Posted: August 12, 2014 | Author: D Rosier | Filed under: ESA, DLA, PIP & Universal Credit, News | Tags: ATOS, benefits, Conservative, David Cameron’s, DWP, government, Guardian, mental health problems, out-of-work benefit, volunteering |
Further to your coverage of the sad and wasteful death of David Clapson (‘No one should die penniless and alone’, G2, 4 August), today (9 August) marks the anniversary of the discovery of the emaciated body of Mark Wood, a vulnerable sufferer from severe mental health problems, in David Cameron’s Oxfordshire constituency. Mr Wood had been erroneously and incompetently declared fit for work by Atos (on behalf of the DWP) and the consequent cutting of benefits was a clear “accelerating factor” in his death by starvation. The architects of deaths like these remain in charge of the DWP. There have of course been other well-attested deaths-by-DWP and there will be more (especially among the vulnerable disabled), as current reforms roll out their panoply of delays, despair and effective victimisation across the country. The real human costs of sick government must never be forgotten.
Stewart Eames
Cambridge
• David Clapson’s death is a sad reflection on the impact of government policies. I was fortunate enough to be able to work from the age of 15 to 70, paying all due taxes. Should we really care if a few people manipulate the system, if it means that no one is unfairly penalised and slips below the safety net necessary to provide a reasonable standard of living? I am not religious, but I do think that this heartless government should consider “there, but for the grace of God, go I”.
Wendy Collins
Batley, West Yorkshire
• The harrowing comments on benefit sanctions (G2, 6 August) didn’t discuss the political basis for these punitive measures. People mostly vote on a tribal basis, for “our sort of people”. When people become afraid of falling into poverty they take comfort in the hope that it only happens to the “other sort of people” and vote Conservative as an act of faith. This is the same mechanism that unites a country under threat of war and persuades dirt-poor Americans to oppose Obamacare rather than admit to themselves that they might one day need it.
D Sewell
Driffield, East Yorkshire
• Shame on the Guardian for describing out-of-work benefit recipients as “the idle poor” (Report, 5 August). On the basis of what evidence do you write them off as idle? Are those caring for children or infirm relatives, volunteering in the community, actively seeking work or simply working hard just to get by on a low income idle? Language matters and it is the use of othering language such as this by the media and politicians that has contributed to the “draining away of public support” for social security.
Ruth Lister
Labour, House of Lords
Via http://www.theguardian.com/
Posted: August 8, 2014 | Author: D Rosier | Filed under: ESA, DLA, PIP & Universal Credit | Tags: Bedroom tax, benefit claimants, benefits, Conservative Party, credit unions, crime, Crime Commissioner (PCC), Department for Work and Pensions, DWP, government, Housing benefit, police, shoplifting, Tory parliamentary, welfare reforms |
A POLICE commissioner has blamed the Government’s welfare reforms for a 35 per cent jump in shoplifting, claiming thieves are “stealing to live”.
Ron Hogg, Labour Police and Crime Commissioner (PCC) for Durham, said usually law-abiding people were turning to crime because they were unable to feed themselves – and blamed the Coalition’s benefit changes, including the so-called bedroom tax.
Mr Hogg admitted there was no evidence of a direct link but said: “Shoplifting is up 35 per cent year on year and an awful lot of people are stealing to live.”
He added: “We predicted this tax would cause massive problems for some of the most vulnerable in our society.
“With more welfare reform yet to be implemented the situation will only get worse.”
Mr Hogg’s claims were supported by Barry Coppinger, Labour PCC for Cleveland, where there has been a 7.3 per cent rise in shoplifting.
He said: “Deep and relentless welfare reforms have a knock-on effect on other crimes, particularly shoplifting, as families turn to the black market to buy food and other items they can’t afford in the shops.”
The Conservative Party referred enquiries to the Home Office, which said it was a matter for the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP), where a spokesman said there was absolutely no evidence linking welfare reforms to increased crime.
He said the reforms were guaranteeing a strong welfare net and £345m had been given to councils to help the most vulnerable.
“Ending the spare room subsidy was absolutely necessary in order to get the soaring housing benefit bill under control, returning fairness to the system and making better use of social housing stock.
“These rules already applied to the housing benefit claimants in the private sector – introduced by the previous Government.”
Rebecca Coulson, the prospective Tory parliamentary candidate for Durham City, said: “It’s never sensible to make excuses for criminal behaviour, or to imply that shoplifting is acceptable.
“We all still live in straitened times, following the recession, but the Conservative long term economic plan is working.”
A recent DWP report found 522,905 households were affected by the so-called bedroom tax by last August and nearly a fifth of claimants had registered an interest in downsizing.
More than half of claimants had cut back on household essentials, a quarter had borrowed money and three per cent had taken pay day loans.
Mr Hogg and Mr Coppinger advised people to use credit unions.
In Durham, about 100 female shoplifters have avoided being charged by sitting a life issues course.
Via Welfare News Service via http://www.thenorthernecho.co.uk/news/11393471.Police_boss_blames_welfare_reforms_for_35__increase_in_shoplifting_claiming_cuts_victims_are__stealing_to_survive_/?ref=twtrec
Posted: August 3, 2014 | Author: D Rosier | Filed under: ESA, DLA, PIP & Universal Credit | Tags: Apprentices, Confederation of British Industry, DWP, George Osborne, news, tax payer, Tory Traineeship programme, Traineeships, TUC, Voluntary, Workfare Scheme |
In an astonishing and genuinely sad day for the trade uni0n movement, the TUC have teamed up with the Confederation of British Industry (CBI) to issue a statement supporting unpaid work.
The TUC have sided with the bosses to sing the praises of the Tory Traineeship programme. This unpaid scheme can involve up to five months full-time work, sometimes for giant profit making companies like BT or Virgin. The placements are used to ‘prepare’ young people to be Apprentices, although there is no guarantee that they will be offered even this at the end of the scheme.
Just like Margaret Thatcher’s despised YTS schemes, Traineeships represent a wealth grab by greedy employers. Once companies recognised they had to pay young people whilst they trained – now the tax payer will pick up the tab whilst the worker gets nothing. And just like the YTS programme was used as political cover to strip benefits from 16/17 year olds, Traineeships will be used to undermine social security payments for those under 25. George Osborne has already announced that under 22 year olds who refuse a Traineeship will soon face the prospect of six month’s workfare somewhere else instead.
Despite Osborne’s announcement, the TUC say in the statement that Traineeships should be voluntary. As claimants themselves know, very little is voluntary such is the current mass benefit sanctioning culture at the DWP. This doesn’t seem to bother the scabs running the TUC who seem to have decided that Traineeships aren’t workfare, and even if they would rather they were voluntary they appear to back them anyway. This is an appalling attack on not just young unemployed people, but all workers who will see their own wages and conditions undermined by an army of unpaid staff.
It is hardly surprising that the CBI are salivating at the prospect of this huge subsidy for business at the expense of the working class. Tory Skills Minister Nick Boles has joined them saying he is ‘delighted’ that the TUC support this scheme. They no doubt dream of a day when they don’t have to pay people under 25 at all. That day may not be far away and that the TUC are helping to bring it closer is as shocking as it is shameful.
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Posted: July 30, 2014 | Author: D Rosier | Filed under: ESA, DLA, PIP & Universal Credit | Tags: benefits, Department of Work and Pensions, DWP, Job Seeker Sanction Advice |
A new website run by “a small network of 3 disgruntled ex- Department of Work and Pensions civil servants”, featuring advice on how to foil sanctions.
http://jobseekersanctionadvice.com/
Via Boycott Workfare
Posted: July 23, 2014 | Author: D Rosier | Filed under: ESA, DLA, PIP & Universal Credit, News | Tags: 'vulnerable' group, back-to-work schemes, benefit claimants, Benefit sanctions, benefits system, DWP, government, hardship payments, Jobcentre, Jobcentre Plus adviser, local authorities, Oakley's report, social security, Work Programme |
Claimants not told about hardship system and sanctions imposed when they were not at fault, DWP study finds
Many jobcentre advisers identified a ‘vulnerable’ group who tended to be sanctioned more than others, the report said.
Systematic problems in the way the government administers and imposes benefit sanctions, including disproportionate burdens on the most vulnerable, are revealed in a report commissioned by the Department for Work and Pensions.
The report found the way in which the DWP communicated with claimants was legalistic, unclear and confusing. The most vulnerable claimants were often left at a loss as to why benefits were stopped and frequently not informed by the DWP about hardship payments to which they were entitled, it said.
It also revealed serious flaws in how sanctions were imposed, with Work Programme providers required to send participants for sanctions when they knew they had done nothing wrong, leaving “claimants … sent from pillar to post”.
The independent report was written for the DWP by Matthew Oakley, a respected welfare expert who has worked as an economic adviser for the Treasury and for the centre-right thinktank Policy Exchange.
