Misuse of Evidence: Incapacity benefit reform

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FionaK
view post Posted on 26/5/2011, 13:04




www.lwbooks.co.uk/journals/sounding...47griffiths.pdf

The linked paper is a comprehensive review of the evidence underpinning the policies adopted by both Tory and Labour governments with respect to the long term sick and their benefits. As the paper notes, the political aim was set first: and the evidence came afterwards. This is another example of the attack on the poor and it is an important one: in the past we could at least rely on the horrible distinction between the "deserving" and the "undeserving" poor to protect some groups from that attack: the chronically ill was one of those groups. But as the drive to enrich the rest by reducing responsibility for the most vulnerable gathered pace that changed: and there was a concerted propaganda campaign in the press to paint those on incapacity benefit as "workshy" or, at best, exploiting differential benefits rates by taking sickness payments instead of the lower unemployment rates

The paper shows that the policy is justified by false information; and that those who supply that information have vested interests in the findings of their research which render them suspect. In addition there is a great body of impartial research which shows that the information is false: but that research has been ignored despite being available and presented when "consultation" exercises have been held. The government's own research on other aspects of health care is part of what is available: and part of what is ignored. This is clearly not policy driven by evidence: it is ideology coupled with cost cutting. And it kills people.

In addition to a dishonest policy there is dishonest implementation. This arises from the fact that the test for capacity to work has been contracted out to a private company. The test is not fit for purpose, but it does deliver the assessments which were predicted on the basis of flawed assumptions in 2005. One might argue that this shows that the assumptions were correct and vindicated by the outcomes: were it not for the fact that 35% of the decisions based on those assessments are overturned on appeal. Not everone who has been wrongly found fit for work will appeal, of course. The author goes too far in making an estimate of the numbers that might involve because we cannot know. But 35% is enough: as he says: if 35% of convictions for criminal activity were overturned on appeal we would realise that the courts were not functioning at an acceptable level. The same applies here.

I was pleased to read this article as it takes one small part of the welfare state and shows the effect of the political climate we currently endorse: the same processes go on in many areas and it is time that these issues were honestly debated. At present the decisions which blight people's lives are driven through on the basis of ideology and the facts which should inform the decisions are ignored through what the author calls "lack of engagement with critical discourse". The culpability and collusion of the press is also significant.

Edited by FionaK - 26/5/2011, 13:24
 
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FionaK
view post Posted on 4/7/2011, 15:50




Yesterday the Observer published a letter from Eric Pickles PS to David Cameron's PS. This is the normal route for a cabinet minister to communicate formallywith a Prime Minister, so the letter is official, though private.

The background isa populist policy which the government has drafted into legislation. It plays on the "divide and rule" theme and it aims to ensure that no-one can be better off on benefits than they are in work.This is fuelled by horrific headlines showing "welfare mothers" who are on double the average wage through benefits payments and who take holidays abroad and do other irresponsible things which seem to show they are neither humble nor grateful. Obviously this can't go on when "hard working families" cannot afford such things. And the answer is, as ever, to level down.

The way the government has chosen to do this is to put an absolute cap on the amount a family can receive in benefits, regardless of their circumstances. They skate over the fact that a great deal of the money is never seen by these famiies: it goes to their landlords in the form of housing benefit. That is, in turn, predicated on housing policy. Council houses have been reduced to well below the minimum required: families cannot buy houses so they are forced into the private rented sector. The housing bubble, which the shortage of houses and the availablility of credit engendered, means that houses for rent come at a very high price indeed. Local authorities, which have responsibility for housing the homeless, no longer have stock of their own for that purpose; and so they have to rent from those landlords in order to meet their obligations. Some of those landlords are private individuals and some are quite big companies: but they are all private and so this is another transfer of money from the taxpayer directly into the pockets of those who least need tihs "welfare handout". Because that is what it is. We never see headlines about the excess welfare payments to them though: even though the poor, acting as the middle man and pilloried for that role, are condemned for their part in all of this.

