Tag Archives: work-related activity group

Untrustworthy: DWP backtracks over savings created by cut to long-term sickness benefit

Justin Tomlinson: There’s no reason to believe a word he says if the DWP can withdraw it and say something different once it is found to be embarrassing.

Why is the DWP trying to hide the figures on the cut it inflicted on Employment and Support Allowance claimants, years ago?

The government department has backtracked over an answer to a written Parliamentary question by the minister for disabled people, Justin Tomlinson.

SNP MP Marion Fallon asked: “What savings have accrued to the public purse under the £30 reduction for claimants of… [ESA WRAG] in each month since that reduction was implemented?”

She was referring to the highly-controversal cut, announced in 2015 and implemented from April 2017, that took £29.05 per week from ESA payments to people in the Work-Related Activity Group.

This aligned it with the amount paid to people on Jobseekers’ Allowance. The announced intention was to remove a financial incentive “that could otherwise discourage claimants from taking steps back to work”.

Apparently no account was taking of the physical (and mental) discouragements inherent in the long-term illnesses and conditions that cause people to claim a sickness benefit in the first place.

The stated intention was to save £640 million by 2020-21. But in 2015 it was also forecast that the cut would save £1.365 billion over four years. The cut was predicted to affect half a million people once it was rolled out fully.

But in his – initial – response, Mr Tomlinson said: “There are no savings from the removal of the… [WRAG rate] for new claims from April 2017.

“This change enabled the Department to recycle money into providing practical support… We have invested £330m over four years with £100m available in 2020/21 and will support those with limited capability for work to move towards and into suitable employment.”

The DWP has now amended Mr Tomlinson’s response – apparently due to embarrassment after his figures were questioned.

The official response now states:

“The information requested on the savings accrued from the removal of the Work Related Activity Component (WRAC) is not available. It would incur disproportionate cost to calculate any actual net savings from the removal of the WRAC.

“When the WRAC was removed we made a clear commitment to instead provide practical support that will make a significant difference to the life chances of those in the Work-Related Activity Group. We have been investing an additional £330m over four years to support those with limited capability for work to move towards and into suitable employment.”

It seems to This Writer that, if the latest statement is accurate, then the £330 million investment need not be subtracted from any savings that were predicted back in 2015; it was part of the calculation.

So we are left with the question of the savings. Why was it entirely possible for the Tories to make grand predictions about the amount of money they would stop paying to sick people back in 2015, and why is it now impossible for them to tell us how much they actually didn’t pay?

And in the meantime, the proportion of people who have died while claiming ESA in the Work-Related Activity Group has been rising steadily.

How many of those are due to Tory cuts making it impossible for them to make ends meet?

Source: The DWP either just lied or is clueless about a cut to disability benefits | The Canary

Have YOU donated to my crowdfunding appeal, raising funds to fight false libel claims by TV celebrities who should know better? These court cases cost a lot of money so every penny will help ensure that wealth doesn’t beat justice.

https://www.crowdjustice.com/case/mike-sivier-libel-fight/


Vox Political needs your help!
If you want to support this site
(
but don’t want to give your money to advertisers)
you can make a one-off donation here:

Donate Button with Credit Cards

Here are four ways to be sure you’re among the first to know what’s going on.

1) Register with us by clicking on ‘Subscribe’ (in the left margin). You can then receive notifications of every new article that is posted here.

2) Follow VP on Twitter @VoxPolitical

3) Like the Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/VoxPolitical/

Join the Vox Political Facebook page.

4) You could even make Vox Political your homepage at http://voxpoliticalonline.com

And do share with your family and friends – so they don’t miss out!

If you have appreciated this article, don’t forget to share it using the buttons at the bottom of this page. Politics is about everybody – so let’s try to get everybody involved!

Buy Vox Political books so we can continue
fighting for the facts.


The Livingstone Presumption is now available
in either print or eBook format here:

HWG PrintHWG eBook

Health Warning: Government! is now available
in either print or eBook format here:

HWG PrintHWG eBook

The first collection, Strong Words and Hard Times,
is still available in either print or eBook format here:

SWAHTprint SWAHTeBook

“Isn’t the DWP’s lawyer a cheeky madam?”

[Picture: Skwawkbox blog]

[Picture: Skwawkbox blog]

The headline is a paraphrase of what This Writer’s legally-minded friend actually said, but once you’ve read this article you’ll understand why.

Readers of This Blog will be aware that the DWP released some data about the number of people who died while claiming incapacity benefits, in response to my Freedom of Information request of May 28, 2014 – nearly 15 months after I asked for it.

You should also be aware that the information in the DWP’s release of August 27 was incomplete. However, the DWP withdrew its appeal against my FoI request and tried to claim that it had fulfilled its obligations.

Does anybody think This Writer was going to accept that?

For clarity, here’s what I received from the Information Commissioner at the end of April/beginning of May:

“The Commissioner’s decision is that the Department for Work and Pensions has incorrectly applied section 22 to withhold requested information.

“The Commissioner requires the public authority to take the following steps to ensure compliance with the legislation.

