ATOS Victims Group: a webpage which tells the truth about ATOS, who they are, how they operate to force ill and disabled people off benefits and into the job market (at a time of high unemployment); and the government and what their program of welfare is really about.

Unfortunately the government have waged a campaign of press releases which deride and disparage the ill and disabled and have manipulated public opinion. So welfare reform is a popular policy and many of the government's lies have been accepted as true. The truth is that benefit fraud is tiny, and mistakes in payments are high. Tax cheating costs the UK 100x as much as benefit fraud. White collar fraud in banking and finance have cost this country trillions of pounds. 

Government delays Welfare Reform Bill

The Government has been forced to delay the 2nd Reading of the flagship Bill in the Lords due to peers' concerns over the people affected.

DWP is suggesting other business has blocked progress but the surprise postponement till September from Tues will also give the Government time to lobby peers and answer the queries raised in DA's legal challenge.

from Disability Alliance, via Benefit Scrounging Scum.

And by Sunday 17th if I hadn't read this on BSS I would not have known about it, because it has not been reported in the mainstream media!

Letter to the General Medical Council

To Whom It May Concern

Yesterday the media were repeating claims (inaccurate as it turns out) that fully 78% of people on incapacity benefits were in fact fit to work. In fact the situation is more complex than that and the headlines were a distortion of a government press release.

But consider the implication. It is UK doctors, both GPs and DWP doctors, who are the gate keepers to incapacity benefit. I'm ill, my GP says so, my specialists agree, and the DWP doctor also agrees. And the headlines are saying that 4 out of 5 times they are wrong. The government are saying that UK doctors are incompetent and themselves unfit to judge whether a person is ill enough to need time off work.

Doctors are being undermined as much as the sick in this campaign. I wondered what the medical council thinks about this. The stories of seriously ill people being judged fit to work by the WCA are mounting up. If I am judged fit for work, which I fully expect to be despite both mental and physical health problems, then should I sue my GP practice? After all the government would effectively be telling me that my doctors are incompetent.

I look forward to your reply
Matt Black

Benefit Fraud vs Tax Cheats

I picked the following from the comments on an article in the Guardian by Peter Beresford: The Victorians knew a thing or two about benefit cheats. The leader says "David Cameron promised an uncompromising clampdown on benefit fraud, but what does this actually mean for communities?" and the article compares the actuality of the Victorian workhouse system to the rhetoric of the ConDem evil axis.

RosemaryUK comments...

Reform of the benefit system is needed, no one can deny that but not one where 'punishment' and sanctions' are used to 'threaten' disabled people.

As regards fraud...

Annual Benefit fraud estimate £5.2bn
Annual Tax fraud estimate £70bn

Spending on Tax evasion PR/advertising : £633,000
Spending on benefit fraud PR/advertising : £17.5 million
(both figures exclude VAT)
Figures from Hansard.

If any political party had any real morals , they would have condemned this 'campaign' by some media outlets that is raging against those on benefits.

Yes. A few of us have made the same point, though I admit I got it from the Now Show on BBC Radio 4. Another figure to compare is the £150bn that we spend over what is earned in tax. That is to say that is tax fraud were tackled with the same enthusiasm it would make a good contribution to reducing the deficit. Attacking benefit fraud is unlikely to make much difference, though it should of course be tackled. I've said before the noise is Cameron trying to make good with the Tory faithful who think he's a useless cunt who lost a sure thing election against a lame duck Labour government. The noise is out of proportion to the good that he can do - especially on the eve of making massive cuts that will result in 1000's of civil servants being made redundant.

One thing that would make a big difference would be to pursue the well known tax cheat Tony Blair our former Prime Minister who has tied his financial affairs up in such knots that it is very difficult to say for sure what happens to the tens of millions of money coming in from advising foreign investors, and giving lectures, and more recently setting up a bank for the super-rich. See here for instance: Tony Blair under pressure to explain if he is avoiding UK taxes. (Telegraph 3.9.10) and here: The mystery of Tony Blair's finances (Guardian 1.12.09). A good strong example might send a message about social responsibility to the rest of the rich who try to keep from making their contribution to society.

