Working The System

MARY is not her real name; but she is in her mid thirties, has two young boys, and lives in a two-bedroom council house in Essex. Both children have different fathers, and the youngest boy’s contributes to the single mother’s household expenses – as he has done since the child, whom we will call John, was born.

But the authorities are not aware of that.

Entertainment is not lacking in the family’s residence, with a large, wall-mounted, flat screen TV in all rooms, apart from the bathroom.

The three-piece leather suite was bought new, by John‘s father, when the local council provided Mary with the keys. So too was the rest of the furniture, carpets and curtains that the home required.

Both boys are slim; but John is very small for his age, thin, gaunt and apparently has ADO (Attention Deficit Disorder). He has been diagnosed as such and sometimes takes his prescribed medication when his mum remembers to give it to him. When she forgets he creates havoc at school.

‘The pills kill his appetite,’ Mary explains. ‘But he seems to be putting on weight now that he has joined the Breakfast Club.’

John’s father (we will call him Peter) tells a different story. ‘John is perfectly all right when he stays with me,’ he says, ‘and eats like a horse when he is here.

‘I never stop cooking for him.’

Peter is also in his thirties, living in a three-bedroom maisonette that he bought three years ago for cash. Unlike Mary, he works full time; but, like her, he has never paid tax.

‘I’m off their radar,’ he says.

John’s father makes his money from trading second-hand cars and, although he says he has stopped now, selling stolen vehicle and motorbike parts on Ebay.

‘Ebay’s fun,’ he says. ‘They have no idea what they are buying and, if you know what you are doing, it is easy to bid the price up to the maximum they can afford.

‘I’ve got this place, that’s in my mum’s name, and over £80,000 being looked after for me, in cash. Last week I had to be particularly careful and go through it all for those £20 notes that are coming out of circulation.

‘I had to change over £10,000 in total – and be careful of how I did it too,’ he grinned.

Last month, Mary had her year old Fiesta ‘stolen’ from outside the maisonette.

‘When we got up in the morning it was gone,’ she laughed. ‘But Peter is going to get me another with the insurance money, aren’t you darling?’ she asked.

‘Bit of luck really, because I was getting bored with it.’

She was not just talking about insurance from the car’s ‘theft.’ She and Peter are also waiting for compensation cheques as a result of injuries they claimed for a vehicle accident (in which they were not present).

Mary explained that she and the children were only living temporarily with Peter.

‘It is just because this place is so much bigger than mine,’ she said. ‘But I am number two on the list now for a three-bedroom property now that the kids are bigger.’

Mary hopes to be given a council house in a better area than the one she is in.

‘Hornchurch or Upminster, I hope,’ she says. ‘I refused the last one they offered me there because it was too far away from the school – but I might have to take the next one I’m offered.’

‘It’s pointless taking something in a run-down area,’ Peter explained. ‘You can make a lot more from buying off the council in a good area, doing it up, and selling it on.’

Peter and Mary are trying for another child, following the coalition’s emergency budget last week.

‘I have no intention of going to work,’ Mary said.

... (01/07/2010, Guardian) - Coalition must face unpalatable truths of welfare reform