Tag Archives: Work Programme

Are the Tories increasing benefit conditionality to include working people on sick leave?

Anger: People taking part in a welfare-to-work protest in London in 2012 [Image: PA].

We know from the Autumn Statement that Mandatory Work Activity and Community Work Placements are being scrapped.

This has been welcomed by organisations like Boycott Workfare, who have campaigned against the enforced “work 30 hours per week for your benefits” schemes ever since they were introduced in 2011.

But it is only being replaced by something which is potentially much worse: the so-called Work and Health Programme.

According to the Daily Mirror, this new scheme aims to help long-term sick people find a job, “but a DWP spokesman could not confirm whether it will involve forced labour because the details have not yet been drawn up”.

To This Writer, it seems like an amalgamation of the ‘workfare’ schemes with the current ‘Health and Work Service’. You see? All they’ve done is reverse the words.

Health and Work is intended to prevent people from taking sick leave from their jobs that lasts any longer than four weeks (if This Writer recalls correctly).

Current operator Maximus (which also operated the Work Programme in a clear conflict of interest) was tasked with running a “work-focused occupational health assessment” which “will identify the issues preventing an employee from returning to work and draw up a plan for them, their employer and GP, recommending how the employee can be helped back to work more quickly”.

So it seems the scheme will be rolled out to lump in people who have jobs – but are ill – with people who don’t have jobs and make them all jump through the same hoops in order to keep their benefits or sick pay.

Health won’t get a look-in and it seems likely that the scheme will make sick workers even less able to return to their jobs than if they are left alone to get on with it. In other words, they’ll be treated like ESA claimants.

This seems extremely contradictory.

On one hand, the Conservative Government is saying it is trying to get as many people off benefits and into work as possible, but on the other hand, the same Tories are saying once you get into work, you’d better not get sick, because you’ll be treated like a person on benefits!

It’s another incremental erosion of the rights of UK citizens, reminiscent of the words of Adolf Hitler: “The best way to take control over a people and control them utterly is to take a little of their freedom at a time, to erode rights by a thousand tiny and almost imperceptible reductions. In this way, the people will not see those rights and freedoms being removed until past the point at which these changes cannot be reversed.”

But then, so much of the Conservative Government’s behaviour is directly relatable to the Nazis – especially where the Department for Work and Pensions is concerned (“Arbeit macht frei”, Mr Duncan Smith?) so perhaps we should not be surprised.

All this is mere speculation, of course.

It will be interesting to see how much of it corresponds with the reality – when the DWP finally unveils it.

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Disabled man died of heart attack after being told of ESA sanction threat


The accusations against DWP are coming thick and fast now. Here’s the latest, courtesy of Disability News Service:

 A disabled man died of a heart attack, just an hour after being told that the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) was threatening to stop paying his out-of-work disability benefits.

Alan McArdle, who had previously been homeless but was living in council accommodation in Slough with the support of a charity, told the friend who had read the DWP letter to him: “They’ve sanctioned my money,” before he collapsed.

The government contractor responsible for finding him work, the discredited outsourcing giant Maximus, had reported him to DWP for failing to attend appointments intended to move him towards work, as part of the Work Programme, despite being told about his severe ill-health.

Slough’s Labour MP, Fiona Mactaggart, accused DWP of being responsible for her constituent’s death, and told Disability News Service she would raise his case in the House of Commons.

The mitigating words from DWP and Maximus manage to be both pathetic and infuriating at the same time. The DWP spokesperson came out with the current excuse:

“It’s misleading to link a death to someone’s benefit claim.”

Readers of This Blog will know that this replaced the previous excuse, “It is irresponsible to suggest a causal link between the death of an individual and their benefit claim”, after it became plain not only that it is possible to suggest such a link but also that it would be irresponsible not to point it out.

The Maximus line was:

“Participation in the Work Programme is mandatory for people in the WRAG who are in receipt of ESA. We make strenuous efforts to inform participants about their obligations and contact them if they fail to show up for arranged meetings.”

The reason Mr McArdle had been sanctioned was for failing to keep in contact with Maximus. His mobility had become so poor that the organisation had allowed him to do this by phone – this fact alone is enough to raise questions regarding why he was not allowed to join the support group of ESA, where he would not be required to attend meetings and in which he obviously belonged.

He had suffered injuries after a fall that required him to be admitted to hospital, meaning he had been unable to contact Maximus as usual. When Mandy McGuire, project manager of the charity Slough Homeless Our Concern (SHOC), who had supported McArdle for 16 years, had told Maximus the situation, she said the company’s reply had been a little different:

“He hasn’t come in, so we will get him sanctioned.”