GPs suddenly competent

The government, past and present, has never been confident that my GP is able to assess my fitness for work and has taken that responsibility out of their hands - so that the responsibility rests with a privately employed GP (salary?) who sees me once, for 45 minutes, prods me a few times and asks a couple of questions, and with no continuity or history, no x-rays or referrals to specialists or reports from psychologists (I repeated gave them the contact details for my psychologist and they have never contacted her) or any of that other broad base that my GP works from.

But now, now the GPs are competent to run the entire NHS!

NHS 'to undergo radical overhaul' (BBC)

Why not go the whole hog and let my physician make the decisions that so deeply affect my life rather than a stranger! They've been treating me for eight years now, they haven't always been able to help, but that very fact is an important part of the picture when it comes to my fitness to work. Give my GP the right to assess my benefit claim!

Millions of People Off Benefits?

Heard on the radio this morning that the aim of the government is "to get millions of people off benefits and into work". Let's look at some more official stats: (http://www.statistics.gov.uk/cci/nugget.asp?id=12)

April 2010

employment : 28.86 million

unemployment : 2.47 million (7.9%)

claiming JSA : 1.48 million

unemployed 12 months+ : 772,000.

Inactive people : 8.19 million (i.e. working age, but not working)

That's relatively high unemployment - especially considering we've just had a boom. Has the bust affected us so much?

Now from the same page:

The number of vacancies for the three months to May 2010 was 492,000, up 7,000 over the quarter.

So for the 3 months to May there were roughly 500k jobs available when at any given time during that period there were roughly 1500k people seeking work, and another 1000k unemployed but not looking (bums like me). That's 3 people for every job going.

Now the government is pursuing a high unemployment strategy and expects (partially) incapacitated people to join the work force. My question is what the fuck are they talking about? Where are these millions of jobs coming from?

The government approach to benefits is to sweep it all under the carpet in a way that reduces welfare spending, but reduces welfare full-stop.

So, the Welfare Madness Begins

News began to filter out today (strategic press releases by the government's spin doctors) about plans to target people on Incapacity Benefit. Anyone getting this benefit is suspected of malingering. Too many people could do some work and so all of us are going to be scrutinised more closely. By whom one wonders? Given that my regular doctors and specialists are at a loss to do anything about my symptoms I wonder how I will be judged by someone tasked at cutting benefits. What criteria are going to be applied? (And who the fuck would employ me). How are they going to test how anxiety and depression affect my ability to work? So far I have no confidence at all that my pain will be taken seriously by any doctor whose agenda is to force people back into work - my pain doesn't show up in the tests I've had so far because the tests are simply not geared for it. (I need to write about this, but some other time).

We need to be clear that the point here is reduce spending.

Budgets are being cut everywhere which will include the NHS. This is going to create considerable conflict. On one hand reductions in spending will cause unemployment to rise. They want this because it will force wages down (though not for senior executives or merchant banker, eh). More people will be 'signing on', and less people will be processing their applications. Overpayments will go up (currently official mistakes make up one third of benefit overpayments).

On the other hand the system for testing the incapacitated will have to be beefed up (paid for how?) and this will push people off the IB on onto Job Seekers Allowance (or what ever it is rebranded to), which costs a lot less (£25 per week in my case). These people will be entering the job market with some incapacity (though perhaps not enough to keep them out of full-time employment). They will not be able to compete with all the able bodied people in the high unemployment situation, and this means subsisting on JSA - which is considerably less than IB. This in turn will mean a higher demand on social services at a time when those services are being cut. Being a job seeker is demanding, so stress on the incapacitated will increase. Many people have been incapacitated by stress related illnesses such as depression, anxiety and chronic fatigue. So increasing the stress means more people will be in crisis, but now they have been judged fit to work so there is no safety net.

Another thing is that at present one has to be looking for full-time work to qualify for JSA. So these people who cannot, and won't be expected to, seek full-time work are going to be covered how? Presumably the details will emerge over time, but the next few days and weeks are going to be uncomfortable for many people, me included.

A lot of sick people are going to end up falling through the cracks. This is going to be a disaster for them, but the real costs will be hidden and it will be a PR victory for a government a wee bit short on popularity. Though the way they are covering up the massive reduction in benefit fraud may be cited as a counter-example.

BBC.

Q&A: Incapacity benefits explained.

"Some 2.6m people claim incapacity benefit, or its successor, the employment and support allowance, at an annual cost of about £12.5bn..."

Duncan Smith denies sickness benefit tests to triple.