  • To disclose the number of Incapacity Benefit and Employment and Support Allowance claimants who have died since November 2011 until May 2014, broken down into the following categories:

– Those that are in the assessment phase
– Those that were found fit for work
– Those that were placed in the work-related activity group
– Those that were placed in the support group
– Those who have had an appeal completed against a Fit for Work (FFW) decision”

I sent an email to the First-tier Tribunal (information rights) asking it to issue directions to the DWP for the full information to be provided immediately, under its case management powers. I wrote:

“The Information Commissioner’s decision was for the Department for Work and Pensions ‘to disclose the number of Incapacity Benefit and Employment and Support Allowance claimants who have died since November 2011 until May 2014’, meaning the date of my request, May 28. The DWP has provided information only up to February 28, 2014. Withdrawal of the appeal indicates that the information I requested – up to May 28, 2014, should be forthcoming, but I note that the updated decision sent by the DWP along with the withdrawal of the appeal states: ‘You will note that those statistics have now been published in a way which provides all of the information you requested.’

I consider that to be either a mistake or a joke that is in extremely poor taste.
“Furthermore, the decision notice orders the DWP to disclose the number of people who died, broken down into categories including:
  • ‘Those that were found fit for work”
    and
  • ‘Those who have had an appeal completed against a Fit for Work (FFW) decision.’

“In its response, the DWP provides only information on those found fit for work, or with an appeal completed against a fit for work decision, who died within an extremely limited period of time after the decision was made and their claim was ended. That is not what I requested, nor is it what the Information Commissioner’s ruling demands. In withdrawing its appeal, the DWP has agreed to provide the number of people who died between December 1, 2011 and May 28, 2014 – including all those who died between those dates after a ‘fit for work’ decision, not just those yielded up by the ‘regular scans’ mentioned in the footnotes to the statistical release provided on August 27.

I await those figures. I will not accept any excuses about the cost of producing them. By withdrawing its appeal, the DWP has undertaken to provide them, as demanded in the Information Commissioner’s ruling of April 30. I note that, in its own words, the DWP has also tried to claim that it has provided ‘all the information… requested’.  Therefore I have reason to believe the DWP will not honour this demand unless it is compelled to do so.

“I note also that the vagueness of the DWP’s statistical release, dated August 27, 2015, has created considerable confusion. Is the number of individuals who died after completing an appeal (tables 2.5 and 2.6 in the release) to be considered as being in addition to those who died after a fit for work decision (tables 2.3 and 2.4)? Are the former statistics merely subsets of the latter? How many of the appeals were granted and how many were refused? Considering this is the part of my original request that the DWP itself asked me to change, it seems odd that the answers provided have been made as difficult to understand as possible. The Department for Work and Pensions is a government organisation and therefore staffed by public servants whose job it is to make matters as easy for the general public as possible. Clearly whoever wrote this statistical release has forgotten their duty to the public and needs to be reminded of it – and the figures must be amended to make them as clear as possible.

“Reference to the DWP’s other statistical release of August 27 casts doubt on the veracity of the information in table 2.1, which claims to provide the total number of individuals who died while claiming IB/SDA and ESA. However, the figures in the statistical release entitled Mortality statistics: Out-of-Work Working Age benefit claimants do not make sense. Death figures per year for 2009-2013 are provided for the total incapacity benefits population (IB/SDA and ESA) and also separately but if the separate totals are added together, the sum is greater – every year – than the number claimed for the incapacity benefits population as a whole – by 80 in 2009, 50 in 2010, 640 in 2011, 1,880 in 2012 and 1,330 in 2013. Whilst I accept that combining the separate benefit populations will produce a number greater than that of the total incapacity benefit population, because claimants were being migrated across from IB/SDA to ESA, almost as soon as ESA was set up, I do not accept that any benefit claimant can die twice. They can only die once, and they would have been claiming only one benefit when they did so. Therefore the total number of deaths claimed in Mortality Statistics: ESA, IB, and SDA is questionable.

“Table 2.2 in Mortality Statistics: ESA, IB, and SDA sets out the ‘total number of ESA off-flows with date of death at the same time’. This table includes a group marked ‘Unknown’. Reference to the footnotes shows that “Where the claimant is not in receipt of anybenefit payment, such as ESA (Credits only), then the phase is shown as unknown. This is unsatisfactory. If a group is mentioned, then the population of that group should be explained completely.  Comments that it includes people on National Insurance credits only do not explain why they are only receiving those credits. This is particularly important because reference to Mortality statistics: Out-of-Work Working Age benefit claimants shows that, between 2012 and 2013, the population of this group decreased from 207,390 to 172,670 – a fall of 17 per cent – while the number of deaths increased from 1,550 to 1,810 – a rise of 13 per cent. As these people were not in the support group of ESA, their mortality rate should be the same as that of the general population, indicating only 394 deaths in 2012 and 328 in 2013. The fact that the actual mortality rate was nearly six times as high creates serious cause for concern about the incapacity benefits system – although, again, as the figures provided by the DWP appear to be questionable, it may be that none of these figures are reliable at all.

“It seems clear that the Department for Work and Pensions has produced two statistical releases that do not stand up to scrutiny, in an attempt to ‘fob off’ information requesters like myself with claims that the Department has provided ‘all the information… requested’. This is utterly unsatisfactory and this government department must be called to account.”

