My last blog on the breakdown of the Usual Channels generated a torrent of comments on the Welfare Reform Bill. This is fine, indeed very welcome but as a result of organisations passing on my parliamentary e-mail address I have now received a torrent of messages to which I am simply unable to respond adequately and that jam up my e-mail in-box. I regret I have now put up a standard response on my e-mail site. So please, if you are thinking of commenting on the Welfare Reform Bill do it here on this site where everyone can see it. And please don’t tell me that Atos gets it wrong sometimes, I already know!
@Baroness Murphy:
How can any lord let this welfare bill through? How can Cameron have said – And I want to say to British people clearly and frankly this; if you are elderly, if you are frail, if you are poor, if you are needy, a Conservative government will always look after you” – When it was all a lie.
Why are disabled people being made to pay for the crimes they have not done? The4 Lords KNOW the fraud rate of DLA is 0.5% – So why change it? It wont make the fraud rate any less! It is just throwing money away on Camerons silly ideas.
ESA = Why is this even there – It is NOT supporting anybody. It is vilifying and attacking disabled people. As we all know – a ‘faker’ would know all the get through tricks, a normal truly disabled pereson would NOT know this – as we just tell it how it is!
I am disagusted by this ConDem govt. I am ashamed to say I am British at this time – This @mother country’ who is attacking its own children????? This is terrible and in years to come Cameron will be remembered for the terrible MESS he has made of this country in such a short time!
Why are ATOS even needed? My Gp or my Nurse ot myu Specialist consultant know more about my condition than some bod sat at a desk clicking buttons on a computer! It is a ridiculous waste of money to pay ATOS when the NHS consultants are already being paid!
The whole welfare ‘reform’ is a complete mess. WHO would employ somebody who is so disabled they pee every five mins (if lucky enbough to get to the loo) who is fatigued so much they have trouble concentrating. I would be a liability to any company as when fatigue hits me I cannot concentrate on anything!
And now fatigue hits me i can say no more – but I BEG yo uLords to find HUMANITY within you and to not let this bill through until it shows some care and humanity within it.
I did NOT ask to get disabled! I dopnt want to be disabled! But being told I am fine and go to work will make me ten times worse than i am now!
Why do the govt let people who owe so much tax OFF and attack the poor? A country i carried on the poor people – Yet the rich do nothing to help fix things. Make the bankers pay – Get 02 to pay back the 6bn in tax they owe
Go after these negligent parents who dont pay for their children
START TO CARE FOR THE PEOPLE LIKE YOU PROMISED CAMERON
Ivan would be ashamed of your attack on the disabled had he live (RIP Ivan)
Sarah
DECLINES to answer or IGNORES what doesn’t suit them.
If you want the information, go do the work yourself. Make your own Freedom of Information request. Maybe a better use of your valuable time, instead of being a disability-denier or taunting sick people.
============
I have done. I’ve posted several links on this very set of posts, and yet you ignore them. Far from me ignore what has been posted, I’ve posted to the evidence that contradicts a lot of what has been said.
For example, I’ll post it so you can comment.
Why did the number of people on incapacity triple when amount of money spent on the NHS rocketed, and the old heavy industries died out?
One argument, and its perhaps part of the answer is that they are all migrants. Given that 80,000 a year were added, and the level of migration in was 250,000 a year, its unlikely.
Further evidence against this is that the very high levels of male ICB claimants are not in areas where their has been high levels of migration.
Lets take one. Liverpool. Why should 20% of males from Liverpool be incapacitated?
As for the deaths. That’s why it has to be sorted out. It’s the failure to sort this out in the past, combined with the basic fact that you can’t wish away, there is no money. There is just debt.
So do you want no cuts now, but Greek style default in a short while? Do you think the disabled are protected in Greece from the effects? They aren’t. They are being hit hard. We need to do everything to avoid that disaster.
@LB:
What you wrote above is utter nonsense. Migration is almost entirely the cause. The work dried up as the people came in to take all the posts offered. They are cheap labour, and you know it, but, have a problem admitting it for PC stigma.
2.7m collecting benefit. Migration from 1979 to present at 250,000 per annum and some. That is a minimum, on your figures, of 7.5m. Plus all the extended families and the high birthrate. And don’t mention illegals.
Then the jobs for the indiginous? What happens to them? Just in case those who are long term disabled are found to be suddenly fit to work. Where are these bloody jobs? Do you see them? All those advertised are government positions and they are looking for diversity. So, no whites need apply as they are wasting their time. It’s discrimination against white kids. Who, should be sueing the Councils for having such an offensive advert in the first place.
http://www.politicshome.com/uk/story/3781/over_98_of_new_jobs_under_labour_gone_to_foreign_workers.html
This is a mild projection of the true size of the population that is expected. So those in the seat of ppower better make provision.
http://www.migrationwatchuk.org/what-is-the-problem
And you mentioned London. When was the last time you found an English person there to speak to?
I know foreign tourists make London their last place to stop off. I have Japanese and Canadians in my family and they won’t consider coming to the UK for fear of attack and disappointment. And most of all, can’t find any English people to try out their English on. They complain all they meet are worse at it than they are.
The NHS is collapsing at a rate that is simply unacceptable. For Gods/ sake it’s as dangerous in child birth here as it is in the third world. And who is taking up those obstric ward places? Those who come here with the intention of staying through the child birth clause.
Apologies for the rant and bad grammer, t When I was told it was MS my biggest fear was what my future held fighting this condition.. Never once did I think, stupidly, That my biggest fear should have been my future stability.
I am NOT refusing to go to assesment im simply terrified of the prospect and thats not fair.
Dear Baroness Murphy,
‘Please don’t tell me that ATOS gets it wrong sometimes’.
Tell me, in what industry is a demonstrated failure rate (as shown by the Tribunal statistics) of 1 in 8 anything less than catastrophic?
I passed my WCA, and ATOS still got it wrong. The first WCA was cancelled, ATOS had failed to supply the necessary reasonable adjustment ‘The Regional Manager has told us to make do with what we have’. ATOS then told the DWP that I had failed to attend, leading to them cancelling my benefit. The stress this caused left me unable to function for months (my disability is physical, and worsened markedly by stress – so yes, regular assessments are a punishment, in my case quite literally corporal punishment). When I was finally able to bring myself to overcome the stress and challenge what had happened, DWP’s attitude was ‘Oh, not again’. At the second attempt ATOS had clearly been spoken too and I was met at the door with the reasonable adjustment, however their doctor’s attitude was contemptible. Despite the ESA50 form clearly stating that I was unable to sit for extended periods, he failed to ask me about that and I had to force the information into the assessment over his objection, and over his criticism of me for daring to know how critical a point it was, being then worth 15 points and an automatic award of ESA in its own right. Even after I had reached the point of being unable to sit and having to hang from the back of the chair perched on one leg because I was unable to weight-bear on the other (something he’d previously criticized my description of), he criticized me for being unable to bend my leg in order for him to test my reactions. As a professional in a different sphere it is my opinion that the assessment aspired to a level of competence that would have embarrassed the Keystone Kops and that completely failed to reach the level of duty of care expected of him under the law.
And remember, this is a WCA that passed.
hiding unemployment and relabelling it as disability.
It has been labelled thus since the mid 80s, Thatcher’s shift on to the GPs at the time.
What is more it seems to me that all developed countries now do the same.
When you consider the vast numbers of people earning big money in parasitic industries
(ins, bank etc) and not earning their basic needs from any physical work at all,(nobody does), is it surprising that excuses are made for nobody working in a country which is basically a PWE(Protestant work ethic) country? Is it surprising either that, when the trade cycle dips badly, those who survive on generous hand outs for doing “that nothing”(which is deemed as working for the government), are the loudest to complain about their theoretical illnesses?
I grow my own fruit and veggies. I don’t get them from Kenya, or Ghana, along WITH the immigrants, without whom the veggies would not a arrive here at all.
Ant-globalism is very close to home in all these matters.
If you’ve done any statistics, its what called a confounding variable. ie. A is correlated with B, but there is a hidden C.
Here it turns out that incapacity benefit is highly correlated with living in areas of high unemployment.
It is sad to still have to read the misinformed and inaccurate comments from people like Lord Blagger. I am not in a position to say whether he is a troll or actually believes what he writes but it is clear that he is not very well versed or knowledgeable about these issues.
Everything he posts is from an anti-disability standpoint with very little or no credible evidence whatsoever to back up what he says.
If he bothered to check the facts he would see that the rise in IB claimants came between 1975 (when the figure was 600,000) and 1995 (when it was 2.5 million). Given the increase in population, the numbers have stayed the same since 1995.
It is a common misconception from those who have not researched the issue that this increase was purely down to a cynical attempt to manipulate the unemployment figures, and therefore the people on IB didn’t deserve to be on it. However, the credible research and evidence shows that this is not the case.
Leading welfare expert, Professor Richard Berthoud’s research shows that:
“Benefit rules have not been responsible for the trend, and the general assumption that these are people with trivial conditions is not supported by the evidence. It is people with more severely disadvantaging conditions that have been more affected by the trend.”
http://www.iser.essex.ac.uk/publications/working-papers/iser/2011-03.pdf
The principal data analysed by Berthoud is the annual General Household Survey, in which people are asked to declare any “limiting long-standing illness”. He finds not only a clear rising trend until the mid-1990s, but also that most of the rise was accounted for by people with more severe impediments – suggesting that the growth in IB claims reflected a genuine increase in numbers of people with disabilities in the population as a whole.
The simplistic argument put forward by Lord Blagger is not supported by the evidence as there is no simple answer.
However, Berthoud notes that the trend corresponded with a rapid increase in numbers of well-qualified women entering the labour market. For all the growing emphasis on disability rights, it is possible that employers became less motivated to hire or retain people with poor health and low skill levels. “It is even possible,” Berthoud concludes, “that there is now a glut of skilled women on the labour market, acting to the disadvantage of disabled people.”
Nick Bason, acting policy director at the Employers’ Forum on Disability, accepts that disabled people might have been disadvantaged in this way in the 1980s and early 1990s, but thinks that things changed in 1995 when, in addition to IB’s introduction, there was another significant reform.
“The introduction of the Disability Discrimination Act 1995 marked a turning point in attitudes and behaviour,” says Bason. “The law helped employers to see that disabled people had talents and skills to offer their organisations.”
The OECD’s social expenditure figures also show that Lord Blagger’s assertion is lazy and not based on the facts. In 1980 the UK’s incapacity related expenditure was nearly 60% below even the OECD average which shows that much of the increase to 1995 was simply the UK catching up with the other OECD countries from a position where the disabled were not receiving the help that they deserved. We hve now settled into a position where our incapacity related expenditure is just above the average, but significantly far behind many other countries.
If he bothered to check the facts he would see that the rise in IB claimants came between 1975 (when the figure was 600,000) and 1995 (when it was 2.5 million). Given the increase in population, the numbers have stayed the same since 1995.
So the population tripled over 20 years?
Really you need to come up with something better than that claim.
As for international comparisons. Has the risk of being disabled increased 300% over 20 years?
New drugs, better treatment, all that money spent on the NHS. People no longer working in dangerous industries.
You’ve not said what has caused this increase.
Let me tell you what it is. It’s political. It was to hide people off the unemployment figure.
Please have the common courtesy to stop telling lies and actually read what I wrote! I said that the tiny increase in IB claimants since 1995 is not a real increase as the UK population has increased by about 4 million over that period. Where exactly did I say or even infer that the population had tripled over 20 years?
You are spouting uninformed rubbish and you cannot back any of your trolling with actual evidence.
Try reading my post and Professor Berthoud’s research as they show that the evidence does not support what you say.
All politicians fiddle figures but to say that the increase in IB claimants is solely down to manipulating figures is total rubbish. You are therefore inferring that most IB claimants are not genuine, which is a vicious, prejudiced and ignorant, and not supported by the facts.
Such prejudice and ignorance towards so many genuine disabled people is disgusting and needs to be challenged. The evidence is clearly there showing that the vast majority of this increase is due to people with serious conditions and that we were starting from an unacceptably low point where our spending on incapacity related benefits (in 1980) was nearly 60% lower than the OECD average and then reached a point where it is slightly above the average.
You really have to question the motives of people who cannot accept the facts that our spending on sickness/disability benefits has never been particularly generous.
Before you start your trolling abuse of the disabled yet again, I would respectfully ask you (just for once) to provide some actual evidence, as you provided none so far. Deliberately misrepresenting what other posters have written does not constitute evidence! Such people have zero credibility.
Please have the common courtesy to stop telling lies and actually read what I wrote! I said that the tiny increase in IB claimants since 1995 is not a real increase as the UK population has increased by about 4 million over that period
===============
So 4 million increase from 56 million to 60.
A 7% increase.
Guardian – nice left wing paper.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2010/jan/13/women-incapacity-benefit-rise
300% increase in the number of women on ICB.
7% more women in the UK. 300% more on ICB. Overall health of the UK constant.
You really have to question the motives of people who cannot accept the facts that our spending on sickness/disability benefits has never been particularly generous.
And why is this? The reason is that lots of money has been going to people who didn’t need or should not have qualified for help.
End result, now there is no money, people are being hurt.
So when you attack me, think for a second. Did I cause any of this mess? No.
I’ve repeatedly warned that the UK is insolvent, and that far from being bad now its going to get worse. Did I cause that? No. So you want to shoot the messenger.
Trolling abuse? Not one iota.
I’ve said that all additional costs of anyone with a disability should be met in full by all of us. However that also means people with no such extra costs get nothing. Is that abuse of the disabled? Not one bit.
So sit back, read what I have written, rather than what you think I’ve written.
As for credibility, how do you get the Frank Gallagers of this world of ICB? You can’t tell me and neither can anyone else who has attacked me.
Plan the ball and not the man.
What total claptrap. Where is your evidence that lots of money has been going to people who don’t need help and who should not have qualified? Again, you have no evidence. The only credible evidence is the estimated 0.3% IB and 0.5% DLA fraud rates. It is obvious to any reasonable person that the overwhelming majority of claimants are genuine. They have been through stringent medical tests and, with the exception of a tiny percentage of frauds, genuinely et the tough criteria. The fact that you cannot accept that is very revealing and totally abhorrent.
The current reforms are not about helping the disabled with their extra expenses. How exactly will the the 12 month limit on CBSESA help the disabled? How will stopping the lower rate care component of DLA help the disabled? How will stopping the mobility component to council funded care home residents help the disabled?
