In this podcast episode, we return to the government’s recent attempts to make the personal independence payment much harder for disabled people to get.
I speak with renowned benefits journalist Chaminda Jayanetti about the data he sourced which showed who cuts to PIP would really hit – namely, people with conditions like inflammatory arthritis, serious heart conditions and multiple sclerosis.
The government of course happily imagined that the cuts would be felt most by people with autism and mental health problems – the “snowflake” conditions that government doesn’t really rate.
Neither the DWP nor the government bothered looking at the numbers before announcing their plans for PIP. Hope Stephen Timms is thinking about this as he “consults” (ha ha) disabled people in his current review of PIP.
We also talk about the gentrification of mental health and autism – how celebs rattling on about their sufferings and autism as their “superpower” has made mental health issues and conditions like autism appear to be fun, lightweight and lucrative when they’re nothing of the kind.
DWP staff are using the tactic of making a telephone appointment for an assessment and not making the call. To cover this up, the PIP applicant is labelled as not responding. This process of maligning applicants is malicious, designed to make people look bad as if they don’t deserve PIP.
Whilst the Government and public sector concentrate on Autism, the bigger scandal is the isolation of Foetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD), twice the prevalence of Autism. FASD is an organic brain injury caused by alcohol in pregnancy. 90% of children in Fostering and Adoption services have FASD but birth history does not follow the child. The public sector are getting away with blaming the adoptive parents because no-one wants to tackle the issue.
That’s a good point. I’ve spoken to a couple of people dealing with the FASD issue. It needs more prominence.
I’ve got inflammatory arthritis (RA) but was turned down for PIP two years ago. I’m claiming Limited Capability for Work and Work Related Activity Universal Credit (LCW&WRA UC) , which replaced the old Incapacity Benefit when IDS & Lord Fraud “simplified” the Social Security system.
As far as I understand it, the new changes this government has introduced will now mean that in order to be able to claim LCW&WRAUC people will have to pass the PIP assessment to get it instead of the WCA that is being scrapped. Effectively this means that two seperate Benefits are being conflated and people are going to be assessed by Disability benefit (DLA/PIP) criteria to claim long-term Sickness benefit (Incapacity/LCW&WRAUC). The obvious result of this will mean that those like myself who have a long-term illness but are not classed as Disabled will be found fit for work.
Trev it never stops does it;? They’re just stripping more and more away. I’m still cleaning at 62, sciatica, arthritis and degenerative disc disease in my neck, just worked 11 days straight no day off and I’m coming to the end of my strength now. I called in sick today with sciatica. It’s not enough to be at the limit of my strength, I’m never going to get better and I ll probably have to fight like u when I finally do drop