The Tribunal’s Registrar wrote back as follows:

“By withdrawing the appeal, DWP made themselves subject to the requirement of the Information Commissioner’s decision notice that they were to provide you with all the information that you asked for.  The Tribunal no longer has the ability to use rule 5 as the appeal has ended.  The Tribunal does have power is to reinstate the appeal if a party asks the Tribunal to do so.  You have not specifically asked for that and, in any event, I doubt you would want that to happen because with the way things currently stand you should receive all the information you sought.

“Enforcement of the Information Commissioner’s decision notices is dealt with by the Information Commissioner’s Office.  If you are concerned that you have not yet received all the information, you should contact the Information Commissioner’s Office to ask them to enforce their original decision notice.”

It seems clear that this is intended to be taken as confirmation that the DWP has a duty to provide all the information that was requested – and it is now up to the Information Commissioner to hold the DWP to account. If the information is not forthcoming within a very limited period of time, the Department will be in contempt of court.

That did not stop the DWP’s lawyer – who I will not embarrass by naming here – from writing to the Information Commissioner’s Office as follows:

The DWP holds no information within the scope of the ICO’s order which has not been disclosed.  They hold no data for the period February to May 2014 (though we will in future), but there is no finding in the ICO’s decision which says we did hold data for those particular months.  The DWP have disclosed everything the ICO has directed.  The Appellant seems to have misinterpreted what DWP have disclosed, and our clients’ will be writing to him in an attempt to clarify any misunderstandings.

Does anybody believe that? Now you can see why our legally-minded friend called the DWP lawyer a “cheeky madam”.

The most recent information in the request is from more than 15 months ago, at the time of writing. Let’s look back to the DWP’s ‘ad hoc’ statistical release of July 2012. Didn’t it include figures from the previous November, no more than eight months previously? It therefore seems likely that the DWP lawyer is being economical with the truth. The claim that there is no finding in the ICO decision which says the DWP held data for those months is irrelevant, and the claim that the DWP had disclosed everything the ICO had directed is a lie. You only have to look back at the direction itself (you don’t have to go far – it is quoted at the top of this article) to see that.

I have written a response – seen by all three other parties, as follows: “The decision is perfectly clear. The DWP has withdrawn its appeal against it. Now the DWP must comply fully, or find itself in contempt of court.”

Now we have to wait for the Information Commissioner’s response. Note that I have pointed out that clarification of the DWP’s very poorly-phrased statistical releases is required; hopefully the commissioner will reinforce that with a direction for the Department to comply.

You will, of course, be updated on further developments.

Join the Vox Political Facebook page.

If you have appreciated this article, don’t forget to share it using the buttons at the bottom of this page. Politics is about everybody – so let’s try to get everybody involved!

Vox Political needs your help!
If you want to support this site
(
but don’t want to give your money to advertisers)
you can make a one-off donation here:

Donate Button with Credit Cards

Buy Vox Political books so we can continue
fighting for the facts.

Health Warning: Government! is now available
in either print or eBook format here:

HWG PrintHWG eBook

The first collection, Strong Words and Hard Times,
is still available in either print or eBook format here:

SWAHTprint SWAHTeBook

Sanctions: do they affect ESA claimants terminally?

ESA sanctions ranked by disability: Notice that mental illness attracts by far the largest number of sanctions. Aren't these the people who are most likely to commit suicide in such circumstances?

ESA sanctions ranked by disability: Notice that mental illness attracts by far the largest number of sanctions. Aren’t these the people who are most likely to commit suicide in such circumstances? [Image: ITV]

The Department for Work and Pensions, last November, released alarming details showing how sanctions against people in the Work-Related Activity Group of Employment and Support Allowance have increased over the past few years. Would you like to see what they showed when compared with the death rates that were published last month?

Of course you would.

In 2011, the number of sanctions was 4,471. We don’t have a death rate for the whole year but can say that between January and November that year, there were 4,003 sanctions and 1,300 deaths.

In 2012, the number of sanctions increased by a massive 184 per cent, to 12,708. The number of deaths more than doubled, to 2,990 (up 130 per cent). There were 545,980 people in the WRAG, meaning an average of one sanction for every 43 people.

In 2013, the number of sanctions increased again, nearly doubling to 22,963 (up 79 per cent on 2012 and a staggering 410 per cent more than in 2011). The number of deaths increased by 24 per cent, to 3,720. The WRAG population had increased to 596,010 (up by nine per cent).

We can see that the proportion of deaths has outstripped the growth of the WRAG, while the number of sanctions has skyrocketed; in the first six months of 2014 the number of sanctions had already passed the total for 2013 and stood at 25,011 by the end of June.

The DWP will say this means nothing.

The Blog says it means serious questions may now be asked about the validity of sanctions and their effect on the health of claimants. Certainly there are mitigating factors, such as the rise in the ESA population due to migration from IB/SDA (but does this actually make the figures any less shocking?) and the fact that the results of mandatory reconsiderations were not included in the sanction figures, meaning they are slightly (but only slightly) higher than the number of sanctions that were actually imposed. Remember, this information has become available shortly after the DWP was revealed to have fabricated testimonies claiming that sanctions actually helped jobseekers back into work – not the same group of people, for sure, but setting a dangerous precedent.