People who know about benefits and poverty, like Shelter, the homeless charity, for example, have criticised this absurd policy since it was first mooted. They have been dismissed as have the local authorities who have also expressed concern. The answer to their concerns, no matter how well-reasoned, amounts to "well they would say that, wouldn't they" and hand waved away. Nobody much cares.

But Eric Pickles is a cabinet minister. He says that this policy, together with other "reforms", will drive another 40,000 families into homelessness. He says that the policy will not save money, as the government claims: it will cost more instead. He is in a position to know: he is responsible for the department directly concerned

Pickles wrote this letter in January. Since then a succession of ministers have lied to parliament over the issue: they have denied that this will happen; they have claimed they have no figures for the increase in homelessness; they have said that the policy has not led to an increase in homelessness (which is not surprising since it is not yet law), and so the points made are not valid. They have said a lot of things and none of them are true.

This, once again, is evidence that their policies are driven by ideology and not by the "realism" they claim. They don't care about saving public money, though they say that is a prime concern. They don't care that real families will be driven to desperation through homelessness. They don't care that it will push many more families in to real poverty, including the children of those families. They don't care that it will have an adverse effect on their education because they will have to change schools and friends, probably more than once. They dont care that homeless accommodation is often substandard and unfit for families to live in. And according to Pickles' letter this policy will prevent the construction of suitable affordable housing because developers will not be able to command rents which will make it worth their while to build. They don't care about that either.

I say it is ideological: and it is. But it also practical: because it will ensure that more public money will flow into the pockets of rich people for no good reason. People who are already wealthy. Like the bankers and many others these people are the "welfare queens" by any other name. If we really want to froth at the mouth over abuse of public money should we not be directing that indignation where it belongs?
 
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FionaK
view post Posted on 12/10/2011, 14:22




Today I had to go for a "medical assessment"

In the past there was a distinction drawn between being sick and being disabled: and the benefits were different dependng on which you were. But the new system does not recognise that: the whole thrust has been changed and that is described in "hurrah" terms which serve to disguise what is really happening. It is quite instructive to look at the process, I think.

As some of you know, I broke my shoulder some time ago. I did not know it was broken for some weeks and so I was not doing the right things: so it is taking a long time to heal and I am still in a lot of pain from it. So I can't work at my normal job, in particular because I can't drive. In my job I have to do a lot of mileage even after I get there: and most of the work is quite far from where I live as well. So that is pretty much ruled out, for now.

So I had to claim the new sickness benefit. I can't even remember what they call it at present, because they keep changing our benefits: every time they change them they make them worse: and they give them a new name.

So now I have been claiming this too long (about 3 months, I think). And so I have to have one of these medicals. Bear in mind that my GP has seen me regularly and thinks I cannot work, so he signs a certificate to say that each time I see him. The consultant at the hospital identified that it was broken and considered it will take weeks or months to get better: he gave me an appointment for December because he is not expecting great progress any sooner. I attend a physiotherapist fortnightly and she gives me daft exercises to do. She insists i keep taking a lot of painkillers cos I can't do these exercises without them: and they dont make me feel all that great actually. But hey ho.

None of these people are to be trusted it seems: Atos are the people who can determne whether I should get any benefit because of this. So Atos have to give me their test and that was today

The first thing that happens is they send you a letter. It tells you you have an appointment and where and when. In great big letters it tells you that if you fail to attend your benefit will stop. It also includes personalised directions for getting there. You might think that is a courtesy: but the directions are actually incomprehensible. They are only there so that if you turn up late you can be penalised and you cannot say you got lost, because they sent you directions. I very much doubt that would stick if you challlenged it because you had absolutely no chance of finding the place if you relied on them. There is also the subtle insult conveyed by the assumption that you cannot find your way to a street in the centre of your own city; and cannot lift the phone or look online or on a map if you don't happen to know where it is. That part is an ongoing theme of implied stupidity or incompetence that pervades the whole benefit system now. You are by definition an idiot or a fraud if you are looking for help from the state, and it shrieks out of everything they do.