He is widely acknowledged as one of the leading thinkers on welfare on the centre right and as a result his criticisms, couched in careful language, are all the more damaging for a government that has consistently said the sanction regime is fair.
The DWP responded to the report by saying it would be updating the way it talked to benefit claimants, setting up a specialist team to look at all communications, including claimant letters, and working more closely with local authorities and advice centres to simplify the system.
The government will also streamline “the robust checks and and balances that are already in place that give claimants the opportunity to provide evidence why they have not complied with the rules”.
It will also clarify the guidance on how claimants can access hardship payments, as well as co-operate more closely with Work Programme providers so there is more integration about what a claimant is permitted to do without facing the threat of a benefit sanction.
Oakley’s report said: “No matter what system of social security is in place, if it is communicated poorly, if claimants do not understand the system and their responsibilities and if they are not empowered to challenge decisions they believe to be incorrect and seek redress, then it will not fulfil its purpose. It will be neither fair nor effective.”
Although Oakley said the regime was not fundamentally broken, he made 17 recommendations for reform.
His terms of reference confined him to the way in which sanctions are administered on mandatory back-to-work schemes, which cover a third of those claimants at risk of being sanctioned, but he said his proposed reforms were relevant to the entire benefits system.
The report said “letters were, on the whole, found to be complex and difficult to understand. Partly as a result of the legal requirements the department has to fulfil when it writes to claimants, regular concerns were that letters:
• Were overly long and legalistic in their tone and content;
• Lacked personalised explanations of the reason for sanction referrals;
• Were not always clear around the possibility of and process surrounding appeals or application for hardship payments; and
• Were particularly difficult for the most vulnerable claimants to understand – meaning that the people potentially most in need of the hardship system were the least likely to be able to access it.”
The report added: “Actual and sample letters that the review team saw were hard to understand (even for those working in the area), unclear as to why someone was being sanctioned and confusingly laid out.”
The review found that many people “expressed concerns that the first that claimants knew of adverse decisions was when they tried to get their benefit payment out of a cash point but could not”.
The report also said jobcentre advisers had highlighted the damage sanctions imposed on the most vulnerable. It stated: “Many advisers also highlighted the difficulties of communicating with particular groups of claimants. In particular, many advisers identified a ‘vulnerable’ group who tended to be sanctioned more than the others because they struggled to navigate the system. This concern for the vulnerable claimants was consistent throughout the visits.
“For these groups, particular difficulties were highlighted around the length of time it could take to ensure some claimants fully understood what was required of them and in conveying that a ‘sanction’ could entail the loss of benefit for a prolonged period of time.”
The report also criticised the failure of the jobcentre to highlight hardship payments. It said: “A more specific concern surrounding the hardship system was that only those claimants that asked about help in Jobcentre Plus were told about the hardship system. Advisers, decision makers and advocate groups argued that this means that groups with poorer understanding of the system are less likely to gain access.
“Since, on the whole, more vulnerable claimants are those with the poorest understanding of the system, this suggests that some of those most in need are also those least able to access hardship.”
The report also found that providers of mandatory work schemes were unable to make legal decisions regarding good reasons for missing appointments and so had to impose sanctions.
“This means that they have to refer all claimants who fail to attend a mandatory interview to a decision maker even if the claimant has provided them with what would ordinarily count as good reason in Jobcentre Plus. This situation results in confusion as the claimant does not understand why they are being referred for a sanction.
“A very high proportion of referrals for sanctions from mandatory back-to-work schemes are subsequently cancelled or judged to be non-adverse.”
A lack of coordination between the jobcentre and Work Programme can “result in a situation where claimants are passed from pillar to post, without either Jobcentre Plus or providers taking responsibility for explaining the claimant’s situation. More commonly, we heard that Jobcentre Plus advisers had to spend large amounts of time dealing with claimants’ queries about sanctions from mandatory schemes.”
Poor understanding of the good reason process mean claimants subsequently appeal a sanction and often win, at cost to the DWP and taxpayer.
A key reason the report found for the confusion was that, because different organisations use different IT systems, neither providers nor Jobcentre Plus hold all the information needed about a claimant’s current experience and potential sanctions.
Via welfare news service via http://www.theguardian.com/society/2014/jul/22/benefit-sanctions-vulnerable-people-hardship-dwp-report
Posted: July 20, 2014 | Author: D Rosier | Filed under: ESA, DLA, PIP & Universal Credit | Tags: benefits and work, DLA, DVLA, DWP, ESA, ESA NEWS, mobility benefits, New ESA And PIP Dirty Tricks Campaigns, PIP & Universal Credit, Work related activity group |
In this edition we reveal that the DWP have resorted to new dirty tricks to cut ESA and PIP numbers. These include alleged mass reporting of ESA claimants for fraud and attempting to change the law by the back door to reduce PIP mobility awards.
We also report claims that the Tories are planning to make mental health treatment mandatory for ESA claimants in the work-related activity group.
Plus we have news of the DVLA look-up service that allows anyone to check online to see if their neighbours are claiming mobility benefits.
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ESA NEWS: SANCTIONS
In the last newsletter we revealed that ESA sanctions had increased fourfold in the space of a year, up to December 2013 and are particularly targeted at claimants with mental health conditions . Whilst we had no doubt that the reason for this was to cut the cost of ESA we had no evidence to support this.
Now, however, the first shred has appeared with Polly Toynbee claiming in the Guardian that she has had discussions with an anonymous jobcentre manager:
“She told me how the sick are treated and what harsh targets she is under to push them off benefits. A high proportion on employment and support allowance have mental illnesses or learning difficulties. The department denies there are targets, but she showed me a printed sheet of what are called “spinning plates”, red for missed, green for hit. They just missed their 50.5% target for “off flows”, getting people off ESA. They have been told to “disrupt and upset” them – in other words, bullying. That’s officially described, in Orwellian fashion, as “offering further support” . . . In this manager’s area 16% are “sanctioned” or cut off benefits”
Members can download a detailed guide on how to prevent and overturn ESA sanctions from the ESA section of the members area – it might be a good idea to have a quick look through it in the near future, particularly if you are in the WRAG.
The manager also claimed that:
“Tricks are played: those ending their contributory entitlement to a year on ESA need to fill in a form for income-based ESA. But jobcentres are forbidden to stock those forms. These ill people’s benefits are suddenly stopped without explanation: if they call, they’re told to collect a form from the jobcentre, which doesn’t stock them either.”
Although we have found copies of the ESA3 form online, there does not appear to be a downloadable version of the current form, suggesting that the DWP is indeed making it as hard as possible for people to make a claim.
These targets and tactics come as no surprise. What Toynbee claimed that was new to us, however, was the manager’s allegation that:
“As all ESA claimants approach the target deadline of 65 weeks on benefits – advisers are told to report them all to the fraud department for maximum pressure.”
The idea that all ESA claimants are now being reported to the fraud department when they have claimed for 65 weeks seems preposterous and almost inconceivably discriminatory. Yet the ugly lawlessness that now characterises the DWP’s attempts to cut claimant numbers means that an accusation like this has to be considered seriously.
We are now working to try to establish the truth of this claim – we’ll let you know what we discover.
Meanwhile, we’ve begun compiling a collection of ESA sanction examples taken from various online sources to illustrate how easily, and unfairly, ESA claimants can be sanctioned.
ESA NEWS: MANDATORY TREATMENT FOR WRAG CLAIMANTS
Even more troubling than any of the issues above, however, is the report that the DWP are now considering changing the law to oblige ESA claimants in the work-related activity group with mental health conditions to undertake treatment or have their ESA sanctioned. Reports in the Telegraph claim it will be part of the next Conservative manifesto.
The paper quotes a Tory source as saying they hope to reduce the number of claimants with a mental health condition in the WRAG by 90% with this measure.
We’ll keep you posted about any developments with this shameful idea, which would no doubt involve bargain basement group CBT sessions provided by some multinational outsourcing company.
PIP NEWS: MOBILITY GUIDANCE CHANGED
The DWP have also moved the goalposts for PIP mobility to make it much less likely that claimants with mental health conditions such as anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder or agoraphobia will qualify for any award at all if they are able to go out, provided they have somo moved the goalposts for PIP mobility to make it much less likely that claimants with mental health conditions such as anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder or agoraphobia will qualify for any award at all if they are able to go out, provided they have someone with them.
Guidance issued to Atos and Capita at the end of May in the PIP Assessment Guide instructs health professionals that claimants who need accompanying by another person when following the route of a journey, because of a mental health condition, are covered solely by descriptor 11 (b). ‘Needs prompting to be able to undertake any journey to avoid overwhelming psychological distress to the claimant’.
This descriptor scores just 4 points, not enough for an award of PIP mobility to be made.
