Fighting workfare and sanctions: there is no negotiating with the political class or corporates

Reblogged from Kate Belgrave:

Here are Boycott Workfare protestors outside Senate House, defying police clampdowns on campus protests and making plenty of noise about the political class’ disgusting embrace of workfare and benefit sanctions…






….and inside the building, the ultimate rogues’ gallery of thieves and state-funded robber barons who are making a filthy pile out of workfare, taxpayers and the misery of people who find themselves unemployed or unable to work. ERSA, the trade body for the so-called welfare-to-work industry, was holding an annual workfare conference in the building today. The roll-call of attendees included: Esther McVey and Stephen Timms, the DWP’s director of social justice (ironic job title of the millenium there), the CE and director of Tomorrow’s People – the organisation that brought you the scandal where unemployed people were forced to work without pay and had to get changed under a bridge during the Queen’s Jubilee. There was also, apparently, a smorgasbord of plundering work programme providers – the likes of Avanta, Seetec, G4S, A4e and Pinnacle People. Joy.

Anyway. History will judge these people harshly. It’s just a pity that the political classes, and organised labour and Labour refuse to judge them harshly now. To date, it has been the member-led groups that have beaten the government and pro-workfare companies and charities back – on the streets, online and in the courts. Same thing with the fight to save the Independent Living Fund – member-led groups like Disabled People Against Cuts were behind that success and pretty much on their own fighting for it. Established charities and the political class ignored them. So. There are people who are going to find themselves on the wrong side of history here and I only regret that I won’t be around to see it.

Workfare is absolutely a labour issue, but Labour was not to be seen today – unless you counted Timms, who was somewhere inside the conference, hoovering lunch up with the crooks. I counted a couple of Unite community flags at the protest, but really, there should have been a couple of thousand. And more. But there weren’t. Which was and is extraordinary, albeit totally expected… except the fact is that we’re seeing something very significant here.

We’ve been seeing it for a while. We’re at a point (again, we’ve been at it for while) where the very notion of a wage for work is under threat and if things continue as they are, very few jobs will pay. Everyone will be under the boot of a sadistic corporate. As for decent terms and conditions to go along with some sort of wage – forget it. As one speaker rightly said today – the workfare juggernaut will end up driving everyone’s wages into the dirt.

It’s bad enough that people on benefits are expected to work for free. It’s only a matter of time before everyone else will be. That has certainly been the case in America, which is something I’ve said before, but I might as well say it again. An example: several years into New York city’s workfare programme, District Council 37, a union which represented municipal employees, took Rudy Giuliani to court, saying that his workfare programme “had illegally replaced nearly 2000 unionised clerical workers with unpaid welfare recipients in three agencies.” That sort of thing. It’ll be that sort of thing all round.

And if you rely on a wage to get by – as opposed to a trust fund, etc – it’ll be that sort of thing coming your way soon, if it hasn’t hit you already. Meanwhile, the member-led fightback groups get on with the battle. They know that there is no negotiating with the political class and/or the major corporates that the political class represents. And they are right. Austerity governments of all stripes exist only to hand public money to the private sector. They will do that and do that until there is nothing left.

Ho hum.

Destitution [UK] From: UN Special Rapporteur On Extreme Poverty And Human Rights

Subject: Destitution [UK]
From: Special Rapporteur On Extreme Poverty And Human Rights
Date: 6:04 AM (2 hours ago)

Dear Mr. Miller,

On behalf of the Special Rapporteur, thank you very much for your communications and apologies for the delayed response. Ms. Sepúlveda is observing very closely the situation with the UK welfare policies and their effects on persons living in poverty, including persons with disability. She is doing her best within the limits of her mandate to address such situations not only in the UK but globally through direct engagement with Governments.

She would like to commend you for your tireless efforts and wishes you all the best in your endeavours.

Best regards,

Mandate of the Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights
Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights
Postal Address: UNOG-OHCHR, CH1211 Genève 10, Suisse
Tel: +41 22 917 94 02/ 96 43
Fax: + 41 22 917 90 06
Email: srextremepoverty@ohchr.org
Website: http://www.ohchr.org


Source

When is rape consensual? When it’s between a SERCO guard and an inmate

Reblogged from Pride’s Purge

(not satire - it's SERCO!)

Sometimes I read something which makes my jaw drop. And this one seems to have passed most people by.

A recent report highlighted how detainees at Yarl's Wood immigration centre face sexual abuse by guards employed by SERCO.

Here's a Guardian article about it:

Detainees at Yarl's Wood immigration centre 'facing sexual abuse'

The whole report is pretty depressing but it was a comment on the allegations by the UK Border Agency's professional standards unit which made my jaw drop.

It said the alleged victim did not indicate to investigators that her sexual contact with guards was "anything other than consensual".

Anything other than consensual? How can sexual relations between an inmate under lock and key and her guard be 'consensual'?

SERCO even admit three of its Yarl's Wood guards have been dismissed after allegations of "sexually inappropriate behaviour" with inmates.

I suppose most people would regard rape as being a bit more than "sexually inapproriate behaviour."

But only dismissed? Why not prosecuted?

​Clearly - under UK law - rape is considered to be consensual now if it's between an inmate and a SERCO employee.



Related articles by Tom Pride:

SERCO wins bid to run UK as Victorian theme park

Third-World Britain – over 25% of parents struggling to feed kids during school holidays

A4e Claims Success In Getting Taxpayers Money Off Benefits & Into Its Own Pockets

Workfare = Workhouse?

Did you know the government is subsidising McDonald’s with taxpayers money – your money?

The government has finally done something so outrageous even I can’t be bothered to satirise it

Struggling to find words to describe this government? Here’s a list to help you.

Department of Work & Pensions – Death No Reason Not To Be Classified As ‘Fit For Work’

Government – Light-Touch Regulation Of The Disabled To Blame For Economic Crisis

Disabled? Only one way to make Atos ESA assessors understand your condition

Reblogged from Vox Political:

Insanity: Apologies for using this image yet again but it perfectly encapsulates the lunacy that is rampant in the Department for Work and Pensions, headed up by Iain ‘I believe’ Smith.

We’re all getting to the point now, aren’t we?

You know what point I mean; the point where we realise that we can no longer afford to believe our dealings with the Department for Work and Pensions – including any of its representatives – involve contact with rational human beings.

There is nothing rational about DWP decisions. We’ve known that all along, but now we have enough evidence to prove it.

Look at the Daily Mirror‘s story today: Almost half of the ESA claimants who are known to have progressive conditions like Parkinson’s, cystic fibrosis, multiple sclerosis or rheumatoid arthritis are being refused admission to the support group.

