Tories pose as ‘independent charity’ to push for NHS privatisation

One of the things I’ve come across during the recent FOI information I’ve been working through was a reference by the South West pay-cartel’s ‘Communications Lead’ to a paper by a ‘think-tank’ that supports its position:


Here’s the full wording of the press release. It’s not exactly light reading, but I encourage you to read it, as it’s important for understanding just how the Tories really view the NHS – and the depths of deceit to which they’ll stoop in order to have their way with it:

A “glaring contradiction” in Government policy is hindering its efforts to improve the NHS, according to a new report by the independent think tank Reform. Its wish to achieve a higher quality and more efficient NHS is undermined by its support for national pay agreements for all NHS staff. Instead Ministers should give full support to those NHS organisations, such as the South West Consortium, which want to drop the national arrangements.

The report, Doctors and nurses, argues that better employers deliver better health outcomes. It highlights world-leading organisations in the UK, the USA and India which have transformed their quality by improving their management of their workforce. The organisation with the highest staff satisfaction in the NHS, Salford Royal NHS Foundation Trust, has introduced innovative links between pay and performance. Other organisations measure the performance of staff and act on mediocrity or failure which undermines the quality, safety and compassion of care.

The report shows that higher quality care is also cost-effective, for example by eliminating additional costs due to medical error.

Given this evidence, Ministers should support those employers who want to improve their workforce and make it more cost effective. They should reject the current arguments of the NHS Employers umbrella organisation, which wishes to maintain the national arrangements and impose a further national pay freeze. Pay freezes prevent employers from using their discretion to change working practices or incentivise good performance.

The Government has signalled interest in regional pay, which would see lower rates of pay in lower cost areas. This would save money but would not give employers the necessary encouragement to improve the quality of staff. A better model is the Government’s support for local pay arrangements for academy schools, at the school level.

The report recommends that:

· Ministers should take the same position on the NHS workforce as Ministers responsible for other public services. Health Ministers, and indeed the Prime Minister, still defend the Government’s NHS policies by pointing to an increase in the number of doctors since 2010. Instead they should follow the approach set out by the Home Secretary who has argued in relation to the police: “what matters is not the total number of officers employed, but the total number of officers deployed and how effectively they are deployed”.

· As in other public services, the financial pressure on the NHS should act a catalyst for innovation. For this to happen, Ministers will have to hold NHS leaders properly accountable for performance, including financial performance. The placing of the South London Healthcare NHS Trust into administration sends exactly the right signal to the rest of the Service.

· The UK is heading towards a surplus of doctors. The surplus creates an opportunity to drive down pay and review medical ranks. A number of organisations are exploring variations on the traditional medical career, ending the notion that when doctors become consultants their “Certificate of Completion of Training” is a grant of freedom and job for life. Ministers should welcome these developments.

· The Government should also relax immigration rules for doctors. In the past workforce planning and medical training was concerned with avoiding medical unemployment. In the future all healthcare providers should have the freedom to decide how they will recruit and reward employees. Highly skilled professionals will always be able to find work in other countries or elsewhere in the labour market

· The primary care workforce needs urgent reform. Clinical Commissioning Groups should commission local primary care services through locally determined contracts. CCGs need the ability to manage the performance of GPs and bring in new providers, including the private sector.

Nick Seddon, Deputy Director of Reform, said: “The current negotiations on NHS pay are a test for the new Secretary of State. There is a glaring contradiction between his goal of a higher quality NHS and his Department’s support for national pay arrangements.”
Notes for editors

1. Reform is an independent, non-party, charitable think tank whose mission is to set out a better way to deliver public services and economic prosperity. We believe that by liberalising the public sector, breaking monopoly and extending choice, high quality services can be made available for everyone.

As the ‘notes for editors’ show, Reform positions itself as an independent, non-partisan, charitable organisation. Its website goes further, claiming ‘[w]e are determinedly independent and strictly non-party in our approach.” But just how independent and non-partisan is it?

That’s easily seen by a quick examination of the origins and funding of the organisation and a look at the 3 personnel who were involved in creating the report.

Reform was founded in 2001 by Nick Herbert (the same Nick Herbert who now, as a Tory MP, has been vigorously defending former Chief Whip Andrew Mitchell) along with Andrew Haldenby, one of the authors of the report.

Mr Haldenby was formerly Head of the Political Section of the ‘Conservative Research Section‘, and then Director of Studies at the ‘Centre for Policy Stufdies‘, another ‘think tank’ – this one well-known as a neo-liberal (extreme free-market, small-state) one. Mr Haldenby is still the Director of Reform.

Reform‘s Chair is Sir Richard Sykes – a former pharmaceutical company Chairman. A former deputy director is Liz Truss, now a Tory MP and co-author of the disgraceful ‘Britannia Unchained‘, which ignores all the statistics to defame British workers as lazy and unproductive and in basically argues that we have to join the ‘race to the bottom’ in order to compete with India, China and other countries where ordinary workers are paid a pittance.

Are you starting to get the feeling that ‘independent and non-party’ really means ‘Tory and profit-oriented’? If so, then you’ll probably agree that Reform‘s claims to be a ‘charity’ are similarly misleading once you’ve read a little further.

The organisation is not set up to make a profit for itself, but it’s not very ‘charitable’ either – at least, not in any sense of wishing to help the disadvantaged.

Its real aims and motivations can be clearly seen by a look at its funding. As they say, ‘follow the money‘. Reform receives donations from huge corporations via its ‘Corporate Partnership Programme‘ (I’ve also saved a copy of the webpage here, just in case Reform edits or removes the original), and its donors just from the healthcare sector include the following companies:

Benenden Healthcare Society
Bevan Brittan (not exactly in the healthcare sector, but the legal advisors to the SW pay cartel!)
BMI Healthcare
Bupa Home Healthcare
Capita Group
CH2M HillGlaxoSmithKline
McKesson
MSD
Novo Nordisk
the Optical Confederation
Serco
Sodexo

as well as large companies from a host of other sectors. All of these companies pay a minimum of £7,500 (and probably much more) to be ‘corporate partners’ – and, as with their donations to the Conservative party, large companies expect to make a profit on anything they invest.

Small wonder, then, that Reform‘s ‘studies’ and ‘research’ turn out to ‘identify’ the ‘need’ for lower wages (it’s incredible how many simple words you have to put in speech-marks when you’re referring to how a Tory uses them!).

Nor is it surprising that this particular report regards a surplus of doctors as an ‘opportunity to drive down pay‘ and even recommends maximising the intake of immigrant doctors when a surplus already exists, as a way of making yet another well-paid vocation into a poorly-paid commodity.

Now for the report’s authors. We’ve already looked at Andrew Haldenby, one of them – now let’s take a look at the others. We’ll start with Nick Seddon, since he gets a mention in the press release:

Nick Seddon

Mr Seddon’s previous employment was with Circle, a well-known private healthcare company, which controversially took over Hinchinbrooke Hospital in Cambridgeshire and is on record as being hungry to take over others.

He has written other reports on healthcare, including one which he somehow fooled the Health Service Journal (HSJ) into publishing, titled ‘Hunt should remove workforce straitjackets‘. Sounds an admirable sentiment – except that when you read the article, you see that he’s not arguing for the liberation of the NHS workforce, but rather calling the workforce, and the pay agreements that govern their salaries, the ‘straitjacket’ and calling for the Health Secretary to remove the restraints so that NHS Trusts are free to pay their workers whatever they feel like.

(When you see terms these days like ‘removing straitjackets‘, or Truss’ ‘unchained‘, it’s a pretty fair bet that it involves a right-winger arguing for the wealthy to be free to reduce wages and strip away protections from poorer people. Just so you know.)

Seddon’s article goes on to list hospitals around the world which he considers are outstanding because they’re not ‘straitjacketed’. These are all private providers and include US hospitals, among them the Cleveland Clinic in Ohio, which ‘publishes clinical outcomes data for each major disease area, which allows hospital leaders to benchmark clinicians and drive up quality. The doctors are on a one year contract and if they’re not up to the job they leave.”

