Readers of this site will remember that a couple of weeks ago, I posted questions about people’s right to record and film face-to-face assessments as they go through the work capability assessments that are to be run by Maximus.
I wanted to know if Maximus will allow people to record their face-to-face assessments on their phones or any recording gear that they have – from the point when Maximus takes over the grisly WCA process. I also had other questions, which I put to Maximus last week. I’ve listed these questions below, along with the answers I got back (perhaps I should say “answers”). I had to lean on Maximus’ US office for a response in the first instance, but got one of sorts in the end.
Needless to say, the entire exercise was a complete waste of time. You’ll see below that the responses give us five-eighths of fuck all as far as concrete information, timelines and/or actual process detail is concerned. No surprise there, of course – but I thought I’d post the responses anyway, because I think there is merit in highlighting the PR guff and detail-free twattery that Maximus has decided to specialise in when it comes to this contract. There’s also a dismissive aspect to a lot of the language, which you might find illuminating – a sort of “we’ll do things at our pace and you lot can wait” – air which nettled me badly. It should get on your nerves, too.
This sort of thing, for example:
“Change cannot occur overnight”
“[We] will take forward this and other ideas to the Department for their consideration”
“I am unable to comment on such speculation,” when I raised a perfectly valid point about Maximus’ view of the future of the ESA Support Group.
Sue Marsh actually got in touch with me after the press office did to say that I could speak with her, because my questions “come under her job,” but that attempt at overture got right up my nose, as well. For one thing – if Sue Marsh is the person who is best placed to answer questions in the sort of details required, then the Maximus press office should go to her for those answers before responding to whoever asked them. It’s not my job to sweep together Maximus’ various outputs on its own assessment processes as and when those outputs drop out of different holes, or to wait around for the responses that Maximus feels it has best finessed. For another thing – I can’t see myself responding well to any aspect of the many-pronged charm offensive that Maximus has launched in its sorry and very costly attempt to sculpt and polish the WCA turd. Let’s face it – any company that comes out with a phrase like “more touch, more communication,” apparently in all seriousness, should not be encouraged to contribute further to any dialogue on any topic, or to remain involved in any process where people require something better than bullshit. It’s my view that in a general sense, any company that speaks lines like “more touch, more communication,” needs a smack in the soft parts right there.
Anyway.
Here are the sorts of responses you get if you ask Maximus questions about recording face-to-face assessments, or about support for people with mental health conditions as they go through WCAs, or whether or not Maximus would bid for contracts to “provide” work-focused activity for people in the ESA support group if people in SG are ever pushed into such activity. I just want to give you a feel for the sort of Jog On contempt that those who ask for actual details about processes are treated with.
Opening response from Maximus:
“We are firmly focussed on managing a stable transition for next week. Naturally when we are up and running we will want to introduce innovative changes to the customer experience but they have to be done with DWP consent and change cannot occur overnight.”
Well – that’s a Fuck Off if I ever heard one (and I’ve heard plenty of them). I think it’s the “Naturally” that makes me want to punch the screen when I re-read that effort. May I say that I’ve had enough of the phrase “Customer experience” as well. People who must go through the work capability assessment are not “customers.” They’re not wafting around a pick and mix display, or selecting iphones from a catalogue. They’re sick and disabled people who must endure an outsourced assessment process at the hands of voracious private companies that are in turn hired by governments which are absolutely intent on selling the idea that everyone on a benefit is a scrounger. There’s no customer choice or shopping around going on here. The government is the customer – not the people who the assessment process is inflicted on.
Ho hum. Here are the questions and answers, then. Short and not particularly sweet, etc:
Recording face-to-face assessments:
My question:
“Re: the recording and filming of WCA face-to-face assessments. Will Maximus permit the audio recording and filming of WCA face-to-face assessments? If so, how will assessment recordings operate? Will people be able to record and film their assessments using their own recorders and cameras? This is an important point for people going through WCAs – without a recorded file of their assessment, there is little transparency of the face to face aspect of the process in particular. The DWP and Atos were challenged by lawyers on this point and forced to change protocol.”
Maximus response:
“In respect of recordings we are studying this and will take forward this and other ideas to the Department for their consideration. We agree there are merits to this change, but there are other considerations as well, including the potential for the customer to be potentially constrained because some people are shy when being recorded. We want to ensure customers feel as comfortable through this process as possible, so all of these factors must be considered.”