Instead, they’ve been put into the work-related activity group, which means they are expected to recover from these permanently-disabling ailments to a point at which they could look for work.

This is, of course, impossible.

All doctors know it is impossible.

Atos assessors are said to be doctors. Therefore they should know it is impossible.

An Atos spokesperson, quoted in the article, tried to cover the company’s arse by saying decisions are made by the DWP.

The DWP spokesperson said, “There is strong evidence working can be beneficial for many people who have a health condition.”

Like Parkinson’s?

A condition like that of the gentleman quoted in the report, who gave up working six years after being diagnosed with Parkinson’s, and who can no longer do even basic things?

Nobody can say he didn’t try to keep going for as long as he possibly could. But he was repeatedly told he would be able to recover from his progressively worsening condition and work again, and now the DWP is refusing to carry out any more assessments on him.

Closer to home, Mrs Mike – my own long-suffering significant other – first began experiencing the chronic pain that eventually stopped her from working in 2001. She soldiered on for a further two years before being signed off work by her doctor after spending a lengthening series of time on sick leave.

Her condition has worsened progressively since then, resisting all attempts at treatment. She was granted Incapacity Benefit but this was changed to ESA last year. She was put in the work-related activity group but appealed against this after being told by a work programme provider that she would not be healthy enough to work by the time her benefit ended, and that she should seek reconsideration (or appeal) with a view to being put in the support group.

She did this, but the DWP has sat on the request for almost six months without doing anything, waiting for her benefit period to end so she could be signed off and claimed as a “positive benefit outcome”. This finally happened, two weeks ago.

They say she must be fit for work now. In fact, her health is worse than ever.

Irrational.

And – as this is the prevailing attitude at the DWP – we can say that the DWP attitude as a whole is irrational.

(We know the DWP monitors this site, so: Hello, DWP snooper! Are you aware you’re quite mad?)

It’s reminiscent of the stories about amputees being asked when their limbs were likely to grow back. That, too, was irrational.

It does offer a way out, for those people under threat from these idiots and the Atos employees working for them. Not a particularly nice way, as you’ll see – but probably the only way that will work:

Anyone going to a work capability assessment takes an able-bodied friend with them. As soon as they are alone with the assessor, the able-bodied friend rips the Atos employee’s lower jaw off and destroys it. It doesn’t matter how.

(I told you it wasn’t a particularly nice way!)

For the claimant, and their friend, this course of action leads to a secure future in prison, where their bed and board will be supported by the taxpayer (albeit at considerably greater expense than if the DWP had just put them in the support group).

For the assessor, it provides insight into the plight of those he or she has been working with; sometime in their own future, they will know exactly how it feels to have one of their own colleagues asking, “How long before it grows back and you can get back to work?”

Now, I’m not suggesting for a moment that anyone should actually go out and perform such a heinous act on a (so-called) medical professional.

But I maintain that they will never accept the seriousness of your condition unless they are made to suffer it – or something similar – themselves.

Disability Activists - Lions 'Led' by Donkeys

Reblogged from Pride's Purge:

(not satire – it’s the sad state of the UK today)

I never usually reveal my personal situation in blog posts. I prefer to stay anonymous – not for legal reasons but I find it prevents criticisms becoming too personal. However, I’m going to make an exception in this case because I know this blog post is going to attract some criticism from people I usually like to regard as allies.

There’s probably only one thing worse than being disabled or sick. And that’s having a child who is disabled or sick.

And I have two.

That’s why it really bothers me to see the appalling way the sick and the disabled are being treated in this country today.

Of course we all know that politicians and tabloid journalists and even comedians like to scapegoat people – and it seems to be the turn of the sick and the disabled at the moment to bear the brunt of their prejudice.

But the worst thing for me is how so many sick and disabled people are being sold out by the very people we should normally expect to be on their side – the public figures, the charities, the spokespeople – the so-called ‘leaders’.

I see leaders of charities like Scope, Mind and The Papworth Trust – along with countless others – actually justifying using disabled and sick people on mandatory workfare placements while at the same time paying themselves huge 6-figure salaries and telling us how the privatisation of the NHS will create fantastic business opportunities for the ‘charitable sector’.

I see disabled MPs – the very people who should be speaking out in support of the disabled and the sick – standing up in parliament labelling disability campaigners as ‘extremists’.

I see well-liked disability bloggers telling their followers not to share damaging information about how this same MP had claimed over 10 grand in expenses for things like soap, coasters and biscuits.

This was because it turned out there was a meeting with the MP arranged by disability ‘leaders’ in the House of Commons designed to ‘bring him onside’ as a future ally (an attempt which by the way failed – he’s a Tory FFS)

I see barely any mainstream journalist willing to tell the truth about the government’s attacks on the disabled and the sick apart from one extremely dodgy one who occasionally works as the token lefty for the Express (FFS) and the Mail (FFS) and David Icke (FFS).

Because I can tell you now, of all the many, many problems facing the sick and the disabled in this country at the moment, 6-foot lizards isn’t one of them.

Where are all the real journalists, charities, spokespeople, leaders prepared to speak up for the disabled and the sick?

The bitter truth is, I see very few so-called leaders who are really interested in the true welfare of the disabled and the sick. Most have their own agendas – usually furthering their own careers in politics, charities or journalism.

But then I look around and I see there is real help for sick and disabled people. I see local groups, self-help groups on social media like Facebook, a whole network of mostly small self-run groups offering real practical advice and help and support for disabled and sick people who are desperate to survive a worsening onslaught of attacks against them.

I’m talking about groups on Facebook like ESA/DLA, AFTER ATOS, ATOS MIRACLES, DISABILITY DEFENCE, FIGHTBACK, BENEFITS & WORK etc and all the countless local groups that share practical advice for people who need help.

It’s truly a case of lions led by donkeys.

In a future post I would like to compile a list of self-help groups which are valuable sources of help for the disabled and the sick – so if you have any suggestions, please leave them in the comment section. Thanks.

The DWP: Where incompetence is described as a 'positive benefit outcome'

Reblogged from Vox Political:

Good shot: Work and Pensions secretary Iain ‘Returned to Unit’ Smith takes delivery of the nation’s verdict on his management of the benefits system. No wonder Britain is falling apart, if the entire Coalition government works on similar lines.

The Department for Work and Pensions is now such a shambles it should be a national scandal.

Not only do its ministers try to deceive you about its purposes and successes (12,000 people did NOT sign off benefits because of the cap, for example, and they still won’t tell us how many people died in 2012 while going through the ESA assessment procedure), but ground-level workers are praised if inappropriate action on claims results in a sick or disabled person being refused benefit or their claim being shut down. This incompetence is described as a ‘positive benefit outcome’.