Seddon clearly shares the endemic right-wing obsession with US healthcare, and shares the accompanying blindness to the fact that, while the US undoubtedly has some outstanding hospitals, these hospitals charge huge fees while access to healthcare for ordinary people is precarious or almost non-existent.

He also ignores the obvious fact that putting doctors on a one-year, performance-related contract in which they are ‘benchmarked’ for their clinical outcomes has one sure side-effect: doctors who are afraid to take on difficult cases and perform tricky operations in case this affects their ‘benchmarking’ stats, and hospitals that are afraid to take patients with complex conditions in case their ‘published clinical outcomes’ suffer. But being simplistic is apparently no bar to success in the circles in which Mr Seddon operates.

Thomas Cawston

Mr Cawston is the junior author of the report, but absolutely a chip off the old block, and sharing his seniors’ obsession – of the 4 articles he has had published in the HSJ, 3 insist that we in the UK need to learn from the US system in order to improve the NHS. He also writes for the Spectator, the Mail Online and the Telegraph Online – all Tory rags with clear right-wing agendas on healthcare as well as other things.

I think it’s beyond question that Reform is anything but independent and non-party. I could round off with a summary of what this deceptive approach says about Tory morality and trustworthiness, and their readiness to use any ruse to fool people. But I think I have a better way to end this article and portray what needs to be portrayed.

On the BBC News channel yesterday, conservative US economics Professor Peter Morici of the University of Maryland, was being interviewed about the newly-agreed US budget and the funding challenges facing Barack Obama and the US Congress and Senate. During his interview, he touches on health costs – and said of the US’ healthcare system:

The market has failed on healthcare and you [in the UK] have far better outcomes

It’s possible to construct a fallacious argument in favour of a more US-style system here in the UK, to fool the unwary and the credulous – if you cherry-pick a few institutions and ignore the big picture.

But even a recognised expert in economics from a right-wing viewpoint can’t help but acknowledge that the NHS – which is the 2nd most-efficient in the world and costs less than half per person what the US spends on healthcare even without a socialised health system – is far better in terms of outcomes to cost.
But then, Prof Morici isn’t working for a ‘charity’ that is paid undisclosed sums of money by private healthcare providers that are on record as orchestrating press campaigns to support NHS privatisation.

Draw your own conclusions.

Source

Narcissists have an inbred aversion to sick people

"Narcissists resent weaknesses, resent vulnerabilities, and as a result they resent weak people, vulnerable people. Narcissists have an inbred aversion to children, the elderly, sick people, weak people, vulnerable people.  Actually this provokes in the narcissists a sadistic impulse to inflict further pain, to exploit the vulnerability, to enhance the weakness, to prey upon it.  Narcissists are predators, and wounded animals are the ideal prey."

-Sam Vaknin, author of Narcissistic Self Love

@IDS @Cameron @Atos @WCA @Workfare @DWP

 

Poll Tax then – Workfare now [clivelord]

As happened with the Poll Tax, it should be possible to bring down IDS’s workfare plans. The Poll Tax disappeared surprisingly quickly in the face of massive public revulsion. Challenging workfare will be more difficult, because Poll Tax protesters had two advantages not immediately available to workfare protesters: the injustice was plain as a pikestaff, and more people were disadvantaged. Even so, with sufficient publicity, the same should happen, preferably without the violence.

But on the other hand workfare rests on a much shakier foundation than did the Poll Tax. Readers can read details of the practical difficulties already threatening the whole workfare edifice , and the extensive scam opportunities it is giving rise to in

www johnnyvoid.wordpress.com

And http://www.boycottworkfare.org/

But responses to earlier posts, and to my comments on The Void, suggest that it will be harder than I expected to persuade those who want to get rid of workfare how crucial it is to attack the principle of means testing. As my earlier posts and pages explain, the government and the anti-scrounger press can ignore all protests as long as the system actually encourages  the behaviour  they allege. The statistics do not back up the allegations, but it is still true that the system discourages people on benefits from seeking work.
What makes this particularly sad – infuriating for me – is that the donkey work has been done for us – by an unexpected source. Readers may be suspicious of Dynamic Benefits (2009), a report by a think tank set up by Iain Duncan Smith

www.centreforsocialjustice.org.uk

Sure enough, most of Dynamic is as dodgy as you would expect, given its provenance. But the bit I advise shouting from the housetops, or better still in this day and age, via the internet, mobile, Skype or whatever, is the thorough demolition of what is/was wrong with the welfare state in the first section. Chunks from the early sections of Dynamic could be cut and pasted under the heading “The case for a Citizens’ Income”. But not only is there no mention of the CI, neither is there anything inconsistent with the present government’s ‘workfare’ plans. Dynamic takes for granted ‘Welfare to Work’ schemes as part of the answer, and even more ominously projects savings to the Exchequer in the medium term.

Dynamic Benefits was commissioned, not written by IDS. He may or may not have agreed with, or been pleased to see all its contents. Those of us with a very different agenda from the government  can use the facts so starkly explained to support our case. Even before the government ran away even further from the implications of those facts, Dynamic phrased the question it had set itself as:

“What is the minimum change we can get away with which reduces the existing work disincentive?”

For those of us who see workfare as oppressive, especially in a recession with limited employment prospects anyway, a better question would have been:

“What would be the fairest tax/benefit arrangements?”

I have received some curious comments from people who follow johnnyvoid. One thinks that Marxist socialism is the answer. It may be, but will anyone with an ATOS interview next week please say which gives them the most hope, that millennium, or a direct attack on workfare now? Another agrees with me:

“Citizens’ Income would not allow scope for the scapegoating and demonisation of the poor. I believe it is credible, and viable and above all affordable.”

Yet (s)he thinks now is not the time to press for it because the government has a scapegoating agenda. Of course the government will not want the CI to become a mainstream idea. That is why it is important for the rest of us to get it into the public debate. The CI is not difficult to understand. Means testing is a tax – massive to anyone losing benefits, irrelevant to nearly everybody else, but there are those who hope nobody will notice.

Why is this monstrous injustice not even noticed by its direct victims? I am dumbfounded myself, but at least there is a historical reason. It dates from the 1942 Beveridge Report. That report assumed that full employment for male breadwinners would be guaranteed in perpetuity once Hitler had been defeated. Lady Rhys Williams, a Liberal member of the Beveridge Commission, proposed a minority report pointing out that whenever that faltered, the serious problem which Dynamic Benefits explains so fully would occur. But the Trade Union dominated commission insisted on total suppression of Lady Rhys Williams’ dissenting report proposing, even then, a Basic, or Citizens’ Income. As long as full employment was a realistic aim, the national insurance based scheme would render this danger minimal. That this mind set has persisted for so many years is odd, but for this still to be so even for those being persecuted by it is bizarre.

Todays news

As I write, there are two news items where the Citizens’ Income should be in, if not actually the end of the discussion, but of course it is not mentioned: the Labour idea of 6-month jobs, and the introduction of means testing on Child benefit for higher income groups. The Institute for Fiscal Studies says it will promote incoherence. Quite, but as a look at their report:

http://www.ifs.org.uk/publications/6527

reveals, they apparently fail to notice the obvious solution. I will leave readers to work out what is lacking from Ed Miliband’s proposal.

clivelord

Blind man assessed as fit for work

'Brutal': a GP's take on Atos and work capability assessments

I see work capability assessments damaging patients struggling with mental health issues and serious illness

I  had not seen Eileen for some time, until a few months ago when I was asked to phone her. She sounded distressed, confused and frightened and did not understand what was happening to her. She has been a patient of mine for 10 years and over time, I've tried to help her cope with her mental illness. A few years ago her mental health had deteriorated so much that she needed to be in hospital.

All her benefits had been stopped, Eileen explained, and she was in arrears with her rent. She was assessed by Atos, a private company employed by the government to carry out what it calls the "work capability assessment" to decide whether people receiving incapacity benefits should be sent back to work. Eileen found the form she was asked to fill extremely long and bewildering. The assessment is a tick-box exercise, with points scored depending on the patient's replies. The assessors do not ask GPs like me to provide any medical information about patients to help them make their decisions, even though someone may have received incapacity benefits for many years.

