People risk prison over assisted suicide because MPs keep ducking the issue, says Lord Falconer

‘People are risking prison by helping their loved ones die because MPs and peers keep ducking the issue, according to a peer campaigning to change the law.

Lord Falconer’s Assisted Dying Bill – which is debated in the Lords this week – will make it legal for adults in England and Wales to be given assistance ending their own life, if it is passed by Parliament .

It would apply to those with less than six months to live and any agreement must come from two doctors.’

Read more: People risk prison over assisted suicide because MPs keep ducking the issue, says Lord Falconer

Former prison worker ready to name Establishment figures in child sex abuse scandal

‘A former prison worker claims he contributed to the missing paedophile dossier by handing over names of VIPs and MPs who were coercing teenage rent boys behind bars.

Barrie Trower, 68, says he was recruited by M15 to work as a spy in the education department of Wormwood Scrubs jail in the 1960s and 1970s.

His role was to secretly record details of senior politicians, top police officers in the Met and high-ranking civil servants who had links with inmates.’

Read more: Former prison worker ready to name Establishment figures in child sex abuse scandal

DWP Awards ATOS £10M Contract- To Continue Providing IT For The WCA

So, dear readers, it seems we haven’t really got rid of ATOS after all. I should have known it was just far too good to be true.

The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) has awarded Atos a contract worth £10 million a year to continue providing IT services to support work capability assessments after it steps down as the main supplier next year.

Atos is due to exit its controversial DWP contract for health and disability assessments by February next year, instead of the original end date in August.

The French multinational has come under fire for the number of work capability decisions that have been overturned and the firm recorded roughly 163 incidents of abuse or assault on staff in 2013.

The firm announced its intention to walk away from the contract in February and the government confirmed that Atos would exit the agreement early in March.

However this new contract means the firm will continue to provide the IT for the assessments until at least 2016, with allowances for it to be extended until 2020.

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THATCHER: THE DOWNFALL – NO CHANCE OF A MEMORIAL NOW

Originally posted on Ian Bone:

When Thatcher died I partied gleefully in Trafalgar Square but most of the country didn’t share my sentiments and Thatcher would today be high up in most lists of the best prime ministers of the last century. She was buried with her much wanted ‘legacy’ intact. She was dead but she was not downfallen. Now however her downfall may be at hand.

She may well be seen in history as the Prime Minister who presided over not so much a cabinet as a criminal conspiracy. Today Operation YEWTREE would be knocking on the door of the Ritz and carting her off to a jail sentence.

Thatcher was wilfully blind to what was obvious around her and therefore let it continue. She stuck her head in the sand. Soon they’ll be removing her portrait from Tory clubs countrywide and pulping the hagiographies. She may have to be disinterred and moved to…

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They think it’s all over ….. it isn’t!

Originally posted on glynismillward189:

In celebration of the Football World Cup, Nick over at ILegal has this to say:-

5 World Cup stadiums wouldn’t be big enough
to seat every benefit claimant awaiting a
sickness assessment!

As we speak, assume 200,000 people fill the Maracana football stadium in Rio De Janeiro, Brazil as Germany & Argentina fight it out for the World Cup.

In Great Britain we would need five of these massive stadiums to seat around 750,000 people awaiting a basic sickness test & somewhere near 250,00 awaiting disability tests.  That’s around one million people going by for months on end without the much needed cash they need to live on.

This is the state of chaos which exists within Great Britain as we go about the most atrocious welfare reforms we’ve ever seen.  In Great Britain we don’t consider this to be a national scandal!

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How long has blackmail been part of parliamentary process? Gov't using 'Dirt Book' to secure votes from MPs

This is a VERY interesting letter to Cameron from Conservative MP Mark Reckless. What leapt out at me was comment on the fact that the whips have used illegal blackmailing methods and very undemocratic “influence” on vote outcomes in parliament, to “secure government business” using “dirt book” records, presumably. The letter strongly implies that Cameron is well aware of this. What “personal information” have the whips got, and on which MPs?

How long have the whips been wielding power with that “personal information” to influence outcomes in parliament, bypassing democratic process? This looks like a long-standing crock of corruption that Cameron has used to his own advantage. How long has blackmail been an integral part of parliamentary process?

And see the comments about the shredding of documents: Mark Reckless asked the PM if taxpayer money should pay whips to gather information, then shred it. The PM “invited him to be less Delphic…”

Mark also states: “The whip admitted government whips decided in December 1996 to shred documents. Who ultimately authorised this Chief Whip Alastair Goodlad or John Major? Why?

