Austerity (noun): the condition of living without unnecessary things and without comfort, with limited money or goods, or a practice, habit, or experience that is typical of this.
The word ‘austerity’ derives from the Greek word austeros, meaning ‘bitter’ or ‘harsh’. The word was used in particular to refer to foods that dried the tongue.
The word entered English in the early 14th century via the Old French austere (from the Latin austerus). The meaning given above (taken from the Cambridge Dictionary’s definition) developed only in the later 16th century.
When it entered the English language from Old French the word had a new set of meanings: ‘strict’, ‘severe’, ‘harsh’, ‘cruel’.
The ‘age of austerity’
The UK entered the age of austerity under the Conservative-led coalition government in 2010.
The term ‘age of austerity’ was first used by then-Conservative leader David Cameron in his keynote speech to the Conservative Party forum in Cheltenham in April the previous year. In that speech, Cameron announced that
the age of irresponsibility is giving way to the age of austerity
Austerity is a fiscal policy prioritising sustained reductions in public spending, with the intention of minimising the role of the welfare state and reducing the budget deficit – which had ballooned in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis, the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression.
Combined with austerity was Cameron’s at-the-time much vaunted notion of the ‘Big Society’, in which non-governmental organisations such as charities and corporates took over roles typically filled by the government.
The argument was that this allows for greater efficiency in providing public services, and sought to cast austerity as not only necessary, but virtuous. (This line of thinking reached its peak in an utterance of Conservative MP Jacob Rees-Mogg in September 2017, when he referred to food bank usage – which doubled between 2013 and 2017 – as ‘rather uplifting’. It showed, he said, ‘what a compassionate country we are.’)
The Labour party, entering opposition after over a decade in power and seeking to rebrand itself away from Tony Blair’s ‘New Labour’, declined to oppose the narrative put forward by Cameron. As a result the need for austerity rapidly acquired authority, becoming a prevailing assumption among the UK’s political and media classes. This was despite the IMF’s World Economic Outlook forecast arguing that austerity would be damaging to the British economy, depress growth and, as a result, prevent those improvements to the country’s finances that the programme purportedly sought.
Universal credit
Launched in 2013, the universal credit was intended – so its proponents said – to simplify the welfare system.
Universal credit (UC) combined six separate benefits into a single system. This would supposedly lead to a simpler claims process and allow a gradual reduction of benefits as people earned more from work.
Under the leadership of Iain Duncan Smith, himself a former Tory leader, the rollout of UC scheme was a mess from the start. The new system required those receiving benefits to wait five weeks for their first payment (the wait was originally six). This lead to many families falling into debt as they waited for their support to begin. To cover the shortfall in the meantime, people were given loans against their future benefits.
As a result, in 2019 one million households weren’t receiving their full entitlement as a result of paying back debts. The further result of this was that many turned to food banks.
The UC system was supposed to be fully operational by 2017, but as of this writing the full implementation isn’t expected until 2024.
‘Fit to work’
In 2008 the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) introduced Work Capability Assessments. The purpose of these tests were to ascertain whether those claiming welfare benefits were capable of work and, if so, how much.
This change, brought in by the New Labour government, went hand-in-hand with the phasing out of Incapacity Benefit and its replacement with Employment and Support Allowance. Part of the new policy’s objectives was to make the test more stringent. Prior to this change, few people on Incapacity Benefit were required to be assessed. Once the new policy had bedded in, the intention was to subject all claimants, new and existing, to assessment. Passing the test indicated that the subject was ‘fit for work’.
The company brought in by the DWP to be in charge of administering the new tests was Atos Healthcare. Atos proved to be controversial; in 2015, when the DWP negotiated an early exit from its contract with the company, it was found that close to 2,400 people died between 2011 and 2014 soon after being found ‘fit for work’ by Atos. In 2016, it was revealed that more than 6 in 10 people found ‘fit for work’ later won an appeal against the decision.
In the words of Tim Farron, former Liberal Democrat leader:
This adds to the suspicion that these companies are just driven by a profit motive, and the incentive is to get the assessments done, but not necessarily to get the assessments right. They are the ugly face of business.
A great of the poems in Austerity deal with ‘fit to work’ assessments by DWP contractors. The process, even where assessments arrived at an apparently correct conclusion, appears to have been gruelling for many of those subjected to it. For those who were incorrectly assessed – winning an appeal against the decision – the process seems to have been tortuous and dehumanising.
Atos, along with another DWP contractor, Capita, received over £500m from the government for their work performing assessments. Incidentally, it was disclosed in November 2013 that Atos paid no corporation tax in the UK in 2012, despite having been awarded contracts worth approximately £1.6bn by June 2013.
‘Unnecessary misery’
In 2018 a UN expert stated that the austerity programme had ‘entrench[ed] high levels of poverty and inflict[ed] unnecessary misery in one of the richest countries in the world,’ and that the Conservative government was in ‘a state of denial’ about its effects, which have been widely documented.
They include reductions in welfare support, the cancellation of school building programmes, reduction in local authority funding and an increase in VAT. As local authorities in England are one of the main contributors to arts funding, this has led to a knock-on reduction in arts funding, along with the closure of libraries and reduced funding to museums. The UK has seen an increased usage of food banks, more children living in poverty, a surge in crime rates including robbery and murder.
The purpose of this project is to highlight the effects of the austerity programme by showing these effects as they appear in individual cases. You can read more about the project here.