The higher scoring descriptors 11(d) and 11(f) will not be awarded ‘to claimants who require someone with them for support only, as this is covered by descriptor B. The accompanying person should be actively navigating.’ for these descriptors to apply.
We are now hearing in the forum from people who are being caught out by this changed interpretation of the law.
But the guidance appears to be at odds not only with the actual wording of the regulations, but also with detailed undertakings given by the DWP when they finalised the text of the PIP descriptors.
We have published a written submission in Word format in the PIP appeals section of the members area that anyone affected by these issues can make use of at appeal stage. It sets out the grounds on which we believe the guidance given to assessors is wrong and why relying on the assessment will lead the decision maker to commit an error of law.
Clearly we can’t guarantee that the submission’s conclusions will be accepted by any given tribunal. But they are definitely worth arguing and will at least give you the possibility of appealing to the upper tribunal and getting professional support via the legal aid scheme if you are unsuccessful.
OTHER BENEFITS NEWS: DVLA’S ‘SNOOP ON YOUR NEIGHBOURS’ SERVICE
Just after the last newsletter went out we reported that a new vehicle check service on the DVLA website allows anyone to find out whether their neighbours are receiving the higher rate of the mobility component of disability living allowance (DLA) or either rate of the mobility component of personal independence payment (PIP).
We urged our visitors to complain to DVLA and the information commissioner if they were unhappy with this situation – and it seems that many of you did.
Whilst DVLA refuse to back down, the information commissioner’s office is investigating the issue and has received so many complaints that they are now saying that they are no longer looking at individual concerns and people should watch the DVLA website for news.
Meanwhile, a national expert in data protection has supported our argument that DVLA is breaching the rights of disabled claimants, calling our analysis ‘excellent’ and adding ‘I hope the DVLA will rethink.’
We’ll keep you posted.
MORE NEWS ON THE SITE
As always, there’s lots more news on the site than we have room to cover here, including:
Real Life Reform publishes fourth report
Government in court over disability benefit changes
Legal aid cuts cause benefits appeals to fail
Treasury has not signed off on Duncan Smith’s universal credit, MPs told
Assessing the Assessors
FACEBOOK FEEDBACK
We’ve been sent this very touching item of feedback from Stephanie, a Benefits and Work member:
“Hi, just like to say a big, big thank you for all the information and help that I used for my transfer from IB to ESA, I have just received confirmation that I will be in the support group! it has only taken fourteen months! I cried, the stress and added physical strain has taken its toll, but at last I can get on with “normal” life now. Thank you.”
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GOOD NEWS BY EMAIL
In this edition we have more of the feedback we receive by email. We’re now making an effort to publish more of this rather than only feedback from the forum. We are very grateful for your feedback, however you send it, and we know our readers appreciate it too.
IB to ESA Support Group
“I just wanted to say that I have at last received my ESA decision from migrating from Incapacity Benefit, after waiting 12 long months. I have been placed in the Support Group without a medical/interview. I am so relieved I can’t tell you. Without your help on this website and the guidance in filing out the horrendous forms or should I say, book! It would have been even more of a nightmare. So many thanks again and I’m sure I will be needing your help again, so keep up the excellent work!”
Joanne via email
DLA and ESA success
“I just wanted to thank you and your wonderful site for helping me to get DLA high rate mobility and low rate care, and I’ve now been given it indefinitely! Your forms to help fill in the claim pack were invaluable and I recommend that if your thinking of joining this amazing site do not hesitate, it will be money well spent. I have just had my 6 month review for ESA ( it’s been a year since my last one! ) and although I’m in WRAG my adviser didn’t seem to worried about me looking for work. But I am prepared and with using your site I’m sure I won’t have too many problems. This website has been a great help to me and I have renewed my subscription three times! Thank you”
Karen via email
SDA to ESA Support Group
“Thank you so much for your guides to form-filling which we used when my daughter was switched from SDA.. She is housebound and virtually bedridden with severe ME has just heard that she is in the support group – no medical. It is to be reviewed after 2 years, but we now know where to get help! Renewal of DLA (or will it be PIP by then?) next so we will be needing you again. I’d recommend you to anyone dealing with benefits application forms. Thanks once again”
Jill via email
ESA and DLA successes
“I have been a member now for over two years and through your wonderful site I have been able to get ESA ( first placed in WRAG then after MR placed in S G for 2 years) for my adult 43 year old autistic daughter, together also with DLA LRC/LRM – indefinite award, although it am aware that this is all about to change in the next couple of years. Just had to find a way to express my sincere thanks to all you wonderful people.”
Rosemary via email
ESA Support Group and PIP success
“Hi, just to let you know, I have got my sisters latest DWP decisions through and what turn around!! . Firstly her ESA, -she was originally placed in the work activity group. Now she’s been moved to support group, with your help, after appeal. During her visits to work activity sessions, her PA recommended that she apply for PIP. She did, and after a medical, today, she’s been awarded PIP at enhanced rates for care and mobility 14 points in each!!!.which took only 3 months. Without the help of myself and BENEFITS AND WORK this simply would not have happened , she’s now a subscriber like myself. Many thanks”
George via email
PIP award and ESA Support Group
“Just like to say a big thank you, for all the advice and support you’ve provided. I am now in receipt of pip and esa support after waiting and struggling for 8 months to get it. The advice on your pages was invaluable. thank you.”
Amy via email
ESA Support Group and DLA success
“I would just like to say thank you for all your advice and information on your website, I read it all and followed the advice and was told today that after my ATOS assessment that I have been put into the support group until 2016 and also advised to ask for a review of my DLA award which is at the moment the low rate. I don’t think I would have had the confidence to go to the assessment if it hadn’t been for all the encouragement and advice. Thank you once again”
And an update:
“Just to say thanks again, if it weren’t for your website I would not have felt confident in asking for my DLA to be looked at again. I have now been awarded the highest rate both in mobility and care, so thank you all for the help and information on your site, without your site I don’t think I would have asked for a reconsideration”
Angela via email
DLA renewal award
“You’re not going to believe this great news! Not only did I get my DLA renewed at the same rate (thanks to your website’s brilliant how-to booklets) but they sent me the award letter on the SAME DAY that they received my application form! I hardly dared believe it but I’ve checked my bank account and the first payment has gone in this week. Thanks for all your help and support, I wouldn’t have got this DLA without the help of B&W.”
Sarah via email
Successful DLA Appeal
“My wife and I wished to advise you with the information supplied by your wonderful site we have recently won our Tribunal with the DWP who seemed fit to bring a case against us. We went armed to the teeth with information we downloaded from your site and it is without question the judge could see we were well prepared and agreed with the case we put forward and found the award in our favour. So a huge thank you to you and your team, as my wife and I feel that without your advice and assistance maybe the outcome may have been very different.”
Henry via email
ESA Support Group without a medical
“I was familiar with form filling but the found the ESA50 form overwhelmingly bizarre. The design of the layout and questions asked was obvious in putting the customer at a disadvantage in fully explaining their condition. It was only with your guides that I was able to navigate the pitfalls, recording the details that were needed to fully assess my circumstances. After all my worrying, I have just had notification that I do not have to undergo the torture of an ATOS assessment and have been placed directly into the Support Group. I cannot thank you enough in helping me “survive” this turmoil. I hate to think what I would have had to go through without your guidance. Thanks again”
Steven via email
PIP success
“Hi All, I wanted to thank you for this wonderful site – without which I don’t know where I’d be. I read through all of your advice, even printing a lot of it off. Using this as my trusty guide I completed an application for PIP. This was in September 2013. I was finally invited to an ATOS Assessment in December 2013. I duly attended, after reading your information on this aspect of claiming. Invaluable. I’d have been lost and a lot more apprehensive without it. I am now eligible for PIP and full component awarded. I would NOT have managed to keep going without the help I found within Benefits and Work. Thank you, from the bottom of my heart. I am 100% positive that without your website I would not have been successful in my claim.”
Leanne via email
ESA Support Group without a medical
“Hi, I just wanted to thank you for your simple to follow guidance. We’ve just heard that our son has put into the ESA support group without a medical. I’m pretty confident that your help made this possible.”
Diane via email
IB to ESA Support Group
“Received a phone call from DWP last week saying I will be changing from IB to Support group from next month. (no mention of a medical) I have been waiting for almost 8 months for some contact, so had been dreading the daily post all that time! I can now relax and stop worrying. I found the forms daunting and without the guidance from B&W I would have struggled immensely. A massive thank you!”
