Time Limiting ESA - We MUST stop it

It seems that the Conservatives are simply not willing to give an inch on Time Limiting ESA.

Just to be clear, this means that if you have worked and paid national insurance contributions you will face an assessment. If that assessment finds that you are indeed unwell, but may be able to do some work at some point, you will only qualify for support for a year.

At the end of that year, no matter how ill you remain, if you have a partner who earns just £7,500 or more, or limited savings, you will lose all ESA. All of it.

Those with long term, serious illnesses, mental health conditions and learning disabilities are likely to be the worst affected. Sickness benefits as we know them will become a thing of the past. Just 6% of new claimants will qualify for long term support, the rest will have just one year.

I have written about time limiting extensively here (click for article)

The government accept that 94% will not have found work at the end of that year. They accept that they will not have recovered. They simply say "We can't afford it" http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201012/cmselect/cmworpen/1015/101502.htm

The only way we can now stop the government from going ahead with this most horrifying of policies is for Lib Dem Lords to vote against it. 


Earlier this year, Lib Dem grasroots members voted for a motion and amendment at their conference opposing an arbitrary time limit for ESA. The vote was overwhelmingly in favour.

Here is the amendment in full :

After C. (line 25), insert:
D. That vulnerable cases like this, where a welfare recipient’s income is threatened ,should qualify
for free legal representation.

Delete 2 (line 35) and insert:

2. Liberal Democrats in Government to oppose an arbitrary time limit on how long claimants can
claim contributory ESA.
In 3. (line 36), after ‘representation’ insert: ‘and expert advice, and for Government to reconsider
the exclusion of welfare benefits casework such as this from the scope of legal aid.

After 3. (line 36), add:
4. A presumption that ESA claimants with serious and uncontrollable life-threatening conditions
should be allocated to the support group rather than the work related activity group.

5 A review of ATOS performance in delivering the Medical Services Agreement contract with
DWP in respect of the quality of medical assessments.

6. Effective contract compliance for contractors carrying out ESA eligibility assessments to avoid
poor performance, and a presumption that in future ESA eligibility will be carried out by the
public sector or non-profit organisations.

Once this vote was carried, opposing the time limiting of ESA became Liberal Democrat policy.

Today, I'm asking all of you - Liberal Democrat or not - to write to a Lib Dem peer and beg them to oppose the one year time limit. Here is a list of Lib Dem peers http://www.libdems.org.uk/peers.aspx

Simply click on a letter at random, pick one and write to them. Beg them. Explain it to them. Feel free to send them my articles. Remind them about their conference pledge. 

They're our only hope. If they support the Conservatives on this, despite the wishes of their members, 700,000 people will be affected. People with Parkinson's, Bowel Disease, MS, Cancer, Heart Failure, Kidney Failure, Lung disease, Schizophrenia, Bi-Polar and any other condition you can think of. 

Please, write today. Then write again. Pick another peer and then another and keep writing until after Xmas. 

Very early in the New Year, Lords will vote on this issue for the final time. It is only this vote now that stands between time limiting ESA becoming policy. 

Please, if you've ever sent one of my letters, every RTd an article because I asked, every written to your MP, every written a blog post or an article, please, do this. Keep doing it until the day of the vote. Tell everyone and ask them to write too.

The welfare reform bill is almost law now. We don't have very many opportunities to make a difference. Let's make a difference over this. 

**Feel free to re-post, share, RT and generally make sure that everyone knows, thanks. 

The following articles may help:

http://diaryofabenefitscrounger.blogspot.com/2011/03/today-im-launching-my-new-campaign.html

http://diaryofabenefitscrounger.blogspot.com/2011/09/funds-already-in-place-to-go-ahead-with.html

http://diaryofabenefitscrounger.blogspot.com/2011/05/why-labour-still-have-it-wrong-on-esa.html

http://diaryofabenefitscrounger.blogspot.com/2011/03/welfare-reform-that-must-not-go-ahead.html

Pat's Petition http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/20968

DWP get sums wrong on ESA - By 1 Billion!!