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Tory MP blasts IDS plan to grab mentally ill’s cash as 'brainless'

Dr Sarah Wollaston the chair of the Health Select Committee, described the proposals as “unethical, unworkable nonsense” and “complete tosh”

No consent: Dr Sarah Wollaston

Plans to strip benefits from the mentally ill unless they agree to treatment were savaged as "complete tosh” today – by an influential TORY MP.

Dr Sarah Wollaston, the chair of the Health Select Committee, said the proposal was “unethical,
unworkable nonsense” and “fundamentally flawed”.

Work and Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan Smith is looking at forcing claimants with depression or
anxiety to undergo therapy as a condition of getting sickness benefits.

But Dr Wollaston said: “Presumably this complete tosh planted by someone who has no understanding of consent to treatment.”

Posting on Twitter, she added: “When I say it’s a ‘no brainer’ I mean this unethical, unworkable kite flying comes from someone with no brain.”

Read more...

‘DRIP’ feeding the Surveillance Society

 

“We are concerned that introducing emergency legislation does nothing to enhance the rule of law or address the fact that we are increasingly becoming a ‘surveillance society’. The history of emergency legislation is not exemplary, with laws being used for purposes for which they were not intended. Today’s news is particularly worrying, given the emergency legislation will go against a court judgment on human rights. There needs to be a public debate about how to strike the right balance between security, freedom and privacy. We need to simplify and clarify a complex and confusing legal framework and ensure that it protects human rights.” 

The Law Society president, Andrew Caplen 10th July 2014

Emergency UK ‘Data Retention and Investigation Powers (DRIP) Act’.

Within days, MPs are being asked to approve DRIP, providing little time to debate or digest any of the implications with regard to balancing liberty, privacy and security. In this clip, Tom Watson describes it as ‘anti-democratic’, and ‘hasty legislation… that invariably goes wrong’;


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DWP humiliated over cumulative impact assessment

Work and pensions ministers are facing acute embarrassment after losing their main excuse for refusing to assess the overall impact of their welfare cuts and reforms on disabled people.

Ministers have repeatedly insisted that such a cumulative impact assessment (CIA) would be too difficult and the results would be meaningless.

To defend their position, they repeatedly claimed that this view was shared by the “authoritative” Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS).

But this week – in a humiliating reversal for the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) – IFS published research which included just such an analysis, which looked at the impact of 35 benefit and tax changes on disabled people.

It was included in an updated IFS report on the “distributional effects“ of the UK government’s tax and welfare reforms in Wales since the coalition came to power in 2010.

Once the package of reforms has been rolled out – including the delayed move from disability living allowance to personal independence payment (PIP), and the much-delayed universal credit – the report calculates that working-age households in Wales with someone eligible to claim disability benefits will see a loss of nearly £34 a week (or 6.5 per cent of net income).

This compares to an average of nearly £10 a week (1.5 per cent of net income) among other working-age households.

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Iain Duncan Smith to be replaced by Esther McVey?

A commuter on a train, Sarah Quinney, has posted a conversation she overheard from a “20 something brunette, with a very posh voice” talking about a possible cabinet reshuffle on Monday:



There has already been speculation that Cameron is about to have a surprise cabinet reshuffle. So might be worth a bit of a flutter.

Read more...

Do the Westminster Shuffle - BBC

David Cameron is preparing to carry out a far wider reshuffle of his government than had previously been thought.

Several sources in Whitehall have told me to expect substantial changes when the prime minister reshapes the team that he will lead in to the election.

The consensus until now was that apart from a few Cabinet retirements, most of the changes would focus on refreshing the lower ministerial ranks. But I am told Mr Cameron is thinking big in the reshuffle that he is expected to carry out early next week.

One source said: “I think it is going to be bigger than we thought.”

Another said: “Last time was a mini reshuffle. This will be a proper reshuffle. Prepare for rabbits out of a hat.”

Reshuffle speculation is by definition just that. Most of the decisions are known only to the prime minister, his chief of staff and the cabinet secretary, and many have yet to be made.

But here are a few unsubstantiated predictions shared with me by ministers, MPs and officials:

Going down?

First of all, it is pretty clear that some old stagers are moving on. MPs say chief whip Sir George Young is openly looking forward to his departure, noting in tea room discussions that this would be the fourth time he had been sacked as a minister during his career.