Later, Eileen was sent a letter. She was fit for work, she was told, and so she would no longer be receiving benefits. Instead, she would need to go out seeking work. She had no money and soon fell behind with her rent and bills. She told me she didn't understand why all this was happening to her, but having no money, she decided to leave London to look for work elsewhere. But she had nowhere to stay, and ended up sleeping on the streets. Nor could she find work, despite the government's mandate that she do so. She eventually returned to London to seek help. She has no insight into her mental illness and doesn't believe she is unwell.
I have watched with mounting horror as my patient, an extremely vulnerable woman, has been put at risk of homelessness and deteriorating illness as a result of government policy. I am very aware of the importance of work, and as a GP will always encourage people to look for a suitable job if I think they can. But I also know my patients, and I am outraged that some are being put through the punishing stress this assessment causes. Many of my patients have gone through the Atos assessment to be told that they are fit for work with all their benefits stopped without notice. The financial impact is extreme. Several of my patients have shown worsening symptoms of depression, and some have become suicidal. Because we were so concerned about a patient's mental health – which worsened as a result of the stress caused by these assessments – we have had to involve a psychiatric crisis team.

The government will say that there is an appeal process built into the system for those who have been passed capable of work and disagree with the outcome. True, but it is very expensive. In my experience, patients whom I consider unable to work or even look for work usually win their appeal. In a recent appeal hearing, the tribunal judge read my medical report and concluded on the back of it that, contrary to the Atos assessment, my patient was indeed incapable of working.

I have witnessed a woman in her 20s who has a condition that means she is slowly dementing, and will eventually die at a young age. She is unable to walk, and now even unable to talk. She is looked after round the clock by her family. Her family has been forced to endure great stress from the work capability assessment. I believe that this could have been avoided had I been asked to provide a medical report explaining her disability, prior to the assessment process.

In another case, a man in his 40s had been homeless for many years. He has learning difficulties, alcohol problems and also has insulin-dependent diabetes. He is unable to read and write. A charity worked closely with him and managed to find accommodation and medical care for him, and they encouraged him to engage with the local drug services. In our GP clinic, we were working closely with him to help him to manage his diabetes better, in the hope of avoiding acute emergency admissions had his diabetes remained uncontrolled. Despite all this intensive help, Atos bulldozed their way in and found him capable of work. All his benefits were stopped immediately, and he is now in arrears. He has appealed and is waiting a tribunal hearing – a process that can take up to six months. Meanwhile, all that precious rehabilitation work we were offering him has also stopped as he has become so stressed, depressed and at times suicidal.

I am fearful that more of my patients will be put at risk of homelessness and suicide by this brutal new system. From my perspective, the most disadvantaged in our society are being punished. Work is good for all of us, if we are lucky enough to be in employment. But not all of us have the skills to work and some of us are so unwell or damaged by past experiences that they cannot do a job. We should accept that some people, for many different reasons, need supporting.

Instead of forcing vulnerable people onto the streets, why not concentrate on helping young people find worthwhile, fulfilling jobs? Leave patients like Eileen alone. She does not deserve the punishment that is currently being wrought upon her. For her safety and well-being, and for the sake of a humane society, I hope she wins her appeal.

• The name of the patient, and details of her case, have been changed to ensure confidentiality

Guardian

Disabled pushed to brink by 'faceless' benefits system

Gillian Dalley and her son Christian, who suffers from brain injuries and faces repeated fitness-to-work tests. Photograph: Frantzesco Kangaris

 

Fourteen years ago, Christian Dalley sustained serious brain damage in a motorbike accident and had to undergo two emergency lobotomies in the days after the crash. Although in some ways his recovery has been remarkable, the injuries to his brain have left him barely able to read and struggling to organise his life.

His neurosurgeon's assessment is that he will find it "very difficult to return to any form of paid employment", a conclusion that Dalley, with some regret, views as accurate.

However, shortly before Christmas, Dalley had his third Atos work capability assessment in as many years. He points out that since 2009, he has been caught up in a near-continuous process of persuading benefits staff that he cannot work. He was twice ruled fit for work and he twice appealed against the decision at a tribunal, where judges on both occasions found him not capable of working and reinstated sickness benefits.

Charities have expressed anger at the number of people with long-term, incurable conditions who are caught in a similar cycle, being forced on repeated occasions to prove that they are not able to work, despite supplying medical evidence that indicates that their condition is permanent and will not improve.

Dalley, now 41, was beginning a career as a fashion designer when he was thrown off his bike in October 1998. Because the swelling in his brain did not subside, he had to have a frontal lobotomy and later, when that did not work, part of his brain and skull was removed at the back to help reduce the swelling. He spent three months in hospital.

Gradually, he regained his ability to speak and walk, but his brain function remains severely impaired in less immediately obvious ways. Despite repeated attempts he has never managed to return to work. His eyesight has been badly damaged, he finds reading extremely difficult and he becomes overwhelmed by basic tasks.

He tried working in a bar, but wasn't able to do the work and found trying to keep up very stressful; he suffered a huge seizure at work shortly after starting the job.

Dalley's mother, Gillian, says part of the problem is that he does not fully understand the severity of his own impairments, so focuses too much on the positive during the assessment process.

He said: "One of the issues is the embarrassment of the situation. Reading is such a basic thing. I don't want people to think I am thick, so I try to avoid mentioning it."

He supplied medical evidence indicating that his condition was unlikely to improve, but twice the assessors found him capable of work, and twice their decision has been overturned by a tribunal. In March 2012, a tribunal awarded him 18 points (15 points are needed to qualify for the benefit). A few months earlier the Atos assessment had awarded him zero points. In November, he was invited again to attend another assessment.

His neurosurgeon, Alexander Leff, has written a detailed report explaining the extensive damage to Dalley's brain, summarising the surgery, during which part of his skull and brain were removed, outlining his current difficulties and concluding that his patient would struggle to get a paid job.

"It was a euphoric moment when we had the decision from the tribunal the second time, and then just a few months later, the process began again," Gillian Dalley said, expressing frustration about the unsettling effect of constantly being required to reaffirm her son's disabilities.

A spokesperson for the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) said that repeated reassessment was an important part of the process of applying for employment and support allowance (which has replaced incapacity benefit). "Even for claimants who are unlikely to see an improvement in their health, it is important that we do not write them off and are able to offer them further support where necessary," the spokesperson said.

An Atos Healthcare spokesperson said it was difficult to comment on an individual's case, but added: "Anybody who is not satisfied with their assessment has the right to complain to us directly and we will review their case and take action where appropriate."

Several charities that support people with lifelong conditions that are unlikely to change have campaigned against the system's insensitivity.

Sarah Lambert, head of policy at the National Autistic Society, said: "We would question whether frequent benefit reviews is the best use of public money for people with lifelong conditions that aren't going to change. Assessors also need more training in hidden disabilities so they are better able to recognise people's needs from the outset."

The Rutherglen and Hamilton West Labour MP, Tom Greatrex, who has campaigned for reform to the fitness-to-work test, said he was frequently contacted by people with incurable conditions who were caught in a similar cycle and felt they were being "hounded".

"I am regularly contacted by constituents with Parkinson's disease, receiving treatment for cancer or suffering from mental health problems, who have been found fit for work, even though they are clearly no such thing. They are then trapped in a cycle of assessment, successful appeal and then reassessment just a few months later," he said.

"The fact that people have to wait months for a test, and then up to another nine months if they appeal, causes unnecessary anxiety for individuals, as well as costing the taxpayer millions."
Dalley said the process of repeatedly battling again the DWP was exhausting. "I feel persecuted. The system feels so faceless. I understand the logic of retesting people but all the doctors say my case is unlikely to improve," he said.

Despite being told he should search for work, he has had no support from a disability employment adviser, and the rehabilitation centre that used to support him has closed because of funding cuts.

Guardian

Disabled rights hanging on upcoming judicial review

Welcome to hell: The work capability assessment is the start of a long path involving challenges, continual reassessments, misdirection or demands from the DWP, Job Centre Plus or work programme providers, leading eventually to despair, destitution and, in many cases, death. Could YOU mount a judicial review against this regime?