This is a clear example of DWP persecution leading to a claimant’s death. How obvious does it have to be?

He died from the shock of being told his benefits had been cut off while he was in hospital, for crying out loud. He didn’t belong in the work-related activity group at all; his health was so poor, he should not have been subjected to its pressures.

Maximus, the company monitoring his performance on the Work Programme, is also the company responsible for carrying out work capability assessments. It seems clear that Mr McArdle’s assessor was very badly mistaken about his condition.

He was wrongly assessed, put in the wrong group of ESA, and wrongly sanctioned – but both the DWP and Maximus are, incredibly, trying to say it isn’t their fault.

They must be held to account.
Source: Disabled man died of heart attack after being told of ESA sanction threat

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Do you really want Tories to reintroduce slavery by the back door? Please share #HumanRights #BillOfRights #slavery #slave #workfare #workprogramme

You’ll be aware that there have been many legal challenges against Workfare/The Work Programme/Mandatory Work Activity, on the basis that they are slave labour schemes.

The Department for Work and Pensions, under slave-master Iain Duncan Smith, has worked tirelessly to dismiss these challenges – with only limited success, as our courts are populated by judges who still believe in something called justice.

However, the repeal of the Human Rights Act 1998 means the end of the ban on slavery. Conservatives are already making plans to force any young person without a job to work for 30 hours a week in exchange for benefits – or starve.

Do you think that’s acceptable?

Let’s put it another way:

Would you accept it if they did it to you?

Here’s a handy infographic about it for you to share:

zHumanRights3

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Vox Political’s London adventure part two: What I actually said

No, I'm not singing 'My Way': Vox Political's Mike Sivier at the 'Austerity' book launch.

No, I’m not singing ‘My Way’: Vox Political’s Mike Sivier at the ‘Austerity’ book launch.

In response to the hordes of readers who have written in, demanding a follow-up to my article about the ‘Austerity’ book launch, it turns out there is a record of it on the Occupy London website.

Yours Truly is in the very last video on the page – but be warned, it is neither a pretty sight nor sound. I had no idea I looked like a hunchbacked no-neck goblin (although I confess I was aware of the hair loss). As for the voice – it’s hard to describe the mixture of feelings when one realises that the appearance of one’s own Bristolian accent comes as a relief.

“O wad some Power the viddie gie us
To see oursels as ithers see us!”
– as Robert Burns might have said, if he was around today.

Here’s my part of the proceedings. I turn up around the 37th minute – you have been warned:

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Shining the spotlight on ‘Austerity’ (or, Vox Political’s London adventure)

Launching 'Austerity: The Demolition of the Welfare State and the Rise of the Zombie Economy' in London. I'm the blob closest to the camera.

Launching ‘Austerity: The Demolition of the Welfare State and the Rise of the Zombie Economy’ in London. I’m the blob closest to the camera.

This writer was in London on Tuesday, helping fellow blogger Kerry-Anne Mendoza (of Scriptonite fame) launch her debut book “Austerity: The Demolition of the Welfare State and the Rise of the Zombie Economy”, published by New Internationalist. It was an interesting exercise because Yours Truly is not against austerity.

If you’re reeling from the strangeness of that statement, please be assured that it is the truth.

I have endured austerity on a personal level many times – perhaps most notably when I was studying on a five-month Journalism course in Cornwall, where the county council refused to pay me housing benefit according to the terms of a deal I had done with the organisation then known as the Department of Social Security.

I lived on £7 a week for four months, meaning my diet consisted of Rich Tea biscuits and water. I was probably the poorest man in Cornwall.

Towards the end of that time, however, I was able to get some work experience at a local newspaper. I contacted the county council and gave fair warning that an extremely inclement report would appear in that paper if my case was not reviewed and an appropriate decision returned.

For the last month of my time there, I was probably the richest man in Cornwall.

This was austerity with a reason. I stuck out the hard times because I knew that I would be better for the experience – certainly better-qualified to pursue an intended career in journallism, and better-equipped to make Cornwall Council pay up, too.

So you can see that I am not against austerity if it is self-imposed; if there is a logical purpose to it.

What I can’t abide is austerity imposed from above, by a gang of spoiled rich kids who have overspent their pocket money and don’t want to pay their dues – so they force the less-fortunate to pay up for them. Perhaps I just don’t like bullies.

That’s the kind of austerity being imposed on far too many people in this country today.

