Category Archives: Public spending cuts

Capita, Serco, G4S, government and the rise and rise of electronic tagging

Posted on by
3

Updates at the end of this post.

I rarely use the words “fascinating” and “press release” in the same sentence, but:

This fascinating press release appeared on the Capita website recently: “Capita [is the] preferred bidder for electronic monitoring contract.”

So.

It seems that Capita has positioned itself (with three other companies) to take over the dire electronic tagging system run by Serco and G4S for the Ministry of Justice. By “dire,” I mean “very likely fraudulent”: Serco and G4S were recently slammed by PriceWaterhouseCoopers for charging the taxpayer tens of millions of pounds for people they claimed to have tagged, but who turned out to be dead or incarcerated. Serco will participate in an independent “forensic audit” as a result. G4S won’t: according to the MOJ, they told Grayling No and were referred to the SFO. G4S, amazingly, told Robert Peston that it opted to call in the SFO itself. I am not sure what the real situation is there. All I know is that we get to keep paying for it.

And paying for it. We now have Capita as preferred bidder for a large electronic monitoring contract. Unfortunately, it is a contract that sets many alarms off itself. Chief among these Capita’s plan to make £400m in its first six years of the contract and its reluctance to explain in detail (to me anyway) exactly how it proposes to do that. I hope that they have decided against targeting the dead. Of even greater concern, though, is the extent to which they apparently plan to target and tag the living. Their press release says that the £400m in those first six years will be generated on the basis of an “anticipated increase in the use of tags beyond the current numbers of monitored individuals.” Early days, I know, but £400m is a lot of money, so we’re surely talking a lot of monitored individuals.

I’m going back and forwards with the MOJ at the moment for more on who exactly the ministry proposes to tag and how long for when we’re talking offenders and/or ex-offenders: the press release they sent speaks, vaguely, of “tracking the movement of offenders in the community,” “delivering swifter justice,” “tracking offenders wherever they go 24 hours a day,” (in another call, the MOJ says that’s an advantage of the new technology it expects to be provided) and stopping “paedophiles hanging around” at school gates. Napo offers more details in its take: Napo said last year that as government dramatically increased the number of people it tagged, “it was envisaged that tagging would be a condition of all community orders. Currently around 35,000 offenders are tagged for up to 12 hours and for a maximum of six months, either as a condition of a community order, or early release from prison on Home Detention Curfew. This has risen hugely over a 15-year period from a few hundred individuals tagged per year to the current level of tens of thousands. Under the government scheme, the number tagged could rise 180,000 or even more, an increase therefore of six-fold.”

So there’s that.

I also wonder if several hundred million quid’s worth of tagging will go beyond the offenders and ex-offenders that Chris Grayling seems so obsessed with tagging and tracking long after they are released from jail (I don’t personally believe the tagging of people in those categories should be accepted as written, either – but more on that later. The MOJ says that the length of time on a tag will be decided by judges).

I think that it will. Capita certainly sees a market beyond so-called justice and the MOJ. Like Serco and G4S, Capita thinks big. Certainly, Capita thinks a lot bigger than Grayling. You could go as far to say that Capita sees the MOJ contract as a launching-pad for the real projectile – an enormous net to sling across the public sector and people who use it, and then, it would seem, the entire world. You wouldn’t have to be a wild conspiracy type to reach that conclusion, either. Just go back to that Capita press release. It’s fascinating, as I say. “Further significant growth is expected through the expansion of services to other government departments and agencies.” (my emphasis). “Capita will work with the MOJ to promote the intellectual property which underpins the service internationally, generating further growth.” “The service has been designed to enable other government bodies – for example, the probation services, the NHS and social care agencies, to procure related services.” (my emphasis).

I wonder about all of this, you know. Who are the people that the government and/or Capita (I’m not entirely sure which is which or who is who any more) really plan to tag as this golden future unfolds? Are they thousands of ex-offenders who have served their time, but who Grayling decides need a further kicking, for political gain at least? Are they the people who were once served by the probation service that Grayling is in the process of privatising and destroying? Where is this all meant to end?