I write from experience – Mrs Mike appears to be one such ‘positive benefit outcome’, despite our best efforts to prevent this.

Let me tell you a tale. I shan’t go into all of Mrs M’s details as they’re not really necessary and some of them are disturbing; suffice it to say that she has multiple long-term conditions.

She was subjected to a Work Capability Assessment for ESA in July last year, and received notification dated July 17 that she had been put into the work-related activity group, commencing August 14. This meant she would have until August 13 this year to recover from conditions which have plagued her for more than a decade; a totally unrealistic target invented by people whose main aim is to sell bogus insurance policies (see previous articles on Unum).

Being in the WRAG means that you have to try to prepare for work, with guidance to help introduce you back into the job market. Mrs M waited very patiently to be contacted about this, and was eventually called in to the local Job Centre Plus in December last year – one-whole-third of the way through her claim period.

Arrangements were made for her to have a telephone interview with a representative from a company that provides help in getting people back to work, but there were more delays. When it finally happened, the lady on the line told me: “I’ve spoken to your partner and from what she tells me, we can’t do anything to help her. She’s not going to get better in the timeframe within which we work. I know people with fibromyalgia and that’s just not going to happen. I recommend that you appeal against the decision to put her in the work-related activity group… Ask for a review of the decision, with a view to going into the support group. Go back to her doctor and request reassessment.”

We sought advice from the Citizens Advice Bureau over the possibility of making an appeal, and it seemed that there were legitimate grounds for doing so – not just the word of the work programme provider (my understanding is that this is the occupation of the lady who phoned us) but also medical evidence that had come to light after the WCA. So, with CAB help, Mrs M put in her appeal in February. She has yet to receive a response from the Department for Work and Pensions.

In May, however, she did receive another claim form. I filled it out for her (writing for prolonged periods increases the pain) and we sent it off on May 17. There has been no acknowledgement of receipt and the DWP has never mentioned it since.

This is unsurprising as we have had no contact at all from the DWP, from the time we received that form until yesterday (August 19), when Mrs M telephoned the Job Centre to find out what’s going on. Inevitably, this led to the phone being handed to me. “Oh yes,” said the man on the end of the line. “This claim terminated on August 13.”

So it seems the DWP is now in the habit of closing claims without informing the claimants. (In fact this is the second time someone I know has experienced this impoliteness; it happened to someone else in March).

We are now unexpectedly having to deal with the loss from our household income of more than £110 per week – that’s nearly £6,000 per year. We had hoped to avoid the possibility of this happening by means of the appeal, but the gentleman at the Job Centre helped us out there as well: “Yes, an appeal has been logged.” I asked what we being done. “It doesn’t say.”

So nothing has been done, then.

This is a serious matter. Firstly, the decision after the WCA was incorrect – Mrs Mike should have been put in the support group but was put in the WRAG instead. This could be because assessors are on orders to put only around 12 or 13 per cent of claimants into the support group, whether their conditions demand it or not, on the orders of ministers at the DWP.

Then there’s the nonexistent handling of the appeal. The DWP seems to be pretending it hasn’t happened.

Then there’s the repeat ESA50 form in May. What happened to that?

And finally there’s the complete – and no doubt intentional – failure to notify Mrs M of the termination of her benefit, a termination that should not have taken place if the DWP had done its job properly.

Is this what happens when the government lays off more than 400,000 public sector workers – the system seizes up because nobody can do the job properly anymore?

Fortunately – and full credit to him for doing this – my Liberal Democrat MP tweeted me yesterday evening and offered to help, so I have provided him with the details and hopefully something will come from that. We have a little cash coming in and a few friends who can help, so we are not in dire financial straits yet.
What if we didn’t have these safety nets, though?

By now, all readers of this blog should be well aware of the widely-reported statistic claiming that, on average, 73 people die every week because of bad decisions by the DWP – they either become depressed and commit suicide or the strain of going through the process worsens their health problem, the problem the DWP considered too inconsequential to merit receipt of benefit, until it kills them.

That statistic comes from a DWP report released more than a year ago and is now out of date. I have been trying to secure the release of up-to-date numbers but ministers have done everything in their power to prevent this and the only reasonable conclusion is that the death toll is now far worse.

A Freedom of Information request earlier this year was refused on the grounds that it was ‘vexatious’ and a demand for an internal review has been met with stony silence for more than a month. Today I emailed ministers to ask when they were going to respond or if I should just proceed to the next stage, which is a complaint to the Information Commissioner.

So you see, the DWP is in a terrible, terrible mess of incompetence rewarded and extravagant claims that amount to poorly-executed attempts at distraction fraud.

What if this is a microcosm for the entire Coalition government? What will be the result?

A weakened Britain, that’s what.

This blog has said it before and will say it again: They would kill us and call it ‘help’.

How are those with mental health problems treated by Atos?

With complaints about the failed Atos work capability assessment flooding in, Alan White and Kate Belgrave look at some of them.

Atos. Photograph: Getty Images

Tony Lea, who runs the Cornish benefit advice charity Bufferzone, wants to tell us about Jane. She suffered abuse from the age of 13. She never went to school and she can’t read or write. She’s 33 years old and has tried to kill herself before.

In February this year, the outsourcing company Atos carried out her Employment and Support Allowance Work Capability Assessment (WCA). She didn’t score any points on the mental health ability descriptors, and was placed in the ESA Work Related Activity Group – the group for claimants that the DWP considers to be capable of work at some point.

She was assigned a career adviser by a company called Prospects, which is contracted to find jobs for the unemployed under the Government’s Work Programme. Jane told this adviser that she had mental health problems. The adviser called her a liar and sanctioned her benefits. By June, Jane had got a job. She was in the job for three days before she tried to commit suicide by overdose.

On 2nd July, Tony told the Prospects career adviser not to contact her, and asked a mental health crisis team to carry out an immediate assessment. On the 29th of that month she tried to take an overdose again. Tony says this was because Prospects sent her a letter. She’d been receiving them for months, asking why she hadn’t been in contact with them. She can’t read and didn’t want them read it out to her, so she’d been storing them in a drawer: 18 of them in total. She recognised the company’s logo on the top, and that tipped her over the edge.

Tony made an official complaint. The DWP said it would not investigate the matter because Prospects has its own internal complaints procedure. On 5th August another Prospects worker phoned Jane. Tony believes “we’d have been looking at another suicide attempt,” had another mental health team not visited her.

