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About Deborah Padfield

Deborah Padfield is a Citizens Advice Bureau adviser and also works for a county Register Office as deputy register officer.

Articles by Deborah Padfield

The new normal: housing and protest in Britain

Deborah Padfield 14 May 2013

Action is stirring in response to the country-wide housing crisis. Severe shortage and cuts to housing benefits leave the UK struggling to put roofs over heads. Some local authorities and tenant groups are trying to rebel; they need concerted support.

Britain's 'tough choices': a call for a new approach to welfare

Deborah Padfield 26 April 2013

At the Citizens Advice Bureau the real Thatcher legacy can be seen every day: social disengagement, indifference and injustice. It is Thatcherism that needs burying.

Equality before the law: a principle abandoned by Britain

Deborah Padfield 11 February 2013

A Citizens Advice Bureau adviser describes how recent 'reforms' to legal aid and cuts to services are impacting on the ground. She has a question: At what point did Britain decide that legal rights don’t apply to poor people? 

The real cost of benefit fraud in Britain

Deborah Padfield 21 January 2013

Honest mistakes, personal fraud, organised crime. Where does one end and the next begin?

Falling through the cracks in Britain 2013

Deborah Padfield 15 January 2013

Strivers vs skivers. Last week saw a game show-like battle between our politicians over the proposed benefit cap. What do they know? Here, a Citizen's Advice Bureau adviser maps the predicament of Britain's dying welfare state through the lives of those living in the system.

How does Britain treat its modern slaves?

Deborah Padfield 18 October 2012

How the UK authorities deal with trafficked women speaks volumes about the values at the heart of our democracy.

A job seeker has set himself alight: how many in the UK are steps from such desperation?

Deborah Padfield 2 July 2012

The job seeker who set fire to himself in Birmingham appears to have been driven to this horrific act by an all-too-common glitch in the welfare system. A Citizens Advice Bureau worker explains how such desperation is only steps away for many seeking support from the British state.

Cameron's collective responsibility

Deborah Padfield 29 June 2012

David Cameron's welfare speech implored the UK's unemployed to 'do the right thing' and work their way out of hard times. His tough rhetoric and cunning manipulation of statistics fostered a dramatic press responsse. But if the 'welfare crisis' really is a crisis of social responsibility, then this monolithic display of misdirection is symptomatic of how 'responsibility' itself is being mishandled by a hypocritical elite.  

Legal aid and arbitrary power

Deborah Padfield 27 March 2012

Today marks the final reading of the legal aid bill in the Lords. If - as seems likely - the bill goes through, 'ordinary people' in Britain will be shocked to discover how thin is their access to law when things go wrong. Deborah Padfield, whose work has for several years been funded by legal aid, considers a measure whose significance echoes through our democratic system.

Benefit cap: a divide-and-rule tactic

Deborah Padfield 8 February 2012
26K per family in hand-outs is the limit. Reasonable, isn't it? How else do we get Britain off benefits? A Citizens Advice Bureau adviser gives her views from the ground.

Child neglect: welfare benefits and child carers

Deborah Padfield 14 November 2011
The plight of young carers in Britain is described by a benefits adviser at Cambridge Citizens Advice Bureau.

The human cost of flexible labour

Deborah Padfield 24 October 2011
There is a new dangerous class in the UK: the precariat. Flexible hiring and firing is scarring a generation who want to work, causing an increase in mental health problems and making it harder for people to rejoin the labour force.

Through the eyes of a benefits adviser: a plea for a basic income

Deborah Padfield 5 October 2011
Constant fear, routine humiliation, no escape: this isn't prison, but life on incapacity benefit in the United Kingdom. There is another way: one that respects human dignity.

Universal credit: fair for whom?

Deborah Padfield 6 August 2011
New changes intended to simplify the UK's welfare benefit system could have negative consequences. While the government moralises about "individual responsibility", its policies will entrench poverty for some

Who’s responsible? Our final ‘Report from the Poverty Line’

Deborah Padfield 30 July 2011
We conclude our series of 'Reports from the Poverty Line' with a call for a reassessment of who contributes to society, and who is parasitic. Why can't we look at the wealth-generating potential of the poor, and the costs of the rich to the health of our country?

This week's editor

Heather McRobie


Niki Seth-Smith is a freelance journalist and co-editor of OurKingdom.

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