Now we need to know how many people died after a sanction had been imposed, the nature of their illness, and the number of sanctions that had been imposed on them when they died. For clarity, it seems sensible to have that information presented month-by-month, in the same way the DWP’s November 2014 release on sanctions presents its information.

Does anybody have any suggestions that would improve a request for this information?

Join the Vox Political Facebook page.

If you have appreciated this article, don’t forget to share it using the buttons at the bottom of this page. Politics is about everybody – so let’s try to get everybody involved!

Vox Political needs your help!
If you want to support this site
(
but don’t want to give your money to advertisers)
you can make a one-off donation here:

Donate Button with Credit Cards

Buy Vox Political books so we can continue
fighting for the facts.

Health Warning: Government! is now available
in either print or eBook format here:

HWG PrintHWG eBook

The first collection, Strong Words and Hard Times,
is still available in either print or eBook format here:

SWAHTprint SWAHTeBook

On Employment and Support Allowance, Ms Patel isn’t sitting pretty

Ignorant: Priti Patel will need to work a lot harder if she thinks she's going to convince anybody about the Conservative Government's appalling record of deaths among people on incapacity benefits.

Ignorant: Priti Patel will need to work a lot harder if she thinks she’s going to convince anybody about the Conservative Government’s appalling record of deaths among people on incapacity benefits.

The new Parliamentary session is going to be very hard on Iain Duncan Smith and his team (if you can call it that) at the Department for Work and Pensions. His skiving employment minister Priti Patel discovered this on her very first day back.

Ms Patel, who had the hypocrisy to criticise the UK’s workforce as lazy at a time when her own Parliamentary attendance record was among the lowest in the House of Commons, faced an inevitable series of questions on the government’s botched release of figures relating to the deaths of people claiming incapacity benefits, including Employment and Support Allowance – and of course messed up her answers ridiculously.

“It is wrong to state that people have died while claiming an out-of-work benefit,” she stated. Oh, really?

Didn’t the DWP do just that in its statistical releases of August 27? Among the incapacity benefits population alone, the number of deaths recorded – by the DWP – between 2003 and 2013 was 444,620… or 448,300, depending on whether you’ve accepted the DWP’s accumulated death figure or checked them by adding together the separate totals for IB/SDA and ESA. As you can tell, they don’t add up – casting doubt on the reliability of any of the figures the DWP has released.

“It is impossible and completely wrong to draw any causality from the statistics,” continued Ms Patel, tragically. “Any attempt to extrapolate anything beyond those figures is wrong.” My word, she was keen to make sure we knew what the Conservative Party thinks is wrong, wasn’t she!

What a shame for Ms Patel that she was in the wrong. While the figures themselves do not – necessarily – damn the DWP’s activities since the Tories took over, they do provide enough information to support some serious questions about Conservative Government policy and its effects on people with long-term illnesses.

If all is well in the assessment of Employment and Support Allowance claimants, then why did the DWP deliberately mislead This Writer, by falsely claiming it could not answer my Freedom of Information request on the incapacity benefit deaths because those facts were to be published in the future? In fact, the DWP was planning to publish a set of ‘Age-Standardised Mortality Rates’ – about which we’ll learn more in a moment. By using this tactic, the DWP successfully evaded answering my question for more than two years. Is this acceptable behaviour for a government department?

According to Ms Patel, when the ASMRs were finally published, they were “in line with Office for National Statistics requirements and to national statistics standard”. That’s all very well, but the ONS provides information on how to create ASMRs that means the figures published on August 27 are, at most, a single day’s work for one person at the DWP. I submitted an FoI request on May 28, 2014, meaning they were published almost one year and three months later, with no reason provided for the delay. Is this acceptable behaviour for a government department?

Ms Patel said: “Specifically with regard to the statistics, the trend is that the number of people dying, as a proportion of the population, is going down.” What clever phrasing (she no doubt thought)! That is, indeed, what the ASMR statistics show. But the population of the UK is increasing rapidly, and this affects per-head-of-population figures like ASMRs – perhaps Ms Patel should have liaised with the Home Secretary and the Prime Minister before passing her comment.

The numbers paint a different story. For the sake of transparency, This Writer has been using the Work-Related Activity Group of ESA and the number of people who have died after being declared fit for work in order to demonstrate this. Between 2012 and 2013, the number of people in the WRAG increased by nine per cent. The number of deaths increased by 24 per cent – from 2,990 people to 3,720. Increased. This does not indicate a downward trend. This is in a group where the Conservative Government expects – no, demands – that people will be ready to return to work within a year. This means members of the group should have no worse life expectancy than anyone in the general population, but if you apply the death rate among the general population to the WRAG, then the number of deaths in 2012 should have been 1,037, and in 2013 the total should have been 1,132 – in both cases, that’s around one-third of the actual figure. Priti Patel wants us to think that is no reason to question whether the work capability assessment – the procedure used to decide if a person should receive ESA and whether they deserve to go into the support group for people with severe illnesses or the WRAG – is fit for purpose. What do you think?