DWP's billion pound mistake on sickness and disability benefits: government forced to revise up forecast spending on ESA

 H/T Declan Gaffney

The independent Office for Budget Responsibility has said that spending on Employment Support Allowance will be £1bn higher in 2014/15 than previously forecast by the government. It says that this is because fewer people are expected to be assessed as 'fit for work'  and more people are expected to be given unconditional support than the government had previously assumed.

This is a major revision to DWP's earlier forecast of £9.7bn ESA expenditure in 2014/15.

The OBR says ''ESA changes have resulted in an increase in expenditure of £1bn by 2015/16 *

They go on  to say 'The latest administrative data suggests that fewer people than previously assumed will be judged 'fit for work 'as a resut of the initial ESA work capabability assessment and reassessment of incapacity benefit cases, and more will be placed in the support group.This accounts for four fifths of the increase.'

That sounds a bit wonkish doesn't it? Trust me, this is fascinating news! What it means is that the government has to find a billion pounds more than the Chancellor included in his calculations to spend on Employment Support Allowance. And what that means is that a billion pounds more has to be spent on ESA mainly because the DWP will not be able to find as many people fit for work or 'work-related activity' through their work capability assessments as they'd claimed.

So although they aren't saying this explicitly, the DWP would seem to be admitting that their previous assumptions about how many people were able to work were grossly exaggerated. This implies that thousands of sick and disabled people have been wrongly denied ESA over the last three years and thousands placed in the Work Related Activities Group who should have been put in the Support Group and given unconditional support

It's not hard to see the reasons for this change. Since the first report of the Harrington review of the WCA last year, many more people have been placed in the ESA support group than previously, and fewer found fit for work. It is clear now that the WCA has been a disaster, driven by lazy assumptions about claimants and spending targets plucked out of the air.

However, the government is still going ahead with its plans to time limit contributory ESA to just 12 months for people in the WRAG and to deny contributory ESA to people who have been disabled from childhood.

*in fact, their tables show the increase is £1bn by 2014/15 p.146-7

**x-posted from benefitscroungingscum.blogspot.com

Dear UN : SOS!!!

The quite excellent John Pring at Disability News Service dug up this murky little nugget of breathtaking cheek from our delightful coalition. http://www.aboutaccess.co.uk/article.php?id=254&item=Government+rewrites+history+for+UN+report+

It seems that the government had to prepare a report for the UN disability convention. Apparently, the report was meant to describe


"measures that are being taken to implement each of the articles of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities."


However, in a dazzling piece of collective amnesia, our very own UK government didn't seem to think it necessary to mention the eye-watering level of cuts to disability benefits, services and support. 


Despite an "Initial Report" running into a zzzzzzzzzingly epic 126 pages and an even more lengthily off-putting "Annexe" of 167 pages, there appears to be nothing at all discussing the impact £9.2 billion of cuts will have on disabled people's "rights"


One might think that up to 600,000 people losing Disability Living Allowance, for instance, might, you know, impact on how Disabled people erm, Live? That abolishing the Independent Living Fund might, well, have some impact on how Independently we can Live? That cutting Access to Work might make it, erm, harder to, well, Access Work? Cutting Social Care might make the care we receive a little less Social? Capping housing might, well, lead to some people losing trifling little things like, THEIR HOME??? Never mind the astonishingly sinister Disability Denial of ESA, where nearly 2 million people will miraculously be found "Fit to Work" after all, simply by pressing a few buttons on a LIMA computer screen? 


I can only hope that whereas misinformation, distortion, omission and double-think seem to be perfectly acceptable in the UK, the UN will take a rather more "Real-Life" view of our rights. 


SOS UN : UK disabled people here! You can skip the 293 pages of fantasy our government just sent you if you like. Send food packages!! Send tents! Send Peacekeepers! 

Government Cancer PR Disaster

Oh yes, I forgot to say.

You know how I often point out the fact that if you have IV chemotherapy you qualify for unconditional ESA support, but if you take chemo orally, you don't?

Yup, it's that tough. Despite the fact oral chemo or radiotherapy can be just as physically devastating as IV, one meant you got unconditional support, the other meant you had to attend work related interviews!! Yup, seriously. No, I'm not making it up.

As you can imagine, Macmillan Cancer Support campaigned pretty hard on this issue, pointing out that the system was clearly unfair.