When we contacted them, Prospects issued the following statement:

“Prospects strongly refutes the allegations made by Bufferzone which purportedly relate to one of our customers on the Work Programme in South West. 

"Prospects takes its responsibilities to its customers and staff seriously. We have robust policies on safeguarding and data protection in place to ensure their privacy and safety is always maintained. With this in mind, it would be inappropriate for Prospects to comment on individual any cases. 

"Prospects is currently helping more than 18,000 long term unemployed people in the South West to return to work through its innovative ASCENT model of delivery. Prospects works with customers to help them overcome barriers to employment through bespoke support and training to increase confidence and develop skills.”

***

You can see why there is such concern about the way that the WCA deals with people who have mental health conditions - and concern about the DWP’s commitment to a real overhaul. Here’s a reason to question that commitment: the Upper Tribunal recently ruled that the current WCA process is unreasonable to people with mental health conditions. That ruling came after an action against the DWP was brought by the Mental Health Resistance Network. Two claimants argued that Atos work capability assessments discriminated against people with mental health conditions. The courts agreed.

That decision would have put the onus on the DWP to source medical information for people with mental health conditions right at the start of their ESA applications. Unfortunately, the DWP is fighting that decision tooth and nail - and was recently granted leave to appeal it. "We already request claimants supply any evidence they feel will be relevant to the assessment in the ESA50 questionnaire," the department said in an email. The fact that the change could improve the experience for people who must go through the appalling work capability process appears to be neither here nor there.

Neither is the fact that sourcing people’s medical information at the start of their WCAs might improve things as far as the public purse goes – people found eligible for ESA from the start would not need to take their case through the wildly oversubscribed and costly appeals process. You’d also think the fact that the minister for employment, Mark Hoban, has been forced to admit there are problems with the assessments and the written reports that Atos produces (“an unacceptable reduction in the quality”) would give the DWP reason to pause when looking to overturn decisions which could dramatically improve the information available to Atos assessors. (Hoban has also brought in his former employers, PricewaterhouseCoopers, “to provide independent advice in relation to strengthening quality assurance processes across all its health and disability assessments.” Ahem).

Which brings us to the growing problems that people have getting medical evidence. Tony tells us about Clive. Clive’s in his forties. His mother lives at his home and has palliative care provided by Clive and another carer. Tony managed to get him referred to a mental health team and then to an agency called Outlook South West following a suicide attempt. He’s got a tribunal to overturn his WCA next week. Outlook South West told him it would cost £70 for them to provide a letter outlining his mental health problems. But as Tony says: “People like Clive have to live on £71 a week. If they have to pay that, what do they live on? I feel so strongly about this. It has to be highlighted.”

And then Tony tells us about Claire. She has a history of depression and suicide attempts. The WCA said there was nothing to go on regarding her mental illness. But the mental health team and Tony told Atos and the DWP not to contact her because they strongly believed she had a paranoid schizophrenia condition.

When her case went to tribunal, Claire only had medical evidence that was over ten years old, because her GP refused to provide evidence. The DWP supplied no evidence to back up its case that she was in good mental health. The tribunal chair was deeply unimpressed with the stress to which she was being subjected, and demanded medical evidence from both the department and her GP. Now she faces another tribunal in six weeks’ time.

Tony will most likely win the tribunal. Last year he attended 104 tribunals with nine losses: a 93 per cent success rate. His overall rate of success is 98 per cent. As he says: “Atos are so bad they make my job easy.”

***

This whole scene is a catastrophe. The implosions are everywhere. A few weeks ago, disability benefit claimants and campaigners were shocked to read that GPs in south east Wales had been told by the Bro Taf local medical committee to stop providing support information for disability benefit claimants appealing “fit to work” decisions, because the work was an “abuse of resources”. We spoke to the Bro Taf LMC, which sent this statement (and they said they’d be issuing another one this week, so we’ll look out for that) to say that their problem was not with providing medical evidence for claims, but for the “increasing number of appeals [which] has resulted in more GP appointments being taken up to deal with such requests.”

None of which helps claimants and we’re looking for a legal view on that withholding of support information. Public Interest Lawyers’ Tessa Gregory says: "It can’t be right that claimants are left without vital medical evidence from their GPs to support them in their appeals against Atos assessments which are notoriously unfair. We are considering the position of both the DWP and the Local Medical Committee carefully to see whether a legal challenge can be brought to ensure that claimants get the assistance they require."
The WCA’s systemic failures are causing complete havoc.

Only a day before the Bro Taf story appeared, industry magazine Pulse reported that “GPs were struggling to cope with a 21 per cent rise in requests to verify work capability since January [2013]” – saying that figures obtained by Pulse “showed the number of requests to verify claimants’ ability to work have increased by over a fifth since the beginning of this year.”

Note the anger in the comments on that story, with people arguing that they're doing the extra work for social security “reform”, while Atos makes the profit - “ATOS collects the money. GPs do the work. Welcome to the Tory vision of privatisation.”

As far as charging for medical information is concerned: it's not new for GPs and consultants to charge (there's a list of some charges here) – but the problem in the case of disability benefits is that cost could be pricing people out of vital information they need to support their claims and leave them with absolutely nowhere to go. What happens then? Around the country, people are being asked to pay £20, £30, £50 and more for medical evidence (you can see in the comments here that even last year, people were being charged upwards of £100 for support information and saying they couldn’t afford to pay it).

The Citizens Advice Bureau saw all this a mile off: they raised the issue of cost back in their January 2012 investigation (called Right First Time) into the accuracy (or otherwise) of ESA reports. The CAB observed then that: "In many cases, NHS doctors will charge an average of £30 (we have evidence of consultants charging £200 an hour) for medical evidence and few people on low incomes can afford to pay this much out of an income of £67.50 ESA (assessment phase rate) per week." That was over 18 months ago. As the number of appeals skyrocketed, this problem could only grow.

And it’s grown into a right disaster. When the Bro Taf story broke, the disability campaigner Sue Marsh wrote about Mark Hoban’s attempts to shift responsibility for the ever-burgeoning appeal rate: as she said here, Hoban has implied that the high rate of ESA appeals is at least in part because people don’t have enough medical evidence:

“DWP ministers have blamed the staggering 43 per cent ESA (Employment and Support Allowance) appeal rate on claimants not requesting and submitting enough medical evidence. As Mark Hoban claimed, “What’s happening too often is people are suggesting to claimants ‘oh, just leave the medical evidence until the appeal’ – there’s a shared responsibility here.”