Our welfare spending is not particularly generous compared to other countries so again I question the motives of someone who pretends that there is no money left and the country is insolvent. That is quite obviously a lie given that we can seemingly afford not to collect £35 billion in tax (ie 9 times the amount of these vicious cuts!) not to mention the tens of billions on irrelevant nuclear weapons and wars. We can also seemingly waste £150 million pa on Atos and their appeal costs. We can also quite happily waste £675 million on the new PIP assessments. There are, I am sure, plenty of other aress where money can be saved if our politicians wanted to get their priorities right.
If you were being truthful about wanting all the extra costs of disability to be met then not only would you condemn this vile Bill but you would be campaigning for significant extra funds. Current levels of DLA are nowhere near sufficient to cover most people’s extra costs and yet this Bill will take away a whole level of DLA. That is why it is so obvious that this is about saving money and saving money only. Why else did the government lie about the increase in DLA claimant numbers (it was actually less than half of their figure), and not correcting this lie when the Bill was debated in the Commons even though they had been corrected on the issue?
Why have so many government ministers misrepresented the fraud figures? To scapegoat people for their failings…and yet some gullible fools fall for it!
You give yourself away by comparing claimants to Shameless characters. That applies to a tiny minority. Do you think a chronically disabled person, whom an often unqualified Atos “professional” thinks can self propel a wheelchair just 60 metres on level ground (which does not exist in the real world) is really “fit for work”? Are they a Frank Gallagher? Seeing as less than 1 in 12 employers would employ someone on IB who has been deemed fit for work, are these employers prejudiced bigots or do they merely recognise an unfair assessment process, as any reasonale person would?
I have read what you have written. All your posts ignore the actual facts and are posted with an anti-disability angle. I know full well where you stand on this.
http://www.shu.ac.uk/_assets/pdf/cresr-woib-report-2010.pdf
See this report for details.
Factual. Peer reviewed. Not made up by me. Recent.
Just one bit for you to consider just ot show that you’re numbers are wrong.
This part of the research identifies four main contributory factors to the increase in the number of
women on IB since the early 1980s:
• Hidden unemployment. These are the women who could be expected to have been in
employment in a genuinely fully employed economy – an estimated 430,000 in all.
• Rising labour force participation. This has led to a commensurate increase in the number of
women on IB of around 125,000.
• An ageing population. This has increased the number of IB claims by women by an estimated
35,000, since the likelihood of claiming IB rises with age.
• A diversion of lone parents from Income Support. This accounts for around 125,000 women
on IB.6
There is little evidence that any deterioration in the underlying health of the working age population
has contributed to the increase in IB claims among women.
There is clear statistical evidence of a link between the local and sub-regional demand for labour
and female IB claims. There is also clear evidence of a link between the male and female sides of
the labour market. In simple terms, job loss and unemployment among men is being transmitted, via
competition in the labour market, to higher IB claims among women in the same places.
My figures are not wrong and the evidence that I have used is from work published this year by an acknowledged expert in this field.
Your evidence is sourced from 3629 people. Mine is from nearly 100 times as many people and is, therefore, obviously far more compelling!
The study analysed 28 years of the General Household Survey, using data collected between 1974 and 2005. Information was available from about 360,000 people aged 20-59. The analysis compared the employment rates of people who reported a limiting long-standing illness with the prospects of other people with no health problem, taking account also of their age, family position, educational background and so on. “LLI” is a loose definition of disability, but the research was also able to compare the outcomes for people with more or less disadvantaging sets of health conditions, available in some years of the sequence.
Amongst his findings were:
•There is little sign that the growth in the numbers out of work over the years has mainly been associated with minor sets of impairments.
•There is little sign that disabled people are especially sensitive to the ups and downs of the business cycle.
•Although there was a substantial shift in the ratio of incapacity-related benefit payments to disability-disadvantage up to about 1990, there is little sign that this ratio was influenced by major changes in the rules governing eligibility for benefits.
He also points out:
•The prevalence of disability (the proportion of working age adults who report a limiting long-standing illness) rose from 14% in 1975 to 18% in 1996, before falling back again to 16% in 2004.
•The ‘disability employment penalty’ is a measure of the extent to which disabled people are less likely to have a job than otherwise similar non-disabled people. It increased from 17% in 1987 to 28% in 2000 – but has not reduced since then.
•These figures refer to all people with limiting health conditions. It is commonly assumed that most of the changes in prevalence and in employment prospects have affected people with relatively minor impairments – but the research shows, on the contrary, that people with severely disadvantaging sets of health conditions have been more, not less, affected by the trends.
•Payments of the main social security benefits (Incapacity Benefit and Severe Disability Allowance) lagged behind the number of disadvantaged disabled people in the 1970s and early 1980s, especially for women. But they had caught up by 1990.
•The detailed analysis made possible by the series of surveys suggests that changes in disabled peoples’ employment rates or in benefit payments have not coincided with major changes in the social security rules and procedures.
•Disabled people are very sensitive to long-term geographical variations in the health of regional labour markets; while non-disabled people have similar prospects, wherever they live.
•But disabled people’s employment is hardly affected by booms or busts in the national economy.
•People without educational qualifications are more likely to be disabled, and their employment rates are more affected by disability, than (at the other extreme) people with degrees. Both of these tendencies have increased in intensity over time, so that the current generation of unqualified people has very high rates of disability, and the disabled members of the group have very low rates of employment. But the number of poorly educated people in Britain has been declining over the decades, so very little of the overall growth in the number of disabled people without work can be explained by the skills effect.
•The fact that well-educated people are relatively less affected by disability helps to show that it is not disability, on its own, that determines outcomes, but the interaction between disability and opportunities. Disability nevertheless has a substantial effect across the spectrum.
•The research helps to counter the idea that some disabled people are unequivocally capable of work, while others are wholly incapable. It supports instead the concept of disadvantage – a sliding scale of employment probabilities affected both by the nature and severity of people’s impairments, and by the willingness of employers to hire them.
That, together with the factual evidence that I provided from the OECD incapacity related expenditure figures (ie nearly 60% below the OECD average in 1980 and only just above average now) proves that I am correct.
Typically with your agenda you have been highly selective in what you use from that report. Just a few quotes here from your report which show that you are twisting what it says to support your anti-disability agenda:
“None of this is intended to suggest that the heath problems and disabilities affecting the women (and men) who claim IB are anything less than real, or that the older industrial areas where IB claimant rates are highest do not have higher underlying levels of ill health.”
“once an individual has lost their job because of ill health or disability, in a difficult local labour market they are less likely to find a way back into work. Employers have the option of taking on the fit and healthy instead.”
“In a weaker labour market, even a modest degree of ill health or disability is likely to prejudice an individual’s chances of gaining and holding down employment.”
“even modest incapacities can
prove to be a formidable obstacle, especially if an individual has no special qualifications or training
to offer.”
So your report confirms that I was right by firstly that IB claimants are overwhelmingly genuine as their illnesses and disabilities are real. It also confirms that I was right in highlighting the extreme difficulties that such people face with respect to employment.
The credible evidence from numerous sources backs up my view that the overwhelming majority of IB claimants are totally genuine. The minimal evidence provided by you is not compelling and you have had to be very selective in what you quote as part of the report also fully backs up my view.
If you still keep maintaining your abhorrent stance, in the face of the credible evidence, that many genuine claimants (ie the 99.7% who correctly met the assessment criteria) somehow are not genuine then there is no point in continuing this.
Re some of Lord Blagger’s other very spurious and inaccurate claims, here is the credible evidence.
Firstly, the evidence shows that the overwhelming majority of claimants are totally genuine. It is very ignorant therefore to wildly proclaim that a lot of claimants are not deserving. Estimated IB fraud is 0.3% and estimated DLA fraud is 0.5%. Those figures are based on 95% confidence limits (ie for DLA fraud, the DWP are 95% certain that the actual figure is between 0.2% and 0.8%)….ie compelling evidence that the figure is very low.
http://statistics.dwp.gov.uk/asd/asd2/fem/fem_oct09_sep10.pdf
Re our welfare spending, our spending is not generous. The most up to date OECD tables have us 15th out of 34 countries for total welfare spending, or 18th out of 34 if you exclude health spending.
http://stats.oecd.org/Index.aspx?datasetcode=SOCX_AGG
Also, if you look at UK public spending figures you will see that our total welfare spending is significantly less now than it was in the 1980’s so is not the huge problem that some people try and make out. Sadly some ignorant people need a scapegoat and the disabled are the easiest to pick on.
http://www.ukpublicspending.co.uk/downchart_ukgs.php?year=1980_2015&state=UK&view=1&expand=40&units=p&fy=2011&chart=40-total&bar=1&stack=1&size=m&color=c&title=Welfare Spending Chart
Re Atos, the number of successful appeals show that they are not fit for purpose. The actual figures for successful appeals for the year 2010/11 were:
DLA 19400 of 50900
ESA 47600 of 127100
IB 15600 of 31200
http://www.justice.gov.uk/downloads/publications/statistics-and-data/tribs-stats/quarterly-tribs-stats-q4-2010-11.pdf
That makes 82600 successful appeals in just one 12 month period. As Atos took over the contract when they bought Sema in 2004 it is obviously safe to assume that the total number of successful appellants has reached hundreds of thousands by now, which cannot be acceptable.
Add to that the fact that Atos fail to provide even the most basic access and facilities for the disabled at its assessment centres and it beggars belief how they have managed to secure such a lucrative contract worth many hundreds of millions of pounds.
Details published on the Atos website reveals that more than 20% of its 141 medical assessment centres, used primarily for employment and support allowance medicals, do not have wheelchair access.
In addition, out of all 141 Atos centres, only around 50 have dedicated parking on site and just one centre –Wrexham – is listed as having disabled parking. And even then it’s only one single space. Other centres rely on public car parks, which may be five or ten minutes walk away.
31 of Atos’ medical examination centres are not even on the ground floor, with Chesterfield actually perched on the 5th floor.
16 centres have no chairs with arms, vital where claimants have problems with rising from sitting. Others are listed as having just a single chair with arms.
Twenty seven centres do not even supply drinking water for claimants, who may be kept waiting a very long time for their assessment.
Very worryingly, in spite of the many thousands of claimants with continence problems, no details of whether the centres have toilets – let alone disabled toilets – are given.
http://www.atoshealthcare.com/UserFiles/File/fact-sheets/2011/Assessment%20Centre%20Location%20List.xls
Re the WCA, the criticism of this tick box health assessment has been so wide and from so many sources that any reasonable person would acknowledge that it is not fit for purpose and is there purely to save money. Just looking at the first descriptor, how exactly is it fair to deem someone who an often unqualified health care “professional” thinks would be able to self-propel a wheelchair just 60 metres on level ground as “fit for work” given that no outside ground or pavement is level and how many people live within 60 metres of work or public transport? You can apply the same thing to many other descriptors.
Also, given that the vast majority (less than 1 in 12) of employers will not take on someone who has been deemed fit for work,
http://www.hrmagazine.co.uk/hro/news/1018801/employers-ill-prepared-incapacity-benefit-review
then either these employers are actively discriminating against the disabled or they believe that they are not actually “fit for work”. I would suggest that the latter is the case and more conclusive evidence that the WCA is purely there to save money and is not fit for purpose.
As for the 12 month time limited on contribution based ESA for those in the WRAG, that has to be one of the most obscene proposals that I have seen. You can contribute for many years then lose all your support (an estimated 300-400,000) just because a partner takes home more than £140 per week or you have a small amount of savings. And at the same time there are strong rumours that the Child Benefit changes for high earners will be watered down! You choose to have a child but you don’t choose to have a disability.
On DLA, the government stated that it wants to save 20% from the DLA bill before they had even devised the new medical. Given that the estimated fraud rate is just 0.5% this is clearly about setting an arbitrary target to save money rather than actually helping people. The fact that the PIP proposals will have only 2 care components (instead of the 3 under DLA) means that hundreds of thousands of genuine claimants will lose vital support.
Also, if the government were genuinely interested in helping the disable, wouldn’t they be doing something to help those who don’t claim for what they are entitled to (an estimated £10bn+ pa)?!
Another point to bear in mind is that it is a total fallacy to claim that we cannot afford to support the disabled. The arbitrary targets set for DLA and ESA cuts will save around £4bn pa and yet the uncollected tax amounts to an estimated £35bn. Add in the tens of billions of pounds wasted on the likes of Trident and the war in Afghanistan and we could easily afford to support the disabled if we had our priorities right.
It is also a fallacy to claim that or sickness benefits are generous. Even right wing think tank Demos acknowledges that such benefits are ” not only low but also insufficient for most people’s financial needs.” and ” relatively ungenerous at the individual and household level.”
Before the election, David Cameron promised to protect the vulnerable. His Welfare Reform Bill proves that he was not telling the truth. Many hundreds of thousands of genuine people in need will lose vital support and these vicious cuts should not be allowed to become law.
Dear Baroness Murphy,
Please don’t respond to legitimate criticism and concern with a patronising wave of your hand.
I DON’T have disabilities or a long term health problem, but I can see that Atos doesn’t get it wrong “sometimes” but the majority of the time.
I can see that your government is promoting a message that people on benefits are workshy freeloaders.
I’m begging you & your civil servants to actually take the time to listen to the people who really know what it’s like to wake in the morning and realise this is going to be a day when it’s too painful to get out of bed. Or the people who have to weigh up if they spend their money on heating or food in the winter.
We should judge a civilisation by the way it treats its most vulnerable citizens. On this evidence we are failing badly.
I don’t deny that unemployment figures were hidden as something else, which is hardly the fault of the claimants today who have to suffer the indignities of these assessments. Also during those years you mention, people were ill more with heart disease and cancers that were incurable. I know this because my grandmother died without any hope of the very same cancer I was cured of, as did my father of heart disease. (although you could call it obesity if you want to be mean about it, fact is he was still very ill) They came from a time that food was sparce when they were younguns and weren’t brought up on a wholesome diet therefore suffered the consequences. I can’t speak for others but only for my own family but it is blaringly obvious to me why people would be ill and on benefits.
Also count in the millions of miners who went down our pits in so called hot spots and got extremely ill in the process. Maybe they weren’t written off unjustly on benefits, they actually had long term health problems and that’s what’s being covered over with these assessments.