Is Ken Clarke’s long frontbench career about to come to an end?


Is Esther McVey about to join the cabinet?

He was of course brought back into government out of retirement to replace Andrew Mitchell when “plebgate” struck. The minister without portfolio, Ken Clarke, told a House of Commons dinner earlier this week about his plans “for the fortnight in which I am likely to remain in government”.

But there is also speculation that other more experienced members of the Cabinet might be moved on, such as the Communities Secretary Eric Pickles and the leader of the House of Commons, Andrew Lansley. Some MPs expect the Welsh Secretary David Jones to be replaced by his deputy Stephen Crabb. There is even some talk of the welfare secretary Iain Duncan Smith doing a job swap with the defence secretary Philip Hammond.

Going up?

So who might move on and up? Some MPs expect the deputy chief whipGreg Hands to replace Sir George Young but others are lobbying against this, saying it would be wrong for someone so close to George Osborne to hold such an important disciplinary role within the party.

Some expect the former Home Office minister, Mark Harper, who resigned because his cleaner was an illegal immigrant, might return to government as deputy chief whip.

One MP said: “Mark is very popular. He resigned quickly. And he has been popping up in a lot of obscure debates recently.”

Another MP said he expected Eric Pickles to become chief whip, the culture secretary Sajid Javid to move to communities and local government, and Esther McVey to enter the Cabinet as culture secretary.

As well as Ms McVey, Mr Cameron is also hoping to promote more women, with speculation focusing on Liz Truss,Nicky Morgan, Amber Rudd, Priti Patel and Penny Mordaunt.

Read more...

‘Behind closed doors’ deal between govt and insurance industry comes to light

Mesothelioma sufferers and their families must come before the profits of insurers



In a move which flies in the face of democratic politics, the Tory- led government has struck a ‘behind closed doors’ deal with the insurance industry – one which, if implemented, would boost the profits of the multimillion pound insurance industry at the expense of people dying from the fatal asbestos disease, mesothelioma. [...]

The extraordinary confidential document is now published on the Parliament website, against the wishes of the insurance industry body, the Association of British Insurers (ABI), who fought and failed to block its public disclosure. [...]

The document lays out the details of an ‘indivisible package’ in which the insurance industry’s main delivery is of funding for the Mesothelioma Act 2014, and in return the government undertakes to deliver various reforms including the review of removing the mesothelioma claims exemption under the LASPO Act.
Lifting the mesothelioma exemption will bring considerable savings to the insurance industry at significant cost to mesothelioma claimants.

That one part of the financial services industry can, through its huge lobbying resources and the power of its political donations, influence government policy to the detriment of some of the most vulnerable people in society is chilling.

Aside from its implications for dying mesothelioma sufferers and their families, this deal raises serious questions about ...

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Sickness Benefit Sanctions On The Rise, DWP Figures Show

A Jobcentre Office

Figures released by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) show that the number of sick and disabled people who have had their sickness benefit sanctioned is on the rise.

According to available figures, which were released in response to a freedom of information request (pdf), sickness benefit claimants with mental health problems are far more likely to have their benefit slashed than those with a physical disability.

Read more...

'This isn’t snooping on suspects but on everyone': Fury at David Cameron's snoop laws ''stitch-up''

MP Tom Watson and civil liberties campaigners hit back after the PM announced emergency laws to allow the authorities access to phone and internet records

Campaigners reacted with fury today after David Cameron announced emergency laws to ensure security services can continue to access phone and internet records.

At a joint news conference with Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg he said urgent action was needed to protect the public from “criminals and terrorists” after the European Court of Justice torpedoed existing powers.

Labour’s Ed Miliband is backing the new laws which will go through in just two days next week.

But Labour MP Tom Watson hit out at the “stitch-up” between the three party leaders.

And civil liberties campaigner Shami Chakrabarti said: “This isn’t snooping on suspects but on everyone.”

The boss of Liberty also condemned the “deal struck in private”, saying: “No privacy for us and no scrutiny for them.”

The Law Society talked of a march towards a “surveillance society”.

Read more...