Well, after due consideration, the government appear to agree. It is, they conclude, clearly unfair that the scrounging IV chemo and radio patients are getting off scott free. Therefore, the government suggest they will all now have to face work related interviews.

Yup, seriously. Yes, you did read that right.

Anyone undergoing chemo or radiotherapy for cancer should not be considered unfit for work, according to the government. (Unless they have less than 6 months to live, great ole softies that they are)

I can't even think of a snappy conclusion. I literally do not know how to put that into words.

If however, the government are actively looking for ways to create the biggest PR disaster of all time, then surely this will be a top contender?

Europe Calls on Governments to Protect Disabled Citizens

I reproduce this letter on behalf of the European Disability Forum. On first reading, I'm not sure our UK government can claim to meet any of these demands. Except No.3 of course, which appears to be a particular obsession.... 

Despite the rhetoric, cuts to Access to Work even call No.3 into question.

EU SUMMIT: OUR LETTER TO HEADS OF STATE: WE DON'T WANT TO BE EXCLUDED MORE THAN WE ALREADY ARE


To the Heads of State and Government of the European Union,

RE: IMPACT OF THE ECONOMIC CRISIS ON PERSONS WITH DISABILITIES

The European Disability Forum (EDF), the voice of 80 million persons with disabilities and their families in Europe, calls on all the Governments of the European Union to ensure that the needs of people with disabilities and their families are taken into account all the way through economic, political and social policies.

Austerity measures undertaken by governments in the European Union could undermine progress towards the realisation of the rights of persons with disabilities enshrined in the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities as well as the social targets of the Europe 2020 strategy and the European Disability Strategy 2010 – 2020. Poverty, social exclusion, discrimination, marginalisation, illiteracy and negative stereotypes of people with disabilities can be the sad legacy of the economic, social and political reforms if implemented without duly consideration of the rights of people with disabilities.

 

 

The EDF calls on the European Council and all the Governments of Europe to ensure that people with disabilities are not socially, economically or politically excluded. In order to make sure  that the rights of persons with disabilities are not undermined by current responses to the economic crisis, we must consider that: 

 

1. People with disabilities might freely move in European societies, live independently and included in society: no action restricting these capacities should be envisaged in any social protection reform. Personal assistance and other community support services should not be undermined by austerity measures.

2. Education of persons with disabilities will be respected and reforms in the education systems will not mean reduction in education support policies in mainstream education and should not lead to segregation to special schools.

3. The right to work and employment is fully respected: Measures for full inclusion in employment including reasonable accommodation and supported employment should not disappear from the national employment policies.

4. Access to health services for people with disabilities is not put into question and health services for people with disabilities do not consider their health as secondary in respect to non-disabled people.

5. That Social habilitation and rehabilitation is considered an investment for European societies ensuring that all capacities are collected and fully participate in the construction of Europe after the crisis. The quality of social services should remain a pre-condition for respecting the human rights of people with disabilities.

6. Adequate living standards and social protection are ensured. This will mean that no measures are taken that will have the effect of leading people with disabilities into poverty, social exclusion or reduction of his/her living income.

7. Freedom of expression and opinion and access to information is not restricted by reforms of public and private services.

8. Respect for family life is ensured by guaranteeing to all people with disabilities and their families adequate family policies. These policies should remain a priority.

9. Organisations representing people with disabilities should be consulted in regard to any action that could have an impact on the rights of people with disabilities.

10. Raising the awareness of the needs of persons with disabilities should take place in order to ensure that the portrayal of persons with disabilities in the media and other relevant stakeholders is done correctly and does not lead to social stigmatisation.

 

Yannis Vardakastanis
President of the European Disability Forum

Harrington 2 - The Sequel is Never as Good

Professor Harrington is the man charged with sorting out the incomprehensible mess that is ESA (Employment and Support Allowance)

Given a system that gets the decision wrong so often that up to 70% of appeals are successful, his work is fairly urgent. The government claim that 11,000 people a week are being assessed for ESA, yet those assessments have been scathingly criticised by the Citizens Advice Bureaux, a Work and Pensions Select Committee report, the government's own Statutory Social Security Advisory committee, almost every leading charity, campaigners and even the professor who helped to design ESA.