You can’t gloss over the fact that thousands of genuine ill and disabled people are going to suffer the consequences of not just bad policy but downright irresponsible behaviour of politicians who sit in the comfort and luxury of their houses surrounded by furniture tax payers paid for, traveling at the expense of the tax payer and then creaming off the top of their experience later in life when they’re thrown out of office, as Tony Blair is doing right now.
Life time of benefits? I think you MP’s are getting more out of that than we, don’t you think?
Please open your eyes Lord Blagger because we, the people who are the ones suffering, are trying to tell you exactly how it is but I can see that it just isn’t sinking in.
That would explain Merthy Tydfel, but not similar levels of ICB in Liverpool.
You can’t gloss over the fact that thousands of genuine ill and disabled people are going to suffer the consequences of not just bad policy but downright irresponsible behaviour of politicians who sit in the comfort and luxury of their houses surrounded by furniture tax payers paid for, traveling at the expense of the tax payer and then creaming off the top of their experience later in life when they’re thrown out of office, as Tony Blair is doing right now.
Exactly. You are coming round to the real reason. They have kept vast numbers of people on ICB, for political reasons and run up vast debts. They have committed huge amounts of personal fraud as well.
Now the reality is here. There is no money. They spent it. So what happens now?
1. Those who were on ICB for political reasons won’t get it. As a result, they have no choice to implement testing and change the line at which ICB is paid.
2. As a direct result of this government mess, there will be collateral damage.
That’s why I said my preferred route was to set the threshold higher and accept that there will be some that shouldn’t get that end up with ICB. The government hasn’t done that.
As for frequent testing, if the condition is one that won’t improve – test infrequently. If its one that does improve, test frequently.
I think its you who need to open your eyes, and it does seem you are getting there.
It’s not me who has made the rules. It’s me you need. You need me to pay lots of money so that people can be on ICB, and to pay the governments debts. If you don’t have me, and others like me, you won’t get anything.
PS. Periodically, a thank you would be appreciated.
lol it seems troll are given free reign on this forum although people who challenge them have their comments deleted.
What Lord Troll is doing is pathetic really as the Internet wised up, not to mention got bored, of such silly games a decade ago.
Delete away.
I want some of you to imagine going to a dentist, having complex root canal work done, which goes wrong because the person performing the procedure has had 6 weeks training. Prior to that they were a midwife. The root canal work prevents you from eating, causes you immense pain, and as a result you have to have your tooth out. Most people would sue the pants of the dental practice that allowed this to happen.
Everyday, someone somewhere is being assessed by an ATOS employee, who has no prior knowledge of their ailment, but after sitting a very short course, is now an *expert*. Their observations and interpretations are then inaccurately recorded, as they do not understand the complex needs of the claimant. The DWP then decide that the claimant is fit to work, when the claimant in fact is mentally ill and unable to think clearly from one day to the next. Pride and shame have made that person try and pretend to be normal. As a result, they are forced to claim JSA, and try to look for work. But it doesnt work, and they forget to renew their housing benefit, and end up homeless. It happens, all the time, all over the country. Who can they sue? No one.
WCA were brought in for one reason, and that was to save the government money. They have done that, and cost people their lives, homes, and dignity in the process.
I hope that you never have to see someone cope with mental illness. It is the most debilitating thing to witness.
@TWN Or nant ” you opined ( that means gave opinion ) quote : “You can apply for the funeral grant for yourself £700, and that apart from about £300 is enough for a basic funeral otherwise the NHS has you even in death.Quite how is best not discussed.”
pretty obvious that YOU have not arranged a funural lately , a “basic ” one including all duties and a reasonable headstone will cost you £4+k ( maybe a bit less for cremation ) this i know as i had to bury my wife some years back and everything has gone up since then – sooooooo like much you have written, you are spouting bo*****s – at least ways blagger is more articulate – even if he is wrong about much of what he says ( imo of course )
why dont you leave this to people who CAN debate with facts – not idiotic c**P like you are coming out with ??
my apologies for needing to say the above baroness murphy – but you see what we are up against even trying to have a reasonable discussion with some people ( rolls eyes skywards )
Dear Baroness Murphy, In reply to your question below
“How are you to be assessed for the more help you might later need if you won’t agree to be properly assessed? It’s this refusal to see the possible benefits of a regular assessment which I don’t understand. An assessment isn’t a punishment; it’s trying to find out what you really need and the best way to supply it. It is this aspect of the Bill which has the greatest potential to enhance the help which people like you get. I don’t understand why you feel assessment is a punishment, truly I don’t comprehend why you should think that it is. I hope very much you will see any future assent as an honest attempt to assess your real needs. ”
Speaking personally, I find it not a punishment, but a form of harrassment and torture.
What else would you describe having to, year after year undergo an assessment, in which the report produced is akin to a work of fiction? Where your benefits are messed around (rememeber the knock on effect of housing benefit etc also stopping and having to be re-instated).
When you have to appeal, and wait on average a year for the appeal?
Where sometimes, you even have to go to a upper tribunal (and in my case, not get paid whilst appealing at that stage).
Where, each and every time, you successfully win at tribunal?
Where after winning, quite often benefits take time to get sorted back out, and sometimes are messed up yet again?
Where a short time period (3 months now) later, you are called back in for another assessment and the process starts again.
And so the process continues, year after year.
The process is damaging to mental health, its damaging to relationships, its damaging to finances, its hindering recovery.
Even the process of having to fill in the forms over and over, becomes like a form of torture, not least because you have to concentrate on the negative aspects of your condition, which aggravates mental health, but because you just know (and each time your proven right) that what you put on the form will be ignored or altered by the assessor when they come to compiling the report.
Its not nice reading a medical report full of lies, innacuracies or contradictions either.
And then to top it all off, you have all the major political parties, and the media engaging on a all out war against the sick and disabled with massive amounts of propaganda, combined with a reluctance to print the truth.
If you think its torture to fill in a form, don’t do it.
INPUT FROM THE OTHER SITE IN ANSWER TO LORD BLAGGER:
I have answered your question at least three times now Lord Blagger so would refer you to my last blog timed at 2.09 on 30th Sept above.
CONSULTANT MEDICAL OPINION is considered to be EXPERT testimony in every court in the land and the only people who won’t accept it is gvt. With respect, you are the one claiming there isn’t enough cash but people in receipt of long term disability benefits paid for that security, in good faith, when well enough to work – or that was the story told to us by successive gvts. We didn’t cause this financial crisis but do seem to be the focus of a lot of blame… If there really is such a lack of cash then I suggest you tell the bankers, who created the crisis, to refund their bonuses….
GPs are now required to run their practises as a business as a gvt requirement. They don’t like it but do it. Therefore, it could also be a gvt requirement to incentivise every Consultant to pass a MEDICALLY QUALIFIED EXPERT OPINION as to if their patients were fit enough to consider some form of employment. That way we could remove the £100 million per anum costs of the highly discredited Atos assessments, and save on the £50 million per anum and rising costs of the appeal tribunals, so that’s an immiediate saving of £150 million per anum.
As for your previous blogs, your comments about voluntary work were both predictable and lamentable and that is why the chronically sick and disabled population are living in fear. A group of able bodied and medically unqualified politicans sitting in judgement and demonstrating, virtually every time they speak, that they already have a bias set in stone. Are you going to tell Baroness Jane Campbell to get a job too I wonder? Before you reply, may I refer you to Jane’s comments during the debate in the noble House, that can be found at:
http://www.theyworkforyou.com/lords/?gid=2011-09-13a.658.0
The chronically sick and disabled people of the UK didn’t demand anything more before gvt decided to introduce tyranny and fear into welfare.
It was a previous gvt who now freely admit that SOME people previously on unemployment benefit were moved to ICB in the distant past to manipulate the unemployment figues! What an admission of GUILT. Shame on gvt for doing that, and shame on whomsoever accepted that offer but, if destined to sudden onset poverty with the loss of a job and no hope of finding another full time job soon, I guess I could understand the temptation. BUT, the blame lies at the door of gvt for introducing that unacceptable scheme and for applying it.
NOW we are to believe that such a bogus system was introduced but NO-ONE thought to keep any list as to who was removed from the unemployment register and placed onto ICB,as bogus claimants, so now everyone on ICB is suspect… Yet another example of a catastrophic administration INCOMPETENCE by the DWP… and then you acuse me of being bogus because I have dedicated any good days to actively persuing a quality of life by using my skills to help charities. Would you prefer me to watch daytime TV perhaps as, clearly, you seem to have a lot of presumptions about ‘the disabled’ and, if we put in enormous effort and determination to pretend we have some sort of quality of life, along comes an able bodied Lord to tell us to get a job. I suggest you try my life for a week your Lordship. Some days I can’t actually breath, other days I can’t physically walk and I use Morphine as limited pain relief.
Given the contents of the damning evidence within the research report: Welfare Reform – Redress for the Disabled, as distributed to 360 members of the House of Lords in advance of the welfare reform debate, identifying Unum Privident Insurance as the 2nd worst insurance company in the US, confirmed by the American Ass for Justice, it is amazing that you presume to advise me to:
Forget the US giant. It was introduced by the UK government. It is UK policy.
That’s just NOT good enough Lord Blagger and now I’ve finally had it confirmed that all this distress was planned long ago, and we are on the road to US style health funding using insurance, I’ll be sure to pass on that information. I suggest you take a look at the following website:
http://blacktrianglecampaign.org/2011/09/15/unums-game-plan/
With reference to your blog on 26th Sept, claiming there is no evidence against Atos, I refer you to a selection of detailed reports by frontline charities and to the very detailed research report: Atos Healthcare or Disability Denial Factories and that can be found at:
http://www.whywaitforever.com/dwpatosveterans.html
It is part of a much larger website, by a man known as Mike Bach, and his disturbing evidence can be found at:
http://www.whywaitforever.com/dwpatos.html.
Mike had a brain tumour covering 75% of his brain and you think it’s reasonable to force him to have constant assessments to PROVE he isn’t fit enough for work? When dealing with the sudden onset of 3 x Grand Mal epileptic fits per day he retained some quality of life, and the all important independance, by creating his website. Are you going to tell him to get a job too?
You see the problem here? I can also refer you to 10 consecutive annual reports by His Honour Judge Robert Martin, as President of the Appeal Tribunals, who condems Atos medicals each and every year – and he’s already got a job, or don’t you believe him either?
This one size fits all mentality is dangerous and the additional stress endured by people already so vulnerable is a national disgrace.
Your claims that I should be in paid employment because I refused to end my quality of life when profound illness ended my medical career is typical of the problems found when able bodied and medically unqualified people presume to judge people with chronic illness and disablities. FORGET the Atos manual Lord Blagger and start reading the very detailed reports by frontline charities such as MacMillan, Citizens Advice and the Disability Alliance because they all read my reports and they all agree that the WCA, as conducted by Atos, is totally and emphatically unfit for purpose. They are in the front line of this gvt imposed medical tyranny, meeting desperately ill and profoundly disabled people every day, so I urge you to believe them if not me.
You don’t give me anything Lord Blagger and, as for my War Pension that includes an UNEMPLOYABILITY SUPPLEMENT because I am too ill to enjoy paid employment I believe, as do millions of others, that I funded my pension – that IS NOT A BENEFIT – in advance due to contributions made during many years of paid professional employment. Is that not what national insurance was meant to be for?
Mo Stewart
Reply
There’s no dispute that people not entitled to a benefit should not receive it, and I would hope there is no dispute that there should be appropriate, vigilant, cost-effective and proportionate means of detecting those who have been granted a benefit incorrectly or fraudulently or were once entitled to it but whose circumstances have changed.
The problem is that almost any investigation will require some form of intrusiveness, whether it is corresponding with doctors or requiring applicants to undergo tests.
I mention the words appropriate, vigilant, cost-effective and proportionate – the word vigilant speaks for itself, but cost-effective must mean some measure of intelligent risk-analysis (for example, a double amputee is unlikely to be faking it and some alleged disabilities are anecdotally often claimed fraudulently); proportionate ties in with cost-effectiveness and is essentially about not overdoing the process to make the process itself part of the means by which applicants are deterred from claiming; and appropriate means that the tests should be tailored to the age and type of disability being reviewed, and have regard to the pain, stress or suffering the applicant may suffer when attempting the test. It would greatly help if people who knew the applicant could be used to assess their suitability for benefit instead of regarding their testimony as essentially worthless. I really doubt the wisdom of entrusting this exercise to one colossus of a company. It’s the “contract it to Capita to solve all the problems of the world” syndrome. which experts can tell you is contagious between parties.
I suspect the workers for this company are on some form of bonus based on the number of claimants ceasing to claim and the value of money so saved. There’s something a little sick in that.
@Dan Filson:
If the people receiving DLA were not entitled to it, they woudn’t be getting it. So what government has done, is, put the fox in charge of the chickens. So it is not an objective assessment as the outcome is planned prior to examination.
What is happening here is, the identical situation as you have with Greece being found financially viable to be part of the Euro. Duncan Smith and his cohorts decided that they had all made a big dent in the treasury funds we gave them to run our country. And low and behold, they played roulette with it. So, rather than attack those with whom they colluded in the robbery, Bankers, et al,, they decided to attack the poverty stricken, disabled and working poor. There are more of those but they have no voice.
So, what they are teling us is, they have no money left. Except, that is, to fight in Afghanistan, Libya and anywhere else they can gang together and sell arms to, making huge profits for self as they do. Also, we have to worry about those people in countries with despots who fly their own jets and send these luxurious rides to collect our politicians who have betrayed us. Oh, and don’t forget, those funds of International Aid are ring fenced, so, we can’t touch that. The people of the world outside our own defenceless are seen as more equal than our deserving in every way. Can’t touch the murderers we are paying off either, as they may end up shopping our political brockers, just as Gadaffi’s paper work shows how Blair is the blood sucker of the world.
Then, we mustn’t forget the pay off to friends, the developers and financial hedge fund dinner pals, after all, they coughed up the money to put them into power didn’t they? They are looking for their portion and will get nasty if the deal is reneged on.
Then we come down to the 12 billion they spent on a useless NHS computer they have to put in the dump. Who got paid for that piece of crap I wonder. Any of them? We also mustn’t forget the giant expense fiddlers in the business. As well as all the corruption money we read so much about in the papers. Letting off expenses cheats with a doleful cry of, ‘there but for the grace of God, go I dear.’
Add it all together with quango fiascos and our balloned immigration debt, and you find these will all take precedence above those who have paid for the welfare benefits in perpetuity.