Right. As it happens, a simple Yes or No would have sufficed here. Maximus could instruct its assessors that from of the start of the contract, people can record and film their assessments on their own recording gear if they want to, or bring someone along to do that (as I’ve said before, I’ll do it anyway. The hell with it). When Atos was in charge of this shambles, people had to ask for a change of appointment until they could get one with an assessor who was prepared to be recorded and where the dual recorders that Atos and the DWP insisted on were available. As for “the potential for the customer to be potentially constrained because some people are shy when being recorded” – I would have thought the answer to that one was simple. People – sorry, “Customers” – don’t have to record their assessments if they don’t want their assessments recorded. Naturally.
I can’t believe we’re still talking about this after all these years. Surely there is a limit to the number of times that the DWP and its providers can arse about on this subject? I’m also unclear on the basics here. Can people still ask for a recording to be made on official equipment? Does Maximus have enough equipment to meet demand?
Next up was:
My question: assessments for mental health claimants:
I asked: “What protocols and guidance will Maximus have in place for assessments for people with mental health conditions? Atos came in for considerable criticism regarding its failure to accurately assess ESA claimants with mental health conditions. Could we discuss the structures that Maximus will have in place and the training that assessors who conduct assessments for mental health claimants will have?”
Maximus response:
“With regard to assessing claimants with MH conditions we have established a Customer Representative Group with MH charities on this. One of the group activities will be to review training materials so that they better reflect MH issues. We are also review the use and numbers of MH champions in the business as well as employing OTs who often have extensive experience at supporting people with MH issues in work and life.”
You can understand why I found this underwhelming – ie barely worth reading. I suppose that I was hoping for something a little more robust and detailed than plans for reviews, and more chat and roundtables with, presumably, the usual charities. I wrote extensively on Atos’ evasiveness on the work and effectiveness of these so-called Mental Function Champions (and found at the time that Atos didn’t report to the DWP on the performance or otherwise of those “champions.”) Just a little history on the sorts of shenanigans you can get on this topic: In 2012, Mark Hoban told parliament that “we have introduced a mental health champion in every single assessment centre throughout the country.” Actually, he hadn’t. The DWP told me that 60 mental function champions were in place and that they largely worked a phone advice line. A group of us had to work for months to get Atos and the DWP to agree to a meeting about the WCA and these “champions” with charity workers from a couple of small, independent mental health charities – ie the kind of organisations that weren’t generally invited to roundtables or to share their views on the DWP and Atos with the DWP and Atos. The whole thing was a total pile and to this day I speak with people who have mental health conditions and talk about suicide when discussing their next WCA. Why people can’t simply be assessed by their own GPs and support teams is beyond me (and that goes for all sick and disabled people who need benefits. The WCA isn’t required at all – unless, of course, your aim is to push the idea that work for all is great and that people who receive benefits shouldn’t).
Moving on:
My question: the future of the ESA Support Group:
I asked: “There have been reports of people placed in the ESA Support Group receiving letters from jobcentres calling them to work-focused interviews. Would Maximus consider bidding for any contract to provide welfare-to-work or work programme-type schemes if the government decides that people in the Support Group should engage in work-focused activity?”
Maximus response:
The company simply said that it was unable to comment on such speculation.
To which I say – Bollocks. I asked a perfectly legitimate question about Maximus’ view of the future of the Support Group. As Benefits and Work explains: “the ESA support group is for claimants who the DWP consider to have such severe health problems that there is no current prospect of their being able to undertake work or work-related activities.” So. Either Maximus respects the idea of the integrity of a support group which exists for people who are exempt from work and work-focused activity, or it doesn’t. If it does respect that idea, it won’t consider bidding for any future contracts for work-focused activity for people in the Support Group, if that is a line that the government decides to pursue. Which the government will. It already has. The DWP already sends letters to people in the support group asking them to attended work-focused interviews. Simple as that really.
Anyway – that’s Maximus. Not a lot of joy there. Perhaps I will try putting these questions to them again during next week’s day of #scrapWCA action. Details of activities here.
fid you real think otherwise they would give valued answers to your questione it doesnt bore well has you only look to america were its name isnt good and getting em to allow recordings they do everything possible not to has we now it holds the lies back a little bit but then sueuy has risen just like lazerath who came back but realy she was in sg that alone should answer your question on sg has now they can with rtu ids sayso go after those in the sg has sueuy shown she got maximus to work for her ouch i see a bad moon arisen has this woman has done to much damage to the sg jeff3
Like all what I call skeletal companies like Atos, G4S, etc., Maximus are basically like an empty, faceless structure through which to extricate the highest profit while paying staff as little as possible and offering the most basic service they can get away with. In other words they aren’t like the companies which our mothers and fathers grew up knowing – which, while they aimed at profit, did I believe have some lines they would not cross. The amount of services run by, and the companies owned by, G4S, Atos, etc., is astounding. They are taking over. They are the ‘face’ of the faceless corporatism we have today. And Maximus’s responses here don’t surprise me; they are merely a reflecting of this type of modern faceless company.