In theory, within the claim process, Atos is expected to request evidence from a claimant’s doctor when the claimant is likely to be placed in the Support Group. For the year up to October 2012, Atos only requested such evidence (as an ESA113 form) in 27.2 per cent of all ESA referrals; 23.8 per cent of these were not returned by GPs.” The DWP would have us believe that extra sourcing of information is a robust part of the WCA process: when we asked why it was trying to overturn the Upper Tribunal decision on mental health claimants, the department said: “Atos healthcare professionals will continue to seek further medical evidence in accordance with the Department’s guidelines.” Doesn’t sound like that’s going too well.

Sue Marsh tells us that Hoban needs to sort it out. “The ESA50 clearly suggests that a claimant sends in medical evidence from a consultant or GP that knows them best. If those medical professionals are now withholding that vital support and Mr Hoban insists that it is necessary for an accurate WCA decision, he MUST act immediately to make sure that medical professionals cannot refuse to provide this evidence and that they are not allowed to charge punitive fees for obtaining it."

All Bufferzone client names have been changed

New Statesman

ATOS: Man collapsed but still ‘fit for work’

John and Joyce Flanagan

A man who became so unwell during an assessment by benefit inspectors that he was asked if he ‘needed an ambulance’ - was still declared fit to work.


John Flanagan, 64, has a degenerating spine, is unable to stand or walk far, heart disease and problems with his nervous system but was told by benefits test firm Atos that he could do a job.

Six weeks after the assessment Mr Flanagan collapsed due to problems with his nervous system and was rushed to hospital.

He said: “I wasn’t feeling well at all when I went for the assessment, due to stress. They just made me feel worthless. These people don’t have a heart they have a cash machine.”

Mr Flanagan, of Talbot Steet, Hasland worked at Chesterfield Tube Works for 25 years until problems with his back meant he needed a less manual job. He then worked in security for ten years, but seven years ago two cardiac arrests and severe problems with his nervous system saw him give up work.

The dad-of-two is now appealing Atos’s decision but has had his benefits cut and told he must seek work.

Wife Joyce, 63, added: “My husband was getting so unwell and stressed during the assessment they asked if he needed an ambulance. I can’t believe they think he’s fit for work. He has worked all his life but now must go through more stress with the appeals process.”

MP says case ‘crosses the line of basic decency’

Mr Flanagan’s case has been taken up by Colin Hampton of Derbyshire unemployed workers centre in Chesterfield and MP Toby Perkins. Mr Hampton said: “The government is effectively killing its own citizens and labelling everyone on benefits as scroungers. How many more people have to suffer or how many more deaths will there be before this is changed.” Mr Perkins added: “This situation crosses the line of basic British decency.

“Mr Flanagan is an extremely unwell man, who has worked for most of his life and is being made more unwell by this unfair and inconsistent process.”

The Derbyshire Times approached Atos for a comment, but had not received a response as it went to press.

Derbyshire Times

CHARITIES, ORGIES AND SPOOKS

Reblogged from aangirfan:

In 2005, The Sunday Mirror had a front page story about an orgy held in London.

Among those attending the orgy was the director of an international charity.

"The international charity director had sex with a female TV production company boss."

EXCLUSIVE: BIGGEST EVER FILTHY-RICH ORGY

Bubb

Sir Stephen Bubb is head of the UK's Association of Chief Executives of Voluntary Organisations (Acevo)

 Sir Stephen Bubb is a defender of charity boardroom excess.

Sir Stephen earns £100,000 per year.

Sir Stephen Bubb, who defended six-figure salaries for bosses of charities, had his 60th birthday party funded by donations

At his birthday celebration in the UK parliament, Bubb received a card from Tony and Cherie Blair saying: "thanks for your fantastic contribution to the nation..."

Bubb was a member of Lambeth Borough Council from 1982,[8] serving as chief whip for the Labour group.[1]

He spent nearly 20 years as a Youth Court Magistrate in inner London (1980-2000).[1]

aangirfan: 'CHILD ABUSE RING IN LAMBETH'

Forsyth

Justin Forsyth was Tony Blair's director of strategic communications.

Forsyth then became chief executive of Save the Children UK .

Save The Children’s chief executive Justin Forsyth was paid £163,000 last year.

aangirfan: SAVE THE CHILDREN - FRONT FOR CIA?

Sir Nicholas Young

Sir Nicholas Young of the British Red Cross earned £184,000 last year.

Young was Secretary for development at the Sue Ryder Foundation.[4]

There was "a Regional Crime Squad inquiry into the Ryder and Cheshire charity homes (suppressed by Special Branch liaison) in 1972.

"The RCS were looking at GP death registration malpractices, identity thefts and the smuggling of people to UK -  Vatican ratlines for escaping Nazi war criminals.

"This followed on the 1971 German internment "Release scheme" run by Airey Neave (charity founder) and Sue Ryder (who was arrested in the 50s by German police on suspicion of being an MI6 spy)"

The Random Fish

Dame Barbara Stocking

Dame Barbara Stocking of Oxfam easrned £119,560 last year.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/

Shawcross

William Hartley Hume Shawcross is the Chairman of the Charity Commission for England and Wales,[1]

In 2008 he became a Patron of the Wiener Library and in 2011 he joined the board of the Anglo-Israel Association and was appointed to the board of the Henry Jackson Society.

William Shawcross's father was reportedly a top man in MI6.

Conspirators' Hierarchy: The Story of the Committee of 300



aangirfan: CHARITIES RUN BY THE SPIES?



Trip trap, Trip trap, went the hooves

The 50 worst Charities, ranked by money blown on soliciting costs - RETANK 

How Gov't Hid 1 million Jobless From Official Figures

Reblogged from Scriptonite Daily:

One of the purported achievements of the Coalition government’s disastrous economic policy of austerity, has been the unemployment figures.  Pundits say that at 7.8% (2.51m) they are nothing to shout about but not the disastrous rates seen in states such as Greece (26.9%) or Spain (26.3%). In reality, the unemployment rate is more than double this in many areas, while those in employment are facing ever worsening conditions to retain their non-jobs.

Messing with the Figures

 

We have the Thatcher government to thank for the majority of the statistical trickery which currently renders the government released unemployment figures redundant.  Prior to 1979, the unemployment rate was anyone registered as unemployed, this was converted to a percentage of the total workforce and that was the published unemployment rate.  Then some changes came in:

1. Redefining Unemployment:  originally defined as those ‘registered’ unemployed, changed to only count ‘claimants’ – this obviously reduced the number greatly as many unemployed people do not, for various reasons, claim benefits.
2. Cutting Benefit Entitlements: By making changes to the benefit system (who is eligible and not) the government can magic away unemployment numbers by simply removing eligibility for benefits.  If the person cannot claim, they are not classed as unemployed.
3. Training Schemes & Work Programmes: the conservative government of the 80’s began to double count those in training & work programmes.  First, they excluded them from the unemployed figures, then they added them to the total workforce figures – this means that simply by recruiting people into a work programme, the government has reduced the unemployment figures.  Prior to Thatcher, these schemes were not counted as employment.