Let’s look at the number of people who have died after being assessed as fit for work. The media – and the Conservative Government – have been using this figure of 2,380 deaths from December 2011 to February 2014 (inclusive). But those are only people who died within two weeks of having their claim stopped (on the grounds that they were fit for work)! What about people like Mark Wood, who died of starvation, several months after the DWP decided he was fit for work? What about people who were moved onto Jobseeker’s Allowance because they were told they were fit for work? Did they all find jobs and live happily ever after? This seems unlikely. How many of them were sanctioned because they could not fulfil the requirements of their Jobseekers’ Agreement’? How often? How many of them died? How many people were pushed off benefits altogether, and what happened to them? We may accept the claim that it is wrong to extrapolate anything from the figures, but isn’t that because the figures have been deliberately phrased in order to make it so?

If you disagree, take a look at This Writer’s Freedom of Information request. The part requiring the DWP to state the number of people who died after being found fit for work calls for information covering the period between December 2011 and May 2014 (inclusive), covering everybody who had been claiming ESA but died within that period. The DWP has complied with neither of those parts of the request, despite having withdrawn its appeal against answering the FoI request, and is in danger of being in contempt of court. Do you think that is acceptable behaviour for a government department?

In a later exchange, Louise Haigh MP said: “Contrary to the Minister’s earlier remarks, figures finally released by the Department over the summer showed that 2,380 people died after being declared fit for work—more than four times the death rate of the general population. In a harrowing case, a constituent of mine reported to me that she frequently considered committing suicide, both before and after being found fit for work. Does the Minister not feel that it is therefore high time to review the work capability assessment and that thousands of people are being wrongly defined as fit for work?”

In response, Ms Patel said: “Organisations have commented on this and Full Fact, which is widely known, has said that similar comments to those made by the hon. Lady, which have been widely reported, are simply wrong.”

So Ms Haigh was wrong to say that her constituent had considered suicide due to the DWP’s treatment of her? Ms Patel had no right to make such a claim; she did not have any experience of the case.

As for Full Fact, the fact that the Conservative Government was using that website’s worthless article about the death statistics to justify its behaviour speaks volumes about the relationship between the two. We may not be able to draw conclusions about causality from the DWP’s death figures, but we may certainly draw conclusions about the DWP and Full Fact, it seems. This Writer’s advice is that any further comment on this subject from that website may be dismissed.

We should not have to wait too long for that fate to claim Ms Patel, also…

Join the Vox Political Facebook page.

If you have appreciated this article, don’t forget to share it using the buttons at the bottom of this page. Politics is about everybody – so let’s try to get everybody involved!

Vox Political needs your help!
If you want to support this site
(
but don’t want to give your money to advertisers)
you can make a one-off donation here:

Donate Button with Credit Cards

Buy Vox Political books so we can continue
fighting for the facts.

Health Warning: Government! is now available
in either print or eBook format here:

HWG PrintHWG eBook

The first collection, Strong Words and Hard Times,
is still available in either print or eBook format here:

SWAHTprint SWAHTeBook

Leaked document shows Tories think incapacity claimants aren’t ill

141010CoalitionWelfare

The only conclusion to be drawn from the “leaked internal documents” being quoted by the BBC today is that – if they think it is reasonable to cut the work-related activity group element of Employment and Support Allowance, the UK’s main incapacity benefit, down almost to parity with Jobseekers’ Allowance – Tories don’t think these people are really ill.

It seems likely the plans have been drawn up by people who have never needed to cope with fibromyalgia or myalgic encephalomyelitis, who have never suffered a workplace injury or who don’t understand the debilitating nature of the depression that often follows interviews with government employees who are determined to strip claimants of their benefits, no matter how disabled they are.

According to the BBC report, the Department for Work and Pensions has claimed the proposals in the documents are “not government policy“.

The papers show that the proposal to cut ESA(WRAG) by £30, making it almost the same as JSA at around £72-3 per week, is not prompted by any interest in reform, but is simply an attempt to save money.

It seems the government has been forced to hire many extra staff members to clear a backlog of ESA claims which has made it attractive for people who have previously been found ineligible for ESA to reapply, and for JSA claimants to try to move across. The proposed benefit cut seems to be aimed at discouraging such activities.

It is far more likely to encourage protest – possibly with violence, from the very last people who may be expected to respond in such a manner. Yr Obdt Srvt was discussing this matter with a friend who is on ESA, and he expressed a wish to visit Downing Street and make a flamboyant gesture – something as powerful as the event that set the Arab Spring alight (although not as final – the aim is to keep people in the best health possible, after all).

The proposal has attracted criticism from Dame Anne Begg, who chairs the Commons Work and Pensions committee. She said: “That’s not reform, that is just saving money. I hope that is not something the government is going to come forward with.”

And fellow Work and Pensions committee member Sheila Gilmore said: “When Labour created the Work-related Activity Group in 2008, the rationale was to ensure that sick and disabled people who couldn’t work in the short term but might be able to in the future weren’t simply written off.

“However we were clear that up until their next reassessment – which would occur at least every two years – these people were still unable to work. This is something Tory Ministers now seem keen to ignore.

“By cutting payments to those in the Work-related Activity Group by nearly £30 per week, Ian Duncan Smith is effectively saying that these people are only a hop, skip and a jump away from being a fully fit, able-bodied Jobseekers Allowance claimant.”

In fact – for most of these people – life is like having to climb a mountain, every day, with no pausing to catch their breath or massage tired and aching muscles and bones. It is an endurance test the like of which most MPs have never experienced.