"Iain Duncan Smith has denied reports that ministers are considering trebling "fitness to work" tests on people claiming incapacity benefit..."

Guardian

Welfare crackdown begins with drive to reduce incapacity benefit claims.

Coalition's plans include taking people off higher rate of benefits if tests reveal they are fit to do some work.

Welfare Review

I feared that a conservative government would institute a welfare reform aimed at taking benefits away from people, and this seems to be the drift of the Queen's speech as it relates to welfare.

It's hard not to start feeling anxious before any details are announced. All I can think is "Oh God, they're going to take away my benefit and make me get a job." Who would employ me, and for what? How long could it possibly last when I could seldom work 2 days in a row (at present capacity)? If I do work part-time then that adds a layer of complexity to my dealings with other agencies like the Council (who pay my rent via Housing Benefit).

I hate being so vulnerable to the machinations of politicians and bureaucrats. I can't tell them to fuck off because I'm so dependent on the handouts they give. I had just started getting used to my situation and was beginning to cope a bit better, but it seems like I'm never allowed to get too comfortable.

Well who knows, perhaps simplifying the benefits system will be an improvement. But here is my prediction:

When it all shakes down a lot of us will be worse off, and we will be jumping though a lot more hoops to get our daily bread.

Election - bit of a non-entity from a health/benefits pov

BTW... I found the election compelling and exercised my right to vote. Being used to PR back in the old country I had no qualms about a hung parliament. As much as I hate the conservatives, a change was very much needed. Who knows what the current government will actually do? The election gave me no fodder at all for this blog as no one mentioned benefits, or mental health, or chronic illness. The NHS was mentioned but only in terms of targets and finances.

I'm hoping that the rhetoric of "choice" with regard to the NHS will be dropped. I don't give a fuck about choice. I want treatment. I want access to a specialist or two. I don't much care who it is, as long as they're competent, I mostly care WHEN it is.

Re benefits: I guess I'm not the only person wholly dependent on state handouts who feels anxiety at the broad rhetoric of public spending cuts and the complete lack of detail. We wait to hear whether it's the poor and the beneficiaries who will pay for the excesses of the financial markets with a sinking feeling. Let's hope we don't see anything like the California solution! (i.e. having run the 8th largest economy into the ground Greek style, refuse to raise taxes, and slash welfare - Arnie surely won't be back after this mess).

On the up side Fentimans now make their ginger beer in quart (750ml) bottles, and is stocked in the local supermarket; and I finally found somewhere that sells Rochester Ginger.

Govt Responds to the AA and DLA petition

“We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to recognise the vital support that Attendance Allowance (AA) and Disability Living Allowance (DLA) provide to disabled people, and to ensure that these benefits are secured and are not removed as part of any future reform of the social care system in England.”

The government response to this petition has appeared on the No.10 website, here are a couple of quotes:

"In 20 years’ time, we expect over 1.7 million more adults to have a need for care and support. We need to reform the care and support system radically to meet these future pressures."

"These three aspects – a universal system that is consistent across the country, flexible methods of payment through personal budgets and investment in prevention – will all be important components of the new system."

Blog posts of note:

Angry Mob: More Lies about the NHS. Critiquing a Daily Mail article. Daily Mail seem to get a lot of stick from more liberal middle-class commentators. Ben Goldacre reckons they characterise things into 1. those that cause cancer, 2. those that cure cancer - with no neutral ground. They are also accused of having a Princess Diana fixation. I wouldn't know as I don't read the papers much. But this seems like an important blog post because it highlights some bad reporting of medical facts generally, and some unsporting digs at the NHS.

Benefits Culture: Welfare Reform: penalizing claimants and carers. A round up of news on reforms especially of the law as regards mental health. It seems as though the general mood of the government is to take out their mismanagement of the banks and economy on the least fortunate while allowing bankers to claim bonuses for running banks into the ground. They also want to punish all sick people because a few people rip the system off. Could we focus on the cheats and frauds (at all levels including the government!) and leave the sick people alone do you think?

Look at how lightly the MPs get off for their frauds: no jail terms for instance, no one got sacked, some of those (gracefully) leaving parliament next year will still get their fat pensions! Listen how loudly and plaintively those who were honest complain about being tarred with the same brush - not so much fun when the boot is on the other foot, is it!