Church and State blog: P60 for the tax year 2013/14: Secretary of State for Work and Pensions Iain Duncan Smith defies the Data Protection Act 1998

Monday, January 19, 2015

P60 for the tax year 2013/14: Secretary of State for Work and Pensions Iain Duncan Smith defies the Data Protection Act 1998

Part 1: Are we 'domestic extremists'? Metropolitan Police Service acknowledges receipt of Declan's request to know if he is on police databases

On 19 December Declan was forced to write to Secretary of State for Work and Pensions Iain Duncan Smith for a P60 for the tax year 2013/14 (see blog of 4 January, "What will it take to get an accurate P60 from the Department for Work and Pensions for the tax year 2013/14?"). After waiting for over 8 months for the document, this morning Declan received a letter from the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) citing the sum of money we received from November 2013 to January 2014 based on a new claim for Jobseeker's Allowance that neither of us signed, not the sum we received from the DWP for the relevant tax year 2013/14. All the Information Commissioner could do for us with the Single Homeless Project was get them to release information to us (see blog of 28 December, "Heavey v Single Homeless Project: Will the Central London County Court rule we consented to declarations for online referral that we are paying our own salaries and that we are both mentally ill, and despite our photographic evidence to the contrary?"). We are not sure what the Information Commissioner will be able to do for us to get the DWP to give us a P60 for the tax year 2013/14 that they have given everybody else, but that is to whom Declan's next letter will be addressed for his updated complaint to the United Nations. This time last year, on 22 January, Declan filed a case in the High Court against Secretary of State Duncan Smith and won the case within a month (the court order is presented below). We do not expect such a quick result this time round and have no idea what it will take to get an accurate P60 for the tax year 2013/14 from the DWP.

Updated complaint to the UN: Revised paragraph 31

31. On 7 January 2014, the Applicant and his wife enrolled in a three-month rolling winter night shelter programme for rough sleepers run by the West London Churches Homeless Concern (WLCHC). Two days later, on 9 January, they turned up at Barnsbury Jobcentre of the Department for Work and Pensions to sign on for Jobseeker’s Allowance only to be told that the Applicant’s joint claim had been terminated because they had earlier refused to agree to Jobseeker’s Agreements drawn up by the Jobcentre that they had argued were inappropriate. Neither the Applicant nor his wife were issued with a letter of termination with or without appeal rights, and on 22 January the Applicant filed a claim in the High Court for judicial review against Secretary of State for Work and Pensions Iain Duncan Smith on the ground of procedural unfairness (see Annex 10, Department for Work and Pensions: Application for Judicial Review, pp. 28-33) [emphasis added]. Secretary of State Duncan Smith, in the Acknowledgement of Service, acknowledged that the Applicant had legitimate grounds for refusing to sign his Jobseeker’s Agreement as varied by the Jobcentre and he accordingly paid the Applicant arrears of Jobseeker's Allowance to 9 January 2014 (see Annex 11, Department for Work and Pensions: Order by High Judge Phillips, p. 34). On 21 January 2014, the day before the Applicant lodged his case in the High Court against Secretary of State Duncan Smith, he and his wife were approached by a WLCHC worker about an offer of a flat that had been made by the Single Homeless Project (SHP) on behalf of Mayor of London Boris Johnson's Greater London Authority (GLA) Housing First programme; however, the offer was dependent upon the Applicant and his wife receiving Jobseeker’s Allowance or alternatively producing two employment contracts that would cover the amount they would need to qualify for Housing Benefit. On 5 February 2014, following a donation from an American benefactor, the Applicant and his wife presented SHP GLA Housing First with two such contracts as employees of N4CM, but they were nevertheless rendered street homeless when the WLCHC night shelters closed on 13 April 2014, due to the accommodation on offer being unavailable.

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MAYOR OF LONDON RSI PROPERTY
DAY 406 IN A WEEKLY PERIODIC TENANCY
SUBJECT TO A SECTION 21 NOTICE

(SEE PARA. 3 BELOW)

1. Our 308 Honorary Associates include 20 Nobel Prize laureates. Declan and I are engaged in a project that deals with the publication of issues significant to social policy in a number of key areas, e.g., climate change, population, futurism, atheism, and free speech. Established as Network for Church Monitoring, a non-profit company limited by guarantee, our main publication, found at the website, Church and State, calls attention to subjects, not the least which have been critical of the interaction between religious and secular institutions. We have been the target of numerous threats and actions, e.g., the former resulting in threats to Declan's life, and the latter, which have led to vandalism. The various incidents are on record with the police and other official agencies.

