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If PIP assessments are now being audio recorded, can claimants have copies?

Days after This Site noted that the Department for Work and Pensions is running trials of video assessments for Personal Independence Payment – and other benefit – claims, we find that the Tories are already recording telephone assessment interviews.

This is very interesting because the recording of assessments has been a roasting-hot potato ever since it was first suggested.

The most recent statement of the situation was that, in order to have an assessment recorded, a claimant needed to bring a piece of tape-recording equipment worth around £1,400 to the interview, capable of recording on two tapes at the same time, with one to be held by the interviewer and one by the interviewee.

The DWP – and by extension, assessors at Atos and Capita – has a small number of these devices, but their scarcity meant it was hard to be sure of securing one for an interview.

This led to some charitable people buying the equipment in order to lend it to benefit claimants who needed it. I’m sure it also led to less charitable people renting the same equipment out for money.

With the announcement that Atos is recording telephone assessments, though, hasn’t that situation changed?

If the assessment company is making recordings unilaterally, does it still have to use the same equipment as in previous stipulations?

Will it have to provide claimants with copies?

If it doesn’t have to use the prescribed equipment, why not? And does this mean claimants don’t have to use it either and can make their own recordings? If not, why not? There must be a level playing-field for these matters.

Here’s Benefits and Work on this:

IAS (Atos) have begun recording telephone assessments for personal independence payment (PIP) Therese Coffey, secretary of state for work and pensions, told the Work and Pensions Committee on Wednesday 30 September.

Coffey told the committee that IAS had begun recording the assessments on 21 September.*

“But that has not yet started with Capita. That is under, I can assure you, active management to get Capita going quickly on this

claimants must ask to have their assessment recorded, it will not be done automatically.

You are likely to need to arrange this in advance. The earlier you request a recording the better, as a new appointment may need to be arranged.

I note that the website’s authors say the DWP will not give permission for claimants to make their own recordings – and say they should do it themselves, clandestinely, if they feel they need to:

You may still consider it sensible to record the assessment yourself just in case the DWPs recording goes astray. Though you will need to do this covertly as the DWP will not give permission.

We would still strongly recommend that claimants consider making a covert recording of their assessment, just in case the DWP’s copy goes astray when you challenge a decision.

The suggestion that copies of assessors’ audio recordings can go “astray” indicates that the DWP and its privately-contracted assessors are as untrustworthy as ever (75 per cent of benefit refusals are now being overturned at appeal).

This is worth chasing up. I’ll ask the DWP what’s going on and let you know the answer.

Source: PIP assessments now being audio recorded

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Another lying minister: Sarah Newton fails to back measures to protect claimants from dishonest assessors

Paul Gray [Image: Disability News Service].

If a government minister says she has accepted all recommendations in an independent review, then it turns out that two of them have been even partially rejected, then she has lied.

Perhaps Sarah Newton should be dragged back to Parliament to explain why she has said one thing and done another?

One wonders whether she’ll try to get away with saying it was a mistake.

The minister for disabled people has refused to approve two key recommendations made by the independent reviewer of its new disability benefit, which would have made it easier for claimants to protect themselves against dishonest assessment reports.

Among the recommendations made for improvements to personal independence payment (PIP), Paul Gray said earlier this year that all assessments should be recorded, although claimants should be able to opt out if they wanted to.

He also said that all PIP claimants should be given a copy of their assessment report when receiving the letter from DWP telling them if their claim has been successful.

But despite telling parliament that she had accepted all Gray’s recommendations, Sarah Newton, the minister for disabled people, has failed to accept either of these suggestions.

In DWP’s response to Gray’s second review of PIP, Newton’s department claims it has “partially” accepted the two recommendations.

But it says that “given the scale of the challenge” of providing copies of assessment reports to every claimant and “the high cost to the taxpayer… this is not an option we will be pursuing.”

On automatic audio recording of assessments, having already completed one pilot of audio recording of 400 assessments, DWP now says it is “looking at a further feasibility study”.

Providing copies of assessment reports to all claimants and audio-recording assessments would both be likely to make it harder for assessors working for the discredited outsourcing companies Atos and Capita to produce dishonest accounts of assessments.

Source: Minister fails to back measures to protect claimants from dishonest assessors


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Cameron copies EU president in bid to ‘fix’ the fox hunting vote

Don't cry about it, David! Cameron whinges after being outflanked by the SNP.

David Don’t cry about it, David! Cameron whinges after being outflanked by the SNP.

The Conservative Government has responded to the Scottish National Party’s announcement that it will oppose changes to the Hunting Act – by postponing tomorrow’s (Wednesday) ‘free vote’ on the matter.

It seems if MPs are likely to freely vote against David Cameron’s wishes, he’d rather they didn’t vote at all. Someone should tell him, that defeats the point, really!

His tactic – shelving the vote until such time as he believes he has the advantage – copies that of European Parliament President Martin Schulz over the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership.

Faced with strong opposition for the part of the proposed TTIP deal that would allow corporations to take legal action against countries if national legislation was likely to affect profits (ISDS – it stands for Investor-State Dispute Settlement) – no matter whether it was in the best interests of the population or not – Schulz shelved a vote that had been scheduled for earlier this year.