My appointment was for 8:45 in the morning. That tells you something too. It tells you that the people who work there have crap jobs. Flexitime working is quite common now, and it is actually good in some ways if you don't work directly with the public: it gives at least some autonomy to the worker and that is associated with a little more job satisfaction. But if you work directly with the public flexitime does not work unless there are no appointments before the core hours start. So this is not flexitime. To understand the significance of that you have to know that he default hours in office jobs in the uk used to be 9-5. In factories and in manual jobs it was more often a shift pattern so you would work 6 am - 2pm; 2 -10; and a night shift would usually be 10-6. Factory workers had lower status and less security: though often higher pay. The structure of working class life was full of such distinctions and tradeoffs. They mattered to people. Regular and reasonable hours are part of what people aspire to: nobody really likes shifts and in the past they were not imposed unless there was a good reason for them. 24 hour factory prodcuction was one: hospital and emergency services were another. But what possible reason is there for opening this office before 9 am? It is not important in the scheme of things and so you would not fight about it: but it carries a subtle message for the workers there. It is also extremely inconvenient for the public scroungers who are called to attend: schools here don't start till 9 am: so if you happen to have children to get out to school before you can go, you have to make special arrangements: which is just more low level harassment. I am aware that the patterns of work vary between countries and so that will not perhaps seem important to many here: but it is important for the messages it sends both to the workers and to the client group.

Anyway I got there, and with my letter, as instructed. And with my "form of ID" to prove who I am. Once again you have to understand the implications of that. People in this country are deeply opposed to carrying ID. That may not make sense to you if you are from a country where it is taken for granted. But take my word for it it is not ok here. Successive governments have been determinedly trying to introduce universal ID for decades: with a different excuse every time. It has been resisted and they have not succeeded yet: but they are making ID of some form a requirement for all services: eventually it is going to be such a hassle the resistance will melt in face of the nuisance value. So I had to take ID with me. Remember, they wrote to me: with my details and in the full knowledge that I had already been required to prove who I am when I made the claim in the first place. I suppose they imagine that I can make a fraudulent claim with the collusion of the GP, and the consultant, and the physiotherapist: and then capture someone who really has got a broken shoulder, and who is of similar age, and the same gender, off the street and talk them into going along in my place when they call me for a medical. Happens all the time, I am sure. And a person who could do all that could NEVER go the extra mile and get a false form of ID for that random broken shouldered person, now could they?

So I get there and hand in my letter at the desk to a woman in a really policey uniform who is sitting in the foyer. And I show her my id and she writes down what it is with the number. She tells me to go to the second floor and so I do.

On the second floor there is a desk with three blokes behind it: and a waiting area with a lot of chairs. And on our side of the desk is a "guy in a suit". The "guy in a suit" is hampering the guys behind the desk. They are seeing folk as they arrive and there is not much delay, so folk are standing in a small queue: it is what brits do: we form queues. And the queue is obvious since the end of it is just inside the door. I am a brit so I see a queue and I join it. But "guy in a suit" is trying to hand out tickets and make folk sit down and wait for their number to be called. And "guy in a suit" is on the other side of the room. So everytime someone comes in they join this obstinate queue: and "guy in a suit" walks through the folk who are standing there and gives the last person a ticket and tells them to sit down. So they do. But while they are doing it one of the three guys comes free. Not everybody has a ticket, cos of all the confusion: so the bloke behind the counter doesn't call out a number: he just looks at the person on our side who is closest and smiles: then "guy in a suit" gets in everybody's way again while he goes over to tell the bloke behind the counter that he should call out a number. So the bloke behind the counter apologises to the applicant he just started to deal with, and he calls out a number: and someone else goes up to start the process. And the guy who just came in gets a ticket. There is nothing to indicate a ticketing system is in place: no machine to get one from, for example. In any case supermaket deli counters tried this system here a long time ago: they abandoned it for some reason, and quite quickly. That is because it does not work and people don't like it. But why would that stop these clowns: it is another subtly dehumanising move IMO. But mostly it doesn't work.