The Thatcher government was able to show a drop in unemployment of 550,000 in July 1986, and 668,000 in 1989 by transferring those unemployed into work programmes.  They also kept an average 90,000 unemployed under 18 year olds off the books by making them ineligible to claim benefits.

Sadly, none of these changes have since been reversed, giving the UK public a much skewed view of unemployment and underemployment.  If we look at the research prepared by other bodies without such downright deceitful exemptions, we reveal a more realistic picture of the economic woe being meted out across the country.

The Real Unemployment Rate

A study put together by Sheffield University last year set out to establish the real level of unemployment in the UK, given that there has been little change in the published unemployment statistic, we can suppose they still hold relatively true.  The study found:

• For Britain as a whole in April 2012, the new figures point to more than 3.4 million unemployed. This compares to just 1.5 million on the claimant count and 2.5 million according to the Labour Force Survey – the government’s two official measures of unemployment. The difference is attributable to extensive hidden unemployment.
• An estimated 900,000 unemployed have been diverted onto incapacity benefits. These are men and women with health problems who claim incapacity benefits instead of unemployment benefits. They do not represent fraudulent claims.
• Hidden unemployment is disproportionately concentrated in the weakest local economies, where claimant unemployment is already highest. The effect has been to mask the true scale of labour market disparities between the best and worst parts of the country.
• In the worst affected districts, the real rate of unemployment is often around 15 per cent. Knowsley in Merseyside tops the list with a real rate of unemployment estimated at 16.8 per cent.
• The older industrial areas of the Midlands, the North, Scotland and Wales mostly have the highest rates of unemployment. In large parts of the south of England the rate is still only 3-4 per cent.
• Comparisons with similar data for earlier years shows that Britain was still a long way off full employment before the 2008/9 recession. Full employment is now still further away and the real rate of unemployment is higher than at any time since 1997.
• The report casts serious doubt on the likely impact of the Coalition government’s reforms, notably the Work Programme and Universal Credit, which are founded on the assumption that unemployment can be brought down by encouraging the unemployed to find work. The evidence points to large and continuing shortfalls in job opportunities away from the most prosperous parts of southern England.

One of the more worrying points in the survey is the widening gap between ‘claimant count’ and unemployed (p5), as ever increasing numbers of people fund themselves without a job or eligibility to claim social security.  For this expanding pool of people, exploitation beckons.

Exploiting the Unemployment Racket

 

The government is pressurising people into ever more exploitative work programmes in order to reduce unemployment figures by threatening withdrawal of social security for non-compliance.  In 2011, the Conservative and Liberal Democrat coalition government announced a plan to increase uptake of Workfare (the term given to these schemes) by 100,000.  They also made changes to the programme they inherited from New Labour as follows:

1. A jobseeker who leaves a placement after 1 week loses their welfare payments for 6 weeks.  If they do this a second time, they lose them for 13 weeks.  The third time, three years.

2. Placements can be mandated for up to 30 hours a week for as long as 6 months.

3. The scheme has been opened up so corporations in the private sector can exploit this taxpayer funded, forced labour.

This means that someone who finds themselves unemployed must work up to thirty hours a week, for up to six months at a time, stacking shelves for Tesco or Poundland simply to receive as little as £53 per week, which they are already entitled to as part of the social contract of Britain.  Also, Tesco isn’t paying the £53; we are, through our taxes.

Although an interview is supposed to be guaranteed at the end of the term, it is not required that the workfare provider has a vacancy open.  An interview for a job that doesn’t exist is no interview at all.

Corporations get free labour, the government gets to massage the unemployment figures (Workfare victims are counted as employed) and the unemployed get shafted.

Anyone doubting this critique would do well to read the findings of the DWP’s own analysis of the performance of their work programmes.  These schemes cost the taxpayer £5bn, yet only 1 in 10 people found employment lasting up to 3 months.  The figures are even worse for the sick and disabled people forced into the work programmes – only 1 in 20 finding lasting employment.

The picture doesn’t get any rosier for those who have managed to find employment either.

Employers are less likely to provide real jobs than ever.  As the market favours the employer, there has been an unprecedented month on month fall in wages through the entire 36 months of the Coalition government, and wages were already falling before they arrived.

On top of hidden unemployment, the UK also has an ever growing problem with underemployment; the case of people unable to find jobs with sufficient hours/pay to meet their needs.

A recent paper by researchers at the University of Stirling revealed that underemployment rose from 6.2% in 2008 to 9.9% in 2012. The rate hit 30% among 16 to 24 year olds.

We have also seen the rise of ‘zero hour’ contracts. Almost unheard of a few years ago, more than a million UK workers are now under these contracts.  These contracts have no specified working hours – meaning that an employee is placed on permanent stand by until or unless the employer needs them.  While classed as employed, the person has no wage security as they cannot guarantee their pay from one week to the next.  They also receive no sick pay, leave or other basic terms and conditions.

The Resolution Foundation recently published a review of ‘Zero Hours’ contracts which found serious issues of the spike in their use:

1. Those on ‘Zero Hours’ contracts earn less than half the average wage (£236 vs. £482 per week) of those on proper contracts.
2. Workplaces using ‘Zero Hours’ contracts have a higher proportion of staff on low pay(within £1.25 of minimum wage) than those who do not.

These factors have allowed the UK Labour Market in recent years to combine a relatively high level of employment and an unprecedented squeeze on wages.

1. Those on ‘Zero Hours’ contracts work 10 hours a week less, on average, than those who are not (21hrs – 31hrs).
2. 18% of those on ‘Zero Hours’ contracts are seeking alternative employment or more hours versus 7% of those in ordinary contracts

These factors have contributed to the rise in underemployment in the UK since 2008.  An ONS survey last year revealed more than 1 million people had been added to the rank of the underemployed since the 2008 bailout of the banks.

1. ‘Zero Hours’ contracts are hitting young people the hardest, with 37% of those on such contracts aged between 16-24.
2. ‘Zero Hours’ contracts are more likely to be held by those without a degree, and with a GCSE as their highest level of education.
3. Non UK Nationals are 15% more likely to be employed on such a contract than UK Nationals.