People are taking their own lives. So terrified are they that they will be left homeless and hungry, so exhausted by the constant harassment of repeated assessments and tribunals, the Job Centre have been issued with suicide guidelines.

Last year, Harrington made many suggestions to improve the assessments being used (WCAs or Work Capability Assessments) and some of them did address issues that needed urgent change. The clearest was ensuring that evidence from a person's GP or Consultant was considered in the decision making process. I know, I know, sane people would assume that was already happening, but it wasn't. Just 2% of claims considered the opinion of...erm....a patient's own doctor or healthcare professional. In 98% of cases, the computer, she simply say "yes" or "no"

Again, this reader with just a little curiosity and common sense, might ask why they are extending ESA amongst such chaos? Why are they rolling it out to a further 2 million Incapacity Benefit claimants AND designing a near identical system with which to assess the 3 million or so people on DLA? (Disability Living Allowance) One might ask why on earth something so draconian and cruel has not been paused until assessments can be made fairer?

One word : Harrington.

All the time they can say that he is sorting the whole mess out, we are to be re-assured.

ESA most fails those with mental health conditions, fluctuating conditions and learning difficulties. The impersonal, tick box computers just cannot accurately be made to fit variation or nuance. In his 1st year report, Harrington did not even deal with these problems, so we were all waiting fairly impatiently to see the conclusions of his year 2 report. Today, it is more urgent than ever to make sure that these problems are solved - preferably about 3 years ago, but today would do.

Well, I read Harrington Year 2 yesterday and I'm not sure quite what he's been doing all year. No conclusions can be drawn! No changes are yet to be taken forward! No descriptors can be agreed on (yet). The opinions of Mencap, Mind, The National Autistic Society, National Association for Crohn's and Colitis, the MS society, Arthritis Care and many others were simply not "evidence based." Harrington did pat them all on the head, send them away and say they could have another go, but unless their decades of experience could translate into "evidence" that the DWP would like, it just wouldn't do.

As for suggestions that the assessment should be a "real life test" - looking at work someone could actually do, rather than asking if they can pick up a penny or do up a button - well this is clearly nonsense! How on earth can this be empirical? impersonal? quantifiable? Silly little CABs! Off you go now, try again, but as Chris Grayling says, he is "absolutely, unreservedly and implacably opposed" to something as logical as a real life test, I imagine it won't matter what the CABs come back with.

So that's it then. Nothing to see here. Move along.

A cynic might conclude that as ESA was never designed to support those with long term variable conditions anyway, any changes to ESA that ensures that it does would not be what IDS is looking for at all. If ESA was designed to simply make sure people couldn't claim unless their head fell off, then Harrington must be very careful to make sure that people with heads don't get above themselves.

As though lives are not at stake, Harrington tells us :

"I have seen these improvements [from yr 1] in the day-to-day running of both DWP
Operations and Atos. This has taken time and some observers have told
me that they have seen no change. I advise patience. The process of
improvement is happening, but is not yet in evidence everywhere. It will take
time to have the desired impact and the year three Review will closely monitor
the impact of the changes and ensure there is continuing progress in
improving the assessment."

Patience???? Patience???? How much more patient are we to be man? This is our LIVES you ask us to put to one side. Some of us don't even have until "year 3". 

The only silver lining is the clear irritation he shows with the independent tier of the tribunal service, who repeatedly tell him (well, they tell him to go away basically) that their service is "outside of his remit". When Harrington even dared to suggest - wait for it - that the judiciary run training courses to explain the "beneficial nature of work" they not only told him that was "outside of his remit" but reminded him rather sternly that their job was to uphold the law. He didn't like that one bit. 

So, we are no further forward. But it's OK, because we just need to be "patient". the government however, need show no such patience and are free to crack on at the rate of 11,000 people a week. Charities, Citizen's Advice Bureaux and campaigners must go away and work on new "evidence" yet the DWP can produce Impact Assessments like this one  http://www.dwp.gov.uk/docs/esa-time-limit-wr2011-ia-revised-apr2011.pdf so totally devoid of any evidence at all that those who read it for the first time are usually shocked.

It's shameful. 