An appeal to the United Nations, using its Convention on the Rights of People with Disabilities to show how the sick and disabled in the UK are being mistreated by the government, will depend on the result of a judicial review later this month.

I have previously documented the work of Samuel Miller, to make the UN aware of the life-threatening activities undertaken by the Department for Work and Pensions under Iain Duncan Smith’s regime of cuts and changes to entitlement, so he should need no introduction.

Mr Miller has been hoping to induce the UN to consider whether the current Smith/DWP regime contravenes international agreements on human rights and the rights of the disabled. Many Vox Political readers have submitted evidence to him, to be used in support of this.

But he wrote to me yesterday, saying this work must be deferred until the result of the judicial review is known.

“Submission criteria require that domestic remedies be exhausted,” he wrote. “Any complaint submitted to the [UN] committee must first have been submitted to the national courts and authorities for consideration.

“As you are probably aware, there’s an upcoming judicial review of the Work Capability Assessment for people living with mental health problems. The dates are January 15-16 & 18, in the Upper Tribunal Courts in London.

“If I can demonstrate to the UN that remedies invoked by the State are neither effective nor available, then UNCRPD complaints would carry more weight.”

He quoted a letter from Jorge Araya, secretary of the UN committee on the rights of persons with disabilities, who stated: “Complainants have initially the duty to demonstrate that they have exhausted domestic remedies, then the burden shifts to the State party to demonstrate that there are remedies still available; if that happens, complainants should demonstrate  that remedies invoked by the State are neither effective nor available.”

So that’s the situation at the moment. Before Christmas, Mr Miller said the amount of time required to mount a judicial review would put the lives of sick and disabled people in jeopardy; that is not the case while one is about to be heard.

Also, consultation with a barrister, Steve Broach (@SteveBroach) has suggested that sick and/or disabled people should explore potential judicial review with solicitors – especially after the DWP announced that people on sickness benefits were “to be offered work experience to help them back into a job”.

The DWP’s announcement last month stated: “People on Employment and Support Allowance (ESA) who have been assessed as being able to go back to work at some point are placed in the Work-Related Activity Group for the benefit and are expected to take part in activity which helps them prepare for a return to employment. One of the options available to them will now include voluntary work experience.

“Having taken into account an individual’s circumstances, a Jobcentre Plus adviser or Work Programme provider may feel that an appropriate mandatory work placement – which must be of benefit to the community – would be helpful.

“People who fail to carry out any agreed work-related activity without good reason may face having their benefits sanctioned. The sanction will be made up of an open-ended period which is lifted when the claimant meets the requirements, followed by a short fixed period of 1, 2 or 4 weeks.”

The sticking-point would be the cost of bringing a judicial review – in the region of £10,000 to £20,000 for a straightforward case; higher for a more complex matter. If the claimant is unsuccessful, they are likely to be liable for the defendant’s costs as well as their own. “They are therefore looking at a legal bill of upwards of £30,000 if they lose, and they must be prepared for this eventuality, bearing in mind the unpredictability of judicial review proceedings and costs orders,” Mr Miller told me.

Also, of course, we know that David Cameron has vowed to crack down on appeals that delay new laws, planning decisions and policies, and this could potentially be extended to human rights judicial reviews, since his has government already made substantial cuts to legal aid.


Source

2013: the year to commit to roll back the failed privatisation juggernaut

Britain has been de-industrialised over the last 30 years, but beyond a decimated manufacturing capacity there are also services essential for an efficient productive economy.   These include transport, energy and communications as well as education, health and housing.   All of these have been, or are being, privatised and the results have been devastating.   The McNulty report on the railways in 2011 found that costs were 40% higher than comparable state-owned rail industries in the rest of Europe.   Far higher subsidies were required from the taxpayer to finance inefficient and inferior services.   In energy several parliamentary inquiries have exposed equal levels of profiteering and inefficiencies as a result of fragmentation, as well as so great a rundown in investment as to threaten national security of supply.   Dieter Helm, an energy expert, now believes that £500bn investment will be required to achieve an internationally competitive level of infrastructure over the next decade because of the accelerating failure of privatisation.

Much the same applies to telecommunications and water.   The most authoritative analysis of privatisation in Britain – The Great Divestiture: Evaluating the Welfare Impactof the British Privatisations 1979-97, by Massimo Florio – utterly destroys the myth that privatisation has led to any long-term gains in productivity or efficiency, and documents the major costs in terms of welfare and communal benefit.   In addition there has been a key loss of strategic control.   Previously, during the high growth of the post-war years (1948-73), R&D investment in energy, transport and telecommunications has positive feedback on manufacturing.   Over the last 30 years however the sharp decline in British R&D has cumulatively weakened the UK industrial effort. 

Strategic intervention in the national interest now hinges on the government trying to manipulate private investment decisions which, even if successful at all, is usually unnecessarily costly.   Notoriously, once the provision of housing had been handed to the private sector, no amount of government inducements can now get investors to meet the enormous shortfall in availability.   At the same time however the banks and financial institutions were frenziedly active in high-margin mortgage lending to those in desperate need of housing.   This inflated housing costs at double the rate elsewhere in Europe – 2.4% a year in the UK against 1.1% in the EU, much of this inflationary cost in the UK being due to speculative lending by the finance sector in conditions of housing scarcity.   Which points again to another critical factor in Britain’s economic decline – the gross over-dominance of finance.

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When is a Job Guarantee not a Job Guarantee?

The Labour Party’s new ‘job guarantee’ idea is getting a lot of coverage this morning, but is it any good? They are proposing to introduce a guaranteed minimum wage job offer to those aged over 24 who have been claiming Jobseeker’s Allowance (JSA) for more than two years. If the claimant turns down the job offer, they risk losing their benefits. Currently, there around 130,000 people who fall into this category. The jobs will be for a 6 month duration, after which the individual will have to find work elsewhere, or go back on benefits.

First then, the positives. By proposing this, Labour are tacitly accepting that even in the good times, there will always be some people left behind, meaning Government does have an active role to play in the Labour market. Once this principle is established, perhaps we could move to something more ambitious. It also get the issue of long term unemployment back on the map, and puts pressure on the Government to respond given the current failure of the Work Programme.

That’s where I run out of positives though I’m afraid. I think if you set out the design the weakest possible job guarantee scheme that had the least impact upon the economy, this would probably be it. Labour’s proposal is very similar to something the IPPR have been proposing for a while, only even less ambitious. I briefly mentioned that here, although I was probably a little too positive about it. The IPPR want the job offer to be made at 12 months rather than 2 years, but other than that it pretty much the same as what Labour is proposing.

I have a number of issues with this idea and the way it’s being presented. Here are the main ones.

• It only applies to those who have been unemployed for over 2 years. This is less than 10% of those claiming JSA, and an even lower proportion when measured against all those out of work who want a job. So the impact on the economy would be negligible.
• The guaranteed jobs would only be for a 6 month duration – probably not long enough to give someone the skills and experience to make a smooth transition to better paid work.
• The way this is being presented is that there is a need to be tough with those who are long-term unemployed. You need to force people to work on threat of losing their benefits. The evidence just doesn’t bear this out. Research undertaken recently by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation found an almost universal “commitment to conventional values about work”. JSA is already conditional upon the individual actively seeking work. No further sticks are necessary.
• The proposed scheme would apparently cost £1bn and be ‘paid for’ by restricting pension relief for high income pensioners. The tax relief restrictions may be sensible and fair, so may be worth doing on its own merits, but it has nothing to do with paying for anything. This idea that every policy proposal much be ‘fiscally neutral’ is very dangerous as it severely limits the effectiveness of any spending programme.

So what would a job guarantee worthy of the name look like? Here’s some features it might have:

• Job offer at 3 months or less
• Jobs last for an indefinite period
• All jobs come with training
• Paid at a living wage
• Genuinely full time work available, but with flexible and part time hours for single mothers, those with health issues etc.
• Optional, i.e. the person can choose to remain on benefits and seek their own job (subject to Jobseeker’s agreements as now)

I’ve expanded on the my preferred type of job guarantee here and here.