It is not difficult to see the advantages of ‘Zero Hours’ contracts to employers – they can achieve maximum flexibility of their workforce, effectively retaining them on a pay as you go basis.  It is also clear that in the short term, the government of the day also enjoy the advantage of hiding the true effects of their cut throat economic policies.  But the ordinary human being seeking to meet the rising cost of living is losing on all counts.

Between 2008 and 2012, inflation rose 17% according to the Consumer Price Index, while incomes increased just 7% – this translates to a real terms pay cut of 10% for working people.  But the Consumer Price Index measurement tracks the rising cost of an imaginary list of products and services that the poorest workers are unlikely to ever buy.  The UK Essentials Index however tracks inflation of the bare essentials that would the poorest would buy – and these have risen by an eye watering 33% during the same period.  This means that not only is the impact of unemployment hitting the country disproportionately, but underemployment and exploitative employment conditions are too – with the poorest being the worst affected.

Economic Recovery? For Who?

There was a piece on the Guardian this morning talking about the triple boost to the UK economy of increased factory output, house prices and car sales, and trumpeting this as a sign of economic recovery.

But what is the point of this increased GDP if it is won at the expense of people wages and livelihoods?  Surely, if the inequality in the UK between rich and poor is growing, unemployment is rising, underemployment is rising and wages are falling – this is a recession.  It speaks volumes for the broken economic measures of growth at play here that a real world recession for the majority, is applauded as a recovery, when all that is recovered are the profits for transnational corporations and incomes of high earners, most of whom pay little or no contributions in tax.


Get Involved

Boycott Workfare – get involved in the campaign to outlaw workfare
UKUncut – get involved in demanding proper tax contributions from those corporations benefitting from these nightmare employment schemes.
DPAC – Disabled People Against Cuts do extraordinary work highlighting the state’s assault on disabled people.  Please support them

Democide

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Democide is the murder of any person or people by a government, including genocide, politicide and mass murder. Democide is not necessarily the elimination of entire cultural groups but rather groups within the country that the government feels need to be eradicated for political reasons and due to claimed future threats. According to Rummel, genocide has three different meanings. The ordinary meaning is murder by government of people due to their national, ethnic, racial or religious group membership. The legal meaning of genocide refers to the international treaty on genocide, the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. This also includes nonlethal acts that in the end eliminate or greatly hinder the group. Looking back on history, one can see the different variations of democides that have occurred, but it still consists of acts of killing or mass murder. A generalized meaning of genocide is similar to the ordinary meaning but also includes government killings of political opponents or otherwise intentional murder. In order to avoid confusion over which meaning is intended, Rummel created the term democide for the third meaning.^[6]

The objectives of such a plan of democide include the disintegration of the political and social institutions of culture, language, national feelings, religion, and the economic existence of national groups; the destruction of the personal security, liberty, health, dignity; and even the lives of the individuals belonging to such groups.^[7]

Rummel defines democide as "the murder of any person or people by a government, including genocide, politicide, and mass murder". For example, government-sponsored killings for political reasons would be considered democide. Democide can also include deaths arising from "intentionally or knowingly reckless and depraved disregard for life"; this brings into account many deaths arising through various neglects and abuses, such as forced mass starvation. Rummel explicitly excludes battle deaths in his definition. Capital punishment, actions taken against armed civilians during mob action or riot, and the deaths of noncombatants killed during attacks on military targets so long as the primary target is military, are not considered democide.^[8]

He has further stated: "I use the civil definition of murder, where someone can be guilty of murder if they are responsible in a reckless and wanton way for the loss of life, as in incarcerating people in camps where they may soon die of malnutrition, unattended disease, and forced labor, or deporting them into wastelands where they may die rapidly from exposure and disease."

Read more...

Supreme Court to hear Government’s workfare appeal

On Monday 29 July 2013, the Supreme Court of England and Wales, will consider the Department for Work and Pension’s (DWP) appeal against the judgment of the Court of Appeal which unanimously held that the Regulations under which most of the Government’s "Back to Work" schemes were created were unlawful and had to be quashed.

Supreme Court to hear Government’s appeal on the “Back to Work” Regulations

The ruling which was handed down on 12 February 2013 was a huge setback for the DWP whose flagship reforms have been beset with problems since their inception.

The case was brought by our clients Cait Reilly, who was made to stack shelves in Poundland for two weeks, and Jamie Wilson, who was stripped of his Jobseeker’s allowance for 6 months after refusing to participate in a scheme which required him to work 30 hours a week for six months for free.

The Court of Appeal in its ruling held that over a two year period the Government unlawfully required hundreds of thousands of unemployed people to work without pay and unlawfully stripped tens of thousands more of their subsistence level benefits.

In March 2013, following the judgment, Iain Duncan Smith not only applied for permission to appeal but also took the wholly extraordinary step of rushing through parliament - The Jobseekers (Back to Work Act) 2013 - emergency legislation which overturned the Court of Appeal’s judgment and retrospectively declared lawful what the Court of Appeal had declared unlawful. That legislation, is the subject of a fresh judicial review challenge4 but it make the Government’s appeal to the Supreme Court academic because the law has now retrospectively changed since the Court of Appeal judgment.

"The decision of the Supreme Court on the DWP’s appeal will in the main be academic because the Government has already retrospectively changed the law to overturn the Court of Appeal’s judgment. However, the Supreme Court will also be considering our clients’ cross appeal in which we argue that the DWP is under an obligation to publish clear and accessible information about these schemes for jobseekers so that those like our clients understand what the schemes are and what can be lawfully required from them"

Tessa Gregory, solicitor, Public Interest Lawyers
Source; PIL

Watch this hearing on Monday at 10.30am on Sky Courts…

R (on the application of Reilly and another) (Respondents) v Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Appellant)

Court 2 | 10:30

Source; Sky Courts

Work Programme providers' plea is an insult to everyone they have mishandled

Reblogged from Vox Political:

The truth about the Work Programme: The BBC’s piece of ‘managed’ news was among the most despicable distortions to have blemished our TV screens.

It isn’t very often one can say a news report was shocking – not because of the subject matter, but because of the way it was reported.

That was the situation tonight with the BBC’s item in which Work Programme providers complained that they need more money to “help” the most challenging jobseekers into work.

This group, of course, being benefit claimants in the work-related activity group of Employment and Support Allowance.

This group being the most consistently abused and neglected element of the new underclass created by the Conservative-led Coalition government, demonised and hated by the right-wing press, often attacked in the street (to judge from first-hand accounts), many of whom have been driven to suicide or death caused by their conditions, which have been worsened by the unacceptable (and to most people reading this, inconceivable) amount of stress the DWP, Atos (the private company assessing their fitness for work) and the private Work Programme providers have put them through.