So Professor Harrington, as you trundle on into year three, perhaps, every morning, as you wake up, you will do a little sum for me. 11,000 people per week. That's very roughly 1,500 people per day. 600 of them will go to tribunal, believing their decision to be wrong. Up to 420 of them will win. That's 420 lives lived in "patience". Every day. 420 people, who must find the strength and resilience to wait up to a year to go to tribunal because the system you are "reviewing" is so appallingly unfit for purpose. 

I don't think patience is the issue Professor. You have simply let us down in the most disappointing way. 

Radio 5 Live Tonight

Just to let you all know, I will be on Radio 5 Live tonight at 10pm, discussing the government leaks on a new "sicknote" report that aims to keep people in work. The report is due to be published on Monday.

I hope this link will take you to the show http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b017gwq5

You can read more about the plans here http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/workers-on-longterm-sick-leave-face-tougher-assessment-tests-6264610.html   and here http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/workers-on-longterm-sick-leave-face-tougher-assessment-tests-6264610.html

Do think about calling in to give me some moral support ;)

Latest Disability News Roundup

• A disabled woman and her husband who have been found dead in their house had spoken publicly of their struggle to obtain the benefits they needed to survive.
• MPs have accused the government of “pandering to the Daily Mail” over the issue of incapacity benefit reform, after it published a misleading press release about the results of its “fitness for work” tests.
• A disabled peer has accused her own government of behaving like a dishonest insurance company over its treatment of hundreds of thousands of people currently claiming out-of-work disability benefits.
• An investigation by young disabled campaigners has raised new fears of a shortage of accessible hotel rooms when thousands of disabled visitors descend on London for the 2012 Paralympics.
• A disabled film-maker’s award-winning video installation about the killing of hundreds of thousands of disabled people in Nazi Germany has had to end its run in Gloucester Cathedral, after a vital piece of equipment was stolen.
• Reform of incapacity benefits is set to “impoverish vast numbers of households” and “cause untold distress in countless more”, a new research report has warned.
• Police, prosecutors and magistrates have won praise for using hate crime legislation to increase the sentence imposed on a hairdresser who shaved an offensive word into the hair of a man with learning difficulties.

For links to the full stories, please visit Disability News Service

New Shadow Minister for Disabled

Yesterday, Kaliya Franklin spoke to Ed Miliband while I suffered through a birthday party for my just-turned-7 year old. All morning, we rehearsed lines as I baked cocktail sausages and planned strategy while I stuffed plastic party bags with plastic rubbish.

I'm sure Kaliya will be writing up an article later today, so I won't go into details, but the conversation went very well and Ed did a lot of listening and asked a lot of questions.

Late yesterday evening, John Pring from the excellent http://www.disabilitynewsservice.com/ ** heard from the new Shadow Minister for Disabled People. Anne McGuire was confirmed in the role and sent him this statement  :

“I’m delighted to have been appointed as Shadow Minister for Disabled People. There is a responsibility on all of us to care for those in need. However, many disabled people feel that they are unfairly being portrayed as scroungers and are feeling very vulnerable"

“Labour will be the voice for those in genuine need, who need extra help to live a full life. The introduction of the Universal Credit will see support for disabled children halved, while the Severe Disability Premium is to be scrapped with nothing appropriate put in its place. We believe there can be reforms made to the system, but this is the wrong way to do it, and we will do all we can to stop these changes.”

I'm sure sick and disabled people will be encouraged by this comment and very pleased that Labour appear to finally be listening to campaigners and most importantly, to them, the people affected by this government's eye-watering cuts to disability support.

** If you haven't bookmarked John's site, please do. He is the only investigative journalist focused solely on reporting disability issues and his weekly updates are invaluable.

Did you know this about your ESA50 form?

We're all spoonies here. Or disabled. Or carers. Or families and friends of someone who is. Or just nice people who want to help put an injustice right.

With that in mind, we all know how it feels to fill in a DLA (Disability Living Allowance) claim form or an ESA50 form. (For Employment and Support Allowance )

On the whole, I think we see them as necessary evils. Yes, they could be shorter, but mostly, the people I speak to would rather lay their life bare on an impersonal form than face to face to a complete stranger.

If you're a scrounger, I imagine they are a chance for creative juices to flow freely, but if you're ill or disabled and you have a painful or difficult life, then chances are that the time you spend filling in those forms are the only time your really face all of your limitations.