The DWP's Black Propaganda

Originally posted on kittysjones:

During a universal credit debate in the House of Commons, the Labour MP Glenda Jackson, responded to the news that civil Sir Bob Kerslake had informed the Public Accounts Committee that the business case for universal credit had still not been signed off by the Treasury, despite an assurance from DWP minister Esther McVey that it had with:

 “I would hope every member of this House, would be shocked to realise that the DWP is still not giving the right answers — it is ludicrous to expect the right answer to come from the Department of Work and Pensions, as simple humility is not part and parcel of its make-up.

“The committees and government departments that scrutinise where public money goes are being pushed to one side. I have already referred to the bunker mentality of the DWP, and the example that my right hon. Friend gives me is just…

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Gov't should conduct investigate Sanction Culture at Job Centre Plus - MP

Originally posted on Dame Anne Begg MP:

This afternoon, Dame Anne Begg MP for Aberdeen South and Chair of the Work and Pensions Select Committee will lead a debate in Westminster Hall around the Work and Pensions Select Committee’s report into the role of Job Centre Plus in the reformed welfare state.

The debate is particularly topical with recent controversies surrounding the use of sanctions and increasing reliance on Food Banks and some of the problems of Universal Jobsmatch.

Dame Anne will criticise the Government for refusing to conduct an investigation into the ‘Sanctions culture’ at Job Centre plus as well as for refusing to assess if there has been any links between sanctions and food bank use.

She will also be asking the Government to develop a more accurate measure of the success of Job Centre Plus in getting people into Work rather than just an “Off Benefit” measure as there are multiple reasons why people…

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Something terrible could be happening in Parliament on Monday…

Emergency laws to monitor phones and internet ‘to stop terrorists’

‘Emergency laws will be brought in next week to force phone and internet companies to hold records of customers’ calls, texts and visits to websites.

The fast-track measures are necessary to defend national security against the terrorist threat from Iraq and Syria, David Cameron said.

The consequences of not acting are “grave”, the Prime Minister said.’

Read more: Emergency laws to monitor phones and internet 'to stop terrorists'

Something terrible could be happening in Parliament on Monday…

‘This is from Tom Watson MP. If he’s right, it’s vitally important that you read the following and act on it:

Last Thursday there was a curious announcement in the Chamber of the House of Commons. At the session to announce future business, Leader of the House, Andrew Lansley said this:

“Monday 14th July — consideration of a Bill, followed by a motion to approve the first report from the Committee on Standards on the respect policy”

If you look on Parliament’s web site tonight, you will not see the name, nor the text of the Bill to be considered.’

Read more …

Support the Striking teachers 10th July 2014

Originally posted on Think Left:

We are told that Michael Gove’s reforms to education are a real success story.

In spite of lacking a formal mandate from the electorate, Gove has launched headlong into massive funding of ‘free schools’ and attempting to turn all schools into academies, outside council control.  Many recognise this to be preparing for the next step of profit-making and privatisation of education.

However, this ‘success’ can hardly be said to be reflected in the polls.  According to a Guardian/ICM poll last April, there is strong public opposition to major planks of Michael Gove’s education reforms.  For example, 68% of Labour supporters, 58% of Lib Dems and 58% of Ukip supporters voted for councils retaining their responsibilities towards schools.  Overall, a majority of 57% agreed that councils should have an important role in over-seeing education.

Furthermore, in 2012:

‘Gove gave all academies the right to hire teachers who had not undergone formal training…

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Benefits Offices Workers On Strike Today

Reblogged from samedifference1:


I’ve just heard Mark Serwotka on BBC 5 Live saying workers from our ‘benefits offices’ are going on strike tomorrow, along with people from many other professions.

All the striking workers are hoping to improve their ‘living standards.

DWP workers: What about the living standards of benefit claimants, like the one who wrote to a Facebook group worried about the strike affecting their money coming through, because they are due to get paid tomorrow?

Will those due to sign on tomorrow be sanctioned, because you want your living standards to improve?

How many of you care that when you go on strike, you leave sick, vulnerable people extremely worried, possibly starving?

Gov't In Court Over Disability Benefit Changes

Court proceedings will begin in Birmingham today to determine whether the Government’s decision to change the eligibility criteria for the disability benefit Personal Independence Payment (PIP) was unlawful.

At the end of 2012 the DWP announced, with no consultation, that the distance people would need to walk in order to qualify for the highest rate of the mobility part of the benefit would change from 50 metres, to just 20 metres.

Now, if disabled people can walk more than 20 metres – even using aids such as sticks – they will no longer qualify for the highest rate of the benefit.