And what does Capita mean when it talks about “enabling” social care agencies and the NHS and other government bodies with this sort of technology? Are they thinking, say, of replacing paid care staff with a tag? Will this tagged population include people who are in and out of hospital with serious mental health conditions, but whose services have been cut and who have nowhere to go and nobody to help if there are times when they become disoriented? And what about people who the government is already after? Will we see pre-emptive tagging of people who are known (and entitled, by the way) to attend anti-government protests, or who plan to disrupt, say, a royal wedding? What about people on the work programme, even? Does the government fancy a future where it can tag people who claim benefits – and sanction anyone who steps away from Jobmatch for ten minutes? I wonder about these things.

So I asked Capita for details. That went about as well as I expected it to. Capita said talk to the MOJ. The MOJ, needless to say, said talk to Capita. Then, the MOJ rang me thinking I was Capita. Trying to recover from this error, the MOJ told me to ring the Department of Health about people who might be tagged through the health system. I told the MOJ to ring Capita and tell Capita to tell me which groups of people it was basing its projections on. Am now waiting for Capita to ring and tell me to go back to the MOJ, the Department of Health, the DWP and every council out there that still has social services, to ask what Capita has in mind for their client groups. This will probably go on until I’m dead.

In the meantime, it’s worth having a think. I think, for example, of the woman I spoke to for this article who had a long-term schizophrenia diagnoses and alcoholism, and who’d been in and out of hospital, and who’d been able to live an independent life in a supported living hostel. The hostel was staffed around the clock. People who lived there came and went freely, but were able to contact staff if they got disoriented, or lost, or if abusers were following them, or trying to get into the building. That hostel was closed down though, as was another in the same borough. The woman I spoke to was terrified of being placed in low-support accommodation, or a B&B because she’d been abused in such places before. And she’d wandered before and often got lost and confused when she was drinking. She liked the hostel and had good relationships with staff. She certainly liked the arrangement better than the alternative – which was being cast adrift completely. Is she the sort of person who would be tagged in future – someone no longer thought worthy of decent services or decent accommodation, but to be kept track of in a basic way?

And what about other people who are losing services? I think about a story I did in Ealing earlier this year. I spent a lot of time talking to Ealing people with learning difficulties and their families about council plans to cut their training-to-work centre and the support staff who worked there. The people who used the centre would get nothing as a replacement: Ealing council no longer allocates funding to people with “moderate” needs. The thing was – safety was an issue. One mother of a 28-year-old man who attended that centre kept telling me that she appreciated the centre because she knew her son was safe there. Out on the streets on his own, he got picked on, robbed and, often, just lost. The thing was – he would be on his own if the centre was closed, because he’d be given little or nothing to replace it, or to pay for personal assistants or support. His mother could pay for a mentor to accompany him sometimes, but could only afford one day a week. So in future – will she and families of people with even more substantial needs whose care will undoubtedly be cut, be told their best and only option is a tag? Is the future of social care a world where, instead of proper funding for independent living, money is given to the likes of Capita to tag people and update their families with their basic positioning?

That issue that has long been debated, of course. There’s been much discussion, for example, about the ethics of tagging of people with dementia, who do sometimes become disoriented or lost: “of the 700,000 people in Britain with some form of dementia, up to 60% occasionally felt compelled to walk away from home without knowing how or where to return,” the Alzheimer’s Society told the Guardian some time ago in a debate on the topic. Some people welcomed the technology, saying it gave them greater freedom in the earlier stages of their conditions. But, as you can see from that story, there was and is concern that the technology infringed on human rights and that it would be used in place of high-quality care and personal assistants – a concern that must be even more pressing now as social care budgets disappear.

In my experience, too, people want human contact as well as technology. I’ll be written off as a wet hippie for saying that, but it really is true. People make that sort of point all the time when you talk with them. Another story: several years ago, Barnet council announced that it would remove onsite wardens from sheltered housing flats in the borough. One of the justifications for this plan (which was very unpopular with sheltered housing residents) was that the elderly people in those flats had alarms and electronic means of summonsing help if they needed it. But the elderly people who turned out at Hendon Town Hall to protest the cut did not have faith in those alarms. They said no button or alarm would compensate for having a real person onsite to check in with, or to alert when someone was feeling unwell.