It doesn’t make anybody a better person.

It doesn’t make anybody better-qualified.

It doesn’t make anything better at all.

But I didn’t start Vox Political to rail against austerity. I started it because I was seeing a lot of political comment that didn’t make sense to me – what I was reading was not what I was seeing in the real world. The effect of government austerity on the poorest in society – the most vulnerable – was just one aspect of that, but it quickly became one of the most popular.

Perhaps it is because this is the most emotive subject I discuss. Perhaps it’s because my own partner – ‘Mrs Mike’ – is a long-term claimant of disability and incapacity benefits and has been affected by government policies attacking her right to claim.

Perhaps I just happen to enjoy a good argument? Yes, that seems likely too.

I have covered the imposition of the Bedroom Tax and its disastrous effect on people’s security.

I have covered the pointless Work Programme – let’s face it, it’s just a way to make people toil for less than the minimum wage, isn’t it? – and its disastrous effect on people’s hopes.

And I have covered the Work Capability Assessment of people claiming disability and incapacity benefits, and its disastrous effect on people’s lives.

I’m currently waiting for a decision on my appeal against the refusal of my latest information request, calling on the government to reveal how many people have died since the start of December 2011, after taking the assessment. For more than three years, the government has refused to publish any information on these deaths – possibly in fear of a backlash against a punitive system that does more harm than good.

I took a telephone call last week in which I was asked what I would be prepared to accept instead of details that the government does not have. Don’t worry – they weren’t crucial changes, and the fact I had the call means I can be hopeful about the result.

If I get the information I want, I’ll use it to try to persuade the Labour Party into offering to scrap the Work Capability Assessment once and for all.

I’m hoping that the information will prove that the test – which only exists to find ways of pushing people off of a benefit that may be their only source of income – is a threat to the lives of the vulnerable, and no attempt at modification will rehabilitate it. By threatening to keep the test, even in modified form, Labour is asking people to lay down their lives – for nothing.

This is just one small, personal battle – one of many.

That is why I was glad to be celebrating the launch of Austerity: The Demolition of the Welfare State and the Rise of the Zombie Economy on Tuesday evening. It is important for everybody who is labouring against this ideology to understand the context in which their own struggles exist; that they are not alone, but part of a wider conflict.

I applaud Kerry-Anne for her work and look forward to the day when I can read the book and remember when the issues it raises became shadows of the past. Let us hope that its publication brings that time a little closer.

That’s what I would have said, had I been asked to deliver a straightforward speech. I wasn’t. What actually happened was more interesting and (dare I say) enjoyable for the many who attended the event. Perhaps I’ll write another article about that later. Would you like that?

In the meantime, the following retailers are stocking Austerity: The Demolition of the Welfare State and the Rise of the Zombie Economy in paperback and ebook versions:

Amazon

Amnesty

Friends of the Earth

Good Reads – you can obtain a free copy if you review.

Guardian Bookshop

New Internationalist

Sainsbury’s

Waterstones

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A campaigner falls. Friends asked to remember Lotte Ryan

Those of you with an interest in such matters will know that another campaigner against DWP injustice has passed on.

How many of you are thinking to yourselves, "She doesn't LOOK ill"?

How many of you are thinking to yourselves, “She doesn’t LOOK ill”?

Charlotte Ryan – Lotte to her friends – was just 37 years of age when she died last week (February 23). She had an incurable version of cancer, brain stem glioma.

At the time of her death, the Department for Work and Pensions was trying to force her to take part in the Work Programme, despite the fact that she was in the Support Group for Employment and Support Allowance.

In a letter dated December 9, 2014, the local DWP Work Programme Provider – Prospects – notified her that she was expected to participate. The letter stated: “As part of your participation in the Work Programme, you have agreed to take part in work experience on a voluntary basis to help you gain work skills and experience.”

Writing just three days later, she stated: “I have terminal cancer, my prognosis is 0-3 years and I was diagnosed in March 2014 with my brain stem glioma. In April 2014 I was placed in the support group* for 3 years and I have gone from being able-bodied to hopelessly disabled. I have many neurological deficits including diploplia, dyspraxia, dysarthria and dysphagia. To save you googling, this means that I have double vision and am going blind, I’m very clumsy and most days I drop everything I pick up, my speech is failing and one day I won’t be able to communicate verbally at all and I have such difficulty swallowing that I now have a feeding tube.