The change could mean a loss of over £33 a week or access to a Motability vehicle, electric wheelchair or mobility scooter – which many use to get to work, college or medical appointments. Government projections show that over half a million people are set to lose out under the new rules.

The Disability Benefits Consortium – a coalition of more than 50 UK charities campaigning for a fairer welfare system – has branded the change “life shattering” for disabled people.

Following public pressure, and the start of this judicial review, the Government consulted on the eligibility change last summer; out of more than 1,100 responses received, only five were in favour of the new criteria. Despite this, proceedings have continued and disabled people in certain parts of the UK are to be called, or have already been called, for assessments using the new test.

Continue reading

Appeals and sanctions. More chaos at the DWP

Twice over the past quarter it has been publicly announced by 2 different ministers that the huge reduction in the appeal intake was due to more accurate ESA decisions, first by Mike Penning, the Minister for Disabled People on the Daily Politics Show on April the 13th and then by Steve Webb, the Minister of State for Pensions, during the debate about DWP chaos. It is essential to put the record straight as DWP continues taking credit for what it describes as an improvement of the WCA process, leading to more disabled people being entitled to ESA. Far from being improved, the WCA process has become unmanageable and is described by Judge Martin, the recently retired President of the Social Entitlement Chamber, dealing with benefits tribunals, as being in a state of virtual collapse. This state of virtual collapse has led to the publishing of astonishing figures.

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Tweet Wars: How humourless Jobcentre Plus was humiliated by bolshie bloggers

Originally posted on David Hencke:

For the last year an extraordinary war has been going on between the Department of Work and Pensions and some of Britain’s tweeters and bloggers.

The battle has been over the centuries old right to free speech, to send up self-seeking bureaucrats and insult and satirize government ministers and the heads of private companies profiting from public services. This example is very modern, the battleground is Twitter rather than over some pamphlet.

The row began over a year ago when the Department of Work and Pensions used Twitter’s complaint procedure to lodge a trademark complaint against @UKJCP, a satirical account attacking Jobcentre Plus.

The application came from one Jon Woodcock, calling himself brand and information manager – his actual title is senior public information publishing manager – objecting to the site using the Jobcentre Plus trademark.

What was extraordinary was his…

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SANCTIONED ON WORK PROGRAMME AND BEGGING FOR FOOD

Here’s what it’s like to be a vulnerable person, sanctioned by a work programme provider (you know, the ones paid by results) and having to live on a food budget of £3.50 a week. It’s enough to make you weep.



How does it feel to be “living” on a budget for food of £3.50 a week? Kevin Jobbins is doing exactly that, but the more you think about it, the less appropriate the concept of  existence or survival seems in this context. To survive  conjures up images of Everest expeditions  – involving a set of risks voluntarily  endured  by explorers who’ve personally opted to challenge their own physical and emotional limitations.

Kevin, on the other hand, came into the Greenwich Foodbank   because  he’s  not  surviving. The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) has failed to reinstate his benefits following a sanction in April. Kevin is 39, and is  receiving employment and support allowance (ESA). He’s waiting to go into detox treatment for drug and alcohol issues and is also on the waiting list for surgery on his feet for problems  linked to his time as a homeless person. Despite his multiple health issues, he was registered with a Seetec job club.

He was sanctioned for missing an appointment with Seetec. He says he had no option,  as he had to look after his two year old son that day. Since April his benefit rate has plunged from £202 a fortnight to £47.  He says that Seetec have told him the sanction has been lifted, but that the job centre in Woolwich says it hasn’t. His housing benefit was stopped as a result, but has now been restarted. But out of the £47 he has to pay £9 for council tax, £10 as a contribution to rent, £10 for electricity and £10 for gas. So that leaves about £3.50 for food.

The result? “I’m begging for food or nicking stuff. I got caught in Tesco. I’m also paying £10 a fortnight in court fines. This is the first time I’ve had to use a food bank. I’m angry. I don’t think I should have to beg for food.  I should have my money reinstated.  I am literally living hand to mouth.” Kevin, who’s on pain medication, adds: ‘”If I can’t nick a sandwich from Greggs I try to beg a couple of pot noodles.”

Should Kevin have been referred to the Work Programme given the extent of his health and addiction problems, and what help has it been to him? The sanction this ill man had imposed on him for not turning up to an appointment has done nothing other than to push his life further into chaos and undoubtedly towards worse health.