The sick, the old and the poor have no leverage because they hold no asset. Which is not entirely true, as the little they may have invested in their home is snatched away from them at a drop of the hat, in order to let in the carpet baggers who can make up a nice little property portfolio out of it. Remember how the Duke of Westminster’s family did very nicely out of that little lark over the centuries. The old Tory saying is, buy low sell high. That’s the way to do it.
And guess what, as your asset value falls, theirs increases. Look at the price those places in Kensignton Palace Road go for now. Climbing at a rate unseen world wide they are.
So, what I am saying is, they have so many of their needy friends on the look out for benefits, they just can’t get around to those who deserve the soup in the pot.
Time for a pro bono lawyer to apply to the European Courts on Human Rights grounds on behalf of the disabled sick of the UK, under the discrimnation act, so they can claw back what is rightfully theirs. Those lawyers could do it on a no win no fee basis. Which should see a healthy profit at the end of it. If they play their cards right, that is.
‘If the people receiving DLA were not entitled to it, they woudn’t be getting it.’ Sadly this is not always the case. How many inappropriate payments are made can be argued but nobody can argue in all seriousness that 100.00% of all awards are correct and still applicable after a passage of time.
Therefore there is a need for periodic review of claimants. But such reviews should be appropriate, vigilant, cost-effective and proportionate. So I would risk-review the claimants before plunging in, and certainly would hesitate before authorising an enormously costly 100% review. It cannot make sense to review a case where doctors have certified a man is dying of liver cancer or is a double amputee. Either will, if they feel capable, seek work if well enough. The employer would have to make ‘appropriate adjustments’. Perhaps the state should fund reasonable adjustments. But to spend valuable resources bullying the severely disabled or chronically sick back into work and off benefits is a misuse of scarce resources. I know all about the platform speech by the man who had lost both legs and sought employment. Many amputees will do so. But amputees are a small minority of the DLA population, as for that matter are those dying of cancer. Proper targetting, which I would have thought the coalition supported, would go for appropriate, vigilant, cost-effective and proportionate investigation, not a 100% one-size-fits-all approach.
muffie02 – when you’ve finished rolling your eyes to the sky, I respectfully suggest you check out the report on this website:
http://blacktrianglecampaign.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/WELFARE-REFORM-Exec-Summary-Revised-final.pdf
It was quoted during the recent lengthy debate on welfare reform in the Lords and it’s as bad as it gets…
Dear Baroness Murphy,
THANK YOU for setting up this website thread.
Since you started the thread on exactly seven days ago on 24th September 2011 you have achieved……
119 POSTS
….. so far (and excepting Trolls).
HOPEFULLY the very fact that (please forgive me) a relatively obscure website with a very new and not well signposted thread can attract around ten dozen posts PROVES that this subject is IMPORTANT?
Last but not least, PLEASE can you bring the issue of the dangerous nature and consequences of the current welfare reforms, and that these really do need making FIT-FOR-PURPOSE to the debating chamner of the House of Lords?
Many thanks,
Calum McLean.
RichieVilla says that Britain scores low in support, even lower if (“)health payments are excluded(“)
by which is doubtless meant “illnesses” payments (?)
because Britain still has no health-support, maintenance, and further-building service, despite the reasonably-successful National Illnesses, Hospitals and Pharmacological Service misleadingly, and thereby arguably ‘corruptly’, titled National Health Service.
This NHS’s ‘Remit’ exludes all health-building education, alternative and complementary health and remediation preactices, and self-helping intentions and needs such as help to pursue one’s health-maingtenance and improvement through such published works as
“Awareness Through Movement” (Feldenkrais);
(and Self-Awareness Heals by Shafarman);
“The New Rules of Posture” (Mary Bond); and
“How To Win Every Argument” (Petrie).
We get nowhere because our minds are being definitively corrupted, “verballed”; and both our workplace and our lifeplace are stifled against specific self-healthing, and against effectively-supportive and mutual self-help, and self-education.
So the Welfare Reform Bill needs to positively reform all of that, and ‘positivisingly’ so.
Parliament, the People, and Professions in all Sectors, need to create a working link with bigger legislation positivising the Health-Building of the whole Nation, most importantly in the Lifeplace because the employers who own the Workplace are responsible for worker-health and fitness and because the Lifeplace envelops us for 75% of our time, whereas the Workplace owns us for only 25%.
And the whole world’s health, and welfare, is also desperately awaiting such a leadership.
I fear, Baroness Murphy, that you have missed the point in many of the comments. Some of your comments were, frankly, very concerning.
Regarding assessments, for example, and the concerns and reluctance disabled or ill people express, you have simply dismissed their concerns. For example, you say above:
“How are you to be assessed for the more help you might later need if you won’t agree to be properly assessed? It’s this refusal to see the possible benefits of a regular assessment which I don’t understand.”
If you do not understand why people are so reluctant or fearful, perhaps it might be an idea to find out why?
Ask disabled people, listen to what they say and take it on board. Do not simply dismiss it because you do not agree. You do not have their perspective; you do not live their lives.
Much of the Welfare Reform Bill looks to cut money that is very much needed and essential by and for disabled people and the long-term ill.
The notion that those on benefits are living like kings is nonsense – and stories highlighted in the media do NOT reflect real life for most disabled people who are unable to work.
Many disabled people unable to work I know simply cannot afford to pay their bills each month. However, they cannot get extra hours, take a second job or get an overdraft or payday loan. As a result, debts just mounts up.
As another example, families with a disabled parent and disabled child (and there are many) often require an extra bedroom, as it can be impossible for the child to share or as, in some cases, for husband and wife to share a bed.
Families like this are now being told they will have to move under the changes to Housing Benefit and Local Housing Allowance. This is disgraceful behaviour by policy makers.
At the same time, Councils are saying that they have no suitable properties. What are such families to do? What do they do? Where do they go? The policy needs refining.
If you cut benefits to disabled people, it does not negate or remove their needs. These people do not somehow just get better or vanish. Ultimately, costs are merely transferred: to the NHS, nursing homes, state support etc. This cost does not get removed.
In the past when this has happened, it put great stress on the NHS and did push costs up. The very policies the Govt is planning to save money is going to do exactly the opposite. I can remember when cuts led to people and families having to live in guest houses and B&Bs. That mistake cost taxpayers a fortune, not to mention putting people into a rut many never escaped.
With high rents (which is the real problem in that domain), we could see this happen again, especially in areas that do not have suitable properties on the 30th percentile.
Regarding assessments, it is all too easy to make assumptions or generalisations but you will not help disabled or ill people unless you listen to them. Concepts for policy should involve disabled people and be based on facts and conclusions, rather than assumptions and misinterpretations.
With respect, some of your comments seem to show a lack of insight and understanding. There is little to indicate that you relate to people’s situations, let alone have a deep understanding.
It takes months or years for GPs, specialists, clinicians, nurses and others to get to grips with patients.
Conditions and disabilities are often complex and patient-specific. Only a doctor or specialist who knows both the condition/disability AND the patient could be qualified to assess needs. Quite often, people with the same disability/condition have very different needs.
Some disabilities/conditions and the patient’s needs change daily or more frequently. What if you assess someone on a ‘good day’?
Some are subjective and some rare. Some conditions can have other problems if connected to another disability or condition a patient/person might have. One needs expert knowledge and experience for assessing this.
It is ludicrous to suggest that an assessment of any value or credibility could be made by someone unfamiliar with a patient and/or unfamiliar with the intricacies of a disability/condition. One needs the quality of expertise and familiarity; the combination of knowledge, qualifications, training AND the experience of both patient and disability/condition in order to assess.
RichieVilla says that Britain scores low in support, even lower (“)if health payments are excluded(“)
by which is doubtless meant if “illnesses” costs payments are excluded (?)
This distinction is by no means “hair splitting”, because Britain still has no health-support, maintenance, and further-health-building service, despite the reasonably-successful National Illnesses, Hospitals and Pharmacological Service called the NHS
i.e. misleadingly and ‘corruptingly’ titled National Health Service.
This NHS’s ‘Remit’ exludes all health-building education, alternative and complementary health and remediation preactices, and self-helping intentions and needs such as help to pursue one’s health-maingtenance and improvement through such published works as
“Awareness Through Movement” (Feldenkrais);
(and Self-Awareness Heals by Shafarman);
“The New Rules of Posture” (Mary Bond); and
“How To Win Every Argument” (Petrie).
We get nowhere because our minds are being definitively corrupted, “verballed”;
and both our workplace and our lifeplace are stifled against specific self-healthing, and against effectively-supportive and mutual self-help, and self-education.
So the Welfare Reform Bill needs to positively reform all of that, and ‘positivisingly’ do so.
Parliament, the People, and Professions in all Sectors, need to create a working link with bigger legislation positivising the Health-Building of the whole Nation,
most importantly in the Lifeplace
because the employers who own the Workplace are responsible for worker-health and fitness,
and because the Lifeplace envelops us for 75% of our time, whereas the Workplace owns us for only 25%.
———————
And the whole world’s health, and welfare, is also desperately awaiting such a leadership.
Again, to Baroness Murphy.
With regards to “And please don’t tell me that Atos gets it wrong sometimes, I already know!
This entry was written at 10:55 ”
I can state, that in my particular case, on each and every occassion, atos has got it wrong.
Not just sometimes, every single time.
If we cannot trust the Lords to help us – Then who can we turn to – Cameron has proven he hates us (Being that he promised to care before election and once elected proved he will attack the disabled continually)
We have put our faith in you – The Lords – To make this man see sense!
ATOS = They are not doing their job right and millions is being wasted because of them – Use the NHS specialists and save billions!
Defecit = Go after the right people ! – Bankers, and people who do not pay their taxes as they are too busy spending this tax money on themselves! I know a man like this – He spends all his tax money on his ‘wants’ and then when tax bill comes in whines he has no money. Go after the companies who owe this country BILLIONS in unpaid tax – Dont let them off – get them to PAY
NHS = Stop breaking it apart and putting so much pressure on the doctors and nurses and start paying them properly.
Immigration = Why are all our jobs going to people out of this country (yes i know they tak less pay) If you let people from elsewhere have all the jobs – Dont say you are amazed when there are no jobs left for ENGLISH PEOPLE
And personally – I would say that any govt who gets voted in – If they do this on lies – Then they should get out! Cameron made promises he had no intention at all to keep to – These were words that he knew owuld win votes and he knew he would not be sticking to them – Therefore this whole govt is a lie, a farce. NOT the Govt many people thought they were voting for
Why are the disabled being treated in this way? The proven fraud figures being 0.5% (DLA) yet this govt will axe 20% off DLA meaning 19.5% of people thrown off ARE TRULY DISABLED
Why are you letting them throw us away like we are nothing? Why?
I am awaiting my call to ATOS – Who will tell me i am fine (Not that they will know anything about me or my condition – And will write off the doctors ive seen for the last 9yrs as know-nothigns as ATOS know more somehow
Thanks for all those comments, especially from people who managed to do so without being unmannerly. This is my final response to the comments on this blog but of course you are welcome to add more comments if you wish. The main complaint here is about the skilfulness and accuracy of Atos assessment process and I have already indicated that I agree with those comments: it is clearly not yet fit for purpose. But work continues and there is no reason in principle why it should not improve to become a suitable and professional process. Is anyone saying that a person seeking financial support for daily life on the grounds of extra needs caused through disability should NOT be properly assessed? Surely not. There has always been an assessment; it just hasn’t been very rigorous or accurate. I shall be pressing for the implementation to be improved but not for a reversal of the policy.
It is important to distinguish between a medical assessment which is carried out by a doctor for diagnostic purposes and an assessment process designed to assess capabilities in daily living. The former is helpful but it is the overall picture of capacities which is important. So I disagree with the view that a specialist assessment is all that the DWP need; every individual case is different.
The web site reports of suicides need examining with an eye to the complete picture every individual case is different and newspaper reports are notoriously inaccurate ,…they tend to report what others attribute the cause to but obviously do not record what the individual was thinking or feeling or the full circumstance, which may well be unrelated to benefit issues. I regret I find the web site Black Triangle Campaign to be nasty and inaccurate tosh and I am surprised that people should be taken in by it. The campaign to frighten people with disabilities is a disgrace. No wonder people are frightened, of something, remember, which hasn’t happened yet!
Many of you have given moving vignettes of the difficulties people with disabilities experience and how little in reality the State provides in the way of help. It is surely crucial that we concentrate what support the State can give on those who need it and distinguish between them and those who could with support return to work after a period of disability. People have a right to campaign for the all-inclusive status quo but like many other people in this country who are dissatisfied with the appalling cultural impact of the current system I have a right to express a view that the system is rotten and needs change.
Baroness Murphy, I am reading your last submission with great sadness as you have not taken onboard any of the genuine concerns and have not actually countered any of the evidence put to you with any credible evidence of your own.
That confirms to me that you know the real reason for this vicious Welfare Reform Bill….to save money with no consideration for the actual needs of the disabled. People are not stupid….there is no extra help for anybody, just huge cuts for hundreds of thousands of genuine people in need.
You ask whether anyone is saying that we should not be properly assessed. Sadly, yes there are such people….ie those who support the Welfare Reform Bill!
The current assessment process is clearly unfair. That is partly due to Atos incompetence and, in some cases, blatant lies, but it is also down to the unfair descriptors.
Being deemed able to self propel a chair 60 metres on level ground does not make you fit for work. Also, if the government were actually serious about helping disabled people back into work then why are they doing nothing to address the issue of less than 1 in 12 employers being willing to employ someone who has been deemed “fit for work”? The clear purpose of this vicious Bill is to shunt people onto JSA, or to leave people with no support at all.
Your point about having a different person assess you for daily living activities makes no sense. My condition is neurological. My neurologist is not there solely for diagnosis as you try to make out. I think that my neurologist would be rather alarmed and angry that you think he is just there to diagnose. He understands my condition, how it affects my daily activities both now and how it is likely to affect me in the future, and gives advice on managing the condition. Having someone without the required specialist knowledge of either you or the condition assess you after one short meeting via a series of tick boxes is clearly unfair. My condition is progressive so surely it is a waste of money to continually call back such people when they cannot get any better.
I think you are also clutching at straws re the suicides. I have looked at those cases and the evidence is pretty compelling. I would say that it is far more likely that these tragic cases will be just the tip of the iceberg.
Re the Black Triangle campaign, I don’t agree with some of their views but they also make plenty of valid points. I think that most of us are sensible enough to make our own minds up based on our research.
