax they pay were also posted online. All sorts of fraud might be stopped.
jonah35 said:
Perhaps every benefit for everyone should be online for us to see. That would show us who is getting exactly what. Benefit fraud would soon stop.
I'd go along with that. On condition that everyone's income and the amount of tax they pay were also posted online. All sorts of fraud might be stopped.
King 
said:
said:jonah35 said:
Perhaps every benefit for everyone should be online for us to see. That would show us who is getting exactly what. Benefit fraud would soon stop.
I'd go along with that. On condition that everyone's income and the amount of tax they pay were also posted online. All sorts of fraud might be stopped.
Beyond the fraud aspect there's an essential difference between use of public and private money and transparency in this use. As such, there's a stronger argument for keeping private sector income private while publishing public sector pay and 'tax'.
King said:
said: I'd go along with that.
On condition that everyone's income and the amount of tax they pay were also posted online. All sorts of fraud might be stopped.
Tax payers are contributing to the pot, benefits receivers are draining it.On condition that everyone's income and the amount of tax they pay were also posted online. All sorts of fraud might be stopped.
Intimidate the first, you get less, (they will make sure) so, then, will the receivers.
Time for food stramps, living on benefits should not be a life option.
Unless its a Labour party vote spinner, of course
King said:
said:jonah35 said:
Perhaps every benefit for everyone should be online for us to see. That would show us who is getting exactly what. Benefit fraud would soon stop.
I'd go along with that. On condition that everyone's income and the amount of tax they pay were also posted online. All sorts of fraud might be stopped.
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