“I cannot leave the house alone and I’m at risk of choking and need 24 hour care. They speak of me going into residential care, but they hope to keep me in my own home for as long as possible. The trouble is degenerative, nothing will get better, only worse, the cancer can’t be cured.

HOW SICK DOES A PERSON HAVE TO BE BEFORE THE HARASSMENT STOPS?”

Further information, including a copy of the letter, is available on the kittysjones blog.

This writer did not know Charlotte Ryan and this blog cannot, therefore, eulogise her.

But this blog can point out that her passage from this world would have been much easier without constant harassment by an inhumane government to take part in activities that were far beyond her abilities – or lose the benefits that were her lifeline.

Too many people believe that it is acceptable for the DWP – and the Coalition government – to treat the terminally ill in this way.

Perhaps they should read Lotte’s story.

If they won’t understand until they have to experience this treatment themselves, then it will be too late.

* The support group is supposed to be for people who the Department of Work and Pensions consider to have such severe health problems that there is no likelihood of their being able to undertake work or work-related activities.

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Dying woman ordered onto the Work Programme

The following message appeared on the Vox Political Facebook page. It is reproduced in the hope that somebody from Prospects might have the courage to explain their organisation’s behaviour – and in the hope that this further evidence of the Coalition Government’s inhumanity to the citizens it has a duty to protect may encourage anyone who still thinks it’s a good idea to vote Tory or Lib Dem to think again. Here’s the message [boldings mine]:

I have terminal cancer. My prognosis is 0-3 years and I was diagnosed in March 2014 with my brain stem glioma.

In April 2014 I was placed in the support group for three years and I have gone from being able-bodied to hopelessly disabled. I have many neurological deficits including diploplia, dyspraxia, dysarthria and dysphagia. To save you Googling, this means that I have double vision and am going blind, I’m very clumsy and most days I drop everything I pick up, my speech is failing and one day I won’t be able to communicate verbally at all and I have such difficulty swallowing that I now have a feeding tube. I cannot leave the house alone and I’m at risk of choking and need 24 hour care. They speak of me going into residential care, but they hope to keep me in my own home for as long as possible.

The trouble is degenerative, nothing will get better, only worse, the cancer can’t be cured. I’m 37.

Now, I can deal with all that. I’m alive! And I can still do stuff!

What I cannot deal with is that I am on the work programme! I received this letter today (too late to ring the WP) demanding I come to an appointment with the Work Programme on Tuesday or they’ll stop my benefits.

141216charlotteryanMWAnotification2

HOW SICK DOES A PERSON HAVE TO BE BEFORE THE HARRASSMENT STOPS?

It should be noted that Ms Ryan did not realise that the letter was for a telephone appointment until it was pointed out to her that she did not have to go to Prospects’ Bristol office. This is because the letter is very poorly-worded, as any reader can see.

You are encouraged to comment.

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The Conservative Party – nasty, stupid and clumsy

Is this the face of a 'Caring' Conservative? Or is he nasty and clumsy? And if he is, does that mean the supporters behind him are stupid?

Is this the face of a ‘Caring’ Conservative? Or is he nasty and clumsy? And if he is, does that mean the supporters behind him are stupid?

Independent luminary Andreas Whittam Smith reckons the Conservative Party in its current form is both nasty and stupid – and also clumsy, if his latest article is to be believed.

Nasty because of its aggressive behaviour – such as the decision to withdraw support for rescue operations that save thousands of migrants from drowning as they attempt to cross the Mediterranean to Europe.

Or because of benefit assessment policies that mean people living with progressive and degenerative conditions such as Parkinson’s, motor neurone disease and rheumatoid arthritis are being subjected to what a group of charities describes as “upsetting and unnecessary” examinations to see whether they will recover enough to look for work in the future – a pointless exercise because their conditions are flagged up from the start as progressive and degenerative; they’re never going to get better.

Or because, after the Resolution Foundation found that one-in-five employees (4.9 million people) earned less than the living wage, George Osborne is promising that if the Conservative Party wins next year’s general election, then most welfare payments that the working poor rely on – including child benefit, tax credits, jobseeker’s allowance, housing benefit and income support – will be frozen in April 2016 for two years. They are currently rising by 1 per cent a year. He will make the working poor poorer.

zTorypromise

Clumsy because they have imposed unpopular decisions on the people in an unfair way. Mr Whittam Smith defines fairness in terms of “the four main elements that go into creating a sense of procedural justice: Those concerned should have been able to play an active part in the process. The rules should be applied with sensitivity to individual situations. Decision-makers should be impartial and fair. And the agents of the system with whom people have to deal should treat them with respect.”