I would say that stopping contribution based ESA after 12 months for the WRAG is nasty….I would say that scrapping the lower rate care component of DLA, via the PIP reforms is nasty……I would say that the scrapping of the mobility allowance for those in council funded care homes is nasty…..I would say that a clearly unfair assessment process is nasty…..I would say that a policy designed purely to take money from the most likely group to already live in poverty (essential money, not money for luxuries) is nasty, and even more so when you consider the huge amounts of tax that are not collected and the huge amounts wasted on nuclear weapons and wars.
You say that we should not be worried by something that has not happened yet. You again are being rather dismissive as for many people it has already happened, via the unfair WCA assessment…over 82000 successful and highly stressful appeals last year alone! Many of these were then summoned back by Atos just a few weeks later!
Also, if we only worry about this unfair and vindictive Bill after it has been passed then obviously it will be too late to stop its vicious provisions.
Apart from the deeply immoral aspects of this Bill, the practicalities of it are of serious concern. The Treasury has warned that the reforms are in serious danger of arriving late and being billions of pounds over budget, or even failing altogether. How exactly is that going to help people?
Your dismissive comment about people wanting to “campaign for the all-inclusive status quo” again misses the point completely. Nobody is asking for that! We want a fair assessment process. We want genuine claimants to not be punished by huge arbitrary cuts. If a fair assessment process finds us “fit for work” then we want a fair chance of being considered by employers. That is not campaigning for a status quo.
While these consultations with politicians are better than nothing, this has sadly just confirmed how out of touch all our politicians are with the reality for millions of people. While I thank you for taking the time to post on here it is very sad to see how few of people’s genuine concerns that you have taken on board.
After being continually vilified and scapegoated by the media and some politicians with inaccurate figures and information, it would be nice if we finally were treated fairly.
If the government actually admitted what we all know…ie this Bill is purely designed to save money…then at least I could respect their honesty, if not their decency and lack of morals. However, by treating us like fools by expecting us to believe that this is about helping the genuinely disabled then it just reinforces the view of many that politicians of all parties are not fit for purpose. Cameron promised to protect the vulnerable. Cameron lied.
When this vile Bill becomes law it will be a very sad day for decency and compassion. Shame on all those who are responsible for making this happen!
Baroness Murphy, May I begin by saying I thank you for your concern regarding the accuracy of ATOS Healthcare assessments. I and many other disabled people have been forced into action by the current unfair deionisation of the disabled by the press and the Tory Led Government we have today. I draw your attention to George Osborne the Chancellor who informed the electorate he was going to crack down on Welfare Benefit Scroungers, his Party Leader David Cameron who added his assertion to this by calling those in receipt of Welfare Benefits Benefit scroungers, followed by Benefit fraudsters followed by Benefit cheats.
The press have been fed misleading information from Government sources and then allowed to “manufacture” stories of Benefit fraud around the statistics fed to them. This and other unnecessary attacks on the disabled of Great Britain, has resulted in the build-up of hatred against those of us whop are unfortunate enough to be able to work because of sickness and disability.
You wonder why web sites, blogs and forums dedicated to fighting the Government and ATOS Healthcare have arisen. The above is only the beginning of a long list of reasons why. If it was not for these web sites the general public would have gone like lambs to the slaughter and had their Benefits illegally suspended by supplying the Jobcentreplus Decision Makers with badly written, bogus reports which makes the claimant look like a liar.
Disability can strike anyone, including you or your family, if you were in our position you would have to resort to claiming Benefits, when you then had them removed by a few deftly aimed clicks of a mouse or keyboard, you would do as we are. But you will sadly never understand our plight because you are so far removed from our lifestyles you just couldn’t grasp it.
If you take a clo9se look at the history of the Black Triangle campaign and the other forums you will see ATOS have attacked each and every one. They did not do this by contacting the forum or blog owners directly; instead they did it in their usual cowardly manner and attacked the host companies. This caused many sites to be brought down over night. Why did they do this? Well they felt we were misusing their Logo or giving them a bad name and reputation. Well I ask you this, how come so many people are complaining about ATOS and the abuse they are raining down upon those of us who are disabled in the name of this cruel Government and on the wishes of a few millionaires?
In answer to a vquestion posed to my last post, 40% (unrepresented) of decisions are overturned at Tribunal. 70% (represented) are overturned at Tribunal stage. Source the Harrington Report. If this is not screaming that something is drastically wrong with what ATOS are doing then I don’t know what is. I personally take offence at the cavalier manner in which you admit ATOS do get it wrong ”sometimes” and yet stand by and watch a devastating bill like this go through the Lords without challenge? You should be doing all you can to stop this atrocity being forced upon those who contributed to your current position in Parliament, not idly standing by at the wish of a few corrupt men.
We are not going to stand by and watch our rights to Benefits we have pre paid for taken away at the whim of a Political Party who have no empathy with most of the electorate. We will fight this all the way, just so you understand clearly where I at least stand.
Dear Baroness Murphy,
Thank you for the decency to reply and engage. You refer to the Black Triangle site. As a disabled person, this doesn’t scare me. In fact it has stopped me going to Dignitas in Switzerland. I thank Black Triangle for keeping me alive.
You tell me not to be frightened of things that HAVEN’T happened yet. Sorry Baroness they HAVE. I am losing my home because you and your colleagues were UNABLE or unwilling to sort out this morally wrong and faulty Welfare Reform Bill at the second reading in the House of Lords. Yes? No?
I now have to go to hospital at a cost of well over £100 per day instead of living independently at less than £9 per day. I am sure you will pass the Welfare Reform Bill at third reading and this mess will get a magnitude worse.
By the way how can you say things haven’t happened yet? The Black Triange site was set up in the memory of Paul Reekie. He committed suicide because of the legislation the House of Lords were complicity in passing.
What about Richard Sanderson? He killed himself and left suicide notes explaining, and directing CULPABILITY at your enactments. What more compelling evidence do you need?
Worse, you have our trust as you are a qualified doctor and professor with expertise in these fields.
As a scientist how can you call the deaths of people ‘Tosh’. That is unmannerly. I am truly sorry that you find some comments offensive. But you now have 140 on your thread alone. Does that not inform you of the size of this mess? Does the strength of feeling not impact upon your human decency?
With respect Baroness, by your penultimate statement, you are now leaving and refusing to continue this debate with disabled people, you have abroggated what respect you had earnt. You have also lost the moral authority to sit in the House of Lords.
I shall now join the campaign to abolish your right to sit, and that of the other unelected Lords and Ladies at the House of Lords.
At least that is one piece of legislation this nightmare of a Coalition has gotten right. I wonder if the honorouble members may be a little more powerful in their views at self-preservation of their titles and seats, than they have been in defending the most vulnerable in society? It will be hard I know for those retired people earning £300 a day as a member of the wondeful debating chamber that is the House of Lords.
However, I now look forward to the day when the House of Lords has removed the titles of those who are unelected, and removed their right to sit in the House of Lords and pass legislation when, with respect Baroness, you have no elected mandate to do so, and will, with your honourable colleagues be permanently removed from your seat in the House of Lords.
Sadly for you and your colleagues, you do NEED to worry about losing your title, or at least your seat in the Lords. The Bill to remove you will shortly be on its way from the House of Commons, and ultimately you have as much chance of surviving as we disabled people do.
Irony! A marvellous thing.
Regards and best of luck without the £300 a day job.
Calum.
Thankyou Baroness Murphy for taking our comments and concerns on board.
Baroness Murhphy, I hope you will truly consider the points made above – including my own – and also look into the issues and problems raised. These are being experienced by some of the most vulnerable people in the country.
Regarding the ‘unmannerly’ comment you made, I would agree.
However, it also has to be considered that the experiences many people have had or are having has left them feeling as though the system treats them as though they are liars, and has also left them feeling like 3rd class cizitens.
This is bound to create a deep distrust of Government, immense frustration, deep resentment and extreme anger. People are, after all, only human and I do believe Govt & agencies, their systems, policies and procedures need to uphold people’s dignity and treat people with far more respect.
Thank you.
No one is complaining about being assessed Baroness Murphy, but every single person is complaining about being assessed unfairly.
And that’s the problem. the unfair assessments, the lies, the ESA 85 medical report fabrications,it’s a national scandal, and when the people of Britain find out in the future what’s really happening, (And they will sooner or later) heads will roll.
Because we are not going to give up Baroness Murphy, and the real truth will out in the end, and the Lord Blaggers will finally see the truth (Although i strongly suspect he is in denial and knows the truth) but I can assure you Lord Blagger will be nowhere to be seen, but skulking red faced under some rock.
I’ll end by saying since Oct 2008 Iv’e seen lots and lots of footprints going in to the ATOS centres, but I don’t see very many coming back out.
Oh and by the way, the scottish CAB wrote a report stating strongly that the ATOS assessments are not fit for purpose so go straight to the cabinet and ask Danny Alexander why ?.
Go on, he won’t hurt you, be bold go straight right up to him and ask him why ?.
So let me ask you.
Design a system that is fair.
1. That means those that need benefits get them
2. That those who can do some sort of work don’t get benefit.
3. Absolutely insures that the Frank Gallagers of claimants are denied.
4. Is fair to the people paying for it all.
@Lord Blagger:
‘Your little addition of ‘those who can do some work must not get benefits’ is a real eye opener.
So, where are all these jobs you feel these people can do going to come from? What are they? Where are they? And how much do they pay? Will it allow them to eat, pay their rent as well as look after their medical needs? Not if the minimum wage is anything to go by.
Then who will assist these disabled people once in these fabulous life changing jobs, if one can be found that is? I mean who is going to help them use the toilet and deal with their daily incontinence? As well as perhaps help them to eat a meal, or, remember their medication times and be sure they take it?
Next, which company is going to want to employ those who cannot do the hours expected today? Or, want to invest in people they know will always be out sick? Is it you? Are you going to be the braveheart and take them on?
Maybe you feel they should be left to starve in some remote attic where they won’t be seen? As they are a little too much to throw off when they line the streets with the begging bowls aren’t they?
But, they do allow that in the great place of eternal dreams, the USA. Children there spend their lives on the streets pulling their one toy behind them, as they walk, head down, behind the mother who is on crutches.
This is why we have to remain part of the EU because what the Tories want is to be rid of the EU social legislation that presently prevents them from doing it.
This proverbial daily rag performance about being unable to deport 100 criminals because of ‘Human Rights’ issues is a smokescreen to hide from us all their intention to bring the poor, homeless and disbled back to the alleyways of the Victorian era. And you can see it already taking place.
What they fail to grasp is, the people of this country pay the taxes they are playing around with, and that is what keeps them so healthily in officee. If they cut that off, they are cutting off their own heads.
The workers could, however, simultaneously, stop paying, couldn’t they? On the grounds of fraudulent use of our money by the State. And then what would they do?
Leave their jobs?
‘Your little addition of ‘those who can do some work must not get benefits’ is a real eye opener.
So, where are all these jobs you feel these people can do going to come from? What are they? Where are they? And how much do they pay? Will it allow them to eat, pay their rent as well as look after their medical needs? Not if the minimum wage is anything to go by.
================
Well, not my rules but the government’s rules.
What it does mean is this. If you are not incapacitated, then you are unemployed. You get the same help and support as anyone else who is unemployed.
It also means that you are obliged to look for work just like any other unemployed person.
Q1. Why should people be allowed not to look to work if they are unemployed and want money from other people?
their intention to bring the poor, homeless and disbled back to the alleyways of the Victorian era. And you can see it already taking place.
I’d dispute that. I don’t think it is the intention. However, I do think its inevitable. It’s inevitable because governments have run up massive debts and hidden them just like Bernie Maddoff.
Next, which company is going to want to employ those who cannot do the hours expected today? Or, want to invest in people they know will always be out sick? Is it you? Are you going to be the braveheart and take them on?
Here’s the deal. It’s not about incapacity, its about employing people in general.
1. If you employ someone, they have to generate as much income as they cost. Otherwise you lose money on the deal.
So if you want more people employed, you need to make sure that as a government you make the costs of employing them as low as possible. Regulation, taxes on jobs, flexibility.
Secondly, comes the question of business. It’s risky. If you put 100K into a business where there is a 50% chance you lose the lot, you need a lot of after tax return to make that work. So you need to reduce the risks to the people prepared to put that money and effort in. Taking 50% of the gain, for no work, and none of the losses really is a something for nothing problem. End result, you don’t get employment.
The workers could, however, simultaneously, stop paying, couldn’t they? On the grounds of fraudulent use of our money by the State. And then what would they do?
They would be up the creek, and rightly. Now, I’m in favour of this. I think, just like workers have the right to strike for conditions of work and pay, taxpayers should also have the right to strike. For example, if taxpayers are against the Iraq war, why shouldn’t they be allowed to withhold that percentage of their tax? If local government changes from weekly to twice weekly bin collection, but carries on charging the same, then taxpayers should be allowed to strike over that payment, and organise their own collection.
So yes you are right, it’s government that is at the root cause of these problems, ICB included.
It’s also at the root cause of unemployment. Now you may think that victorian style poverty is wrong. I do too. Just because its bad doesn’t mean its not going to happen. The reason is quite Victorian too.
My other piece of advice, Copperfield, said Mr. Micawber, you know. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen nineteen six, result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds ought and six, result misery. The blossom is blighted, the leaf is withered, the god of day goes down upon the dreary scene, andand, in short, you are for ever floored. As I am!
Rather apt.
Now its not me that has caused it. It’s government.
@LB:
Mr Macawber was talking of personal budgeting. This government debt is a result of evil disregard of the people who supplied the treasury. Abuse of the public purse by consecutive profligate governments is the crime here.
Where you are off line is, you are blaming those who are needy. If they were all flung onto the street and left to die as there are no jobs, there is no benefit, and no more money in the kitty, then, those who created this situation deserve to also be on the street and without an income to support themselves. They threw our funds away. No one else. No fraudsters on benefit, no liars and cheats of the state funds. That is chicken feed in the treasury budget. And the claims are not anywhere as high as they should be, so there is an excess of money in the kitty, not a shortfall.
Along with that, these managers of the State assets should be raided by the bailiffs as they abused their position of power, and therefore it is only ‘fair’ that they too should be brought to the gutter with the rest of us. Justice must be seen to be done.
However, I repeat, if they can afford overseas aid, and the profligate spending they continue with, whilst telling us all, the tax payers of this country, that what we are paying for no longer exists for us, then they must stop taking it at once. For to continue to do so is taking money under false pretenses. And that is fraud.