Mary via email
DLA renewal success
“I cannot thank this site enough. I was given DLA at Lower rate mobility and High rate of care for 18 months and it was due for renewal in August. I received the form and carefully followed your advice. I posted the form off and within five days of sending it off, I received the great news that I would be given DLA at the same rates but the length of time had changed to indefinite. All thanks to this web site. Wonderful. Thank you so much”
Michael via email
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Posted: July 14, 2014 | Author: D Rosier | Filed under: ESA, DLA, PIP & Universal Credit, News | Tags: ATOS, benefits, ComputerworldUK, Department for Work and Pensions, disability minister, DWP, DWP awards Atos £10 million IT contract for healthcare assessments, European Union (OJEU), government, health and disability assessments, IT services, Mike Penning MP, work capability tests |
Atos to continue providing IT for controversial work capability tests despite paying to exit contract early
By Charlotte Jee | Computerworld UK | Published 14:40, 14 July 14
The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) has awarded Atos a contract worth £10 million a year to continue providing IT services to support work capability assessments after it steps down as the main supplier next year.
Atos is due to exit its controversial DWP contract for health and disability assessments by February next year, instead of the original end date in August.
The French multinational has come under fire for the number of work capability decisions that have been overturned and the firm recorded roughly 163 incidents of abuse or assault on staff in 2013.
The firm announced its intention to walk away from the contract in February and the government confirmed that Atos would exit the agreement early in March.
However this new contract means the firm will continue to provide the IT for the assessments until at least 2016, with allowances for it to be extended until 2020.
The contract, which the DWP described as an ‘interim arrangement’, was negotiated and set up without any competition.
The department said that this was for ‘technical reasons’, some of which were set out in the award notice, which was published in the Official Journal of the European Union (OJEU) at the end of last week.
The DWP said that an alternative provider would not be able to set up the new services in time without there being “an unacceptable level of service transition and delivery risk failure”.
In the OJEU notice, the department also claimed: “Another supplier would be unable to provide the IT services using the existing hardware, software, premises, etc, because the physical assets are owned by the current provider of the assessment services rather than the Authority.”
The DWP said: “Another supplier would be unable to replicate the current IT services because there is insufficient documentation to build them.”
It also said that another supplier wouldn’t be able to replace the physical assetes on a like-for-like basis because some of the assets were out-of-date and now unavailable.
The DWP told ComputerworldUK that although a new provider is expected to take over the contract next year, the IT will be transferred separately and at a later date.
A spokesperson said: “The DWP is seeking a new provider to help increase the volume of assessments carried out and improve the claimant experience, in particular looking to reduce waiting times and modernise delivery, including looking to replace the current IT.
“To make sure claimants get a good service during transformation, we are transferring the IT separately, and at a later date, than the rest of the service [which transfers in 2015].
“We have therefore asked Atos to continue to provide the current IT services for a further year. In the meantime work has started on planning for how we replace the IT.”
In a statement to Parliament in March, disability minister Mike Penning MP said that Atos had paid the department to terminate its contract early.
He said: “I am pleased to confirm that Atos will not receive a single penny of compensation from the taxpayer for the early termination of their contract, quite the contrary, I can also confirm that Atos has made a substantial financial settlement to the Department for Work and Pensions.”
However the DWP refused to disclose the figure paid by Atos when contacted by ComputerworldUK.
The contract for healthcare assessments between the DWP and Atos was awarded in 1998. It was renewed for seven years in 2005 and then extended for a further three in 2010 through to 2015.
Posted: July 9, 2014 | Author: D Rosier | Filed under: ESA, DLA, PIP & Universal Credit | Tags: ATOS, benefit claimants, cancer, Citizens Advice Bureau, DEATHS AND WELFARE CUTS, DWP, employment support allowance (ESA), government, hepatitis C, HIV, incapacity benefit, self-harm and depression, The Prime Minister, unemployed workers |
Was it public outrage or the impossible task that made Atos want to stop? Adam Forrest investigates
Some paperwork is almost unbearable. Sitting in the living room of his Essex home, Peter Wootton sifts through his wife Linda’s files with a sigh, pointing out where an Atos assessor judged her fit to work in January 2013.Linda could lift a mobile phone. Linda could rise. Linda could walk across the testing room. So Linda was fit to work. “The test only took 20 minutes,” Peter remembers. “She was crying for longer than that beforehand. I’ll keep these documents forever, no matter how painful they are.”Linda (pictured below), a double heart and lung transplant patient, died on April 25 last year. Only nine days before, the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) finally rejected her claim of employment support allowance (ESA) of £108.05 a week, sending her a curt letter while she lay desperately ill in hospital.
She had scored zero points on her Atos test. In her final months Linda was on 10 prescription drugs a day, suffering high blood pressure, renal failure and regular blackouts.
“The benefits were actually stopped on February 14,” Peter explains. “Happy Valentine’s. She was in hospital with a chest infection, typing her appeal on her iPad, crying her eyes out. We were lucky because I earned a salary that meant we were OK and we didn’t lose the house.
“But she felt distraught about it. She’d say to me, ‘I’ll have to go back to work then.’ It was only in the days before her death she said, ‘Well, maybe I wasn’t fit for work.’ Only when she had been told she was going to die.
“The thing I find so galling is that at no point did they speak to the doctor who said her condition would not get better back in 2007,” he continues. “At no point did they speak to anyone at Harefield Hospital where she’d had her transplant. Why wouldn’t they do that?
“When you lose your wife… no one can describe it. The desolation is beyond words. I’m doing better than I was last year but the grieving process goes on forever. People say it gets better with time – it doesn’t. I’ll carry on missing her.
“I’m not blaming Atos for her death. She died because of a collapsed lung and blood clots after a medical procedure. But I pitied the way Linda was made to feel and I still feel very, very frustrated at the way she was treated.”
To say Atos’ reputation has been damaged by the work capability assessments it has carried out for the UK government is an understatement. A day of national demonstration in February saw angrycampaigners at each and every one of Atos’ 144 offices across the country.
At each anti-Atos protest, the names of the dead are listed and held on cardboard squares, a grim liturgy to people who have passed away while undergoing the reassessment process. “ATOS KILLS” is the most familiar shout and placard slogan.
The company is trying to find a way of bringing the DWP contract to an early end without looking “unprofessional”The French IT firm says around 160 incidents of the public assaulting or abusing staff were recorded each month last year (most of the anger is vented on social media where Atos employees are referred to as “murdering scumbags”). Little wonder the company is trying to find a way of bringing the DWP contract to an early end without looking “unprofessional”.
As Atos itself admits: “In its current form it is not working for claimants, for DWP or for Atos Healthcare. For several months now we have been endeavouring to agree an early exit from the contract, which is due to expire in August 2015. Despite these ongoing discussions, we will not walk away from a frontline service.”
As all current Employment and Support Allowance benefit claimants are given short-term respite from further tests (reassessments are on hold for “an indefinite period”, according to a leaked DWP memo), it is worth taking stock of the mess.
How bad a job have Atos assessors really made of it? How much is Iain Duncan Smith’s department to blame? And how much truth is behind claims the tests are responsible for the deaths of the disabled?
Government statistics indicate that between January 2011 and November 2011, 10,600 sick and disabled people died within six weeks of their benefit claim ending. Such was the furore about this figure, the DWP has stopped using Atos data to count the number of deaths.
If anyone wishes to Google “Atos”, “death” and “coroner”, they’ll find dozens of news stories about benefit cuts and suicides in the last couple of years, including many cases of people killing themselves after Atos assessments found them fit to work.
Take Tim Salter, a blind 53-year-old suffering from agoraphobia. Tim hanged himself after an Atos test that found him fit to work and a DWP decision to axe his £30-a-week incapacity benefit left him wondering how he could afford his housing association rent. South Staffordshire coroner Andrew Haigh declared: “A major factor in his death was that his benefits had been greatly reduced leaving him almost destitute.”
Take Edward Jacques, a 47-year-old man suffering from HIV, hepatitis C and with a history of self-harm and depression, who took an overdose in September after his £90-a-week benefits were stopped. Nottinghamshire coroner Mairin Casey said Edward’s medical assessments had been “crude”.
She found that “the process in Edward’s case did not fully or properly reflect Edward’s physical and mental health at that time. It is desperately sad that such evidence was not available either to the nurse or to the decision-maker.”
One of the very saddest deaths is David Coupe (pictured below), a former farmer in Derbyshire who died of a rare form of cancer in October last year. He had been stripped of his £50-a-week incapacity benefit and ruled fit to work in December 2012, despite being housebound with a painful back injury, ulcers and diabetes. It left David and his wife Lyn with just £71 a week for the last 10 months of his life.
“David got a very rare form of cancer, it took his sight and his hearing, then finally his life,” says Lyn. “But months before that Atos had taken away his dignity. His doctors and specialist nurses wrote to the firm but never received a reply.”
Lyn says she has now been sent a letter confirming David’s backdated incapacity benefit will be paid. The Labour MP Dennis Skinner brought up David Coupe’s case in the House of Commons, memorably describing Atos as a “heartless monster”. The Prime Minister conceded it was all “desperately sad” and used it to criticise the “quality of decision-making”.