He continues: “There is no evidence that people living with progressive and degenerative conditions or members of the working poor or families struggling to pay care bills for elderly relatives have been consulted. There is no evidence of sensitivity to individual situations or else the bedroom tax legislation would have recognised the special difficulties of disabled tenants who are unable to share a bedroom and would have taken into account where homes have been specially adapted.

“As for the agents of the system with whom people have to deal, outsourcing many of these tasks has not produced happy results. Naturally the outsourced staff work by the book. They cannot be flexible or understanding. They are chiefly concerned with getting the job done as quickly as possible so as to reach the profits targets set by their employers. And then, in the final analysis, claimants are not dealing directly with the state at all but with a sort or mercenary army. Mutual respect cannot exist in these circumstances.”

Let’s expand on the last point for a moment, and connect it with the previous points about benefit assessment, with this snippet of information: An academic report from Edinburgh Napier University and the University of Stirling has confirmed that the Tories’ welfare reforms are not helping people to find work.

According to Alan Wyllie on the A Working Class Man blog, the report showed:

  • “The current welfare system is not helping people find work. Those who had moved into employment found work independently and not due to Jobcentre Plus services;
  • “There was limited support on offer to help recipients of out of work benefits move into work. Those participating in the Work Programme did not report that it was helpful;
  • “Most people wanted to work but issues such as childcare, illness and training made it difficult for them to do so;
  • “The current welfare system also does not appear to meet its aim of ‘make work pay’. People who had moved into work felt only slightly better off and continued to find it difficult to make ends meet;
  • “Benefit freezes or restricted increases have meant falling real-term incomes, with many study participants finding it hard to meet basic needs.

“The report concludes that: ‘Participants with a health condition or a disability, and those who were lone parents, reported that they wanted to be in work but faced considerable barriers to doing so, which were unlikely to be addressed by increasing conditionality.

“’According to the views of participants, stronger conditionality is unlikely to get more people into work, due to a lack of suitable work and barriers in the areas of education, skills, employability, childcare and health.’

“The researchers found that claimants who did not abide by the new conditions faced serious consequences.

“’The impact on benefit recipients who fall foul of new rules – or who are affected by a mistake on the part of a benefits agency that is not their fault – can be severe,’ they said.”

That’s nasty – not only have benefit changes been forced onto people without any regard for them, but they don’t even work.

However, this – moving back to Mr Whittam Smith – may be the Tories’ downfall. He points out: “Nowadays we are no longer a homogenous mass but an agglomeration of minorities. In my own circle of family and friends, for instance, there are people who are disabled and others with serious illnesses. There are those who are single parents, others who are retired. There are middle-aged people with back-breaking mortgages, others who are and young and ambitious. There are regular Church-goers as well as non-believers. There are people in jobs, and people who cannot find work. There are Londoners who can’t conceive of living anywhere else (I am one of these), and people who resent the capital city and all its works.

“Each of these minorities has its own particular concerns and needs, prejudices and resentments, but yet feels sympathy for any group that is badly treated.

“The Coalition led by its Conservative ministers has often gone about its work in an unfeeling, insensitive manner. And for that shortcoming there could be a price to pay at the next general election.”

Quite so – especially as they came into government under the banner of ‘Compassionate Conservatism’. What a terrible joke.

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IDS should be a candidate for his own Work Programme

zParked

Iain Duncan Smith has failed to get Work Programme providers to “support” harder-to-help claimants into work, according to the House of Commons’ Public Accounts Committee.

It used the example of Employment and Support Allowance to illustrate its criticism, saying almost 90 per cent of claimants on the Work Programme have not moved into jobs.

This is no surprise to anybody. If it’s news to you, where have you been for the last three years?

Work Programme providers hit back against criticism in 2013 by saying they needed more money – a move that Vox Political reported as “an insult to everyone they have mishandled”.

This week, that criticism was justified: “Evidence shows that differential payments have not stopped contractors from focusing on easier-to-help individuals and parking harder-to-help claimants, often those with a range of disabilities including mental health challenges,” said the PAC report.

“Data from Work Programme providers shows that they are, on average, spending less than half what they originally promised on these harder to help groups.”

Here’s the knockout blow: “It is a scandal that some of those in greatest need of support are not getting the help they need to get them back to work and are instead being parked by providers because their case is deemed just too hard.”

Why is it a knockout blow? Because it is using the language of Work and Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan ‘Returned To Unit’ ‘Services No Longer Required’ Smith.