When they stop paying for all the wars they have decided to run, and stop purchasing billions of pounds of unnecessary equipment that is filling their pockets with profit, put an end to overseas aid and shut the doors to more dependents, send all their chums in the two Houses who steal via expense claims to jail, turn off the tap to the European Union who cannot settle an audit of their finances in thirteen years, stop paying huge pensions to same chums, and on and on and on, then and only then will I feel the sick and disabled people of our country should accept we are financially crippled and they can no longer draw their payments that support them. I too will then accept, we are, in truth, broke.
Until then, I shall fight for what my family throughout their lives, and all of those who are paying today, on the grounds they were covered in the event of malady or any other matter they are rightfully insured to expect, as told to them by this and all previous governments.
So, Blagger, you are on the wrong side of the equation. Because you are being taken in just the same way as all these poor people throughout our country are.
This government is not broke whilst it goes on paying for the frills it wants to keep.
So the sick and poor deserve their just deserts. And this abuse of their person must be brought to an end. And quickly.
What a sad state of affairs when the trust we put in Government and The Lords is so misplaced.
It is plain a fair and reasonable assessment is required , it is plain fraudulent claims must be somehow stopped.
It is also plain the ESA system and the use of Atos Healthcare to undertake WCA tests is not fair or reasonable way of doing either.
The Baroness knows, as do the Government and the DWP, the system is a farce.
It is because of the cost of changing it they continue with their pretence.
Common sense tells us this system will eventually implode.
The saddness is so many will have to suffer before common sense prevails.
It is senseless to continue to try to change the minds of the Baroness or Lord Blogger, leave them in their world and we will continue to fight in the real world.
Forget me, I didn’t design anything or nor did I spend so much money none is left.
However you are right about one thing Stan. The Lords are useless. They won’t lift a figure. Meanwhile they will continue to rake in the millions, and that’s a major cause of why people won’t be getting help.
My father died of liver cancer. What kind of person can look at medical evidence from 2 Doctors, one of which was an oncologist, and still declare he could return to work in 6 months. We had the opportunity to appeal, but we never did, our last remaining weeks with my father were going to be lived OUR way, and not be governed by a system thats so badly flawed it puts this country to shame.
His first appointment to see an advisor came 4 days after he died. My brother took great pleasure in taking the letter to our local jobcentre plus and telling them he wouldnt be attending. When asked why, he said that dead people can’t attend appointments. He handed them the letter and said next time someone has medical evidence from a cancer specialist, someone needs to read them. Then he walked out.
Who was there to protect my father? if the very people that were supposed to protect his welfare couldnt even read and understand he was dying. It breaks my heart everyday knowing that he was let down by the very system that was once built to help the needy. I fear for anyone having to attend these things because we lived 1st hand what it is like when they fail you.
So sorry to hear of your tragic loss Anne.
You will have to excuse the politicians as nought clouds the perception of the real world more than an excess of (other peoples) money
Well Baroness I believe you haven’t understood a word that has been written here. You clearly choose to believe the troll who has tried to stare up the forum. His is the kind of bigotry I have come across more and more lately. I worked for 30 years before needing to put a sick note in, and I am disgusted with people like this person, who has no morals and chooses to believe the spin put out by the likes of the daily mail.
‘Troll’ carry on posting all you like but remember one day it may be you or a family member who is in this terrible situation. You have no compassion and do not wish to read the truth, go back to the daily mail and enjoy your abusive life.
Every – body needs, as distinct from ‘wants’, Income and Expenditure assessment true to the individual’s real-life costs, circumstances, and potential.
Strict and limited-focus assessments by professionals such as Doctors, especially when Remit-limited by such authorities as the NHS, need to be supplemented by a thoroughgoing written appreciation of the individual’s other real-life needs, especially of their wish and potential for further and lifespan individual human development, life-education, or personal-fulfilment.
“Is anyone saying that a person seeking financial support for daily life on the grounds of extra needs caused through disability should NOT be properly assessed? Surely not. There has always been an assessment; it just hasn’t been very rigorous or accurate.”
Someone assessed as requiring help “indefinately” under DLA will need assessing yearly? Bi-annually? Every 6 months? Under DLA doctors reports and supporting evidence is needed.
[In case you were wondering about how “fair” past assessments were-
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/4995078.stm
Jim Allison, a benefits adviser based in Cumbria, came across one case in which an applicant for Disability Living Allowance had had 20 alterations made to her medical report.
The corrections had the effect of invalidating her claim: only when she decided to appeal did the alterations come to light.
For example, the word “unsteady” had been altered to “steady” when describing her ability to walk.
In another part of the report, the doctor had originally said that she was able to walk 30 metres. The “3” had later been turned into an “8”, thereby making it less likely that she would be awarded DLA.
“This particular case was the worst I’d seen,” said Mr Allison. And this was from FIVE YEARS AGO!]
Atos use what amounts to a lottery/raffle and you say that DLA —>”hasn’t been very rigorous or accurate”<—
Out of touch with reality, it's something that the Lords and the government have always been guilty of.
Would David Cameron's son have been
'examined' on a regular basis? I think not.
Someone assessed as requiring help “indefinately” under DLA will need assessing yearly?
==========
I would have thought that a three year period was reasonable. On the basis that it was a condition that doesn’t improve over time, and that they were sufficiently passed the barrier for claiming.
As for the cases of DLA being modified, my view is that is a case for the police and a prosecution. It’s an attempt to defraud someone of benefits. Just as serious as the other way round.
“Cameron has proven he hates us (Being that he promised to care before election and once elected proved he will attack the disabled continually)”
Cameron actually stated to at least two carers that he would not scrap DLA. Shades of Nick Clegg pledges.
@Baroness
Do you not KNOW the actual TRUE Fraud rates?
Really – Fraud in DLA is 0.5% – Yes less than half a percenT! So why waste millions and millions of pounds to ”’fix”’ a system that is NOT FLAWED. This is ridiculous.
You want flaws and upset people – then do nothing – But if you want THE TRUTH – READ the stats! The true DWP stats.
If 0.5% is the fraud rate if YOU HELP this govt cut 20% then YOU are aiding the hurt of the other 19.5% W3HOA RE TRULY DISABLED and being thrown off for no reason as it will not make them well.
Same with ESA – ATOS stating you are fine – Wont make you well as they are being PAID to say that!
If you do not agree – Then you need to do some digging and find out the FACTS.
It is so wrong for you to believe the few who say ‘all is well’ without making youself KNOWLEDGEABLE about the FACTS.
If you only listen to the words of Osbourne then you need to truly do your own digging
WHY would so many people complain if all was well??????????????????
Ask yourself this
Or be a sheep and just let Cameron wreck another part of Britain. That is what he will go in history for – The DAMAGE he is doing and the UNCARING ATTITUDE and LIES he is showing.
Really – Fraud in DLA is 0.5% – Yes less than half a percenT! So why waste millions and millions of pounds to ”’fix”’ a system that is NOT FLAWED. This is ridiculous.
===============
The problem is that you cannot explain away why those claiming ICB tripled without fraud. Either by the claimants or the government.
The numbers tripled since the 1980s. Thatcher started it and Labour did nowt.
That the numbers have tripled shows that its is massively flawed.
I provided credible evidence to counter what you said (of course you provided zero evidence to back up your statement). You merely misrepresented what I said as you had nothing to counter my evidence. Your simplistic argument is both lazy and not supported by the facts.
The facts show that the overwhelming majority of the increase in claimants was from claimants with serious disabilities, not trivial conditions.
It is rather sad that you ignore the facts in order to continue your prejudice against the disabled.
Lets take it slowly.
1. Has the number on ICB tripled since the 1980s?
2. Has the health of the nation deteriorated to that extent?
3. Have people been move from unemployment to ICB for political reasons?
Three simple questions. If you answer to any is no, can you supply the evidence to the contrary.
They go to the heart of your assertion, that is wrong, that
The facts show that the overwhelming majority of the increase in claimants was from claimants with serious disabilities, not trivial conditions.
Lots are there for political expediency.
The increase in claimants finished in 1995. Evidence already provided.
No, the nation’s health has not deteriorated hugely. The evidence has already been provided by myself which shows that the increase was due to people with serious disabilities finally claiming rather than by people with trivial conditions. The OECD figures prove that our spending was ridiculously low compared to other OECD countries back in 1980 and that now, after the rise in claimants, our incapacity related spending is only just above average. I know these facts don’t fit in with your agenda but I will stick to these facts.
Some people have been on IB that shouldn’t have been, but the credible evidence has shown these numbers consistently to be less than 1%.
There is no evidence that your assertion has any basis in fact. I could come up with equally wild statements, such as you are genuinely interested in helping the disabled. Sadly I would have no evidence to back up my statement, just as you have no evidence for anything that you say. I will use credible evidence and facts to back up what I say. It would be nice if you adopted the same approach.
The increase in claimants finished in 1995. Evidence already provided.
==============
And you are trying to imply that this increase is made up of people who are all incacpacitated.
That isn’t the case.
There is no evidence that your assertion has any basis in fact.
Follow the links I’ve given. I’ll give ti again for you because you don’t seem to be able to follow them.
Research – peer reviewed – all the buzz words. Not left or right wing based research either.
http://www.shu.ac.uk/_assets/pdf/cresr-woib-report-2010.pdf
The relevant points are.
1. 2009 – so its recent.
2. Across Britain, the number of women of working age claiming incapacity benefits (IB) is now nearly
1.1 million, up from around 350,000 in the early 1980s. Moreover, whereas the number of men of
working age on incapacity benefits reached a plateau in the mid 1990s, the number of women
continued to increase well into the 2000s. Among the under 60s, there are now almost as many
women on incapacity benefits as men.
1.1 / 0.35 = 315% increase over the period for which you’ve claimed it is falling. Why have the number of women become incapacitated?
Page 5 has some of the reasons.
Hidden unemployment. These are the women who could be expected to have been in
employment in a genuinely fully employed economy – an estimated 430,000 in all.
That’s 430,000 who shouldn’t be on incapacity, but should be on unemployment benefits, with the obligation to look for work. They aren’t disabled. So much for the 1% figure. If one percent that you quote was correct that would imply 43 million women in the UK are incapacitated. That’s more than the female population of the UK.
A diversion of lone parents from Income Support. This accounts for around 125,000 women
on IB.
So there is another 125,000 that are on ICB, but shouldn’t be.
559,000 thousand women who should not be receiving incapacity because they aren’t disabled.
Next
There is little evidence that any deterioration in the underlying health of the working age population
has contributed to the increase in IB claims among women Page 6
Since there is no deterioration in women’s health, you would expect the numbers receiving ICB to be static unless.
1. More women are entitled to incapacity benefits. Well they have that covered.
Rising labour force participation. This has led to a commensurate increase in the number of women on IB of around 125,000
Doesn’t explain the rest.
So what is going on?
There is clear statistical evidence of a link between the local and sub-regional demand for labour
and female IB claims. There is also clear evidence of a link between the male and female sides of the labour market. In simple terms, job loss and unemployment among men is being transmitted, via competition in the labour market, to higher IB claims among women in the same places.
Or rather, there is a causal link between areas of high unemployment and incapacity. Just another way of saying that people are being taken off the unemployment figures to the ICB figures, because it is politically expedient.
SO lots of facts for you to digest. Referenced to research, so it makes it difficult for you to claim I’m making it up.
So where is your reference to the 1%, or is that made up?
My figures are not wrong and the evidence that I have used is from work published this year by an acknowledged expert in this field.
Your evidence is sourced from 3629 people. Mine is from nearly 100 times as many people and is, therefore, obviously far more compelling!
The study analysed 28 years of the General Household Survey, using data collected between 1974 and 2005. Information was available from about 360,000 people aged 20-59. The analysis compared the employment rates of people who reported a limiting long-standing illness with the prospects of other people with no health problem, taking account also of their age, family position, educational background and so on. “LLI” is a loose definition of disability, but the research was also able to compare the outcomes for people with more or less disadvantaging sets of health conditions, available in some years of the sequence.
Amongst his findings were:
•There is little sign that the growth in the numbers out of work over the years has mainly been associated with minor sets of impairments.
•There is little sign that disabled people are especially sensitive to the ups and downs of the business cycle.
•Although there was a substantial shift in the ratio of incapacity-related benefit payments to disability-disadvantage up to about 1990, there is little sign that this ratio was influenced by major changes in the rules governing eligibility for benefits.
He also points out:
•The prevalence of disability (the proportion of working age adults who report a limiting long-standing illness) rose from 14% in 1975 to 18% in 1996, before falling back again to 16% in 2004.
•The ‘disability employment penalty’ is a measure of the extent to which disabled people are less likely to have a job than otherwise similar non-disabled people. It increased from 17% in 1987 to 28% in 2000 – but has not reduced since then.
•These figures refer to all people with limiting health conditions. It is commonly assumed that most of the changes in prevalence and in employment prospects have affected people with relatively minor impairments – but the research shows, on the contrary, that people with severely disadvantaging sets of health conditions have been more, not less, affected by the trends.
•Payments of the main social security benefits (Incapacity Benefit and Severe Disability Allowance) lagged behind the number of disadvantaged disabled people in the 1970s and early 1980s, especially for women. But they had caught up by 1990.
•The detailed analysis made possible by the series of surveys suggests that changes in disabled peoples’ employment rates or in benefit payments have not coincided with major changes in the social security rules and procedures.
•Disabled people are very sensitive to long-term geographical variations in the health of regional labour markets; while non-disabled people have similar prospects, wherever they live.
•But disabled people’s employment is hardly affected by booms or busts in the national economy.
•People without educational qualifications are more likely to be disabled, and their employment rates are more affected by disability, than (at the other extreme) people with degrees. Both of these tendencies have increased in intensity over time, so that the current generation of unqualified people has very high rates of disability, and the disabled members of the group have very low rates of employment. But the number of poorly educated people in Britain has been declining over the decades, so very little of the overall growth in the number of disabled people without work can be explained by the skills effect.
•The fact that well-educated people are relatively less affected by disability helps to show that it is not disability, on its own, that determines outcomes, but the interaction between disability and opportunities. Disability nevertheless has a substantial effect across the spectrum.
•The research helps to counter the idea that some disabled people are unequivocally capable of work, while others are wholly incapable. It supports instead the concept of disadvantage – a sliding scale of employment probabilities affected both by the nature and severity of people’s impairments, and by the willingness of employers to hire them.
