Imagine going to a casino and winning six equal bets in a row. You then lose a bet. After winning six more bets in a row, and then losing one, you go to collect your winnings, only to be told that the casino owes you nothing according to the house rules. You would think the rules were absolutely designed to favor the house most unfairly, wouldn't you? Well, rules like that are being used in the U.K. to determine who gets, and who does not get, extra benefits payments for extreme cold weather.
Cold weather payments are paid out when the average temperature where the recipient lives is 0oC or below for seven consecutive days during the period from 1 November to 31 March.
Department for Work and Pensions Minister Helen Goodman says: "The payments are automatic so everyone entitled will get them and should not worry about turning up their heating."Source: TimesonLine
That statement by Helen Goodman gives the relevant people what the law calls a 'legitimate expectation' that they will receive help with excessive heating bills where the excess is due to extremely cold weather. The problem is in the government's use of the above-mentioned crooked-casino math coupled with inadequate data to calculate benefits entitlement. This turns the chance of hypothermia into a postcode lottery.
One disabled woman is eligible for fewer payments than her elderly parents on the other side of the SAME stretch of road!Source: Romford Recorder
"There is absolutely no difference between our temperatures - they just live on the other side of Noak Hill Road. I would defy any MP to tell me I don't deserve to keep warm just as much as they do."
Despite Havering having the same weather as Barking and Ilford, temperatures in the boroughs are being measured by weather stations around 60 miles apart.
The relevant U.K. law says that payments will be paid in areas where the average daily temperature is, or is forcast to be, below zero for seven days or more. Below zero is interpreted fairly precisely: a temperature of 0.1oC is, of course, above zero. If, over the course of a month, daily average temperatures are sub-zero, but there are four days of average 0.1oC or higher, such that there are no 7 contiguous days of sub-zero weather, then nobody in the relevant area gets a dime!
It gets worse: many postal districts covered by remote weather stations are excluded from payments due to inaccurate data gathering. For example, in Kent, the Medway area is served by the Gravesend weather station, which is actually located even further from the Medway Towns, west of Gravesend at Grays, 18km distant. That weather station also serves Maidstone, 26km distant. The weather station for Ashford is at Langdon Bay, 32km distant. My own area has just been notified of one payment due, which may take up to 12 days to process. Other areas in Kent have had three payments already. I understand that some areas of the U.K. have been awarded four payments.
The Met Office has been under fire recently regarding inadequacy of forecasting and the salary and bonus payments to its CEO, John Hirst. John Hirst has managerial rather than scientific qualifications.
My pay package is set to reflect our success against a range of objectives that includes our forecast success as well as customer satisfaction.Source: John Hirst: TimesonLine
The responsibility for siting weather stations lies entirely with the Met Office. The responsibility for determining which weather station/s cover which postcode area/s lies entirely with the Met Office. It follows inexorably from the laws of logic that any failure to pay cold weather payments due to the provision of inaccurate data is entirely the responsibility of the Met Office, as is any consequent incidence of hypothermia.
A Suggestion:
If the government wants to stick with its current model, then it should change the cut-off datum to 5oC. More preferable would be a running average system which doesn't 'reset the clock' just because the temperature has reached a balmy 0.1oC, or perhaps an accumulative system. If, between 1 November to 31 March, a daily average below zero is encountered, that is added to the 'pot'. Payments are made after 31 March based on the 'pot'. The number of day-payments due could be updated on the web daily, so that the people concerned could budget their payments for heating in the legitimate expectation of receiving at least the amount of cash already determined.
Further reading/references:
Find your local weather station in U.K.: Met Office
Cold weather payments are a lottery: Yorkshire Evening Post
BBC may not renew Met Office contract: Moo!News
U.K. Readers / Voters:
U.K. residents may be interested in signing up to either or both of the following cold weather payments related petitions on the U.K. government's No. 10 website:
Petition to: change the data gathering and rules for cold weather payments.
Petition to: stop using weather stations to control cwp triggers and use actual city ...
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