Latest podcast episode – in which we look again at a benefits system in terminal shambles.
New DWP head Pat McFadden says he’s going to put jobcentre advisers into GP surgeries to target sick and disabled people for work. Righto, Pat.
That idea in itself is cack, but another important point is that the DWP will screw it up whatever happens, because things already go amazingly wrong. They mix up people’s files, lose their medical evidence, scan it upside down, lose sick notes – the works.
In this episode, we hear from Michelle Cardno who is a benefits lawyer at Fightback for Justice in Bury.
Michelle tells an interesting story about the DWP scanning people’s medical evidence the wrong way up, so that a tribunal judge at appeal only had blank pages to look at.
She also talks about the way that the DWP randomly allocates PIP – ie, awarding PIP to one individual, then taking it away from that exact same person even though their situation hadn’t changed at all.
There’s also a covert recording from a meeting between a social worker and a homeless woman where the social worker reads from the wrong file entirely – it’s another family’s file altogether.
Public sector systems have been decimated by years of cuts. McFadden needs to look at that and make that work before he gets into his other big ideas.
Things don’t improve then!? Back in the day I did volunteer advice work with the unemployed and sick. The lost documents award then went to Housing Benefits. The number of people who weren’t hearing back and waiting months was phenomenal, when they came to us and we tackled Housing Benefits we were told oh we must of lost it… Even when it was sent registered post or hand delivered? One poor old boy had it worst than most and in the end I said despairing on the phone, when you get a claim form, what do you do with it? Use it as toilet paper? Just bin it unread? Make paper aeroplanes and have Wacky Races? In the end we were told, yes it’s sorted and his cheque has been printed he’ll get it on X date. X date came and I went to the office, he was waiting in reception. Oh no said I please tell me it came? Come it did. Hand delivered by courier because the cheque was for such a huge amount?!! True tale
This is one of the reasons why the parents of disabled kids in the podcast had to leave work. They have to spend half their lives and more trying to work out what the DWP and/or their council has done with their benefits or housing applications or medical evidence or whatever it is. Total clown car.
Kate, agreed, it’s a full time job managing your benefits claim
Off topic but the latest from the world of work; I detailed my medical history here before, since June 2024 I have earned above my AET so they left me alone to rip my body apart even more cleaning. I just finished 9 days back to back shifts, 1×6 hours, 8×4. Hours, 2 hours travel each day and starting 2 November it’s 7 back to back days 1×6 hours 6×4 hours same travel (and I’m 61!) This month I missed my AET by £32, statement landed Saturday by 9.30am Monday I’m told I’m back in the jobcentre tomorrow for a 30 minute review, and have to fill in the usual what arey barriers to work, do I know how to write a CV? A complete waste of time given that next month I will have met my AET! I’ll update what happens tomorrow
That is bloody hard going. Please do let us know how you get on xx
Well I’m out of the Jobcentre and I can’t lie, it was fine. She fully accepted in 2 weeks I’ll have met my AET again but said if earnings go down they have to tick box and have you in. She even admitted it’s a waste of both our time. I don’t have to go back or look for more work. She’s put an over ride on my claim and all I have to do is accept commitment saying I’ll log in regularly and keep an eye for to do. I’m pleasantly surprised
Good to hear! Xx
Sounds suspiciously reasonable for the Jobcentre. Make sure you do keep checking the To Do list on your Journal Kat, they have an habit of one person saying one thing then someone else mysteriously changes it again. Or at least they did with me, there seemed to be no comunication between UC people in Stockport and Jobcentre staff in Kirklees. Left hand, right hand, arse, elbow. But good luck with it anyway. Meanwhile, I’m still on long term sick (LCW&WRA UC), am typing this on my phone sat at home Friday night whilst wearing one of those 24 hour blood pressure monitors as my BP has suddenly gone through the roof for some unknown reason. It’s one thing after another. I’m never away from the Doctor’s and the bloody Hospital these days! But moneywise I feel a lot better off on the sick, though Reeves/Starmer/McFadden &Co are about to change all that in coming months/years.
Trev really hope you sort the BP out
Cheers Kat, had an ECG yesterday, awaiting results…
I’ve literally, today, been changed over to UC, from ESA Support Group
But I’ve already had a request to give them a Fit Note, when I’m in the LCWRA group!
Fortunately, my ‘Local’ Job Center people seem to be good at their jobs, & sorted that one out, immediately, but I had an anxious few hours because of it, on a day that I’m already so stressed, because of the changes!
I won’t even know what I’ll have to exist on, until the 9th December!
I do know that the so-called ‘Transitional Protection’ won’t keep my money at the level I’m barely surviving on right now, so am dreading what I’ll find on the 9th!
To be fair to my local JC, though, they’ve been very quick to respond to my enquiries, since I signed on to this Journal malarkey, a couple of days ago – & it’s SO much better for me, to deal with the online Journal, than to sit, listening to inane telephone ‘music’, only to be cut off, before you can talk to someone! Lol
Regarding getting people off the sick and into work, particularly young people with mental health issues, I notice in the news Waitrose have been shamed into offering paid work to a young man with Autism following the bad publicity that arose from them initially refusing to do so, though they had been perfectly happy for him to work there for nothing as an unpaid volunteer for 4 years. So good luck with getting half a million mentally ill people into paid employment.
Psychologists’ charity fails to raise concerns over job coaches in surgeries, weeks after £640K DWP contract
By John Pring on 23rd October 2025
https://www.disabilitynewsservice.com/psychologists-charity-fails-to-raise-concerns-over-job-coaches-in-surgeries-weeks-after-640k-dwp-contract/
“”But it has now emerged that this statement was published just four weeks after DWP awarded BPS a £641,000 four-year contract to carry out accreditation of the department’s in-house work psychologists.””
The British Psychological Society [BPS] are now not a charity by having a DWP Government contract. Charities do not have Government Contracts because they are charities. To have a contract is a contradiction in terms. So the DWP awarded a £640K contract to Work Coaches who are employers of the DWP, another contradiction.
Seems like the DWP have been disabled in contradictions & need psychological help. The GP’s will not put up with the Job Work Coaches in the GP waiting room waiting for medication contracts !!!
They blur the lines by calling them “charitable businesses” or ” social enterprise”, etc. Or in the case of Housing Associations, “for-profit registered providers (FPRPs)”. I seem to remember the CAB receiving some sort of government contract during the Tory years on the proviso that they weren’t allowed to openly criticize Universal Credit.
Here’s a different twist on the Jobcentre advisers in GP surgeries saga. Several London GP practices are now providing patients with practical help to claim Benefits they might be entitled to and improve their finances, thereby simultaneously improving people’s health andcwell-being because guess what, poverty and ill-health are linked.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c0rpq9y2gq0o
Excellent!!