It can be soul destroying. People who spend their lives painting on a smile, trying to offer a cheery "fine" when loved one's ask how they are; people who push themselves beyond "normal" limits; push through unimaginable challenges every day must face that paper day of reckoning when actually, they must write in painstaking detail how "not fine" they really are.

We must admit to every last aid we use (even the one's we pretend we don't.) We must list every last episode of incontinence, every time we forgot where we were or had a massive seizure in the middle of a crowded shopping centre, peeing ourselves in public. We must admit times when we may have been a danger to ourselves or others. We must admit just how much support our loved ones give us and just how little we can do for ourselves.

Has to be done.

Hurts just the same.

Well, I'm sure you're also aware how tricky it is to get a look at your own medical notes. Or how careful doctors always are not to share your personal information with anyone. Or how many checks are in place to guarantee our data is secure.

Now, it comes to light (FOI request) that once your ESA50 form speeds on it's way to the day of reckoning, it will be opened first in a royal mail sorting office, bundled into relevant piles and only then sent on to the correct department.


Yep, Fred the postman, spotty young Fred, 19 (interests : arse jokes and medieval platform games) gets to open your form, the form you agonised over, blushed as you wrote, perhaps cried tears over, smudging the words.

Perhaps he is a responsible young man who simply opens your private, medical evidence, looks at the address and bundles up the papers.

Or perhaps, he is a little thoughtless. Perhaps he shouts to Pete over the way and they guffaw at your bowel habits or mock your spasticity. Either way, surely the point is that no-one should see these forms but the person who wrote them and the decision maker who will consider them?

There is nothing on the form to say this happens, no disclaimer warning you. If it is legal (which I find incredibly hard to believe) then surely it is not moral? Surely it breaks every code that medical professionals try to follow as they safeguard our intimate medical secrets?

I imagine ministers will tell us that it is "standard procedure" that no-one reads the details. Is that the point?

If this is the line they take, then perhaps they would consider writing a 1000 word account of the most embarrassing or traumatic event of their entire lives and allowing me to pass them round my local pub? No-one will read them, honest, we'll just pas them round and leave them in a pile at the end.

No? Thought not.

Lords fight against Time Limiting ESA

For the trawling-through-endless-clauses-subsets-and-amendments kind of genius, I'm really not your girl.

However, having just spent a miserable hour or two poring over the amendments tabled to the Welfare Reform Bill for today's committee stage, I believe that Time Limiting contributory ESA to one year is one of only two clauses that Lords are asking to be removed altogether.

Huge thanks to Lord Patel (Crossbench) Lord Crisp (Crossbench) and Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Labour) for calling for the clause (51) to be removed entirely from the bill, and I only hope there is broad support for the amendment.

For your information, here is a link from the Lords page on today's committee meeting. http://www.parliament.uk/business/news/2011/october1/welfare-reform-bill-committee-stage/

A Plague on Both Your Houses

"And the Lord (Freud) said "Part a sea of sick and disabled people to move them unto the Moses Room". 

But we will plague you Lord Freud. 

We will watch the Committee stage today (Now confirmed in fact as committee room 4a)

3.30pm onwards on www.parliament.uk If you want to help with live tweeting the event, just show up on twitter and use #wrb with every tweet. (We believe that the welfare meeting follows an education meeting and therefore starts at 5pm)

Several Lords have contacted us to congratulate us. After making our opinions so strongly known, this committee WILL have plenty of room for wheelchair users (including an overspill room) and their WILL be a live feed to both rooms so that we can follow the meeting. A huge congratulations to all who wrote, emailed, tweeted and shared. 

To watch live, follow this link http://www.parliamentlive.tv/Main/Player.aspx?meetingId=9061

Or, if you have any problems, go to www.parliament.co.uk

Click on "MPs Lords and Offices" at the top

Scroll down and click on "Watch parliament TV" on the right hand side

Then, scroll down and click on "What's On"

Finally, scroll down to "Committees" and click on the link

Finally, if you can possibly be there physically today, please do try and go. Especially today as any access problems will need to be sorted out at this first reading. 

A couple more Lib Dem speeches on ESA

Thanks to latentexistence for uploading some of the best speeches from yesterday's ESA debate at the Liberal Democrat Conference.