This group who have been sent on so-called “back to work training” with Work Programme providers, consisting of minimal and elementary exercises that are an insult to the intelligence, rather than an aid to employment. Does anyone remember the exercise in which people are asked to draw a pig? Apparently the direction it faces indicates whether you’re the kind of person who faces their challenges head-on, or someone who takes a more circumspect attitude (so, nothing to do with whether you think a side view is more interesting, then).

This group, being cynically exploited by Work Programme provider organisations in a blatant bid to screw money out of the taxpayer, despite having done the bare minimum to “help” people back into work.

This group, consisting mostly – if not entirely – of people who belong in the support group of Employment and Support Allowance but were placed among those who should be able to go back to work within a year because the Atos Work Capability assessors are under orders to place no more than 12 or 13 per cent of everyone they see into the support group. Oh, you don’t believe me? Ask yourself why, when the fraud rate for disability benefits is 0.4 per cent, the percentage of people being told they are lying and are fit for work is 70 per cent, to which a further 17-18 per cent can be added who are deemed likely to be fit for work with this so-called training from the WPPs.

This is why the Work Programme companies can’t get these people into jobs: They are too ill to work.

But we’re getting ahead of ourselves. This isn’t about the facts. This is about ‘managing’ the news, to present the public with a cosy story to make Work Programme providers look nice and friendly. They’re not failing because of any lack of will on their part (the BBC story tells us); they’re failing because the government isn’t making them rich enough!

Let’s take this BBC story apart. We’ll use the article on the corporation’s website.

First factual claim: “Of those who have been on the scheme for at least a year, a third have begun a job, figures seen by the BBC show.” This may be true. Unfortunately, statistics tend also to show that these jobs do not last long and the individuals in them end up back on the Work Programme within a few weeks or months. The DWP’s own mark of success is a person keeping a job for six months or more. That’s not exactly permanent by anybody’s standards.

Second factual claim: “In the most challenging group – who claim Employment and Support Allowance (ESA) – only 10 per cent have found work”. This may also be true. Readers will recall the fuss over government lies that 900,000 people had signed off ESA rather than take the Work Capability Assessment, that were proven to be the normal “churn” of claimants signing off for perfectly ordinary reasons such as finding a job they could do, even though sick/disabled, or getting better. ESA is not a lifetime benefit!

So with this figure – totalling around 1.7 per cent of the total number of claimants over a 12-month period – it is entirely likely that some will have found a job they can do, or got better, after taking the assessment. The figures for fraud aren’t touched by this possibility, as there is no reason to believe a fraudulent claimant would be put in the WRAG.

In other words, the 90 per cent of WRAG members left on the Work Programme are, most likely, those who belong in the support group, who are unlikely to find lasting employment because (let’s repeat it): They are too ill to work.

Work Programme providers have their own representative organisation called the Employment Related Services Association, or ERSA. This organisation claimed that the Work Programme cannot “fix” the “complex” health and skills requirements of ESA claimants on its own, but needed to tap into “skills and health budgets”. This is fascinating, because the Work Programme is supposed to be specifically designed to meet the needs of its users. We know it doesn’t, because it has been running since 2011 and we have first-hand accounts to the contrary from people who have been on it, but that was the claim.

ERSA figures “suggest around a quarter of ESA jobseekers have been unemployed for at least 11 years”. This seems likely – they belong in the support group, not the WRAG, and are unable to work.

“The DWP says it recognises the ‘particular barriers facing many of the hardest to help’. Hang on! Wasn’t the DWP under heavy fire only weeks ago because work programme providers were ‘parking’ the most difficult claimants – admitting there was no way to get them into jobs? And that, after the Secretary of State, no less, Iain Dunderhead Smith, went on the BBC’s Question Time and railed about people who had been “parked” on benefits for decades at a time, making it clear in no uncertain terms that he was going to get them off benefits, come Hell or high water?

This is the same story, but now the providers have got the begging bowl out. They’re already paid millions (don’t believe the payment-by-results claim) but they want more money.

Have they forgotten the aim is to save the taxpayers’ cash?

I thought George Osborne’s Mansion House speech would be the most infuriating thing I’d hear this evening.

I was wrong.

Long-Term Unemployment Up as Work Programme Fails

This is the measure of the failure that the Government is going to have to deal with for those ending the Work Programme.

Long-term unemployment rose by 11,000 between February and April in the UK on the quarter before amid criticism that the government’s flagship welfare-to-work scheme, the Work Programme, is failing.

Data from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) shows there are now 898,000 people who have been out-of-work for more than a year.

The unemployment rate was unchanged at 7.8% on the quarter, though the level fell 5,000 to 2.51 million. Employment sunk 0.1% to a rate of 71.5%, though the level lifted by 24,000 in the three month period to 29.76 million.

Job Seeker’s Allowance claimants dropped 8,600 on the month in May, to 1.51 million. On the year it had fallen by 87,600.

From International Business Times.

Then there is this,

The Work Programme uses private contractors to help lift the long-term unemployed – those out of a job for more than a year – into sustained employment.

These providers are then paid by performance, but the first set of data to emerge from the Work Programme showed a lower success rate than the government had predicted should the scheme not even have existed in the first place.

It helped just 3.6% of its participants off benefits and into work during its first 14 months.
The Department for Work and Pensions’ (DWP) target was 5.5%.

MPs on the Public Accounts Committee labelled the scheme “extremely poor” and that it was failing the hardest-to-help in particular, such as the disabled, accusing providers of side-lining them in favour of easier cases because the cash incentives built into the system were not working.

“While we recognised that it is early days for the Work Programme, such poor performance undermines the confidence in its long-term success,” said the PAC, which has taken evidence from ministers and service providers.

“The DWP needs a better understanding of the factors that led to early performance being well below expectations in order to assess whether the longer term targets for the Work Programme are still achievable.”

A separate group of MPs on the Work and Pensions Committee (WPC) backed up the PAC’s findings in their own report.

“It is clear that the differential pricing structure is not a panacea for tackling creaming and parking,” said Dame Anne Begg MP, WPC chairwoman.

“The Government must do more to ensure that the Work Programme provides effective support for all jobseekers, not just the ones who are easiest to help.”

The WPC also found that caseworkers were being overloaded and struggled to keep up, with some having been given caseloads of between 120 to 180 each.

“This ratio is simply far too high for an effective service and must be brought down,” said the WPC report.

So what exactly is going to happen to us after our period on the Work Programme?

That is those not in the magnificent 3,6%.

How are they going to deal with their miserable performance?

Ipswich Unemployed Action.