That, together with the factual evidence that I provided from the OECD incapacity related expenditure figures (ie nearly 60% below the OECD average in 1980 and only just above average now) proves that I am correct.
Typically with your agenda you have been highly selective in what you use from that report. Just a few quotes here from your report which show that you are twisting what it says to support your anti-disability agenda:
“None of this is intended to suggest that the heath problems and disabilities affecting the women (and men) who claim IB are anything less than real, or that the older industrial areas where IB claimant rates are highest do not have higher underlying levels of ill health.”
“once an individual has lost their job because of ill health or disability, in a difficult local labour market they are less likely to find a way back into work. Employers have the option of taking on the fit and healthy instead.”
“In a weaker labour market, even a modest degree of ill health or disability is likely to prejudice an individual’s chances of gaining and holding down employment.”
“even modest incapacities can
prove to be a formidable obstacle, especially if an individual has no special qualifications or training
to offer.”
So your report confirms that I was right by firstly that IB claimants are overwhelmingly genuine as their illnesses and disabilities are real. It also confirms that I was right in highlighting the extreme difficulties that such people face with respect to employment.
The credible evidence from numerous sources backs up my view that the overwhelming majority of IB claimants are totally genuine. The minimal evidence provided by you is not compelling and you have had to be very selective in what you quote as part of the report also fully backs up my view.
If you still keep maintaining your abhorrent stance, in the face of the credible evidence, that many genuine claimants (ie the 99.7% who correctly met the assessment criteria) somehow are not genuine then there is no point in continuing this.
My (less than) 1% figure comes from the DWP’s own figures for the number of claimants who are not genuine. The current figure is 0.3% but has been as high as 0.5%, but still clearly under 1%.
I don’t have to make up figures (eg making up and grossly exaggerating the amount paid out in IB or hugely underestimating the total costs due to Atos!) as the credible evidence and facts support what I say!
To anyone upset by Baroness Murphy’s inability to get it – that we disabled don’t mind being assessed, as long as the assessors STOP LYING to cheat us out of proper benefits for real disabilities in order to save billions by arbitrarily dumping disabled people onto the streets.
Leaving the Welfare Reform Bill, we have the House of Lords Reform Draft Bill.
Both the Prime Minister, and Deputy Prime Minister have invited us to submit our views on REFORM OF THE HOUSE OF LORDS to:
Deputy Prime Minister’s Office
70 Whitehall,
London,
SW1A 2AS.
So if you have been concerned at Baroness Murphy or any of her colleagues lack of understanding, this is your opportunity to help ease the lacklustre Lords and Ladies into a well deserved retirement.
Just email (via Google search under – Cabinet – Office – Email) or write to the above address.
Best regards,
Calum.
———————————
QUOTING THE PRIME MINISTER AND HIS DEPUTY…
We today publish this White Paper and Draft Bill for re-legislative scrutiny and we hope hat the two Houses will quickly establish joint committee to consider and report on he Draft Bill well before the end of the session. While the Joint Committee is responsible for the next steps, we today invite everyone’s comments on the draft Bill, whether made to he Cabinet Office or in evidence to the Joint Committee.
We look forward to the report from he Joint Committee Which we will consider with great care. We are both strongly persuaded that this is a unique opportunity for our country to instil greater democracy into our constitutions and are fully committed to holding the first elections o the reformed House of Lords in 2015.
SIGNED
Rt Hon David Cameron MP
Prime Minister
Rt Hon Nick Clegg MP
Deputy Prime Minister
well baroness – what more is there to say ?? as one of those who is a member of the site that posts the ” nasty and inaccurate tosh ” – i am deeply offended by that comment – i have tried to be reasonable in my comments here and indeed you have taken my points on occasions – and then you come out with this ?? – i can now but hope those words come back to haunt you
well i used to respect the lords as a place of the people – of decency – of common sense – BUT NO MORE !! – oh no – not any more
what a sad day for all the good folks of this land
and thats my last comment – as any more is obviously pointless
TTFN .
Notice Lord Blagger hasn’t come back, he’s probably been told by some Lord or other to…pack it in and stop making yourself look like an ignorant fool.
The Baroness wont be back either because she knows we speak the truth, she already knows it’s all a scam, it’s not a case of being her being ignorant, just a case of being found out for what she is.
She knows we know, and that’s what gets her goat.
I’ve been told she’s actually a Doctor, all I can say is GOD SAVE US.
In answer to a vquestion posed to my last post, 40% (unrepresented) of decisions are overturned at Tribunal. 70% (represented) are overturned at Tribunal stage. Source the Harrington Report
================
So how many people didn’t appeal, and as a consequence their assessment was correct?
Do you think over 82000 successful appeals in just 12 months (and hundreds of thousands of successful appeals since Atos took over the DWP contract) is the sign of a competent company?
Do you think that the accessibility problems, lack of parking and basic facilities at many of their assessment centres is the sign of a suitable company?
I will give you a clue…the answer to each question is NO!
That’s not the best question to ask.
1. 2.5 million on incapacity. What number would you expect to be successful on appeal?
2. 12.5 billion on ICB. Is 60 million cheap or expensive for assessing people?
3. Accessibility? yes – centers should be accessible. If they aren’t, that is wrong.
Now the question for you.
Given ICB claimants have tripled, but people haven’t become more unhealthy overall, its clear that lots of people on ICB shouldn’t be on ICB.
That’s the clue. They need to be removed from ICB.
Over 82000 successful appeals in just 12 months and hundreds of thousands in the 7 years since Atos took over says it all.
Grossly exaggerating the costs of IB and then hugely underestimating the total costs of Atos does you no favours. Until you can use the correct figures then there is no point carrying on with that.
I have provided the credible evidence that shows that the overwhelming majority of claimants are totally genuine. You repeating the same claptrap with no evidence whatsoever to back you up is not going to change the fact that it is clear to any reasonable person that only a tiny minority have been on IB when they shouldn’t have been.
The fact that the government has now moved the goalposts in order to make totally arbitrary savings does not alter the fact that the overwhelming majority have been on IB because they met the assessment criteria. Your insistence that they are not genuine is truly abhorrent. Bobby Charlton was a genuine goalscorer but if you moved the goalposts inwards then he wouldn’t have been a goalscorer any more! That is exactly what the government are doing with this Bill by turning genuine claimants into people deemed fit for work by the obviously unfair WCA. It is sad that you want to see hundreds of thousands of genuine people in need suffering due to this Bill.
How much does ICB cost each year? 12.5 billion.
I’ve posted other links as to the size of the hidden unemployment moved to ICB.
Are you claiming that the unemployed should all get ICB, irrespective of need?
Your continual insistence on making up these inflated figures is as tiresome as it is revealing about your agenda.
The DWP fraud report has the IB bill at £5.6 billion. Fullfact did a FOI request which confirms that “the total claimed by those on both IB/SDA and ESA in 2010/2011 was indeed £8.7 billion.”
http://fullfact.org/factchecks/Mail_incapacity_benefit_piles_dizziness_sleeping_disorder-2845
Your grossly inflated figure of £12.5bn is a lie.
As for your final desperate effort, since when have I even inferred that the unemployed should all get IB, irrespective of need?
You are really scraping the bottom of the barrel now! I say that every genuinely sick and disabled person should not only receive the help that they are entitled to, but that they should not be subject to vicious, arbitrary cuts where the assessment process is tailored to the desired level of cuts rather than the actual needs/disability of these genuine claimants. Your support for these vile reforms and continual misrepresentations of the facts and evidence prove that it is you that wants to stop as many people from getting vital support, irrespective of actual need.
Thankfully not every Baroness is so closed to the problems with this Bill.
Following my letter to Baroness Hayter I got this reply today:
Dear **********,
Thank you for writing to me to express your concerns about the Welfare Reform Bill. I thought you might be interested to see the speech I made at the second reading of the Bill in the House of Lords, which can be found here: http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld201011/ldhansrd/text/110913-0001.htm#110913102000436
In the speech I expressed my concerns about the amount of support that will be available for childcare, the potential penalties for people who are saving, the abolition of support through the Social Fund, the impact of reductions in the amount of Housing Benefit that will be payable, and of penalties for ‘under occupying’ a property in the social rented sector, the impact of the Benefit Cap, the proposed reforms to Disability Living Allowance, in particular the removal of the mobility component from those in residential care, and the impact of the changes to Employment and Support Allowance. The Labour front bench will be tabling amendments on all of these issues during the Committee stage of the Bill which begins tomorrow. I do hope we are able to make some changes to the Bill either then or in later stages, as the Bill is a real threat to the well being of so many of our fellow citizens.
Thank you again for writing,
Yours sincerely
Dianne Hayter
Baroness Hayter
House of Lords
London SW1A 0PW
There are some in the House of Lords who are willing and able to put aside their prejudices in the attempt to ensure fairness for those affected by this Bill.
@Baroness Murphy – I must admit to feeling sceptical about your reasons for inviting comments only to be totally closed-minded to those comments – as a former Doctor who claims to have a particular interest in Mental Health I find your willful refusal to engage with us, in any meaningful fashion, abhorrent. I hope you can at least try to understand why we feel crushed by your refusal to understand our concerns.
Lets hope the baroness didn’t slam the revolving door on the way out
Dear Baroness Murphy, with regard to your comment
“I regret I find the web site Black Triangle Campaign to be nasty and inaccurate tosh and I am surprised that people should be taken in by it. The campaign to frighten people with disabilities is a disgrace.”
Although you have said you will comment no further, could you not at least have the decency to inform us, the public, what exactly about the site or its content that you find to be nasty, and what you find to be innaccurate tosh? And what is both nasty and innacurate tosh?
Also, please explain what you refer to when you talk about the campaign to frighten people with disabilties? What campaign, where, which bit of whatever it is specifically is untrue?
I sincerely hope you can explain further, after all, would you like it, if someone said the your content was nasty and innacurate tosh, then refused to clarify just what they are talking about, and back it up with an explanation, and evidence?
To Blagger – you talk about there being no choice but to implement testing for incapacity benefit.
However, this shows a lack of awareness, on a level with Lord Freud.
People on incapacity benefit ARE ALREADY tested, by the same company (ATOS) who are doing the tests for ESA.
The assessments are very similar, even down to the software used.
People are regularily assessed even under IB, unless in an exempt category (such as a permanent vegatative state).
Problems existed under IB to – with many people winning at appeal, just like with ESA.
ESA is simply the same thing, but with stricter eligibilty rules, designed from the outset to meet the publicly declared target of failing 1 million people.
Remember, ESA came about due to lord Freud, whose paper on the topic was described by the SSAC as having ‘no evidence base’ and Freud even stated that people on Incapacity benefit were only ever assessed by their own doctors.
The Lords passed ESA through parliament to, I dont recall them picking up on the fact, it came about from evidence from a man who was incapable of understanding even the BASICS of the existing system.
Its a shame, the actual bill debate is not in a public forum, I am sure, many people on here, could easily tear what many will be claiming in the debate to shreds, as the people in the house of Lords often tend to be brushed of with simplistic or innacurate answers in my opinion.
People on incapacity benefit ARE ALREADY tested, by the same company (ATOS) who are doing the tests for ESA.
==============
1. Has the country become so crippled by illhealth that there is 300% rise over the last 30 years?
No. People are just as healthy on average as they were before. What’s happened is people who shouldn’t be on ICB have been moved onto ICB to hide unemployment.
So the existing testing regime hasn’t picked these people up has it? It has allowed them to claim billions.
So in part I haven’t had faith in the testing system in the past. I’ve more faith now, because the Frank Gallagers of this world no longer can claim ICB.
That’s the bit that people here can’t address. They complain, and in some cases quite rightly, about the testing. I’ve addressed those issues repeatedly. However, they won’t address how to get rid of the hidden unemployed on ICB. C
Can you?
There hasn’t been a 300% rise in 30 years. IB hasn’t been going that long and numbers on IB plateaued for the entire NuLabour administration (though I doubt because of it). Overall spending has gone up, but numbers claiming have not. Why is the interesting question.
To quote Danny Alexander in The Scotsman 18/09/10:
‘”When Labour came to office there were 2.6 million people on incapacity benefit and when they left office there were 2.6 million people on incapacity benefit. It is one of the most appalling parts of their record.””
There has been a 30% rise. Links already posted to peer reviewed papers on the matter.
So how many people didn’t appeal, and as a consequence their assessment was correct?
Quote from Lord Blagger.
How about how many didn’t appeal because their assessment was incorrrect but didn’t have any strength left in them to fight the system, because of having to constantly having to jump throuth hoops.
Let’s start with the first con : Told by the DWP in a letter that they have failed the assessment, but in tiny letters at the bottom somewhere that ”You have a right to appeal” and when the appeal is sent of to the DWP decision maker, the reply comes back ”Your appeal has been considered, and you have been found fit for work, as I said that’s the first con.
But you didn’t know that did you Lord Blagger ? you didn’t know the DWP try to con one in to thinking that the consideration is their appeal and they have now been turned down, NO of course you didn’t.
Let’s move on to the second con : Meanwhile, your money to live on is deliberately witheld, sometimes without a letter of explanation and while all this is happening, the Housing association is informed you are no longer entitled to benefits and your rent rebate is stopped, and eviction looms.
Then you find that more hoops have to be jumped through, which is, finding money from somewhere to pay for a medical report from your consultant or GP (Mine was £150) some Doctors charge more.
Then it’s a long wait (for some people with no cash at all), sometimes for up to a year before they attend a tribunal, only to meet someone on the panel like yourself who is totally clueless on how the system works, but puts themself forward (Judging by your comments) as some kind of an expert.
Tell you what Lord Blagger, why don’t you meet me man o manos and I will tell you the rest, (I have a lot to tell), because you do a lot of talking for one guy, but I can assure you when we meet (That’s if you have the guts to face me, but I know you wont, but find some excuse to avoid me) I will be doing all the talking, and you will sit down, shut up, and listen and learn.
(PS) Make sure your wearing an Iron suit.
This part of the research identifies four main contributory factors to the increase in the number of
women on IB since the early 1980s:
• Hidden unemployment. These are the women who could be expected to have been in
employment in a genuinely fully employed economy – an estimated 430,000 in all.
• Rising labour force participation. This has led to a commensurate increase in the number of
women on IB of around 125,000.
• An ageing population. This has increased the number of IB claims by women by an estimated
35,000, since the likelihood of claiming IB rises with age.