The TTIP vote eventually took place last week, overshadowed by the Greek referendum and clouded by political sleight-of-hand that meant important amendments to the agreement like the cancellation of ISDS were not considered – replaced by watered-down options that left the underlying principle of corporate power over nation states intact.

In line with the European Parliament model, you can expect the hunting vote to return to Parliament in a different form, once Cameron and his cronies have worked out another dirty trick to slip it through unopposed.

This week’s vote had been intended to neutralise opposition from the SNP with a claim that it would bring England and Wales in line with the situation in Scotland – but the Scottish Nationalists said they were reviewing the ban north of the border and it would not be right to allow the law in England and Wales to change while that was going on.

The Prime Minister has not taken this with good grace.

“I find their position today entirely opportunistic,” he told a press conference.

Fellow Tory hunt supporter Owen Paterson chimed in to say the SNP had shown “extraordinary hypocrisy” in voting on a matter that affects England but not Scotland, and claimed they were “playing games in order to antagonise the English.”

He should have checked his facts.

If he had, he would have seen that a poll for the BBC’s Victoria Derbyshire show has suggested almost three in four British adults are against making fox hunting legal.

And SNP leader Nicola Sturgeon had already explained her party’s decision to take part in the hunting vote, saying there had been “overwhelming demand” from people in England.

The English, like the Welsh and the Scots, support the continuation of the hunting ban.

What a shame David Cameron cannot live with that.

Looking forward, we should probably expect fox hunting to return at a point after Cameron manages to force through another controversial plan – English Votes for English Laws (EVEL). He had to shelve that one last week.

Perhaps Ms Sturgeon is right, and he really is “not master of all he surveys in the House of Commons”.

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SNP policy on tax havens: Turn Scotland into one

150207corporationtax

The SNP would turn Scotland into a tax haven with a policy similar to that of the Conservative Party, according to the best evidence available on the day after Labour announced it would crack down on tax avoidance.

The Courier stated in August last year: “SNP proposals to cut corporation tax could turn an independent Scotland into a tax haven for multinational companies such as Google and Microsoft, according to Labour’s finance spokesman.

“[Iain] Gray told [an] audience of small business owners: “If you deliberately set your corporation tax, not at what you think is right, but less than the country next door to you, what you’re doing is you’re trying to create yourself as a tax haven.”

But Scottish Finance Minister John Swinney said the proposed cut in corporation tax would make Scotland a more competitive place to do business and create an incentive for growth, according to the article.

Of course, cutting Corporation Tax in order to get businesses to base themselves in your country is now a well-known phenomenon. The Irish republic did it – and what happened? According to Mr Gray: “Google and Microsoft set up in Ireland, move their money through Ireland but don’t employ people there; they simply use it as a conduit in order to pay less tax.”

George Osborne has tried a similar policy UK-wide, cutting Corporation tax by 25 per cent during the course of the Coalition Parliament. The result has been a drop in Treasury tax receipts.

So what can be said about SNP policy, on the day after Labour announced it would crack down on tax havens?

Only that they would copy the Tories – and try to turn Scotland into one.

(Or are we about to hear an announcement?)

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Why are we giving UKIP’s Hitler speech plan the bum’s rush?

Charismatic? It seems unlikely that UKIP's Bill Etheridge could successfully emulate Hitler's speech delivery, let alone any of his students [Image: Mirror Online].

Charismatic? It seems unlikely that UKIP’s Bill Etheridge could successfully emulate Hitler’s speech delivery, let alone any of his students [Image: Mirror Online].

It is with great disappointment that this blog acknowledges reports of a UKIP member who – we are told – advised prospective party candidates to learn from the speaking style of Adolf Hitler.

Let there be no mistake, though – my disappointment originates not in the fact that Bill Etheridge MEP allegedly made the remarks in the first place, but in the universal disparagement of this as a Bad Thing.

According to the Mail on Sunday (so take this with a pinch of salt), Mr Etheridge told UKIP Youth Conference members in Birmingham: “Look back to the most magnetic and forceful public speaker possibly in history.

“When Hitler gave speeches, and many of the famous ones were at rallies, at the start he walks, back and forth, looked at people – there was a silence, he waited minutes just looking out at people, fixing them with his gaze.”

It is true that I enjoy criticising UKIP and its members’ crazy ideas very much and take as many opportunities as possible to do so.

I also enjoy a good laugh.

The prospect of Kippers strutting about like demented chickens, giving the evil eye to all and sundry, has been welcomed with hilarity at VP Towers – as has the possibility that this behaviour may scare off potential voters before the candidates have uttered a single word.

It seems Mr Etheridge has failed to grasp the fact that this speech style worked for Hitler because – like it or not – he was immensely charismatic and could make it work for him, and his speeches were tailored to reinforce the effect. With the best will in the world, it is hard to imagine Brummie Kippers achieving the same feats of mesmerism.

Notice also that Mr Etheridge did not mention the other notable characteristic of Hitler’s speeches – flatulence.

As above, so below; when Hitler started to speak, slowly and quietly, he would begin delivering short gassy messages from the rear, in similar tempo and at similar volume. As his speech became louder and faster, so did his sphincter.

How surprising that Mr Etheridge omitted to mention this!

Did he not realise it would bring the house down if one of his students, finishing a speech, accompanied his final line of something like “We need breathing-room!” with a 21-bum salute?

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