So I get a ticket and before I can sit down my numbe is called: and I go to the desk. The man at the desk has three jobs. He has to fill in a form with he details of my ID and get me to sign it. He has to walk to the other side of the room and lift my file from the cupboard. And he has to ask me if I have incurred any cost getting there. In the past, given the poverty level of benefits in payment, expenses were handed over then and there: we are talking busfares here, people! But not anymore. Now they will pay them into your bank if you have your bank details with you. They never said that you should bring them, mind. Otherwise they will send you a giro (which is a kind of check). So for the princely sum of £2.40 they incur what cost for reimbusement? And this makes sense, how, exactly? Folk can't afford to lay out money (which will never be a lot but may be quite a bit higher than mine) then wait for reimbursement: and which master criminal is going to hold up this office for what amounts to petty cash? But again it serves to cause some hassle and to humiliate those who are genuinely struggling in poverty and for whome the outlay is a real difficulty. Who wants to have to make a fuss about a couple of quid? It is embarrassing.

Anyway we get through all of that and then I sit down in another part of the room: and wait. I want a drink of water, but although there is a water cooler there is no water in it. Replacement water is sitting just beside it. But it is not "guy in a suit's " job to swop them, presumably. So I forget that and sit down again. And wait. Not too long. Then one of the blokes behind the counter gets a change of scene, which is nice for him. He gets to come out from behind the counter with my file and two others. He calls our names (note the number is no longer in play cos we have proved who we are, or for some other reason) and sets off like the pied piper with us in tow. To the lift and back to the ground floor: where we get put in another waiting room.

One of the things I notice in this room is there are people who are there for their medical, like me: maybe 10 of us. And oddly enough two of the three blokes who were behind the counter upstairs are there too. They are sitting on the same seats as we are: the seats are in rows. And one of them is reading the paper and the other is texting. They are on their break! In the waiting room with the rest of us. Perhaps they really like our company? Or just maybe they don't have a break room. In every job I know that involves dealing with the public the staff need some time out in a private place where they can swear about the customers or let off steam about the boss. But not in this place: they are basically still working while on their break: cos they are still on show.

Eventually I get called in for the medical. The lady is a doctor ( the ones doing these medicals are described as "health care professionals", so they are not all doctors: they can be nurses and I don't know what else. ). She is Spanish as it happens. Very smiley. She takes me into a room and sits me at a desk so that she is nearer the door than I am: well that makes sense. I might attack her. I do that myself when I am working, if I remember.

She has a computer and she goes through her list of questions. No surprises there: I know what they are and what they are about. Basically the rules are that if I am less disabled than Stephen Hawkins I am not going to get benefit. It is stilll an insult." How did I get here today?". means: If you have walked more than 200 metres you get no points for mobility and if I ask you that directly you might lie: so I will do it obliquely and since you don't know the significance of what I am asking you will chat and tell me you fail this test in the course of that. It is all like that. There is no explanation of what the rules are, or what you have to establish: it is deeply dishonest. But I only know that cos of my job: most folk don't. This process takes about 20 minutes.

She then gives me a couple of things to try and do with my arms: and that takes about 2 minutes: cos the actual pain and stuff is irrelevant cos I have already failed the questions: not her fault: you really need to be profoundly disabled to pass this test and I am not.

And we are done. At the end I asked here why she was doing such an unrewarding job, given she is a doctor and trained for years. She told me that she prefers to spend time with her children and the hours suit her. Fair enough: but is this really a good way to use all that training and expertise? I don't think so


 
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Helenagain
view post Posted on 12/10/2011, 16:55




I don't know what to say. I really am stumped for words by so many aspects of this. Most of all of course the attitude to the public, sorry, meant to say the thieves and the conmen, but also towards the people who for some reason or other have to work there. No break room, even?

The waste of time and resources seems staggering. And the treatment of all you thieves and conmen indefensible. It's strange, though, who do they think supplies the money that they are there to deny you? The fairies at the bottom of the garden? or you? I thought that was the whole idea of taxes. We pay them, so that we will be taken care of, when ten need arises.

Yes, I know, I am naive.
 
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view post Posted on 12/10/2011, 18:52
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Kafka.
Brazil.

Hmmm... Trying to decide which fiction became a reality.
 
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FionaK
view post Posted on 16/10/2011, 12:43




http://diaryofabenefitscrounger.blogspot.c...e.html?spref=tw

Just for a flavour of what is happening to people who, unlike me, are permanently ill or disabled.
 