• A diversion of lone parents from Income Support. This accounts for around 125,000 women
on IB.6
There is little evidence that any deterioration in the underlying health of the working age population
has contributed to the increase in IB claims among women.
There is clear statistical evidence of a link between the local and sub-regional demand for labour
and female IB claims. There is also clear evidence of a link between the male and female sides of
the labour market. In simple terms, job loss and unemployment among men is being transmitted, via
competition in the labour market, to higher IB claims among women in the same places
http://www.shu.ac.uk/_assets/pdf/cresr-woib-report-2010.pdf
Tell me about the 430,000 women who are under the disguised employment, or the 125,000 single mothers on ICB. All who shouldn’t be.
All intelligence and decisions and actions should be based on fact. That is the problem that everyone is getting away from. The fate and decisions on people’s lives have been based on ideology and fantastical ideas of disability and ability and layabouts and scroungers for centuries. I have the cds from Hansard of the 1832 and 1842 witness statements and testimonies to the House of Commons in those years from the hundreds of children who gave witness to their lives working down coal mines and in factories. It makes chilling but interesting reading.And it amazing how the same arguements and answers and fantasies and conjecture was given now. Their testimonies and truth of their worlds belied the fact that lead to the reform acts that no longer required a child to work down a coal mine or in a factory from infanthood and be damaged and handicapped before they were into their early adulthood. Yet even so, those who could not work, or were too poor or orphaned and abandoned ( a large percentage of poor households in 1840s and 1920s were abandoned my the male head) leaving children and mothers to fend for themselves, be in the gutter, lead into crime or prostitution ( and don’t forget the Lords argueed against the making illegal of sexual prostitution of young girls of 12/13 as they thought it their right.
Only the fact and the weight of moral conscience born of our great tradition of Christian mores and values made our great society what it is today. We have lost in in the space of a few decades or political laziness and indulgence and moral fibre of this country going down hill with the gangstar culture and every other one owning a knife, gun or dealing in drugs or prostitution and entering a criminal lifestyle as if that is the one with most credit.
The incidence of injury and severe assault has gone up. A child abused every few seconds and very young child sexually fully abused every few minutes a woman raped every few minutes a gun crime every few minutes a knie crime every few minutes. the acquired head injuries have gone up from 750,000pa to now over 1 million pa. a third totally incapaciated in a vegetative or severe spinal or head injury state. the other two third injured for life beyond return to normality. The facts are there, our country and it wellbeing and safety has gone up in the most devastating and abusive manner.
The only facts are the outcome of the Atos assessments and how they have affected the disabled and what disabilities have been written off as fit for work. And I assure you that in our little feedback from our respondents and confirmed by GPs and consultants the majority of cancer sufferers, parkinsons, MS, Strokes and heart conditions have been written off as fit for work. even if they are in a wheelchair and cannot communicate or write or feed themselves, I am very concerned that in the last few days I am aware or at least 3 very severe psychotic patients and a very mentally retarded woman being seen on their own and been fit for work. When they are still going on about Jesus Christ talking through their head and the CIA and Masons being in charge of their life and wanting to kill them and their neighborus being part of the plot.
I appeal to the Lords that the only facts that can lead to a conclusion on this is to get the feedback about what has happened tot he disabled and what types of disabilities have gone through the assessments and what the decisions and outcome and consequences were.
Only the fact will belie the outcome and give knowledge to the truth. So far th goverment have said that all knowlegde of Atos and such basic things as how many MS, Stroke or psychotic patients have been assessed is outside public right to know? Why is this? Surely the types of illness, the decisions and what happened is the right of every citizen to know about their fellow citizen and the most poor and vulnerable in the country.
Let this not be a holocaust of denial and ignorance that everyone making this decision will rue in the outcome and annals of future history.
Find out feedback and results at After Atos Assessment “Customer” Feedback Survey at afteratos.com
Your servant in the Lord and the Law
AA
I find it interesting that Baroness Murphy uses the term “people with disabilities” – it begs the question: ‘what are “disabilities’?
Since the 1960s there has been a challenge to the notion that an impairmentt which produces ‘functonal loss’ is the direct cause of “disability” – yet, both Houses of Partiament still main the crude, determinst view that: “the less someone functions like a ‘normal person’, the more ‘disabled’ they can be judged to be.”
This simplistic approach towards understanding “disability” has bedeviled social policy, including the benefit system for decades. The “medicalisation” of all aspects of people’s lives is an ideological platform which has proved a failure over and over again.
Baroness Murphy is just the latest in a long list of arrogant stooges who perpetuate the dominant values of “able-bodied ‘normality'” as a means of making judgemental assessments of disabled people’s lives. Atos is only the tool being used to protect the status quo.
Personally, I don;t think we should get het up about the use of particular words unless they are grossly offensive. I’m 100% blind in one eye. I think that is a disability, but it does not greatly reduce my functioning. DVLA thought, when I reported it in 1997, that I could still drive a car, though I chose to discontinue doing so, as it would not inspire confidence in others. It has revealed to me that my other eye, previously the lazier, actually had good long distance vision so I can see a bird at a mile. On the other hand I can no longer read recipes with ease and certainly cannot thread a needle any more. The starring due to minor cataract means driving at night is not safe. However I do not qualify to be registered disabled and when I retired before attaining age 65 last November it wasn’t owing to this disability.
I see little wrong, as a starting-point, with the definition “the less someone functions like a ‘normal person’, the more ‘disabled’ they can be judged to be.” But this excludes the will to work factor. For some it has to be recognised that a disability affects self-esteem and motivation. For others it provides a challenge to which to rise. Whilst I am all in favour of those in the latter category being assisted in finding suitable work and in favour of helping those with low self-esteem and motivation look at things again with fresh eyes, there’s a world of difference from that to bluntly declaring that someone is fit for work and benefits should therefore be withdrawn. In a civilised society this should not be done in such a way. That does not mean some borderline cases should not have benefit withdrawn after a sensitive assessment.
The global amount of benefits paid out is so great that it would be foolish to suggest there should be no reviews of benefits once awarded. As I have said before, those reviews should be such reviews should be appropriate, vigilant, cost-effective and proportionate. All the signs are that there is no effective risk-assessment taking place before cases are selected for review, the reviews are done from a template rather than being appropriate and disregard any medical evidence from those who actually have medical knowledge of the claimant, cost-effectiveness is not really considered if they call in a man certified as dying of liver cancer or a double amputee, and any sense of proportion seems to have been lost given that, until recently, little effort was made to catch the monster tax avoiders and evaders, and even now it will take time to train up new recruits to full effectiveness. The amount at risk from tax evasion and avoidance, and from plain wrong returns, is at least as great if not more than the amount at risk from claimants getting benefits to which they are no longer entitled.
If I sound a bit bitter on that last score, it is because as a very experienced enquiry officer I got sidelined into administration when my office moved to Truro and was barred from applying to comparable enquiry work fifty yards away because that office came under a different directorate. My then 35 years experience, 17 on enquiry work in a specialist area, was rendered worthless.
As a disabled person I wholeheartedly support Black Triangle and was lucky to find them at a time when I was feeling extremely vulnerable and having panic attacks due to the welfare system tests etc. The support and understanding I received from Black Triangle helped me through this traumatic time. The reason why Black Triangle members/supporters were able to help me was that they too have suffered at the hands of ATOS/DWP/Welfare system and as such could truly empathise with me. The tests quite frankly are a joke – if you watch the parliamentary select committee you will see Professor Harrington openly admitting that the test bears no resemblance to any real job/real life situation and then goes on to say it doesnt have to!! This in essence, means that it is a test which isnt testing for anything except the individual, one off actions within it!! The housing benefit being reduced to the 30th percentile is having terrible effects already on many people both in and out of work and OAP’s the average person having to pay £15 per week towards their rent from their benefits. Also why if someone has been diagnosed with a life long disability do they have to keep being retested – this is blatantly a waste of money!! My condition is for life – it is only going to deteriorate – I suggest that ESA and DLA should be awareded for life for life long conditions – then reviewed if a cure is invented whichh proves to be effective – this would save a fortune! A big fear for me and other disabled people – is that we will be declared fit for work and end up being forced to do workfare which will then make our conditions deteriorate drastically and with my condition once the deterioration happens its permanent – so fear of becoming even more disabled than I already am due to the system is a very frightening prospect.
The tests quite frankly are a joke – if you watch the parliamentary select committee you will see Professor Harrington openly admitting that the test bears no resemblance to any real job/real life situation and then goes on to say it doesnt have to!! This in essence, means that it is a test which isnt testing for anything except the individual, one off actions within it!! The housing benefit being reduced to the 30th percentile is having terrible effects already on many people both in and out of work and OAP’s the average person having to pay £15 per week towards their rent from their benefits. Also why if someone has been diagnosed with a life long disability do they have to keep being retested – this is blatantly a waste of money!!
Two things come out of this.
1. The nature of the tests. What tests should be used? If you think they are wrong, tell us what tests are appropriate.
2. On the question of retesting. I completely agree. Part of any assessment should be a determination of the time to the next assessment. If it is a long term condition with no chance of improvement, a very long time. Unless there is a medical breakthrough.
If its a short term condition that will improve – a more frequent period of testing.
That makes it cost effective. However, from the figures quoted by others of 60 million cost of testing, compared to a total ICB spend of 12,500 million, it doesn’t strike me as expensive. If fact it probably is some evidence to say that its being done too cheaply.
So I think you are on the right tracks.
What is needed is those that don’t require benefits, and there is a lot of evidence that people have been moved from unemployment to ICB, need to be prevented from consuming what resources are left, so as those that need it, get the help.
Lord Blagger.
There are many claims that incapacity benefit numbers have increased, even over the last decade or so it was a mainstream benefit that people could still apply for.
Do they stand up to scrutiny? No, read this link below.
http://www.ukbix.com/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=165
Look back at previous benefits, I dont have the stats at hand, and dont feel up to recollating them at present, but Im sure you can do your own research.
See what benefits existed before Incapacity benefit, not just its direct replacement, and the one before that, but the additional sickness benefits that were part and parcel of the package.
Add those figures together, and bear in mind, that all these increases in healthcare you are so fond of referring to mean that people who previously would have died, can now be kept alive, but with a disablility, and you will see (as I did a while ago when I did the research) that numbers have not actually increased dramatically at all.
There is another point to add, that is if you are stating, as you seem to, that people were moved onto incapacity benefit to hide unemployment figures, and they were healthy people – then that would mean that not only the government, the DWP, ATOS, AND the NHS and the judiciary (tribunal service) have ALL been engaging in a conspiracy to falsely declare people as unfit to hold down employment, falsely signing sick notes, falsifyin medical evidence, illegally passing people of as meeting the required number of descriptors etc.
The scale of the corruption, across the board, against the government (and the lords and ladies/barons and baronesses etc themselves as they passed the legislation) even across the board to include the entire nhs, and dwp, and even the judiciary, that you appear to suggest has occured is massive.
Its possible that one or two could be corrupt possibly, but ALL of them?
And if that was the case, why did they keep increasing the frequency of assessments? Why were the figures dropping a lot of the time, and not massively increasing, why was the inflow and outflow relatively stable?
And if there was any evidence of this occuring, do you not think by now, a rival political party would have not decimated the opposition beyond recognition and had people put in jail, ensuring they parties reputation was destroyed for ever?
Or do you not think, that in reality, all that happened was, people had been left alone for years on unemployment benefit, moves were made to call them all in, to see what the problem was, and those that were identified as having a health problem, were told to try applying for incapacity benefit, where they were strictly tested (with one of the strictest medical tests for benefits in the world according to official research) and those who passed the harsh tests were granted the benefit?
Those people were then re-assessed on a regular basis (either on paper in severe cases, or in person for the vast majority) until they retired/died/won the lottery/entered employment or their health improved till they no longer met the strict testing requirements imposed under law.
Which is it?
Full on corruption across the entire spectrum of this country, or simple easy to see facts that get lost in propaganda.
Well, that’s why I posted a link to independent peer review research. It does make an interesting read.
What it does show for women, since Sue raised that as an issue, is that 430,000 women were hidden unemployed moved to IB, and 125,000 likewise were single mothers move to IB.
That’s a large number of women alone who shouldn’t be receiving IB.
That’s the problem with the people who think I’m wrong.
They want people who need IB to receive it. So do I. However, they won’t admit that large numbers of people, far in excess of the 0.5% they claim get it wrongly, are receiving it.
Just because I don’t want people who aren’t incapacitated to not get IB, does it mean that I want the same extended to those who do need it. That’s just vitriol and spite.
The scale of the corruption, across the board, against the government (and the lords and ladies/barons and baronesses etc themselves as they passed the legislation) even across the board to include the entire nhs, and dwp, and even the judiciary, that you appear to suggest has occured is massive.
Yes. You don’t have to tell me. 300 peers as an example claimed for more days than they used their passes to get access to one of the most secure buildings in the UK. Go figure. 215 of those were investigated internally. Go figure. I’ve had one arrested and jailed – Lord Taylor. I hope to get a lot more. That frees up more money for use where its needed.
Or do you not think, that in reality, all that happened was, people had been left alone for years on unemployment benefit, moves were made to call them all in, to see what the problem was, and those that were identified as having a health problem, were told to try applying for incapacity benefit, where they were strictly tested
I don’t think that’s the main issue. The reason comes back to the current assessments.
First no one has put forward, when asked, if there have been rule changes raising the hurdle for IB.
So now we have to look at the number rejected for IB. It’s a large proportion. Of those a smaller number appeal, and 40% win on appeal. I’m not surprised at this. If it was different something would be wrong. The reason is that only those close to the hurdle who fail to make it over, end up appealing. Given quite a few have variable conditions, I would expect people to win appeals. In addition those that got IB, don’t appeal.
So again, why is it that incapacity went up by 300%, and why is it that on a stricter retesting now by people who aren’t the GPs, results in a large drop?
Why is it that IB is highly correlated with local levels of unemployment? That to me means people have been moved from unemployment to IB. ie. Merthy Tydfal I can understand. Ex mining area. Liverpool? Nope.
I must admit, its refreshing to see someone in a position of authority still use the term ‘disability’ as the government seem intent on wiping out disability from the language.
Note how INCAPACITY benefit is replaced with Employment and Support allowance.
Note how DISABILITY Living Allowance is to be replaced with Personal Independance payment.
Note how SICK notes are replaced with FIT notes.
etc etc.
I wish unelected members of the lower house remember there place as servants to the people. And spend a little time getting there facts right about Disability and the groups that support the such as black triangle