2. There are no less than 63 Nobel Prize laureates on the Church and State website from 20 Honorary Associates, eight articles, nine book excerpts and 33 petition signatories. (For example, one Nobel laureate signed our Nobel petition in support of human embryonic stem cell research and gave us permission to excerpt from one of his books.) Our list of associates also includes 18 US National Medal laureates, and six Turing Award laureates (the equivalent of the Nobel Prize in computer science). We have published one article and excerpted from the books of seven members of the British House of Lords. And there are 31 knighted professors on the site from 13 Honorary Associates, one book excerpt and 21 petition signatories. These figures are despite the never-ending assault on our email (this link reveals the targeting of our emails to, among others, a close colleague in Washington, DC as well as space advocates and Nobel laureates).

3. This is Day 406 for us living under the threat to life of a 'no fault' eviction by Peabody Trust.[1] We live in a Mayor of London's Rough Sleepers Initiative (RSI) property. Peabody's appalling new terms of tenancy have forced us into an unstable weekly periodic tenancy that poses a threat to Declan's life and inhibits our ability to exercise our rights. Declan accumulated quite a history with the Housing Ombudsman Service before he received the Ombudsman's decision not to investigate a referral from Lyn Brown MP on jurisdictional grounds. The Ombudsman was asked to consider whether or not our tenancy has been renewed like for like; and whether, if not, it should be in light of the landlord having accused us of not signing a like-for-like agreement. The Equality and Human Rights Commission will not accept a referral of discrimination from Ms Brown, the Commission's helpline (EASS) having grossly distorted the complaint against Peabody. We no longer have pro se access to the courts (see next paragraph).

4. This eviction matter came before District Judge Ruth Fine at the Central London County Court on 30 June 2020, when both counsel for St Mungo's (the charity in effective control of our tenancy) and Declan presented their positions. Declan lost the case and was ordered to pay £1,850 in costs. A publishing colleague in America cleared these costs within 24 hours of my blog post about this hearing for strike out on a related issue that was the essence of the claim, i.e., that St Mungo's would take a phone call to confirm that we are clients of the Mayor of London's RSI programme. Within a week of the hearing, St Mungo's had agreed to take this phone call for us both, the Court having ruled that they were not obliged to do so despite our circumstances. This time we escaped bankruptcy (counsel for St Mungo's asked for £3,407.50 in costs), but consider that to seek pro se access to justice in the courts has become far too dangerous for us. Declan currently has before the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman the decision of the Information Commissioner that allows St Mungo's to continue processing coercive support plans without our knowledge or consent and that also poses a threat to his life.

5. When it comes to traffic, we have had 10.7 million hits in the past three years on Facebook; however, I left the platform on 13 March 2021 for one year rather than risk being banned for life. It is indisputable that with any sort of level playing field Church and State would have far exceeded 2.5 million hits last year. In addition to a large variety of blocks without explanation, Facebook had so severely restricted our Page's distribution by October 2020 that it was almost as good as an unpublished page.[2] Currently, we are up to their 85th block since 1 December 2015, and as usual without an explanation. This block records as one half of their 3rd double block in the first five weeks of this year that lasted 60 days. Our traffic has also been curtailed by over 2.5K blocks on access to Church and State since 26 July 2016, including 29 full distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks since 17 May 2019 that have lasted for as long as 54 hours at a time.[3] About 70% of our hits are from Americans.

"This is precisely the hard hitting kind of response needed to clarify the unfair way Facebook is treating your highly reputable site." Don Collins, Founder, International Services Assistance Fund, Washington DC

Last updated: 26/06/21

_________________________

[1] Once a fixed term has elapsed, the landlord has the option to seek eviction even if the tenant has upheld their obligations in full (though of course the landlord must still apply for and obtain a county court order).

[2] 17/10/20: We have permission to publish this ISAF letter of 30 September to Facebook COO Sheryl Samberg. Facebook has so severely restricted our Page's distribution since 4 September that it's almost as good as an unpublished page

[3] Since October 2019, we have been defining a full DDoS attack as having such a high volume of up to 4-minute blocks on access to Church and State that we don't bother recording them all.

Church and State blog

Monday, January 19, 2015

P60 for the tax year 2013/14: Secretary of State for Work and Pensions Iain Duncan Smith defies the Data Protection Act 1998

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