To sum up then, while Labour are calling their idea a job guarantee, it is a million miles away from what a true job guarantee would look like. It lacks ambition, scope and retains the nasty undertones of the current climate – not wanting to appear to be soft on ‘scroungers’. To me it represents a step back from Labour’s last foray into job creation schemes – the Future Jobs Fund. That was also quite timid, but remained optional, people had a fair amount of choice about what jobs they applied for and the ethos of ‘community benefit’ was a good one. This new idea junks the first two principles and weakens the third. In short, not great. Another ‘big announcement’ that turns out to be anything but.

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Obesity behind the blinds [purplepersuasion]

What I find most offensive about this suggestion is that it treats a prescription as if it is a sentence.

All of us are free to obtain medical opinion, but we are also free not to take up the suggested treatment. So long as we possess the capacity to make decisions about our health.

This week, it was the turn of obese benefit claimants to be singled out. A local authority and a conservative think tank have built on suggestions that benefits could be dispensed via “smart cards”, floating the idea that benefits claimants’ use of leisure facilities to improve their health could be monitored via the cards. Obese or otherwise unhealthy claimants who fail to carry out exercise programmes prescribed by their GP could, the report suggests, have housing or council tax benefits reduced for non-compliance...

...What I find most offensive about this suggestion is that it treats a prescription as if it is a sentence. All of us are free to obtain medical opinion, but we are also free not to take up the suggested treatment. So long as we possess the capacity to make decisions about our health, we are entirely within our rights to say to a medical practitioner, “Thanks for your advice, but I have thought it over, and decided not to take up treatment” – even if it is likely that our lives with be shortened by that decision. A person with cancer, for example, is at perfect liberty not to accept surgery or chemotherapy, even if this means there is a greater chance that they will not survive. As long as they are capable of understanding the risks and the benefits of the proposed treatment plan, as an autonomous adult they can refuse something which most would see as clearly good for them...

...The reason that clients were required to give their permission is simple: people cannot be forced to undergo medical treatment unless they come under the remit of the Mental Health Act or the Mental Capacity Act. However, once under sentence, they faced serious consequences for failure to engage. Once sanctions become attached to non-attendance, people are no longer freely choosing continue with the treatment. If people with weight problems get the sense that they are being “sentenced” to exercise, rather than it being offered via prescription, they are likely to begin viewing GPs with some of the mistrust and hostility with which defendants view sentencers – and this would be absolutely disastrous for people with those very health conditions we know are linked to obesity. And if GPs begin to feel that the treatment they are offering is coercive, rather than supportive, serious questions about the ethics of that may lead them to cease prescribing exercise for the people who need it most.

Who, exactly, will that benefit?

Read more...

Voters 'brainwashed by Tory welfare myths', shows new poll

Survey shows public ignorance of the level of benefits and who gets them

 
Ministers were accused last night of demonising benefits claimants in an attempt to justify their controversial decision to increase most state handouts by less than inflation.

Polling commissioned by the Trades Union Congress suggests that a campaign by Tory ministers is turning voters against claimants – but only because the public is being fed "myths" about those who rely on benefits.

The criticism comes before a crunch Commons vote next Tuesday on the Welfare Benefits Uprating Bill, which will ensure that most benefits and tax credits will rise by only one per cent for the next three years. Labour, which will vote against the measure, will try today to answer Tory claims that it is "soft" on scroungers by announcing a "tough love" plan to force adults who have been out of work for more than two years to take up a government "job guarantee" or lose their benefits.

George Osborne, the Chancellor, has spoken about "the shiftworker, leaving home in the dark hours of the early morning, who looks up at the closed blinds of their next-door neighbour sleeping off a life on benefits". Iain Duncan Smith, the Work and Pensions Secretary, has highlighted figures showing that benefits have risen by almost twice as much as earnings in the past five years. According to YouGov, four out of 10 people think benefits are too generous and three in five believe the system has created a culture of dependency. However, people who know least about the facts are the most hostile towards claimants. More than half of those who are "least accurate" about the system think benefits are too generous, while fewer than one in three (31 per cent) of those giving the "most accurate" answers agree.

Mr Osborne's decision to cap most benefit rises at one per cent is supported by 48 per cent and opposed by 32 per cent. But, by a margin of three to one, people think the squeeze will mainly hit the unemployed. When told it will also affect low-paid workers receiving tax credits, people oppose the move by 40 to 30 per cent. Only one in four people believe benefits should go up by less than wages or prices, while 63 per cent want to see them linked to wages, prices or both.

Frances O'Grady, the TUC General Secretary, said: "It is not surprising that voters want to get tough on welfare. They think the system is much more generous than it is in reality, is riddled with fraud and is heavily skewed towards helping the unemployed, who they think are far more likely to stay on the dole than is actually the case. Indeed if what the average voter thinks was true, I'd want tough action too.

"But you should not conduct policy, particularly when it hits some of the most vulnerable people in society, on the basis of prejudice and ignorance. And it is plainly immoral to spread such prejudice purely for party gain, as ministers and their advisers are doing, by deliberately misleading people about the value of benefits and who gets them."

Ed Balls, the shadow Chancellor, accused ministers of resorting to "smears" by claiming they are targeting the workshy and benefit scroungers when two-thirds of those affected by the cap are in work.

Mr Balls announced that Labour would raise £1bn by limiting tax relief on pension contributions to 20 per cent for those on more than £150,000 a year. This would fund a "compulsory jobs guarantee" for the 129,000 adults over the age of 25 who have been jobless for more than two years, a move that would later be extended to those on the dole for more than a year.

Writing on the PoliticsHome website, Mr Balls said: "A One Nation approach to welfare reform means government has a responsibility to help people into work and support those who cannot, but those who can work must be required to take up jobs or lose benefits – no ifs or buts. Britain needs real welfare reform that is tough, fair and that works, not divisive, nasty and misleading smears from an out-of-touch and failing government."

Ministers insist there is strong public support for reducing the welfare bill, saying the TUC had failed to produce an example of the Government misleading people. Mr Osborne hit back at Mr Balls, accusing him of making uncosted spending commitments because he had already announced plans to spend the same £1bn on reversing cuts to tax credits.

A government source said last night: "It beggars belief that Labour's union baron backers think people are stupid for daring to suggest the benefits system needs reforming. If Labour seriously thinks stopping households receiving more in benefits than families earn going out to work is prejudiced and ignorant, it is completely out of touch."

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What might a world without work look like? [guardian]

As ideas of employment become more obscure and desperate, 2013 is the perfect time to ask what it means to live without it

 

A Leicester clothing factory in 1948. 'As wages bear less and less relation to the cost of living, it seems as good a time as any to ask if the underlying fantasy is that employers will one day be able to pay their workers nothing at all.' Photograph: Kurt Hutton/ Hulton-Deutsch Collection/CORBIS

 

A few months before the financial crash hit, the National Lottery issued a new kind of scratchcard. At £5 a go – the more expensive end of the range – it offered the chance to win £40,000 a year, every year, for the rest of your life. Howard Groves, the director of game development, described the idea in the following way: "It's about not having to put up with life's everyday irritants."

The card proved successful, despite its cost, and a new version in 2009 is still selling well. Everything that is carried in the hope of the card – life (how long might I live for?), security (how might I care for myself and others?) and leisure (what might I do with my free time?) – is really code for a life without work. The "everyday irritants" identified by the card-makers pose an important question: is work one of these "irritants"? Perhaps even the largest irritant of all?

As with all major institutional entities – law, prison, education – to question work is to tamper with reality itself. As with law, prison and education, it is almost always "never a good time" to talk about reform, or the abolition of existing structures. The ideological mishmash represented by the word itself is worth examining. Paid employment is an economic necessity for all but a tiny percentage of the population, but "work" is tied up with miasmic qualities that touch on social and even quasi-religious elements: identity, status, community, habit, duty.