This questioning of quality has helped lead to the fall-out between the government and Atos, which now realises a fresh start is in both parties’ interest. Yet many of the disabled campaigners have questioned whether the government can credibly claim any detachment from the process.
In May 2013, whistleblower Dr Greg Wood, a former Atos employee, revealed how skewed the tests were against claimants and how much pressure testers were under to change reports and find the right conclusion (ie: fit to work).
The contract was designed on the basis of reducing the number of claimsKaliya Franklin, aka Bendy Girl, who writes the Benefit Scrounging Scum blog, believes Atos has provided a convenient smokescreen for government strategy. “The contract was designed on the basis of reducing the number of claims,” she says. “Atos did what they were told.
“My fear is that the DWP will now be able to say they’ve listened, they’ve fixed something by getting rid of Atos, and then they will carry on limiting the number of claims in the way they set out to do. So whoever [a new contract] goes to, the system is designed not to bear any relationship with the real problems people face.”
Dennis Skinner says he isn’t sure “whether [Atos] are leaving before they’re shoved, or the government has realised it’s an opportunity to get rid of them and blame it on them”. The MP wants fundamental changes in medical testing of benefit claimants.
“People deserve representation when these decisions are made,” he says. “I would have a panel deciding things with someone from the local unemployed workers centre or Citizens Advice Bureau. And we need to have proper doctors who are medically capable.”
Back in Essex, Peter Wootton is watching the Atos era unravel with great interest. It is too late for his wife Linda to be treated with due consideration and dignity. But he hopes no one else has to suffer the same kind of misery. “Whether it’s been the DWP driving the whole thing or Atos organising the tests this way for financial gain, we don’t know,” he says.
“But we’re about to see with whoever does the tests next whether the government is only interested in numbers, rather than people. If nothing changes, it will point the finger squarely at Mr Cameron’s government.”
Via http://www.bigissue.com/features/3637/atos-deaths-and-welfare-cuts
Posted: July 4, 2014 | Author: D Rosier | Filed under: ESA, DLA, PIP & Universal Credit | Tags: benefit claimants, DWP, European Convention on Human Rights, High Court, Human rights, Welfare, Well done Public Interest Lawyers |
The High Court has ruled that IDS’ emergency, retrospective legislation introduced in 2013 to apply thousands of unlawful sanctions on claimants is incompatible with the European Convention on Human Rights.
The court called the DWP’s move “draconian” and said it was “not explained or justified”.
Well done Public Interest Lawyers!
Posted: July 4, 2014 | Author: D Rosier | Filed under: ESA, DLA, PIP & Universal Credit, News | Tags: benefits and work, Benefits and Work Publishing Ltd, DLA, DWP, Employment and Support Allowance, ESA, Huge Increase In ESA Sanctions, JSA, learning difficulties, mental health conditions, MP, PIP & Universal Credit, work-related activity group (WRAG) |
Please see below contents of this week’s news from a subscription site: Benefits and Work Publishing Ltd. Details of how to subscribe are within the body of what follows.
In this edition we warn you that, in an effort to cut benefits costs, employment and support allowance (ESA) claimants are being subjected to a massively increased sanctions regime that deliberately targets the most vulnerable.
Sanctions, primarily aimed at claimants in the work-related activity group (WRAG) who are on the work programme, have quadrupled in the course of a year. They have increased from 1,102 a month in December 2012 to 4,789 a month in December 2013, the most recent date figures are available for.
Yet over the same period the number of ESA claimants being moved onto the work programme dropped by 43% a month and the number of claimants in the WRAG rose by just 21% in total.
62% of those sanctioned have mental health conditions or learning difficulties, although only 50% of claimants in the WRAG have these conditions.
It is hard to imagine a more cynical and discriminatory project, which appears to be intended to cut ESA costs whatever the human suffering involved might be.
You can read more about the DWP’s latest attack on claimants on the Benefits and Work website.
‘THE BEST POSSIBLE WAYS TO PREVENT AND OVERTURN ESA SANCTIONS.’
Since getting the statistics on the huge rise in ESA sanctions we have spent the last few days, creating a detailed guide to ‘The best possible ways to prevent and overturn ESA sanctions.’ – which is why this newsletter is a little on the short side, at least by our standards.
Our 30 page guide takes you through:
- Quick tips to reduce the chances of a sanction
- What to do if you are threatened with a sanction or actually sanctioned
- How to explain the ways your condition affects you
- Explaining your ‘good cause’ for not carrying out a mandatory activity
- Making a written complaint to JCP and work programme providers
- Complaining to your MP
- Using the mandatory reconsideration and appeal process
- Suing the DWP and work programme providers
- Applying for a hardship payment
- Applying to be placed in the support group
The guide, based in part on JSA sanctions information we have already published, includes sample letters and forms specific to ESA as well as lots of hints and tips to prevent you being seen as an easy target by work programme providers and Jobcentre Plus staff.
It will help you to avoid getting sanctioned in the first place. But if you do get threatened with a sanction, or actually sanctioned, it will take you through a range of responses from a formal complaint, to an appeal and even suing the organisations who are targeting you.
Recent statistics show that almost 90% of appeals against sanctions are successful, whilst legal insiders tell us that the DWP almost always settles discrimination claims before they get anywhere near a court. So fighting back is definitely worthwhile.
Yet a Citizens Advice Scotland report on sanctions released yesterday reveals that “many people who are hit by a sanction are not told the reason for it, or how to appeal against it” and that “many people are forced into poverty and ill health, often having to rely on foodbanks as their benefit payments are stopped.”
Members can download a copy of the guide from the ESA section of the members only area of the site.
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ESA NEWS
Still on the subject of sanctions, this summer, CABs across Scotland are raising the issue of benefit sanctions. The ‘Challenge It’ campaign aims to raise awareness of the right to appeal against sanctions. All CABs in Scotland have been issued with ‘Challenge It’ postcards and mini-cards, offering tips both on how to avoid being sanctioned and what to do if you are.
Meanwhile, the BBC has obtained DWP internal memos which says that ESA is worse than incapacity benefit at helping people back into work and now poses one of the biggest financial risks faced by the government. The memos also imply that the jobseeker’s allowance (JSA) sanctions regime is partly to blame for the rising number of ESA claimants.
PIP AND DLA NEWS
The public accounts committee has issued a damning report on the introduction of personal independence payment. Margaret Hodge, chair of the committee, has called PIP a ‘fiasco’ which has ‘let down some of the most vulnerable people in our society’.
In its report, the committee states that the Department’s failure to pilot the scheme has caused unnecessary distress for claimants who have been unable to access the support they need to live, and in some cases work, independently and describes the personal stories they heard as ‘shocking’.
So, you probably won’t envy the task of Paul Gray CB, who the government has commissioned to undertake an independent review of how the PIP assessment system is working.
Mr Gray has issued a call for evidence aimed at organisations and individuals who have information that is relevant to how the PIP assessment is operating, both for new claims and Disability Living Allowance (DLA) reassessment claims.
OTHER BENEFITS NEWS
Iain Duncan Smith’s latest effort to prevent the publication of documents warning of the dangers of universal credit has been dismissed by a judge.
The judge has ordered the release of documents about the progress of universal credit, an assessment of independent reviews and a record of problems with it.
The DWP insisted publication would have a “chilling effect” on the working of the department, though in reality the chilling effect on IDS’s reputation is probably the main reason for the refusal to publish the documents. Unfortunately IDS can probably drag the legal process out for years yet or simply use his ministerial veto to stop publication.
CAMPAIGN NEWS
An estimated 50,000 people marched from the BBC’s New Broadcasting House in central London to Westminster in protest at austerity measures introduced by the coalition government. The demonstrators gathered before the Houses of Parliament, where they were addressed by speakers, including comedians Russell Brand and Mark Steel. The event received remarkably little press coverage, however.
On Saturday, more demonstrators set up a camp in the grounds of Westminster Abbey to protest against cuts to financial support for disabled people.
Members of Disabled People Against Cuts (DPAC) pitched tents and said they intended to occupy the green outside the doors of one of Westminster’s most recognisable landmarks until 22 July. A huge police presence and heavy-handed tactics ensured that the protest was brought to an end, however.
Again, the protest received remarkably little media attention.
Which makes it rather ironic that the BBC has announced that it hopes to increase awareness of disability issues with a number of on-air and digital projects after hiring its first disability correspondent, Nikki Fox.
“We want to look into how the cuts to benefits are affecting people with disabilities and how the changes to the education system may impact children with disabilities,” said Fox, who will work alongside three broadcast journalists in Salford dedicated to disability issues.
Which sounds like a very good idea. As there is more than one Nikki Fox journalist we’ve published Nikki’s twitter account details to make sure you can help keep her informed about what is actually going on.
FACEBOOK FEEDBACK
We have had some lovely feedback from our Facebook page:
“Thank you Benefits & Work! I’ve never heard from DWP since sending in ESA50 in March. They phoned today about something else so I asked when would hear – apparently I was assessed in April & put in Support Group until April 2016.