Almost two years ago, on November 22, 2012, that blowhard appeared on the BBC’s Question Time, where he told Owen Jones that his DWP would make sure that nobody stayed parked on benefits.

“I didn’t hear you screaming about two and a half million people who were parked, nobody saw them, for over 10 years, not working, no hope, no aspiration,” he ranted.

And yet, here we are today. “Some of those in greatest need of support are… being parked by providers [chosen by Iain Duncan Smith, no less] because their case is deemed just too hard.”

In February 2013, Vox Political received BBC figures that suggested the Work Programme providers were being paid £1 billion per year by Iain Duncan Smith’s DWP – to park people on benefits where “nobody saw them”.

That day’s article suggested that the government should “adopt a strategy that we all know these companies use in order to boost their profits. Because they get paid on results, they concentrate on people more likely to generate a fee and sideline jobless clients who need more time and investment – a process known as ‘creaming and parking‘.

“It’s time to “park” all the work programme provider companies… The money saved will total billions.”

Alas, VP‘s recommendation fell on deaf ears and we have all paid the price – literally – in the year and nine months since.

Of course, as with all critical reports by Parliamentary committees, the PAC report falls flat where it makes its own recommendations.

“The Department must do more to encourage providers to work with harder-to-help groups by tackling poorly performing prime contractors and sharing information on what works. It should also collect and publish information from each provider on how much they are spending on different payment groups.”

For crying out loud – what’s the point of that? We know that Work Programme providers are never going to do anything other than park people in the ‘harder-to-help’ groups, as long as the taxpayer is funding them for results.

This report says nothing on how ‘poorly performing contractors’ are to be ‘tackled’, therefore that is not going to happen.

And publishing information on how much providers are spending on different payment groups – why? This information will not be made available if it is uncomplimentary to the government. Freedom of Information requests will fall on deaf ears – like those relating to the deaths of ESA claimants.

No, there’s only one way to use this information: As ammunition against Iain Duncan Smith.

He said he was going to help people who had been parked. He didn’t.

He said – to the Work and Pensions committee only yesterday, that the Work Programme was “outperforming” expectations and was “set to do even better”. It isn’t.

Let’s tell everybody we know about this liar. Get him kicked into his own Work Programme and see how he likes it.

Further reading

Other sites have produced excellent articles on this subject; here are some that have come to VP‘s attention:

Order of Truth

Ipswich Unemployed Action

Same Difference

 

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Hospitalised heart attack victim told to attend work scheme – Liverpool Echo

Colin Rogers with wife Carol [Image: Liverpool Echo].

Colin Rogers with wife Carol [Image: Liverpool Echo].

DAYS after suffering a major heart attack and as he lay in a hospital bed wired to monitors facing a bypass operation, a Wirral dad was phoned and told he must continue a government work programme, writes Kirsty McHale in the Liverpool Echo.

Colin Rogers, 58, from Irby, had been admitted to Arrowe Park Hospital and then transferred to Broadgreen, in Liverpool, after suffering chest pains.

His wife, Carol, said she was later told he was moments from death as his heart failed and then specialists said he must undergo a quadruple heart bypass operation after he was taken ill on September 27.

Yet, days later – despite his wife informing the Job Centre of her husband’s condition and asking that this be passed on – as he lay in bed in hospital he received a call about his place on the Government’s Work Programme, delivered by public services company A4e.

Colin, who had worked for Champion Spark Plugs until the factory closed and he was made redundant, was told by a manager from A4e that he was committed to the work programme he had been signed up and would have to continue it.

Colin, who came out of hospital a few days ago, said: “I couldn’t believe that they were ringing me because I had given my wife a list of people who needed to be told and she had contacted the Job Centre and told them A4e needed to be informed what had happened to me. So I was completely shocked and I said to the guy I couldn’t believe he was phoning me, that he was supposed to have been told that I had a heart attack.

“This guy was persisting about wanting to discuss the next plan of action but I said I was ending the conversation and put the phone down.”

Colin said within minutes of this a nurse, who had noticed his heart monitor, came and asked if there was a problem, but Colin said: “I didn’t want to say anything because I was embarrassed I was being phoned up like that.”

He added: “But I was disgusted with what had happened. I want to work, but all I seem to be doing is fighting these people.”

A spokeswoman for DWP said correct procedures had been followed.

To read their incredible excuse, visit the Liverpool Echo website.

This is happening too often to be coincidental. Perhaps a Freedom of Information request, on the procedures staff are asked to follow, is in order.

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