As Billy Connolly once said of the Pope: “If you don’t play the game, don’t make up the rules.”

That is a maxim that applies here – and our ignorant ruling class had better realise that before somebody takes the law into their own hands.

Follow me on Twitter: @MidWalesMike

Join the Vox Political Facebook page.

Vox Political needs your help!
If you want to support this site
(
but don’t want to give your money to advertisers)
you can make a one-off donation here:

Donate Button with Credit Cards

Buy Vox Political books so we can continue
commenting on the latest lunatic political proposals!

Health Warning: Government! is now available
in either print or eBook format here:

HWG PrintHWG eBook

The first collection, Strong Words and Hard Times,
is still available in either print or eBook format here:

SWAHTprint SWAHTeBook

Chancellor fails to understand Welfare Reform Act – Jayne Linney

We’re spoilt for choice with this subject – so many people have commented on it. Here’s Jayne Linney‘s contribution, as hers was the first to reach Vox Towers:

I am totally unsurprised, albeit perturbed,  that the Chancellor of the Exchequer and Second Lord of the Treasury George Osborne, has demonstrated his total lack of understanding of the Welfare Reform Act. In his Conference speech he announced ‘working-age benefits will be frozen for two years after 2015′ with an added proviso that “the elderly and the disabled will be protected”.

He then confirmed Cameron’s statement of yesterday, of a £3,000 reduction in the Benefits Cap; and this is where confusion arises. Despite his promise of protection for disabled people, individuals in receipt of the work-related activity component of ESA will be included in the cap. Clearly Osborne has failed to notice that many disabled people are in receipt of precisely this benefit; and frequently these are the same people awaiting mandatory reconsiderations and/or Tribunals.

For more of her observations on this, please read the rest of the article on Jayne’s site.

You might also wish to try the Same Difference blog, which links to Ekklesia‘s article on this.

Follow me on Twitter: @MidWalesMike

Join the Vox Political Facebook page.

Buy Vox Political books so we can continue
bringing you the best of the blogs!

Health Warning: Government! is now available
in either print or eBook format here:

HWG PrintHWG eBook

The first collection, Strong Words and Hard Times,
is still available in either print or eBook format here:

SWAHTprint SWAHTeBook

Vox Political needs your help!
If you want to support this site
(
but don’t want to give your money to advertisers)
you can make a one-off donation here:

Donate Button with Credit Cards

Cancer sufferer’s benefits are cut – and the chattering classes demonise HIM

The vindictiveness of our Conservative-led government knows no bounds.

Not only has the government cut a man’s state benefits after he was diagnosed with cancer, but its supporters then attacked him in the local newspaper’s comment column – even though they knew nothing about his situation.

The gentleman concerned is Pete Woodcock of Scunthorpe who, according to a report in the Scunthorpe Telegraph, has been unemployed for around eight years.

Rather than sit around, he has spent his time volunteering in the community – for up to 40 hours per week – while also job hunting.

But when his doctors told him he had cancer, DWP officials cut his benefit money by 40 per cent (from £140 per week to £84). This is because attending hospital on both sides of the Humber meant he was unable to attend job clubs and had to claim a sickness benefit instead.

“When a person has cancer the last thing a person needs to worry about is finances but I now have to look after my family, pay bills and finance my trips to hospitals on less than £100 per week,” Mr Woodcock is quoted as saying. “Is this what health and welfare reforms have led to?

“The DWP even told me that if I went back on to jobseekers and gave up my treatment I could go back on to £140 per week to live on – meaning if I decided to die, I could be richer!”

So much for your caring Conservative-led government. Now look at this despicable response from a reader:

“Not much gratitude shown to taxpayers for the hundreds of thousands of pounds worth of free cancer treatment he will receive. I would say that is a pretty substantial benefit myself.”

Disgusting. The whole point of the National Health Service is that everybody pays something towards it, to ensure that it is free at the point of use. One has to question whether this commenter was a government plant, ordered to make this statement as part of the campaign to soften us all up for privatisation.

Here’s another one with his head in the clouds: “I’d look at this man’s situation the other way and suggest that he’s been overpaid (by at least 40 per cent) over the last eight years, whilst he’s been sat at home reaping in the benefits – whilst the rest of us have been going to work. Eight years is a very long time. Why couldn’t he find a job? Not really looking perhaps.”

It happens that a previous commenter had already answered this claim, but clearly these people don’t pay attention to anybody but themselves. The other commenter noted: “He is long-term unemployed (so largely unemployable), he didn’t sit on his behind all day (from what I hear) and smoke pot. The guy has a social conscience and appears to give a toss about where he lives.”

But this person noted that Mr Woodcock’s voluntary work could also harm his benefits: “I have to say he should be careful; the Jobcentre could class that as ‘not actively seeking and being available for work’, mainly due to the amount of time his job-seeking should occupy compared to a full time job.” We’re living in a crazy, upside-down country!

Final word goes to another commenter who pointed out that nothing has changed since the Coalition government first tightened the rules for claiming sickness benefits: “The aim of Govt was to demonise those on benefit by highlighting the worst cases of abuse and unless you are near to terminal there is the idea by the DWP you can do something.”