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How the DWP treat the mentally ill - by Polly Toynbee

Mentally ill people need to be helped, not hounded

Ministers promise 'parity of esteem' for mental and physical health services. Instead the reality is scandalous cruelty

'A jobcentre manager ... told me how the sick are treated and what harsh targets she is under to push them off benefits.' 

[...]

Neglect of the mentally ill is bad enough, but now consider how the Department for Work and Pensions deliberately torments them. I just met a jobcentre manager. It had to be in secret, in a Midlands hotel, several train stops away from where she works. She told me how the sick are treated and what harsh targets she is under to push them off benefits. A high proportion on employment and support allowance have mental illnesses or learning difficulties. The department denies there are targets, but she showed me a printed sheet of what are called "spinning plates", red for missed, green for hit. They just missed their 50.5% target for "off flows", getting people off ESA. They have been told to "disrupt and upset" them – in other words, bullying. That's officially described, in Orwellian fashion, as "offering further support". As all ESA claimants approach the target deadline of 65 weeks on benefits – advisers are told to report them all to the fraud department for maximum pressure. In this manager's area 16% are "sanctioned" or cut off benefits.

Of course it's not written down anywhere, but it's in the development plans of individual advisers or "work coaches". Managers repeatedly question them on why more people haven't been sanctioned. Letters are sent to the vulnerable who don't legally have to come in, but in such ambiguous wording that they look like an order to attend. Tricks are played: those ending their contributory entitlement to a year on ESA need to fill in a form for income-based ESA. But jobcentres are forbidden to stock those forms. These ill people's benefits are suddenly stopped without explanation: if they call, they're told to collect a form from the jobcentre, which doesn't stock them either. If someone calls to query an appointment they are told they will be sanctioned if they don't turn up, whatever. She said: "The DWP's hope is they won't pursue the claim."

Good advisers genuinely try to help the mentally ill left marooned on sickness benefit for years. The manager spoke of a woman with acute agoraphobia who hadn't left home for 20 years: "With tiny steps, we were getting her out, helping her see how her life could be better – a long process." But here's another perversity: if someone passes the 65-week deadline, they are abandoned. All further help is a dead loss to "spinning plates" success rates. That woman was sent back to her life of isolation: she certainly wasn't referred for CBT. For all this bullying, the work programme finds few jobs for those on ESA.

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Gov't attempts to demonise disabled failing says DWP research

Originally posted on alittleecon:

New research published today by the Department of Work and Pensions suggests that its own attempts demonise the disabled are failing. According to the research “Opinions and Lifestyle Survey” show that nearly 70% of the public feel there has been an improvement to attitudes towards the disabled since the London Paralympic Games of 2012. Minister for Disabled People Mike Penning said*:

“Since we came to office in 2010, we have made repeated attempts to label people with disabilities and long-term illnesses as scroungers; people who are on the take, who need to be have their welfare payments cut to incentivise them to get back to work. Unfortunately we have not been as successful as we’d hoped. London 2012 helped lead to a transformation in the representation of, and attitudes towards, disabled people in Britain. It challenged mind-sets and left a positive lasting legacy. We must now re-double our efforts if we…

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Public Sector Pay Attacks Rob Workers of 8 Months Food

TUC reveals scale of lost earnings before July 10 mass strike

CON-DEM attacks on public-sector pay have robbed workers of enough cash to feed their families for eight months straight — from now until the general election.

Trade Union Congress (TUC) researchers said yesterday that public-sector workers had lost the equivalent of £2,245 a year through freezes and below-inflation rises since 2010.

Official figures put the cost of a typical family’s weekly shop at £60 — meaning that the lost wages would have kept kitchens stocked for 37 weeks.

The TUC’s shocking study comes on the eve of tomorrow’s enormous strike over years of real-terms pay cuts.

Workers across the country — from school crossing guards to NHS staff, teachers to refuse workers — will walk out to demand an end to the government’s assault.

Two million people belonging to unions including PCS, GMB, FBU, RMT, the National Union of Teachers, Unison and Unite are set to join picket lines.

“Wages are falling further behind the cost of living and in the last four years some civil servants have seen their income fall by 20 per cent,” said PCS general secretary Mark Serwotka.

“The meagre economic recovery is only benefiting the rich — we need a recovery for everyone.

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Legal Aid Cuts Cause Benefits Appeals To Fail

Nine out of ten Citizens Advice Bureaux (92 per cent) are finding it difficult to refer people to the specialist legal advice they need since cuts to legal aid came into effect last year, the charity has found, leading to benefoits appeals failing because of lack of written submissions and supporting evidence.