Very interesting of who and what Maximus are going to be.
Sue Maximarsh didn’t have any answers to these fundamental WCA questions? It’s almost as if she’s a posterchild PR stunt.
training footage of healtcare professionals https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5qm7jU5R6CQ
I would think that for the moment the same procedures will be in place with regard to audio recording – which has always been legal with certain caveats; I was the first one to do so with my own equipment since I held a degree. I say this because the reply that you received showed that they are as yet finding their feet, but also, as the right was already established – albeit one you had to insist on – I can’t see how they can suddenly then turn around and say this isn’t permissible.
As for the other issues, I would say the same. At present, the WCA has not had a massive overhaul in this regard. The same rules apply with regard to regulations there to protect the disabled physically and those with MH problems who may not make it into the support group but who can be placed in their if there would be significant harm if not placed in the support group.
It must be extremely difficult for people like yourself who are advisers and advocates no knowing how this is going to work, but I presume that the same software programme is being used to deliver the WCA it’s just a replacement company, which is probably going to be as bad or worse than Atos! No doubt that factor will become established as time goes on and they’ll be just as ‘transparent’ as they have been with your initial questions.
It’s very worrying for all of us affected. Them being nicer to you with their new ‘customer experience’ when they remove your benefits seems much more sinister somehow!
That’s the point though. If things are the same going into the start of the contract – why not simply say that? I asked how assessment recordings would operate – why not simply say “they’ll operate like they do now?” I don’t see why anyone who must use this system should have to wait or not know how it’s going to work. I’ll also don’t understand why a journalist who puts a handful of very straight questions to a company has to put up with getting this sort of fluff back from a press office. It’s finessing and evasiveness almost for the hell of it. I found the whole thing extremely dismissive. Why do we have to sit back passively and wait for Maximus to tell us what it’s going to do?
Hi, Kate
Your mention of Sue Marsh in this blog was the first that I’d heard of ‘Diary of a Benefit Scrounger’ author as a Maximus payroll person.
Digging deeper by way of Internet search, I came across Opinions Please on her blog from 8 November 2014:
“My very first tweet about Maximus last week elicited an almost immediate email from their PR director asking to meet me for a “chat”. He spent several paragraphs persuading me that Maximus in the UK was an entirely separate company to the Maximus in the US so roundly exposed by the dedicated disability journalist John Pring….”
The Maximus PR offensive, indeed!
Dude Swheatie of Kwug
…Readers of this site will remember that a couple of weeks ago, I posted questions about people’s right to record and film face-to-face assessments as they go through the work capability assessments that are to be run by Maximus. …
In criminal law, an alleged criminal has the right to a copy of video interview, the transcript of the video interview, copies of statements made to prosecure him/her and has legal aid for a professional legal expert.
So claimants have less rights against a company acting for the state, than an alleged criminal who is an alleged base thief or murderer.
And somewhere it has been seen that Maximus is costing the taxpayer double the fee that Atos was charging. And this is said to save taxpayers money?
The only way to sweep all this cruelty and what even The Times called entirely preventable impoverishment, is something offered by this general election, different from any other.
This is the Vote or Starve election,
but the massi of non-voters have a means of gaining allies to Labour that would shut out the Tories, by the resultant support and confidence type of coalition in more than one party in that sort of coalition.
See how you can gain
food for you and the kids
end your fuel poverty
get any state pension at all in life
at:
http://www.anastasia-england.me.uk
Its the same old same old- no matter who we are talking about. All “corporates” have teams of people whose job it is to evade the truth and make it look as though they are compliant with all relevant agencies there to provide accreditation that they are fit for purpose. They earn the language from each other and never become a face you can form a consistent relationships with. No wonder people are taking matters into their own hands. Nothing can possibly change until enough people tire of this approach, group together and demand that we get some integrity back into life.
The fact that Sue Marsh got in contact with you AFTER you contacted Maximus proves she has a non-job, or else why would they not put you in contact with her from the off IF this job was for real? She’s now fighting for her corner.
A bit of me feels sorry for her… who wouldn’t fall for £75,0000 a year?