This is eerily reminiscent of the incident that sparked all the other stories about the victimisation of the sick. Does anybody remember, years ago, when the Coalition government was chastised for putting a patient with terminal cancer into the work-related activity group of Employment and Support Allowance, telling that person he should spend the final six months of his life at work?

Despite the huge backlash and protestations from the government that it has changed the system, it seems there has been no improvement at all.

Meanwhile, perhaps because of the constant right-wing media attacks on the sick as “feckless” “scroungers”, it seems the public have been manipulated into hardening their attitude.

ADDENDUM: You can read another perspective on this, from Scriptonite, here.

Just as the Tories wanted.

Follow me on Twitter: @MidWalesMike

Join the Vox Political Facebook page.

Vox Political needs your help!
This independent blog’s only funding comes from readers’ contributions.
Without YOUR help, we cannot keep going.
You can make a one-off donation here:

Donate Button with Credit Cards

Alternatively, you can buy the first Vox Political book,
Strong Words and Hard Times
in either print or eBook format here:

SWAHTprint SWAHTeBook

ESA/WCA inquiry chair: ‘Victims are NOT being sidelined’

Dame Anne Begg. [Image: BBC]

Dame Anne Begg. [Image: BBC]

Dame Anne Begg has responded to concerns that people who submitted evidence to the Commons Work and Pensions Committee’s inquiry into Employment and Support Allowance and Work Capability Assessments were being sidelined – with a denial.

The committee’s chairperson said the call for evidence generated 190 submissions, and every single submission will be circulated to all committee members.

In addition, the committee clerk in charge of the inquiry, who will be writing the brief for committee members, has carefully read all the submissions as they have come in, she stated in an email yesterday. (March 30)

“However, in line with our practice in the past when we have received a large number of submissions describing personal experiences (such as our inquiries into the roll out of ESA and the Pensions Bill) we have taken the decision that not all of the personal submissions will be treated as ‘formal written evidence’ which is published along with our report,” she continued.

“This is because a number were very personal in nature, or didn’t address the terms of reference, while some asked for anonymity which isn’t possible in formal evidence, or included inappropriate language.

“It was made clear in our call for evidence that the committee would make the decision whether a submission would be treated as formal evidence or not. However, it is still treated as evidence – just not ‘formal written’ evidence.

“Once the formal evidence is published, you will be able to see that there are quite a number from individuals so it is simply untrue to say that all individual submissions are being ignored, suppressed or sidelined.”

Are you happy with that?

Personally, I can’t say that I am entirely convinced, as my own evidence (for example) fits the required criteria and should not be omitted from the formal evidence for the reasons Dame Anne mentioned in her email. Yet this is what has happened.

I responded, saying it is hard to give the benefit of the doubt to any Parliamentary investigation into this issue because of the mistreatment that people have suffered over the past few years.

While I would like to think that the Work and Pensions Committee, and those who work for it, will treat us all with fairness, it is only prudent to suggest that we all keep a watchful eye on proceedings, including all documentation that comes from this inquiry. If there is the slightest hint of foul play, then it will be our responsibility to raise the alarm.

Hopefully Dame Anne, the committee and its clerks have realised that their conduct is being scrutinised.

Let us hope they respond positively.

Follow me on Twitter: @MidWalesMike

Join the Vox Political Facebook page.

Vox Political speaks up for the people
… and we need people to ‘stump up’ for us.
This independent blog’s only funding comes from readers’ contributions.
Without YOUR help, we cannot keep going.
You can make a one-off donation here:

Donate Button with Credit Cards

Alternatively, you can buy the first Vox Political book,
Strong Words and Hard Times
in either print or eBook format here:

SWAHTprint SWAHTeBook

Why are victims being sidelined by MPs’ inquiry?

Sidelined: People like this lady have campaigned across the UK against the unfair assessment system for sickness and disability benefits. Now that they are finally getting an inquiry into this corrupt system, are their views going to be ignored? [Image: Guardian]

Sidelined: People like this lady have campaigned across the UK against the unfair assessment system for sickness and disability benefits. Now that they are finally getting an inquiry into this corrupt system, are their views going to be ignored? [Image: Guardian]

Here’s a disturbing email from the Commons Work and Pensions committee:

“Thank you for your submission to Work and Pensions Committee’s inquiry into Employment and Support Allowance and Work Capability Assessments.

“The Committee has received a large number of written submissions from individuals who have claimed ESA and undergone WCA, setting out their personal experiences of the process.

“Your submission, along with other similar personal testimony submissions, will be circulated to the Members of the Committee as background information to the inquiry rather than published as formal evidence.

“I know that the Committee will find submissions such as yours very helpful in their inquiry and I would therefore like to thank you for taking the time to contribute to the inquiry.”

Background information?

I smell betrayal.

I did not write a detailed description of Mrs Mike’s suffering at the hands of the Department for Work and Pensions, just so that it could be hidden away and ignored as “background information”!

Look at the committee’s original call for evidence. It was “particularly interested” to hear views on, among other things:

  • Delivery of the WCA by Atos, including steps taken to improve the claimant experience
  • The effectiveness of the WCA in indicating whether claimants are fit for work, especially for those claimants who have mental, progressive or fluctuating illnesses, including comparison with possible alternative models
  • The ESA entitlement decision-making process
  • The reconsideration and appeals process
  • The impact of time-limiting contributory ESA and
  • Outcomes for people determined fit for work or assigned to the Work-Related Activity Group (WRAG) or the Support Group.