Citizens Advice is reporting it is now extremely hard to get legal aid around issues such as housing, relationship breakdown or employment disputes. Where limited provision of legal aid remains people have to meet very stringent criteria. The length of time it takes to get legal aid means people’s situations often become far worse than they would have had there been earlier intervention.

In some cases legal aid is now simply not available, such as to help with getting employers to pay outstanding wages or challenging unfair benefit decisions.

Chief Executive of Citizens Advice Gillian Guy will today share this evidence with the Justice Select Committee inquiry into the impact of changes to civil legal aid. Guy will call for a Government strategy on funding of advice, to ensure that people can access the right level of advice, at the right time, in the right way for them.

Citizens Advice also reveals a 62 per cent increase in people seeking online advice about help with legal costs.

Gillian Guy, Chief Executive of Citizens Advice, said:

 “Cuts to legal aid have created an advice gap, stranding people with nowhere to turn. At precisely the time when people’s need for specialist advice on issues such as housing and welfare increased, provision for this support has been slashed.

“Modern life presents increasingly complex problems and people need help to understand, adjust to, and in many cases challenge decisions affecting their income, housing and work status.

“In a rapidly changing world, where people’s expectations of services are rising, accessing the right advice at the right time will be critical to help people solve problems and understand what government changes mean for them.”

In the year before changes introduced under the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act (LASPO) came into effect Citizens Advice Bureaux provided specialist advice in approximately 136,000 cases to help people struggling with legal problems. Changes introduced under LASPO have withdrawn support for approximately 120,000 of these cases.

A CAB in the North West reported:

“Benefits appeals are failing as clients are unable to pay for supportive medical evidence and/or are attending on their own without submissions. There have been problems with referring clients to specialist advice to challenge decisions on benefit entitlement and overpayment issues, including assembling specialist medical evidence to support ESA and DLA/PIP claims and preparing cases for appeal.”

Benefits And Work.

UK Establishment Used Care Home Network Like an Amazon Order System for Children to Abuse

Originally posted on Vox Political:

This story is dynamite. It is also distressing so for those of you who need to, consider very carefully before reading it.

From Scriptonite Daily:

For decades, vulnerable children from care homes and other institutions were booked to order by rich and powerful men, for abuse, rape and even murder.  This is the allegation put forward in ‘Nightmares at Elm Guest House’, in an interview with Chris Fay of the National Association for Young People in Care.  While the game may be over for former Tory Home Secretary, and David Cameron’s £500-a-day Trade Advisor Leon Brittan – once Brittan falls, the full and almost unbelievable horror of this case must come to light.

Read the full story on Scriptonite.

But you should also see this:

I have long left this subject to others to write about.  I had a sense that I should remain quiet on the…

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Treasury has not signed off on IDS's universal credit, MPs told

Head of civil service admits Treasury is only releasing money for troubled Tory policy after 'conditional reassurances' on progress

Iain Duncan Smith, the work and pensions secretary. His policy was criticised for 'weak management, ineffective control and poor governance'. Photograph: Elm/Rex

The Treasury has still not signed off on the government's troubled universal credit benefits reform, Sir Bob Kerslake, the head of the civil service, has revealed.

He made the admission that the project was being drip-fed money by the Treasury after Margaret Hodge, the chair of the Commons public accounts committee, repeatedly pressed senior civil servants about its financial status.

It the latest sign that the Treasury is keeping a very close eye on universal credit, the responsibility of work and pensions secretary, Iain Duncan Smith, after it was criticised by the National Audit Office for its "weak management, ineffective control and poor governance".

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Welfare reforms break UN convention

Originally posted on kittysjones:

The UK government is risking “systematic violation” of international human rights law in its treatment of disabled people, charities claim.

Britain is a signatory to a binding UN convention on the rights of people with disabilities, and the international covenant on economic, social and cultural rights. Austerity measures and welfare reforms such as the bedroom tax mean the rights of disabled people to independent living, work, and social security have been undermined, causing significant hardship, say campaigners.

A report published by Just Fair, a consortium of 80 national charities including Amnesty International, Save the Children, and Oxfam, says the UK is in clear breach of its legal obligations. Support structures for many disabled people have disappeared or are under threat as local authorities cut social care budgets, while cuts to benefits will leave many disabled people without…

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