Crosspost from Disabled People Against Cuts – please share and send responses to DPAC at @Dis_PPL_Protest and mail@dpac.uk.net:

From DPAC:

“We are getting information that people in the ESA Support Group are being required by JobCentre Plus offices to attend work focused interviews, under threat of benefits being withdrawn if you don’t go.

According to the DWP webpage, if you are in the Support Group “you don’t have to go to interviews, but you can ask to talk to a personal adviser,“ which should mean that they cannot require you to attend.

We are going to look closely at this and do whatever we can to get this stopped, but in order to do that we first need to gather information about how widespread this is, which areas it is happening in and how long it has been going on.

So we are asking for people to come forward if you are in the ESA Support Group and have been contacted by your Jobcentre to attend an interview, we would really like to hear from you, please email us at mail@dpac.uk.net and we will get back to you

We will never disclose your name or personal information without your permission, but we may ask you if we can use your case to campaign against this. If you say no to this we will not use the information in any way, and your information will still help us to understand what is happening.”

DPAC has a template letter you can use if you receive a letter from the jobcentre about one of these interviews. You can find the template here.

From the PCS:

DWP management target sick, disabled and vulnerable benefit claimants
Over the next 24 hours DWP management will ‘invite’ close on 2,000 benefit claimants from Birmingham to attend interviews, with a goal of getting at least 10% off the benefit register.

The group of benefit claimants being targeted are in the majority waiting for assessments to decide if they are able to be deemed ‘fit for work’. (The assessment formerly and controversially run by ATOS). Those waiting assessments are often disabled or vulnerable adults.

The ‘invitation’ letter issued makes no suggestion that the attendance to these interviews is purely voluntary, indeed DWP staff in Birmingham (and Central England) have been advised verbally and by email from management to keep it to themselves that attendance to these interviews is not mandatory. One manager in a city based office was overheard saying that the way to deal with these claimants is to ‘hassle, hassle them off benefit’.

Andrew Lloyd, PCS Midlands regional secretary that represents DWP staff said, “It is outrageous that the DWP are duping the most vulnerable by issuing this letter, and then worse still setting a target to get those off benefits, it could be argued that this approach is unlawful. Our members are totally opposed to this approach but are faced with inferred disciplinary action unless they act upon these targets.”