DWP to repay man with no legs whose ESA was cut because he ‘could climb stairs with his arms’
Julius Holgate.
Only on Tuesday, Work and Pensions Secretary Damian Green was extolling the virtues of the DWP work capability assessment procedures, in his answer to an urgent question on the Personal Independence Payment.
Does anybody really believe that a DWP assessor “ticked the wrong box” by accident? Because I don’t.
This was a cynical attempt to take benefits away from a man who needed them, in the belief that he would not have the wherewithal to challenge the decision.
Such despicable behaviour is typical of DWP benefit assessments at the moment and it is easy to understand why demand is rising for the work capability assessment – and the Department for Work and Pensions itself – to be scrapped.
The Department for Work and Pensions admits it “ticked the wrong box” when it deemed a double amputee capable of “climbing” the stairs with his arms and thus “fit to work”.
Julius Holgate, who lives in Hackney, has won his appeal against the DWP’s “outrageous” decision after the intervention of the Hackney Community Law Centre (HCLC).
He fell into debt and was reduced to pawning his jewellery to survive after he was awarded zero points in a medical assessment, meaning and his Employment and Support Allowance (ESA) was stopped in January. Following last week’s decision, he will be repaid the cash he missed out on.
At the time the DWP said because Julius’ arms were working order, he could use them to “climb” stairs and therefore had “mobility”. The department has now backed down and apologised, saying the decision was a “clerical error”.
Julius said the DWP should be more careful when assessing people.
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This is no surprise, having been through the process myself it is easily obvious when you know your dealing with a assessor who is motivated by greed rather than honesty or looking at a case where you know just by reading the report that the assessor is highly unlikely to have the skills to carry out the assessment there doing, so you do the good thing and you do mandatory reconsideration to be met by a decision maker that equally does not have the skills to review the document properly and then your of to tribunal, then it is all over and of course we made a mistake can we be freinds, forget it you threaten with sanctions you put someone through a tribunal, you worsen a person’s condition and then you want them to engage, so you write to them and underneath it it states if you dont attend you may get a sanction well done clap clap, you put in a complaint against the assessor, the matter is investigated and in my case i did not get a apology so that is going further, do they report them to anything no,not unless they are caught out, this needs independant regulation and review similiar to pals liason service within the nhs, then you would not have issues like the above as if in the nhs someone made a mistake like this they would be subject to a disciplinary and quite likely facing a fitness ot practice complaint at tribunal level, that is what should be happening with these dwp experts and that also includes the dm’s, the next part is does it save any money,tribunal costs, re-payments, possibly against against the dwp/dm/ wca assessor then the person going back into the nhs itself, look at the saving, in banking terms that would be classed as a negative profit,
still clapping and saying this policy is excellent Damien Green, with your fist pumping mate smith no doubt feeling great about himself and smarmy osbourne in the background,you all responsible for this and like all parts of responsibility it is going to come back and bite you
A clerical error?? What is it with these morons that they are so incentivised that they believe they are god and with luck believe their behaviour will rid the customer from their books for ever. Even the Nazi party would have been proud of their clerical error ruse and invite an instant promotion to the perpetrator. When will these sick no mothers disappear from the face of this country with their barbaric decisions. I hope they compensated and paid interest not that this Country has the strength or financial worth to pay decent interest anymore.
There’s no sneaky, devious, callous excuse they’ll think of not to give someone who really needs the money, any thought, they’ll come up with it, proves the true cold-hearted, evil mindset that they possess!
Paying him his backdated entitlements does not repair damage done to physical and mental health or to cover extra expenses that would not have occurred if the farce had not played out in this way.. the way I see it the DWP achieved part of its goal of destroying his confidence by reminding him that he’s one of the useless eating blobs of flesh that they are there to support, nurture and help to remain eaqual with everybody else but intend to kill or if possible make them do it themselves. He will probably always dread the brown envelopes and this could be a minor or major problem that will not be considered . My experience of having 2 complaints upheld was to receive an insultingly small consolatory payment as a “tangible apology ” which is not offered as compensation for real losses .
Can the millions of benefit cheats that exist in the minds of the easily fooled not just payback a fiver as a consolatory payment that to the dwP is a genorous and rare event,