“Devastatingly (!) that means I’ll never get to meet ATOS as, with the help of your guides, that makes 4 years in support group without ever being called for a medical. (Plus a 5yr high care/low mob DLA award in 2011 til 2016, again without a medical).
“I keep recommending you to other people – your guides are so helpful – particularly, I think, as I have fluctuating/non-visible mental health issues, for which the medicals have been a farce, so understanding how to explain on form has been a godsend.
“Thank you. Tamsin”
MORE NEWS ON THE SITE
There’s lots more news on the site than we have room for in this newsletter, including:
The PIP chaos reveals the government’s contempt for disabled people
DWP leads the way on statistical complaints
Thousands left in limbo in benefit appeals system grinding to a halt
Labour pledges to ‘pause’ universal credit if elected in 2015
Deprivation Britain: Poverty is getting worse – even among working families, according to major new study
Government ‘could breach its own welfare spending cap’
GOOD NEWS FROM THE FORUM
Please keep your good news coming – it’s needed now more than ever.
PIP been awarded at last!
“…got my letter on Saturday from the DWP…I have been given enhanced daily living component…my husband and I would like to thank you for your excellent guides that helped us at the medical and gain the money. The best subs I have ever spent Thank from the bottom of my heart.”
ESA mandatory reconsideration success
“Have had the phone call, after a Mandatory Reconsideration I have successfully been moved from wrag to Support group..Many thanks to B & W. I could not have achieved this without you knowledge and guidance.”
Support Group success
“My husband has once again been placed in the Support, only this time it’s for 3 years. Could we both take this opportunity to thank everyone who has offered help and pointing us in the right direction because without it, we would certainly have not been able to construct our answers properly. Good luck to you all, and once again thank you B&W”
Mandatory Recon overturned their decision
“The dwp rang me this morning and have over turned their WRAG decision and have agreed to put me in the support group! Thank you so much to everyone on benefits and work for your help! It has been invaluable and I couldn’t have done it without you all. You have been a rock to my wife and I!”
ESA result after 12 months
“Hi, I’ve eventually got the dreaded brown envelope through letterbox after waiting 12 months for my ESA decision from migration from Incapacity benefit. I couldn’t believe it when I read that I’ve been placed in the Support group and WITHOUT having to attend a medical! The relief is immense after a year of worry and stress so thank you for all the help and advice on here.”
Thank you! This site is a lifeline!
“I hope this helps other users… After 18 months…. I finally won my DLA claim for HRM, and LRC at appeal after previously being turned down… I was in utter despair. This is where B&W came in… I found your site while confined to bed, feeling utterly miserable and having bad thoughts but from that day I never looked back. Thank you so much for the work you do. You have no idea how much you help people if we don’t let you know. I was at my wits end and you were like Angels that lifted a weight off my shoulders. You really must read the guidelines on this site; I knew instantly where I’d gone wrong. Good Luck all with your claims, and use this site it truly is a life saver! Thank you B&W for giving me my life back.”
ESA support group success
“just had a call from DWP saying that my daughter has just been awarded ESA and is in the support group, and that its being backdated to last february 2013, we didnt even need to go for a medical assessment”
ESA support group after medical
I am very relieved after waiting 39 weeks , thank you
Placed in the Support Group
thank you for all the information I got from reading the forums from the Benefit and Work
In the Support group without medical
Without help from Benefits and Work I do not think this would have happened.
IB to ESA Support Group without a medical
I would like to thank you for the guides and for the help that they gave me.
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Posted: June 26, 2014 | Author: D Rosier | Filed under: ESA, DLA, PIP & Universal Credit, News | Tags: commissioners, Department of Work and Pensions (DWP), DWP, government, Home office, Iain Duncan Smith, IDS loses legal appeal, NHS reforms, taxpayer, tribunal, Universal Credit, Universal credit problems |
By Ian Dunt Thursday, 26 June 2014 10:32 AM
Iain Duncan Smith’s latest effort to prevent the publication of documents warning of the dangers of universal credit has been dismissed by a judge.
You can see the desperation quite clearly now. IDS’ team are throwing any old legal argument at the wall to see if it will stick. The judge’s casual dismissal of the arguments seems to show a flicker of resentment at having to hear them at all.
Quick recap: The information commissioner ruled the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) should release documents about the progress of universal credit, an assessment of independent reviews and a record of problems with it. He ruled against the release of a risk register – a department document listing possible problems with the scheme – but a tribunal overruled him and said it too should be published.
Basically, this is IDS’ worst nightmare: documentary evidence of the problems his department imagined universal credit could have, the scale of the problems which eventually transpired, and proof of whether they deliberately misled the public about the progress of the programme.
The DWP insisted publication would have a “chilling effect” on the working of the department – a standard defence against disclosure last used by Andrew Lansley to prevent publication of the risk register into his disastrous NHS reforms. The information tribunal ruled there was no evidence of that but that there was “strong public interest” in publication.
IDS appealed, as the government always does in these things. The DWP’s first argument was that the tribunal misunderstood the nature of the chilling effect and the evidence needed to support that argument.
Judge Wikeley gave it short shrift.
“[The chilling effect] is a well known concept, and I can see no support for the argument that the tribunal misunderstood its meaning. The opening sentence of paragraph 62 might perhaps have been better phrased, but it seems to me still some way from suggesting an arguable error of law. The tribunal was surely saying that whilst it heard Ms Cox’s [Sarah Cox, director of Universal Credit programme coordination, witness for the DWP] claim that disclosure would have a chilling effect, neither she nor the department provided any persuasive evidence to that effect.”
“In my view the tribunal here has done exactly what it is meant to do when weighing up the competing considerations in the application of the public interest test. It is plain from its comprehensive and cogent reasons that it has considered the evidence… applied its expertise and reached a decision that the chilling effect argument was unpersuasive.”
The DWP’s second argument – and this is where they get really desperate – is for ‘perversity. This states that the tribunal reached a decision which no reasonable tribunal, on a proper appreciation of the evidence and the law, would have reached. It’s obviously a very high threshold which they did little to reach.
Judge Wikeley found:
“This challenge, in my assessment, does not get near clearing this high hurdle. The tribunal identified the relevant issues, analysed the material evidence, made its findings and in that context reached its conclusions, explaining why it had done so. It seems to me its approach was entirely sustainable. The perversity ground is not arguable.”
Finally they tried to argue, weirdly, that the tribunal had not given due weight to the expertise of the DWP’s witness, Ms Cox. This was irrelevant, Judge Wikeley found. He said:
“An appeal to the upper tribunal is confined to a point of law. Upper tribunal judges cannot substitute their own view of the facts for that taken by the tribunal – not least as the tribunal is an expert tribunal in this specialist field. In my view this proposed ground of appeal, as with the second, adds nothing to the first ground of appeal on the chilling effect. I conclude it is not arguable.”
So there you have it. God knows how much taxpayer money dedicated to making these frivolous legal appeals – all in a bid to save the work and pension’s secretary’s blushes.
When we ask the Home Office, they refuse to answer. I’ll fire off a Freedom of Information request to the DWP on their legal costs later today, but I doubt the answer will be any different. The government is very good at not recording data it wishes to remain secret.
When there are disability benefits which need cutting, every pound counts. When it’s the secretary of state who needs saving, the government’s wallet bursts at the seams.
Via http://politics.co.uk/blogs/2014/06/26/ids-loses-legal-appeal-to-keep-universal-credit-problems-sec
Posted: June 19, 2014 | Author: D Rosier | Filed under: ESA, DLA, PIP & Universal Credit | Tags: Appeal, Atos health professionals, benefits and work, DLA and PIP chaos, DLA claimants, DWP, ESA, JSA, medical assessment, personal independence payment (PIP), terminal illness, tribunal, tribunal president, universal credit (UC), work capability assessment (WCA) |
“The DWP is overturning more than half of its own decisions in relation to some benefits.
This has been revealed by Judge Robert Martin the outgoing president of the social entitlement chamber which deals with benefits tribunals.
The DWP itself has yet to publish any statistics about the ‘mandatory reconsideration before appeal’ system introduced last year.
‘Mandatory reconsideration before appeal’ was introduced for personal independence payment (PIP) and universal credit (UC) from April 2013 and, for other benefits, for decisions made on or after 28 October 2013. It means that before a claimant can appeal a decision they have to ask for it to be looked at again by the DWP. Only once they receive written notification of the result of the reconsideration can they lodge an appeal, if they are unhappy with the revised decision.
The figures for reconsideration success were given by Judge Martin in the April edition of the Judicial Information Bulletin, which goes out to all tribunal members.
According to the judge, by 21st February 2014 the DWP had received 82,798 mandatory reconsideration requests and made a decision in 70% of cases, with decisions taking on average 13 days from the date they were received.