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FionaK
view post Posted on 18/10/2011, 15:36




http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/joepubli...ants-harassment

Another article about the working of this system, with particular reference to the terminally ill: but the author also draws attention to the underlying change in attitude towards benefits claimants and points up that it is shared all three mainstream parties. Once again there is no alternative and if this is important to you you you are effectively disenfranchised
 
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FionaK
view post Posted on 19/10/2011, 21:10




This is also about the ATOS assessment. In Croydon wheelchair users have been banned from using the lifts in the building where the tests are done - on the first floor. It is good that the writer has drawn attention to this but I do not think he or the disability representatives quoted really understand the implications. In many cases, where the claim is related to restricted mobility, the fact of getting into the test will in fact prevent a successful claim. That will not be true of wheelchair users normally: it will be true of those who can walk but with great difficulty: this is far more serious than it is "ludicrous"

http://www.dpac.uk.net/2011/10/disabled-be...essment-centre/
 
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FionaK
view post Posted on 22/10/2011, 10:47




The various voluntary and charity groups have united because of the government's policies on support for disabled people. There are to be protest rallies all over the uk today. I cannot remember a large scale protest of this sort by disabled people before this year, so I think that shows the spokesman's denial of the impact is just more spin.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-15399724
 
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Helenagain
view post Posted on 29/10/2011, 12:44




Fiona, if you would tell us, what was the outcome of this medical for you?
 
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FionaK
view post Posted on 29/10/2011, 12:59




You have to score 15 points: I didn't score any. So I am not eligible for benefit. I have to get a job. Any job. I got the letter yesterday.

Interestingly, the letter i got is the "reason for decision". It states that they sent me a letter giving the actual decision: they didn't. So I phoned them. They told me that the letters were sent out on the same day in different envelopes. Efficiency is not really their middle name, but we knew that. But that matters, because it is the letter I did not get which tells you there is a right of appeal: and if you did not know there is such a right you would be none the wiser if you only got the one I received. The call center guy was nice enough: he says he will send another one out.

There is no part of this process that makes any sense if you imagine that it is designed to help people: not in its terms or in its practical application. If the aim is just to save money it is not as good as it might be: two letters on the same day about the same thing is not the cheapest way to communicate, obviously. But if the aim is to humiliate, harass and demoralise people it is fuckiing excellent!!
 
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Helenagain
view post Posted on 29/10/2011, 13:05




it really is unbelievable.

And how could you not score any of the points with a broken shoulder? What do you have to be, dead?
 
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FionaK
view post Posted on 29/10/2011, 14:02




It is carefully designed to focus on your "strengths", Helen. It was very detrimental to sick and disabled people to be looking at what they can't do. Disrespectful, really. I will give you a indication of the test results to show you how this is: the reasons for decision is a list of things tested in one column called "Functional Area"; and "Our Assessment" beside it in another.

So

Moving around: You can move more than 200 metres on flat ground (moving could
include walking, using crutches, or using a wheelchair.

Standing or sitting: You can usually stay in one place (either standing or sitting) for more
than an hour without having to move away

Reaching: You can raise at least one of your arms above head height

Picking things up: You can pick up and move objects such as an empty cardboard box or
a carton of liquid

Using your hands: You can use a computer keyboard or a mouse and a pen or a pencil
with at least one hand

Speakng, writing and typing: You can convey a simple message to strangers



It goes on like that: the assessment part tells you what you need to not be able to do in order to get any points. Stephen Hawking can work, remember!!
 
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Helenagain
view post Posted on 29/10/2011, 14:07




I see. Dead, then. I love how you aren't disabled if you can move 200 metres on flat ground in a wheel chair.

You know what? My mother would hardly have scored any points, even in the months before she died.

But I do love the Newspeak. Yes of course it is disresepctful to imply that you may perhaps be slightly hindered by having a broken shoulder. How could I?
 
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view post Posted on 30/10/2011, 00:31
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This is great news Fiona! You can do everything!

You should apply for an extremely high paying job with a flawless record like that one.
 
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36 replies since 26/5/2011, 13:04   830 views
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