The Tories, as ever, seek to exploit these complex social, moral and economic factors in the crassest way possible. Just as the "big society" sought to cynically exploit genuine fellow feeling by turning social and cultural life into an unstable amalgam of philanthropy and volunteering – thus eliminating the role of state provision – the recent campaign opposing "strivers" to "scroungers" and pledging to support "workers not shirkers" is an opportunistic mobilisation of the residual idea that to work is to be a good person. This idea, reinforced by TV shows (The Fairy Jobmother, for example), implies that to be unemployed is a personal, moral failing, and that if you just tried harder, got a haircut or on your bike, or changed your attitude, employment would fall into your lap like a leaf dropped by a benevolent Job-God.

The reality of attempting to make work a moral, personal issue, rather than a global, structural, economic one has devastating consequences, not only on those who are unemployed or precariously employed, but on those deemed "fit to work" when manifestly they are not. The stripping of disability benefits by Atos and the Department for Work and Pensions did little to push those deemed fit to work into jobs, but left many impoverished and suicidal. When work is used as a moral stick to beat the population with, it is clear that the imperative is less to actually employ people than to cut government spending, with the bonus that the most vulnerable can be used as political scapegoats.

Campaigns against unpaid work as a condition of receiving benefits – workfare – and cuts affecting disabled people have drawn out the truth behind government schemes. Boycott Workfare and Disabled People Against Cuts, among others, have drawn repeated and serious attention to the punitive nature of deeming people fit for work, or attempting to place people in jobs when the jobs don't exist or are unpaid. The value of labour as such – from internships across the creative industries and media to the pittance paid to factory workers across the world – is deliberately undermined by those who profit from it, as it always has been. But as wages bear less and less relation to the cost of living, it seems as good a time as any to ask if the underlying fantasy is that employers will one day be able to pay their workers nothing at all, because all those issues like housing, food, clothing, childcare will somehow be dealt with in another, mysterious, way.

In the current state of the UK economy, as identified by John Lanchester, the labour market looks very strange: The "truly weird and not at all understood fact is that this self-same economy has been energetically producing jobs. In the quarter to October, in the middle of this Stygian economic gloom, the British economy added 82,000 jobs. That's an all-time quarterly record. From the normal economic perspective, this makes almost no sense."

As Lanchester notes, these jobs are part-time and low-paid; jobs with some security – those in the public sector where women dominate – are being eliminated, for good if the Tories have their way. Employment, presented as an all-encompassing existential imperative, nevertheless exists less and less to provide a living, let alone a life.

But against this backdrop – rising inflation, increasing job insecurity, geographically asymmetrical unemployment, attacks on the working and non-working populations, and cuts to benefits – a debate about what work is and what it means has been taking place. Some discussions at Occupy focused on what an anti-work (or post-work) politics might mean, and campaigns not only for a living wage but for a guaranteed, non-means-tested "citizen's income" are gathering pace.

The chances of a scratchcard winning you a life without work are of course miniscule, but as what it means to work becomes both more obscure and increasingly desperate, 2013 might be the perfect time to ask what work is, what it means, and what it might mean to live without it. As Marx put it in his 1880 proposal for a workers' inquiry: "We hope to meet … with the support of all workers in town and country who understand that they alone can describe with full knowledge the misfortunes from which they suffer and that only they, and not saviours sent by providence, can energetically apply the healing remedies for the social ills that they are prey to."

In other words, the best place to start would be with those who have a relation to work as such – which is to say nearly everyone, employed or otherwise.

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Work Capability Assessments cause suffering for the mentally ill [reblog]

People suffering from mental health problems are often the most vulnerable when seeking help. Mental health can have a major impact on work, housing, relationships and finances. The Work Capability Assessments (WCA) thus present a particular challenge to those suffering mental illness.  The mentally ill also are often the least able to present their case. Staff involved in assessments lack sufficient expertise or training to understand mental health issues and how they affect capability.

Because of  concerns that Work Capability Assessments will have a particularly detrimental effect on the mentally ill,  an e-petition on the government web site calls on the Department of Work and Pensions to exclude people with complex mental health problems such as paranoid schizophrenia and personality disorders.

Problems with the WCA  have been highlighted in general by the fact that up to 78% of 'fit to work' decisions are  being overturned on appeal. It is all to the good that they are overturned,  but the stress caused is considerable and many claimants receive no help in the process. A flawed process is causing harm. The mental health organisation Mind are concerned that people with mental health issues may be asked to undertake unsuitable activities as a result of these flaws in the assessment criteria,  leading to stress and breakdown. It may also be difficult for many to get appropriate advice on dealing with the process.

The British Medical Association has already warned that its members are overwhelmed by patients seeking help with appeals and that no extra funding has been provided to support this. The BMA have also expressed their concern that the assessment system is flawed and takes insufficient account of individual circumstances.  To date these concerns have been ignored by the government.

In the early part of the 1970s I was a member of Wandsworth Council in London. I was concerned then with the impact of the closure of mental hospitals and the move to the 'care' of the mentally ill in the community. It wasn't because I was against the idea of moving people from institutions so they could have enriched lives in the community. That was all to the good. It was because I believed that too little was being done to ensure appropriate support. I was not alone.

The BMA had also looked at the issues and they sent me their report expressing their concerns.  It was a question of looking ahead. I prepared a policy document outlining the likely impact on the borough and what might be needed in planning for the change. With all-party support and wonderful help from local organisations the document was incorporated into the council's 10 year plan. I was always pleased that the issues were understood across the political parties.

Much has changed since then. We have a much better understanding of how mental illness can affect us all in some way and at some stage in our lives. We may even suffer without realising or receiving appropriate help or advice.

It is a sobering statistic that 1 in 4 of us will experience a mental health problem in any given year.  It is often quoted, but it is not a cliché; it is based on sound evidence obtained from several studies.  The impact of mental health problems are often exacerbated by the social and economic environment. Periodic hospitalisation may have impact on housing and jobs and on maintaining contacts in the community. All these problems can create instability. It is a time when help within the community can be of greatest benefit to maintain that stability. Financial problems can be acute because of periodic or long term inability to work. Financial help is a vital part of care in the community, enabling people with mental health problems to lead as stable life as possible.

The government should think again about the way in which WCA has been set up and is operating and in particular on those most vulnerable such as the mentally ill and also those supporting them.

Link to the petition: e-petition.
Link to general petition on WCA: WOWpetition

Follow @Ray_Noble1

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Benefits system? It’s more like psychological warfare [Vox Political]

Alan Carr: Another comedian who, like Paul O’Grady, must be fuming that his taxes support a government that is more interested in looking after its own fat expenses claims than in looking after people who genuinely need help.

Mrs Mike has had another setback in her struggle to become a worthwhile member of society.

For those not in the know, my significant other has been receiving sickness benefits for many years after damaging her back in what she believes was a work-related injury. Her (now-former) employers have never admitted any liability and her trade union let her down badly. She currently suffers with back problems which are worsened by fibromyalgia, carpal tunnel syndrome (operation soon) and mental problems including depression.

Until last August she was in receipt of Incapacity Benefit, but after one of the DWP’s infamous Work Capability Assessments she was put in the work-related activity group of Employment and Support Allowance. Shortly before Christmas she had an interview at the local Job Centre Plus, when possible ways of slowly reintroducing her into the job market were suggested.

She has always hated being unable to work, and the opportunity to get back into active service, so to speak, brightened her outlook considerably.

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. Having presented the experiences of David Dennis on this blog, I was sceptical about the amount of real, practical help this could offer, but I kept quiet and waited to see what would happen.

Firstly, they phoned to say their rep was sick.

Then they phoned to ask Mrs Mike to call back on another day.

Then the Job Centre phoned to ask why she hadn’t spoken to the company rep. When she explained, arrangements were made for her to phone again – today.

She called at 3pm. Spoke to a machine because nobody was answering. Left her number. After a while, she took the return call. A while after that, she passed the phone on to me.

“Could you talk to them, please?”

The lady on the line was friendly enough, but her message was utterly frustrating. “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.”

“We can’t appeal,” I said. “That decision came back in August and we were advised not to appeal against it because it was unlikely to succeed.”