DLA decisions overturned 55.9%
ESA decisions overturned 23.0%
JSA decisions overturned 30.1
PIP decisions overturned 13.9%
UC decisions overturned 71.1%
It is extraordinary that the DWP is overturning a massive 71% of its own decisions in relation to UC, but at least they have the excuse that it’s a new benefit. But to be getting it wrong in more than half of all DLA decisions is even more astonishing.
Atos pulled out of the contract for carrying out DLA medicals, other than terminal illness cases, last year. Since then decision makers have been left to look up the effects of conditions in guidance issued by the DWP – and available in the members’ area of Benefits and Work site – or on the internet.
This may go some way to explaining what is such a shameful level of error in DLA decision making. But it does not in any way excuse it.
For the moment then, it seems that even for ESA challenges – with a success rate of 23% – there is a reasonable chance of getting the decision overturned prior to a tribunal hearing.
Judge Martin’s article, ‘Dark matter’ can be downloaded from the Rightsnet discussion forum.
There also appears to be further chaos with DLA and PIP:
“Judge Robert Martin, the outgoing president of the social entitlement chamber which deals with benefits tribunals, has claimed that the work capability assessment (WCA) process has virtually collapsed and that DLA claimants are having their awards extended, rather than looked at again, as the DWP goes into a welfare reform induced meltdown.
The judge was writing his final article before retiring, in the April edition of the Judicial Information Bulletin which goes out to all tribunal members . As a result, he has taken the opportunity to make a number of allegations and disclosures about the DWP that might be regarded as astonishingly forthright in a serving tribunal president.
In the article, Judge Martin tries to get to the bottom of why the tribunal service went from its highest ever number of cases heard in a month – over 50,000 – in July 2013, to a record low of just 8,775 in March 2014.
He makes it clear that he blames the DWP for the difficulties caused by this wild fluctuation in workload. The judge appears particularly angry because the tribunals service had taken on a large number of new staff after the DWP predicted a prolonged period of extra appeals.
Judge Martin is in no doubt that the biggest single cause of the drop in appeal numbers is a huge reduction in the number of WCAs being carried out.
He explains that in July 2013 Lord Freud announced that, due to a reduction in the quality of written reports, all Atos health professionals were to be retrained.
Initially, the DWP warned the tribunals service that there was likely to be an increase in the number of appeals as previous assessments were reworked and then challenged by unsuccessful claimants.
However, at the same time the number of assessments carried out by Atos dropped from 200,000 to 100,000 per month.
As a result the DWP changed its advice, saying that there would be a drop of 9,500 appeals from September to December 2013 whilst remedial measures were put in place. Following this there would be a big surge of appeals as Atos regained its former rate of assessments and worked on the backlog caused by the slowdown.
In fact, the recovery in the number of appeals has still not happened and, as Benefits and Work exclusively revealed, the DWP stopped referring most existing ESA claimants to Atos for reassessment from late January 2013. In addition, Judge Martin claims that:
‘Anecdotally, it appeared that an increasing proportion of ESA claimants both on new claims and IB-ESA reassessments were simply being assigned to the support group without a face to face assessment.’
Judge Martin concludes that:
‘The virtual collapse of the WCA process is the biggest single factor in the decline of the appeals intake.’
However, the judge lists many other important factors, including the extremely small number of universal credit awards and the botched and halting introduction of personal independence payment (PIP).
The judge reveals that:
‘As late as June 2013, the DWP was forecasting that HMCTS would receive over 40,000 PIP appeals by the end of March 2014. The actual PIP receipts by the end of March were just over 1,000.’
Judge Martin also has deep suspicions about what is happening in relation to disability living allowance ( DLA). He explains that the number of DLA appeals in March 2014 dropped by 80% compared to March 2013, from 5,568 down to 1,202.
He argues that this drop cannot be explained simply by the introduction of PIP, especially given that reassessment of DLA awards under the PIP rules has only been introduced in 30% of the country and that DLA claims do not require a medical assessment from Atos or Capita.
‘It becomes even more curious’, he suggests, when you realise that the DWP has recently ‘revised the level of DLA appeals expected in 2014-15 – upwards from 29,200 to 33,150.’
Judge Martin points to a possible explanation. The PIP regulations introduced a power for the DWP to extend DLA awards that were about to run out, even if the claimant is not about to be transferred to PIP. The judge claims that:
‘There is anecdotal evidence from welfare rights advisers that claimants whose DLA award is running out have simply received an extension. DWP has not disclosed the extent to which this may be happening’
Whatever the reason for the fall in the number of appeals, there seems little doubt that the DWP have made an enemy out of a man who knows – or suspects – where many of its skeletons are buried. They must be hoping very much that nobody goes and digs them up.
Judge Martin’s article, ‘Dark matter’ can be downloaded from the Rightsnet discussion forum.
Meanwhile, ATOS have spoken out about flaws in government policy, regarding WCA’s:
http://www.theguardian.com/society/2…-claims-system
All still going well then for Duncan Smith….
http://www.benefitsandwork.co.uk/new…eration-system
http://www.benefitsandwork.co.uk/new…of-wca-process
Lin 
Via http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.php?t=4991220
Posted: June 16, 2014 | Author: D Rosier | Filed under: ESA, DLA, PIP & Universal Credit, News | Tags: 'fitness for work', child benefits, childcare, disability benefit, DLA, Employment Support Allowance, ESA, housing, job seekers allowance, national minimum wage, paternity leave, PIP & Universal Credit, Social Care, Welfare, Work Programme |
The £1.2bn Work Programme, the government’s flagship welfare to work scheme, needs to be broken up in the face of figures showing that as little as 5% of unemployed people on the main disability benefit are finding a job through it, a thinktank will propose this week.
The proposal is one of a series from the Institute for Public Policy Research in its Condition of Britain report, to be published on Thursday, including a proposal for a “daddy month” – four weeks’ paternity leave on the minimum wage, a plan that would cost the taxpayer £150m. More than 400,000 working fathers a year would benefit.
The thinktank’s report, the product of two years’ research, is due to be launched by Ed Miliband. It will look at the social and economic problems facing the country and cover areas such as welfare, housing, childcare and improvements to social care, as well as handing more power to local councils.
The current legal entitlement for working fathers is paid at a flat rate of £138.18 a week – equivalent to just £3.45 an hour for a 40-hour working week, little more than half the minimum wage. The IPPR proposes that the statutory paternity leave entitlement should not only be extended but should be paid at least the national minimum wage, with employers also encouraged to bridge the gap between the statutory rate and the father’s actual pay.
Only 55% of fathers take the full two weeks off work when their child is born and a third do not take any of their statutory leave. Most say this is because they cannot afford to.
On the Work Programme, the report concludes that the scheme is especially failing mentally ill people, and the task of helping those on employment support allowance – the main disability benefit – to find work should be devolved to local authorities, with councils recouping some of the possible savings from the Department for Work and Pensions.
However, the report says private contractors should be left to find jobs for the mainstream long-term unemployed using a modified version of the current system of payments by results.
It says: “The Work Programme, while delivering acceptable results for the mainstream job seekers, is letting down those furthest from the labour market. Whilst one in five mainstream job seekers will find work through the Work Programme as few as one in 20 of those furthest from the labour market will.”
It also says those in areas of highest unemployment are receiving the least effective help.
It adds the “DWP has carved up the country between providers without any accountability to citizens or regard to local labour market conditions. Therefore for those out of work the system represents a postcode lottery in which success is determined not by individual effort but by geography.”
The report also says the government should offer a guaranteed six month minimum job paid at the minimum wage or above to anyone who has been unemployed and claiming job seekers allowance for more than 12 consecutive months.
The report will also set out plans to freeze child benefit to help fund a new network of children’s centres and extra free childcare, although it is understood that Miliband will reject this proposal.
Via WNS via guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010
Posted: May 14, 2014 | Author: D Rosier | Filed under: ESA, DLA, PIP & Universal Credit, News | Tags: benefit claimants, Debbie Abrahams, Department for Work and Pensions, Employment Support Allowance, Iain Duncan Smith, Jobcentre, Jobcentre Plus adviser, Jobseeker's Allowance, Secretary of State, Stitching-up claimants, unemployment, whistle-blower |
Former Jobcentre Plus adviser tells of a “brutal and bullying” culture of “setting claimants up to fail”
Last week Iain Duncan Smith met a whistle-blower who has worked for his Department for Work and Pensions for more than 20 years.
Giving the Secretary of State a dossier of evidence, the former Jobcentre Plus adviser told him of a “brutal and bullying” culture of “setting claimants up to fail”.
“The pressure to sanction customers was constant,” he said. “It led to people being stitched-up on a daily basis.”