But that’s how divide and conquer works.
You can change as many carpets as you like, but you won’t change that tick box mentality. THAT’s what really needs to change… and you’ve know it all along.
An ex-fan who doesn’t care about carpets…. ARGH! I give up
Yes that’s exactly right. Didn’t seem too joined-up at all, to use a phrase I’m sure Maximus would love…
Along with that other expression, “Customer experience.” What the hell does that actually mean?
I asked that question at a meeting for ‘Stock Replenishment Operatives’ (that’s a Shelve Stacker. to anyone who speaks English.)
To me, an experience meant going up in a hot air balloon, or diving with dolphins, or getting married or dying. ANYTHING other than finding out where the bloody baked beans where! That’s a dreary, but necessary, task, but it sure as hell isn’t a so-called ‘Customer experience.’
Whenever I hear that expression ‘Customer Experience’ my bullshit monitor gos into overdrive.
The word ‘Customer’ has got to be THEE most overused word. How can I possibly be a ‘Customer’ when I have no choice but to use my so-called water utility? It’s not like I can go to Thames Water and say, “Give me a better price.”
I am a Captive of UU, not a bloody so-called ‘CUSTOMER’,
The word ‘Customer’ has got to be the most corrupted word in the English language.
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Recording assessments-
NIETHER DWP NOR MAXIMUS HAVE ANY LEGAL RIGHTS TO PREVENT RECORDINGS-
DWP[and perhaps Maximus] have adistinct policy on recording assessments, they [DWP] plce compulsionsas to the trype of equipment they will allow, the fact that theymay not give [or hcp]permission to be recored, Policy of the DWPis not legislation and they confuse their own policy for law, it isnot. You can record your own assessment for your domestic use, in fact for any purpose at all, there isno legislation to prevent this andneither DWP/Maximushave any legal rights to stop, or place any resrictions on you, you do not needtheir permission and the dataprotection act deals with theuse, and you are asan individual exempt. so dont be had.
I recorded my meeting with maximus which I’m glad I did. I scored zero points and asked for a copy of the medical report and was fuming when I saw that the nurse had added things in that never even took place. By this I mean that she said she had witnessed myself get up from the chair I was sat in and go over to the examination couch and using a single step I was able to lift myself onto said couch. I never left my chair for the duration of my assessment so i don’t know what she was on if she is seeing things. This then leads to the rest of the stuff detailed in the report regarding my power output in my limbs etc which again was never done as I wasn’t on any couch and certainly wasn’t at any point lying down to demonstrate lifting my leg up straight whilst lying down. At one point while seated I explained where all the pain was in my right leg/foot and offered her to play about with it, have a look, do your assessment to which she replied ” no no its ok I don’t need to”. Now comes the really nasty bit. When talking about family and friends I said that I saw my family about once a month. In her report it said that I see my family about once a month at theirs. So she put words into my mouth that made the sentence have a completely different meaning. I didn’t ask if I could record it but who cares anyway as it was my information not hers but thank fuck I did because I’m not a liar but I certainly found out who is!
I was on ESA Support Group stopped my ESA because I would not sign POID as they would not tell me what it was , (this is the form they give you when you first go in on a clipboard ” there is a reason for this ” ) they do not ask any questions until you have filled in all your Personal Data to a American Hedge Fund Bank (Maximus) . POID Stands for Proof of Identity but it is not it is a CONSENT Form , they cannot asked you anything till you Consent ( JOINDER ) “THE SAME TACTIC THE POLICE USE TO EXTRACK CASH FROM YOU ” A Verbal Agreement or CONTRACT . As we are Governed & Policed by Consent . I was still summoned to room for (WCA) even though they dident know who I was , I asked the Heath Care Professional ( and I say that through gritted teeth ) what MEDICAL QUALIFICATOINS , CERTIFICATES do you have REPLY – NONE are you Registered with BMA – NO can I now carry on with Assessment , My Response – Are you joking , you have just told me to my face that you have no Medical Qualificatoin or Certificates and not Registered with BMA and no Medical Equipment , This is a Physical Assault not a Physical Exam , you would not know if I had Cancer or a cold . She lost her shit and screamed to get out , how dare a Peasant question her medical background . I went to front desk and asked for a Attendance Letter I was told no one could write ( lol ) no shit . I refuse to leave as they would say I had not attended . G4S Hired Goons phoned police got PHINN Number went home . Date 26/10/16 FORCED COMPLYENCE (SLAVERY & SERVITUDE)