She was adamant. “Ask for a review of the decision, with a view to going into the support group. Go back to her doctor and request reassessment.”

So there you go. Six months in the new system (the WCA was in July) and we’re at square one. The whole experience has been pointless so far.

Worse than pointless, in fact. This has affected my girlfriend’s state of mind, you see. The thought of going through another WCA terrifies her (the first was harrowing enough), and the possibility of going through the system again and getting nowhere – again – seems a certainty to her.

It’s like psychological warfare.

I’m not blaming anyone who has dealt with us directly. I’m sure they all mean well. But it’s the system that is at fault. It has been created, not to help people, but to break their spirit. The message is: “You’re wasting your time here. You won’t get what you need. You should give up and do something else instead.”

Except, the prime choice for people on disability benefits who DO choose to do something else instead appears to be suicide.

And all the time we have to listen to Iain Duncan Smith verbalising his DWP inanities via every right-wing news outlet he can dupe into carrying them.

I shall keep you informed.

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2012: A Year of Lies and Blunders at the DWP Part 2

Read Part 1 at 2012: A Year of Lies and Blunders at the DWP Part 1

Despite welfare-to-work and DWP favourites G4S almost wrecking the entire show, the Olympics took place in August, ending with the dire closing ceremony which highlighted the all too real danger of leaving pop music in the hands of rich old men.  The Paralympics soon followed at which George Osborne and other Tory slime were routinely booed as they pretended to give a shit about disabled people.

Disability denying poverty pimps Atos also attempted to cash in on the Paralympic Games by acting as an official sponsor.  This quickly turned into a PR disaster after a week of action against the company saw protests in every major city in the UK, a mock funeral outside their London Headquarters and finally a successful occupation and blockade of the Department of Work and Pensions – a protest only marred by an unnecessary and vicious police assault which left one disabled protester with a broken shoulder.

Cameron also attempted to use the Paralympics to push a benefit bashing agenda, whilst blundering Employment Minister Chris Grayling took the silly season one step too far by announcing that care homes would soon be staffed with teenagers on workfare.

Unemployment also came into the spotlight – causing yet another tantrum from Iain Duncan Smith – and it was revealed that people on workfare, as well as many of those who have had benefit sanctioned, do not show up in the unemployment figures.

DWP bungling got back into full swing in September beginning with Iain Duncan Smith’s clueless pronouncement that people living on just £41 a week in emergency hardship payments are ‘frittering’ the money away on holidays and nights out.

Then came the shocking warning from Women’s Aid that every women’s refuge in the UK could face closure as a result to changes to housing benefits.  IDS and Lord Fraud reacted with such astonishment to this it was almost as if they didn’t know that much of the UK’s supported and temporary accommodation is funded by housing benefits.  A fudge was hastily announced, which even today has not yet been adequately explained.

Once again Universal Credit, the all encompassing change to the benefit system, was under threat because incompetent ministers hadn’t  bothered to learn about the very thing they are trying to reform.  In fact it was revealed in September that banking failure and Minister for Welfare Reform, Lord Fraud doesn’t even know how much unemployment benefits are worth!

The workfare farce suffered another setback after long term unemployment rose again and rules were changed which means that workfare must now not lead to a job offer.  The ever present brutality which accompanies the DWP’s inept reforms was also brought into sharp focus with the news that disabled people could be forced back into institutions due to the scrapping of the Independent Living Fund.

September’s cabinet reshuffle saw David Cameron fail to sack Iain Duncan Smith, although bungling Employment Minister Chris Grayling managed to jump from the sinking ship into the Justice Department, where his bullshitting may not go down quite so well.

Internet con man Grant Shapps was also promoted, having left behind a legacy of soaring homelessness as Housing Minister, whilst non-entities Mark Hoban and Esther Mcveigh were brought into the DWP as Employment and Disabled People’s ministers.

George Osborne’s benefit bullshitting was exposed in October as he persisted with the lie that people in benefits are better off than those in work.  Elsewhere Iain Duncan Smith launched a garbled attack on people with more than two children and began to float the idea of a food stamps style scheme in the UK.

The newly appointed skiving Employment Minister Mark Hoban only made it into the office once in October, to declare that disabled people who have successfully appealed after being found ‘fit to work’ are to blame for the rocketing number of successful appeals against Atos and DWP decisions.

Mark Hoban is also possibly behind the comedy moment when the corporate secrets of disability deniers Atos were published for all to see on a Government website.  Showing a worrying yet sadly typical misunderstanding of computers, redacted sensitive information could be read simply by copying and pasting the text into another document.

The DWP leaked tender documents were those which won Atos the contract for the new DLA replacement Personal Information Payment.  The tender revealed that in many cases Atos are intending to sub-contract the work back to the NHS.  Which could be seen as money for nothing, showing that even the Work Programme contractors could learn a few lessons from Atos when it comes to scamming the DWP.

The much awaited TUC March in October saw hundreds of thousands on the streets, but by far the most encouraging signs were the direct actions taken by Boycott Workfare, Black Triangle and Disabled People Against Cuts (DPAC).  Whilst Boycott Workfare shut down workfare exploiters in Oxford Street, DPAC blocked the busy Park Lane, yet again bringing traffic chaos to central London.  Both organisations are threatening to step up action against welfare reforms in 2013, along with countless other groups around the UK.

Universal Credit was in yet more trouble in November as research revealed that two million people risk difficulties in managing budgets and possibly falling into rent arrears due to the new payment system.  With both the head of IT and Universal Credit’s Programme Director both reported to have left the DWP, the chaos going on behind the scenes appeared to be even worse.

Iain Duncan Smith’s increasingly bizarre behaviour took a turn for the worse with a rant at step or same sex parents, bringing the shadowy Christian think tank he founded into the spotlight.  The Centre for Social Justice were shown to not only be employing one of Iain Duncan Smith’s key advisors, Phillipa ‘pray away the gay’ Stroud, but are also funded by some of the very companies who have trousered so much cash due to Iain Duncan Smith’s reforms.

Workfare was in trouble again when British Heart Foundation announced that they were ‘moving away’ from using compulsory unpaid workers in their charity shops.  This received a cautious response from campaigners as stories emerged of people still being sent on unpaid placements with the charity.

There was more trouble in store for the Government’s welfare to work schemes as the Work Programme performance figures were finally published.  In a humiliating disaster for the £6 billion scheme it was revealed that the Work Programme was performing worse than doing nothing at all!  Some startling statistics could be pulled from the information, including that for those on sickness benefits yet in the DWP’s eyes capable of some work, the Work Programme was costing a whopping £60,000 per job.

Whilst homelessness charities finally broke silence and condemned the whole racket, many other charities were once again left with serious questions to answer due to their involvement with the scheme.  Pressure on these organisations escalated when it was announced that from December 3rd, International Disabled People’s Day, sick and disabled claimants could now be sent to work unpaid as a condition of receiving  benefits.

The brutal reality for those found ‘fit for work’ was also brought into the spotlight with the publication of the Spartacus Report, a document featuring testimonies of sick and disabled claimant’s experiences of the Work Capability Assessment.

November ended with one of the funniest cock ups yet by the DWP with the launch of the Universal Jobmatch website.  This time it was recruitment firm Monster Job’s turn to scam the DWP by providing a  jobmatching website that doesn’t work for nearly £20 million.

And so as December began adverts for sex workers, MI5 hit men and Mafia drug couriers began to appear on a Government website along with open attempts at identity fraud scams.

George Osborne announced his latest benefit cap, pegging even Housing Benefits below the rate of inflation.  With Housing Associations warning less social housing will be built due to Universal Credit, the Chancellor’s announcement could end up being the tipping point which leads to unprecedented homelessness in the UK.

More charities pulled out of workfare, including household names Cancer Research UK, Age UK and, for the second time, disability charity Scope.  With the charitable sector having been less than honest about their involvement in unpaid work, it remains to be seen just how sincere these announcements are.  Taken at their word however this could be a potentially fatal blow for the DWP’s mass workfare ambitions, leaving them desperately short of placement providers – a problem already identified even before the exodus away from the scheme.

