DWP admits almost 15-fold increase in complaints about its bogus benefit assessments
Complaints against the company that assesses benefit entitlements of sick and disabled people for the Tory government have multiplied a massive 14.74 times in seven years, according to official figures.
Disabilities minister Justin Tomlinson admitted the increase in answer to a written Parliamentary question last week.
He said Independent Assessment Services, the new name under which assessment firm Atos currently works, recorded 6,140 complaints in 2019.
That in itself was an increase of 4.5 per cent on 2018. But the cumulative figure was a shocking 1,474 per cent.
Neither the company nor the government can hide behind the fact that the number of assessments has increased because the number of complaints as a proportion of those assessments has also risen – from 0.8 per cent in 2018 to 0.91 per cent last year.
That may not seem much.
But the fact is that there is much to complain about.
New claimants in 2019 were 21 per cent less likely to be awarded Personal Independence Payments (PIP) than in 2018. There is no recorded reason for this.
But we do know that, while only around 10 per cent of claimants who are refused that benefit appeal, 73 per cent of appeals are successful – and more than half a million people won appeals between 2013 and 2018.
With more people succeeding at appeal, and more people complaining about the assessment process, there can be only one conclusion:
These assessments are bogus.
Source: DWP complaints now up over 1,400% since 2013 | The Canary
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The ‘Health Assesment Brigade’ flatly refuse to take any notice of DLA decisions. These earlier decisions were made by both brain scans and real doctors.
I know what you mean, I had assesment for esa, I got put on job seeker’s. Then I had pip assesment, my appointment got changed the morning I was to go in. It was ment to be 11am, but they changed it to 9.30 so no one could go with me. They made me wait an hour before they called me in. I toke new info with me, he dismisst it, but he had the nerve to ask me how long iv been obese, I’m only a size 16. Anyway I was told I’m not in titled to pip. And I have dementia. And the bloke wasn’t even a doctor or anything.
I’ve had one bad assessment (won on appeal), one “rubber stamped” and a fair one.
My conditions and multiple medications have been consistent but the assessments have not.
It demonstrates a flawed and biased system.
Related to that scandal is this one:-
Fat more at link with embedded links:-
https://www.benefitsandwork.co.uk/news/4152-claimants-wait-over-a-year-for-ice-to-even-begin-investigations-into-dwp
Claimants who complain to the Independent Complaints Examiner (ICE) about the DWP are having to wait on average over a year before their case is even looked at, it was revealed last week.
I’ll do a piece about this. It’ll get more attention than a comment (sadly; I love the VP comment columns).