The experience endured by Mrs Mike, who has both progressive and fluctuating physical conditions and mental health issues, included a humiliating work capability assessment medical examination and being pushed into the WRAG after a wrong decision by Atos/DWP. The Department failed to inform her of its decision on her appeal, and failed to act on that decision before cutting her benefit (it didn’t tell her that was going to happen either). If I had not been around to stand up for her, she might have been thrown onto the streets by now.

Is the Work and Pensions Committee no longer “particularly interested” in stories like that?

If so, what kind of inquiry are we likely to get?

A whitewash?

Dame Anne Begg chairs this committee. I’m going to contact her and see what she has to say for herself and her people.

If you have received the same communication, no doubt you’ll want some answers as well. Please let me know if you have.

It is entirely possible that there is a good reason for what I’ve been given. Until I know what it is, though, I have to suspect the worst.

If I wait for this inquiry to take place and then find we’ve all been betrayed, it will be too late.

Follow me on Twitter: @MidWalesMike

Join the Vox Political Facebook page.

Vox Political stands up for the people
… and we need people to stand up for us.
This independent blog’s only funding comes from readers’ contributions.
Without YOUR help, we cannot keep going.
You can make a one-off donation here:

Donate Button with Credit Cards

Alternatively, you can buy the first Vox Political book,
Strong Words and Hard Times
in either print or eBook format here:

SWAHTprint SWAHTeBook

Send your ESA/WCA experiences to the new MP inquiry

Fit for purpose? Parliament's Work and Pensions Committee wants to hear about your experience of the work capability assessment and ESA.

Fit for purpose? Parliament’s Work and Pensions Committee wants to hear about your experience of the work capability assessment and ESA.

The government wouldn’t do it – so an influential Parliamentary committee has decided to launch its own inquiry into Employment and Support Allowance and the Work Capability Assessment that determines eligibility for it.

I will be submitting evidence to this inquiry and I strongly suggest that, if you have a story to tell, then you should provide evidence as well.

According to the Parliament.uk website, the decision to undertake an inquiry from today (February 6) was made in light of recent developments including the publication of several reviews of the WCA, expressions of concern from DWP regarding Atos’s performance in delivering the WCA, and the introduction of mandatory reconsideration.

Submissions of no more than 3,000 words are invited from interested organisations and individuals.

The Committee is particularly interested to hear views on:

  • Delivery of the WCA by Atos, including steps taken to improve the claimant experience
  • The effectiveness of the WCA in indicating whether claimants are fit for work, especially for those claimants who have mental, progressive or fluctuating illnesses, including comparison with possible alternative models
  • The process and criteria for procuring new providers of the WCA
  • The ESA entitlement decision-making process
  • The reconsideration and appeals process
  • The impact of time-limiting contributory ESA
  • Outcomes for people determined fit for work or assigned to the WRAG or the Support Group and
  • The interaction between ESA and Universal Credit implementation
  • Submissions do not need to address all of these points.

The deadline for submitting evidence is Friday, March 21.

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 the Parliament.uk website here.

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 in Word format with as little use of colour or logos as possible, and have numbered paragraphs.

If you need to send a paper copy, 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.

Select committees are unable to investigate individual cases.

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.

Further guidance on submitting evidence to Select Committees is available on the Parliament website.

Employment and Support Allowance (ESA) was introduced in October 2008 for claimants making a new claim for financial support on the grounds of illness or incapacity. It replaced Incapacity Benefits, Income Support by virtue of a disability and Severe Disablement Allowance.

ESA is paid to people who have limited capability for work (who are placed in the Work Related Activity Group (WRAG)), and people who have limited capability for work related activity (who are placed in the Support Group).

Most claimants applying for ESA are invited to a face-to-face assessment to help determine whether they fall within either of these two groups or whether they are fit for work. This Work Capability Assessment (WCA) is carried out by Atos Healthcare under its medical services contract with DWP. Atos produces a report and this is used by the DWP Decision Maker, alongside any other additional evidence, to determine whether the claimant should be placed in the WRAG or the Support Group, or is fit for work.

In April 2011, the Government began reassessing existing Incapacity Benefits (IB) claimants to determine their eligibility for ESA using the WCA. The Committee published a report on Incapacity Benefit Reassessment in July 2011.

A debate was held in Parliament on January 13, in which MPs called for an inquiry into the effect of changes to the benefit system on the incidence of poverty in this country; the question was whether poverty was increasing as a result of the so-called reforms.

Parliament voted massively in favour of the inquiry (125 votes for; two against), as reported here.

But the Conservative/Liberal Democrat Coalition government ignored the vote and did nothing.

It seems this committee-led inquiry is the next-best thing.

Vox Political supports benefits based on need, not government savings.
But we cannot run on goodwill alone.
The site needs YOUR help to continue.
You can make a one-off donation here:

Donate Button with Credit Cards

Alternatively, you can buy the first Vox Political book,
Strong Words and Hard Times
in either print or eBook format here:

SWAHTprint SWAHTeBook