The man wishes to be anonymous but gave his details to IDS, DWP minister Esther McVey and Neil Couling, Head of Jobcentre Plus, who also attended the meeting.
“We were constantly told ‘agitate the customer’ and that ‘any engagement with the customer is an opportunity to sanction’,” he told them.
Labour MP Debbie Abrahams, the member of the DWP Select Committee who set up the meeting, has renewed her call for an inquiry into inappropriate sanctioning.
“I am deeply concerned that sanctions are being used to create the illusion the Government is bringing down unemployment,” she said.
Sanctions pre-date the Coalition as a way of ensuring benefit claimants, who include the jobless and sick and disabled people on Employment Support Allowance, attend appointments and apply for jobs. But under the Tory-led Government, they have soared – to 897,690 a year from the most recent data.
Sanctions can last from a couple of days to three years, and leave claimants destitute.
Abrahams says that sanctioned people only continue to be counted as unemployed as long as they continue to sign on.
The DWP says most people who receive a sanction remain on Jobseeker’s Allowance for the duration of their sanction and so will be included in the claimant count.
IDS and his department have repeatedly denied there are targets for sanctions.
“They don’t always call them targets, they call them ‘expectations’ that you will refer people’s benefits to the decision maker,” the whistle-blower says. “It’s the same thing.”
He claimed managers fraudulently altered claimants’ records, adding: “Managers would change people’s appointments without telling them. The appointment wouldn’t arrive in time in the post so they would miss it and have to be sanctioned. That’s fraud. The customer fails to attend. Their claim is closed. It’s called ‘off-flow’ – they come off the statistics. Unemployment has dropped. They are being stitched up.”
For 20 years, the whistle-blower loved his job as an adviser. He says: “It was really rewarding helping people into work.”
But he says the culture changed after the election of the Coalition.
“Customers were being deliberately and inappropriately targeted,” the whistle-blower says. “I would see people crying in frustration, knowing they have been stitched up. Yet my Jobcentre was held up as a shining example to others. One of the district managers came to congratulate us. He said, ‘I see these people hanging round the precinct, being lazy, drinking, taking drugs’. That was a very senior leader. Another said, ‘These people are taking your money’. There was a total disrespect for the customer.”
Advisers were told to “inconvenience” benefit claimants, he says. “I was told see them face to face, agitate them. ‘Let’s inconvenience the customer’, they said, ‘get on these people from day one’.
“They were treated appallingly, lots of conditions put on them. Many of them were vulnerable people with low self-esteem or coming back off sick. We were setting customers up to fail.
“If I do my job well and their claim is managed well, there should be fewer sanctions. Instead, good advisers were the ones who sanctioned more people. It was a daily mantra, ‘Have you sanctioned anyone?’
I particularly remember a well-qualified father, he was desperate to work, with a wife and child to support. I was told to agitate him. They said, ‘Tell him he’s got to apply for factory and labouring jobs. Change his contract. If he doesn’t take the jobs, stop his benefit’. It was a trap.”
When managers refused to listen, he became sick with stress. “My body just gave up,” he says. “I had high blood pressure, I was put on beta-blockers. I was in a state of physical collapse.”
Debbie Abrahams, MP for Oldham East and Saddleworth, says Esther McVey had agreed to a sanctions inquiry, but has since made a U-turn.
She says: “Just what are Iain Duncan Smith and Esther McVey trying to hide?
“This Government has developed a culture in which Jobcentre Plus advisers are expected to sanction claimants using unjust, and potentially fraudulent actions, in order get people off the dole.
“This creates the illusion the Government is bringing down unemployment.
“The last thing Iain Duncan Smith and Esther McVey want is for this uncomfortable truth to be uncovered.”
Last night a spokeswoman for the DWP said: “We take any allegations such as this seriously and will investigate.
“Our frontline staff work hard to support people off benefits and into work, and it’s only right that we ask claimants to do everything they can to look for work in return. Unemployment is falling, there are record numbers of people in jobs and there are 600,000 vacancies.”
Via http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/stitching-up-claimants-part-job-says-3537051#ixzz31gjOOdVj
Posted: May 13, 2014 | Author: D Rosier | Filed under: ESA, DLA, PIP & Universal Credit, News | Tags: Access to Work, Access to Work programme (AtW)., Department for Work and Pensions, DLA, Employment support for disabled people, ESA, House of Commons, Mental Health, PIP & Universal Credit, Work and Pensions Committee |
The inquiry will consider the Department for Work and Pensions’ (DWP) Access to Work programme (AtW).
Background
AtW is designed to help long-term disabled people to start a new job, or remain in employment, with practical support which goes beyond the “reasonable adjustments” which employers are required to make by law.
AtW grants can cover, or go towards, a range of practical solutions to problems faced by disabled people in the workplace—for example, adaptations to equipment; taxis to work for those who cannot use public transport; and support workers. The programme helped around 31,000 people in 2012/13.
In 2011 the coalition Government commissioned Liz Sayce to conduct an independent review of employment support for disabled people. The Sayce review highlighted the effectiveness of AtW but found a lack of awareness about the programme, particularly amongst smaller employers and people with mental health conditions and learning disabilities. Liz Sayce recommended that DWP “transform [AtW] from Government’s best-kept secret to a recognised passport to successful employment”.
The Government has since taken some steps to increase the reach of AtW, for example through increased marketing of the scheme to employers, and extending it to cover a broader range of work experience, traineeship and apprenticeship placements.
Terms of reference for the inquiry
Submissions of no more than 3,000 words are invited from interested organisations and individuals.
The Committee is particularly interested in:
- The AtW application and assessment processes, from the perspectives of employees and employers;
- The adequacy of ongoing support, both in terms of the aids, adaptations and support workers provided through AtW, and the help and advice offered by DWP;
- The effectiveness of AtW in supporting people with mental health conditions and learning disabilities;
- AtW’s effectiveness in terms of helping disabled people to:
- Secure a job;
- Stay in employment; and
- Develop their careers; and
- The steps taken so far by DWP to extend AtW, including itsmarketing and funding of the scheme.
Submissions do not need to address all of these points.
The deadline for submitting evidence is Friday 20 June.
How to submit your evidence
To encourage paperless working and maximise efficiency, select committees are now using a new web portal for online submission of written evidence. The web portal is available on our website.
The personal information you supply will be processed in accordance with the provisions of the Data Protection Act 1998 for the purposes of attributing the evidence you submit and contacting you as necessary in connection with its processing.
Each submission should:
- be no more than 3,000 words in length
- be in Word format with as little use of colour or logos as possible
- have numbered paragraphs
If you need to send a paper copy please send it to: The Clerk, Work and Pensions Committee, House of Commons, 7 Millbank, London SW1P 3JA
Material already published elsewhere should not form the basis of a submission, but may be referred to within a proposed memorandum, in which case a web link to the published work should be included.
Once submitted, evidence is the property of the Committee. It is the Committee’s decision whether or not to accept a submission as formal written evidence.
The Committee normally, though not always, chooses to make public the written evidence it receives, by publishing it on the internet (where it will be searchable), or by making it available through the Parliamentary Archives. If there is any information you believe to be sensitive you should highlight it and explain what harm you believe would result from its disclosure. The Committee will take this into account in deciding whether to publish or further disclose the evidence.
Select Committees are unable to investigate individual cases.
Further guidance on submitting evidence to Select Committees is available on the parliamentary website (
PDF 2.46 MB)
.
The deadline for submitting evidence is Friday 20 June.
How to submit your evidence
To encourage paperless working and maximise efficiency, select committees are now using a new web portal for online submission of written evidence. The web portal is available on our website.
The personal information you supply will be processed in accordance with the provisions of the Data Protection Act 1998 for the purposes of attributing the evidence you submit and contacting you as necessary in connection with its processing.
Each submission should:
- be no more than 3,000 words in length
- be in Word format with as little use of colour or logos as possible
- have numbered paragraphs
If you need to send a paper copy please send it to: The Clerk, Work and Pensions Committee, House of Commons, 7 Millbank, London SW1P 3JA
Material already published elsewhere should not form the basis of a submission, but may be referred to within a proposed memorandum, in which case a web link to the published work should be included.
Once submitted, evidence is the property of the Committee. It is the Committee’s decision whether or not to accept a submission as formal written evidence.
The Committee normally, though not always, chooses to make public the written evidence it receives, by publishing it on the internet (where it will be searchable), or by making it available through the Parliamentary Archives. If there is any information you believe to be sensitive you should highlight it and explain what harm you believe would result from its disclosure. The Committee will take this into account in deciding whether to publish or further disclose the evidence.
Select Committees are unable to investigate individual cases.
Further guidance on submitting evidence to Select Committees is available on the parliamentary website ( PDF 2.46 MB).
Via http://www.parliament.uk/business/committees/committees-a-z/commons-select/work-and-pensions-committee/news/access-to-work-launch/
South London Involvement Forum 