Some charities remained unrepentant over their use of forced labour, despite the announcement that sick and disabled claimants can now also be sent to work unpaid.  @PDSA_HQ have been silent on their use of workfare and even won an award from the Queen for their services to fake volunteering, whilst the environmental charity @BTCV even boast of their use of workfare – tell their vice-president @BillOddie what you think.

Also this month Lord Fraud’s plans to charge vulnerable claimants for help with budgeting when Universal Credit is launched came under fire, whilst some stupid Tory twat starting muttering away about launching a food stamps style scheme for benefit claimants.

There was still time in the year for one last tantrum from Iain Duncan Smith as he vented his fury at people mocking his crap job matching website.  In one last shining example of the Secretary of State’s stunning arrogance (and failure to do his homework), it became clear that the DWP cannot legally force claimants to have their accounts monitored by DWP snoops or force them to accept cookies on their home computers.  Whilst signing up to the scheme will become mandatory in the New Year, there is no requirement to tick the box giving the Jobcentre access to personal accounts – something every claimant urgently needs to know.

With IDS, Cameron and Clegg all launching an co-ordinated attack on the working and non working poor alike over the New Year, it is likely that the fight to save the welfare state will dominate the agenda in 2013.  The ongoing comedy show at the DWP will be of no comfort to the hundreds of thousands of people forced into poverty and homelessness due to this Government.  But it does show one thing.  We can beat these thick posh bastards.

2012: A Year of Lies and Blunders at the DWP Part 1

Boycott Workfare have a review of last year’s struggle against unpaid work at: http://www.boycottworkfare.org/?p=1934

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IDS is in trouble over his strivers’ tax – and he knows it

Unable to justify the government's decision to cut support for families, the Work and Pensions Secretary has resorted to myths.

  

 

You can tell ministers are in trouble when they start peddling distortions on the scale we've seen from Iain Duncan Smith this week. IDS is in trouble. And he knows it.

Next week, the beleaguered Work and Pensions Secretary comes to the Commons to defend the indefensible. The comprehensive failure of George Osborne's budgets has forced the independent Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) to revise up its forecasts for the claimant count by a third of a million. That's pushed up welfare spending by an eye-watering £13bn. To pay that bill, IDS has been asked to push through a strivers' tax - more than 60 per cent of which will come from working families -  on top of the £14bn already removed from tax credits, while Britain's richest citizens get a £3bn a year tax break.

It’s unjustifiable. And IDS knows it. So this week, we've had a very muddled attempt to make up some kind of case.

First, we had a made-up story that tax credit fraud had jumped by 58 per cent. This claim lasted about as long as it took Channel 4's FactCheck to gently point out, that IDS couldn't actually add up and the sums were wrong. Then we had a new line of attack. Benefits are rising faster than earnings. Except they're not. In the last ten years wages have risen faster than Jobseeker's Allowance, and the OBR tells us wages will power ahead of inflation in the next four years.

Then Nick Clegg tried to claim Labour was being inconsistent to low paid public service workers. We back a 1 per cent pay freeze, so why not a 1 per cent benefits cap? Because we've always said that 1 per cent should be an average with a tougher squeeze for the best paid public servants to fund higher pay rises for the lowest paid.

It's all fairly desperate stuff from a government that's trying at all costs to avoid admitting that the lion's share of the savings will come from working families' tax credits. So the real question in next week's debate is this: how can the government justify cutting working families' tax credits to pay for their failure to get Britain back to work - when millionaires are being given a tax cut? Right now working people are being hit with a double whammy. Wages are stagnant and tax credits are being slashed whilst at the same time the cost of living goes through the roof as anyone who boarded a train today will tell you.

The basic truth that IDS won't confront is simple. The best way to get welfare spending down is to get Britain back to work. But his much vaunted welfare revolution is in tatters. The Work Programme is literally worse than doing nothing. Universal Credit is beset with IT problems and has already been raided to pay for rising dole bills. Now the benefit cap is being pushed to the back end of the year because it’s a mess. Next week's Welfare Uprating Bill does nothing to address any of this. It does nothing to create a single new job.

More than half of the people currently out of work have been so for more than six months but the government isn’t lifting a finger to help. The Youth Contract is nowhere to be seen and the all too predictable result is youth unemployment still hovering around a million. That's why this government should be looking at far more concerted action to get Britain back to work with ideas like Labour's proposed tax on bankers' bonuses to create a fund big enough to get over 100,000 young people back into jobs.

There will plenty more smoke and mirrors from the government over the coming months but they can't disguise the reality of this Bill. It is a strivers’ tax which hammers hardworking families. The vast majority of the households hit are in work. Those are the people this government wants to cover the cost of their failure whilst 8,000 millionaires receive a tax cut worth an average of £107,500. If this government wants a battle over fairness whilst they are taking from hardworking families to fund a tax cut for the wealthiest, Labour is ready to take it on.

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Welfare Cuts Row, Lies and ‘Statistics’

“The political row over welfare cuts has continued as the Tories and Labour traded statistics a week ahead of a Commons vote on plans to impose a real-terms benefits cut.

Work and Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan Smith hailed figures showing that “many working-age benefits” had risen by 20% since 2007, easily outstripping a 12% rise in private sector pay. Increases had cost the taxpayer £6.3 billion since the start of the 2008 recession, he said in a defence of the squeeze announced by Chancellor George Osborne last month.

But the Opposition, which has pledged to oppose the move, produced its own analysis suggesting that Jobseeker’s Allowance (JSA) had risen by less than earnings over the past decade.

Legislation will break the traditional link between benefit rises and inflation. Instead there will be a three-year cap of 1%, well below the expected rise in the cost of living, on most working-age benefits and tax credits for three years from 2013/14. Child benefit, housing benefit and Universal Credit will be capped for two years from 2014/15. The restriction is predicted to save the Government almost £2.4 billion by the 2015 general election and a further £11.8 billion in the three years after it. More here.

The following points should be borne in mind.

• The Benefit rates, for, say, JSA, are not comparable to wages. They are the absolute minimum you are designated necessary to live on.  Anybody on benefits knows that the claim that they have been ‘outstripping’ private pay is a piffle. Or put more directly, a lie. When people have to think twice about taking a bus, when they are unable to eat properly, when they have a hard time paying utility bills (and many default), they are not in some kind of privileged position. Many low-paid workers also rely on benefits to top up their wages. They will be hit with these changes as well.
• The Liberal-Tory Coalition has introduced a scheme to make people on benefits pay a part of the Council Tax. Every council is, now, having to find ways of implementing this, setting the rate, and how to find the extra money to collect widows’ mites and paupers’ coins. This could mean claimants having to fork out an extra couple of hundred a year. Councils trying to reduce this impact have been told by Eric Pickles to redesign their schemes to make the poor pay more.

Here is what the far-from left-wing Public Finance journal says of Localised Council Tax Support,

The change to locally run council tax benefit schemes could ‘seriously undermine’ the government’s welfare reforms, MPs have warned.

It is one of several flaws and contradictions in the plan to simplify the benefits system through a single Universal Credit, the Commons work and pensions select committee said today.

‘The decision to localise council tax schemes under a proliferation of local schemes, rather than including it in Universal Credit’, would ‘work against the objective of simplification’, the MPs said. It would introduce local variation, add complexity and otherwise undermine the objectives of the single benefit.

In a detailed and wide-ranging report, the MPs said they were also concerned that the shift to an online claims system and a single monthly payment for the Universal Credit would harm some vulnerable claimants.

Committee chair Anne Begg said: ‘The measures the government plans to put in place to help these claimants may be difficult to access and too slow in identifying who these people are, with the risk that they will fall into debt and hardship before extra support can be provided.’

Ian Duncan Smith is very fond of talking about making the out-of-work look for jobs.

His mate George Osborne talked of the  unemployed, “with their curtains closed, sleeping off a life on benefits.”

The true test of being reluctant to work is, as William Beveridge is reported to have said, is to offer someone a waged job.

We note that all these ‘make the workshy get a job’ schemes, from the Work programme onwards, do not in fact offer people paid work.

They make you ‘job search’.

But where’s the jobs?

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