No technology is entirely dependable. Tagging technology certainly isn’t. Napo, which is battling the privatisation of probation services as we speak, has long argued that tagging systems are unreliable and alone don’t impact on crime. Concerns listed in Napo’s 2012 paper on tagging include: faulty equipment, tags not working when people take baths or showers, people being recalled to custody unnecessarily, high-risk offenders not being monitored properly and instances where devices were never fitted. So – tagging companies are not always be brilliant at tracking and finding people who have been tagged. They are, however, brilliant at tracking and finding councillors and MPs who are willing to pay and pay for their technology. Even the Policy Exchange has raised concerns about this. As the Howard League’s Andrew Neilson reported here last year, the Policy Exchange said “that the use of electronic monitoring has been too expensive and dominated by the duopoly of Serco and G4S, leading to a lack of innovation and a use of technology that has changed little since it was first deployed in 1989.” Cost upset the Exchange: “the report estimates that electronic monitoring an individual costs £13.14 per day in England and Wales, while the equivalent in the United States was £1.22.”

So. Intriguing, as I say. Intriguing to imagine where all of this is going and who will end up tagging whom. Capita obviously thinks the sky is the limit. CE Paul Pindar freely admits in his press release that “when fully live, this is expected to be the largest, single and most advanced ‘tagging’ system in the world.”

He also says that the thing will be run “to the highest possible standards of governance and transparency.” That’s an intriguing claim as well. I’m guessing that Paul doesn’t realising that he’s the CE of the company that recently put the translation service in meltdown, or brought us the black hole that is Service Birmingham (where transparency is such a problem that a sub-committee was recently set up for councillors who publicly admitted they did not know how much money the council was paying Capita via Service Birmingham), and the Sefton council debacle (Sefton is cutting short a £65m contract with Capita, because it has failed to deliver savings). There are times when I think that the only people round here who really need tagging are the ones from these companies who keep visiting council and government buildings and leaving with blank cheques.

Update September 17:

In other news, the Lib Dems announced today a policy to provide free school lunches. Only last week, Capita announced that it was now in school lunches. I simply observe that I will watch with interest to see who provides lunches.

Also, Capita had said that it would be all right for me to attend this workfare conference, but yesterday wrote to say that there would be no press pass allowance at the event after all.

 

Protests and government extremism

Posted on by
1

From yesterday’s DPAC, Black Triangle and Mental Health Resistance Network action in central London:

So interesting that the Taxpayers’ Alliance got a free, media-wide pass yesterday to bitch again about people on benefits – on the very day that disabled protestors turned out in numbers in central London to demonstrate against the benefit and care cuts that are excluding them from work and from life (let’s not forget, what with all this Tory-Lib Dem-Labour faffing about the joys and rewards and glories of work, that some people can’t work, but still deserve and want to live. Which means they’re entitled to benefits). So. Pity, really, that I didn’t see Matthew Sinclair skulking round Westminster yesterday (I presume he lives in this country, or at least visits it). I may just have walked on over and offered to shove the morning’s various ironies right up his arse (I speak metaphorically, I am sure).

Another time, perhaps. Hopefully, even. In the meantime, here is some video from yesterday’s DPAC, Black Triangle and Mental Health Resistance Network protest in central London. This one is outside the DWP and starts with the line of underpants that people left out the front for Iain Duncan Smith. I gave some thought to leaving IDS the sweaty pair (was a hot day) of knickers I was wearing – on which I would have written that plenty of us (taxpayers all, btw Mr Sinclair) are happy to pay for social security, thanks very much. We certainly would rather pay for social security than for the chance to bankroll Iain Duncan Smith into pissing away whatever’s left of the exchequer on a second pass at Universal Credit.

There was a good turnout at the protest and clever targets, just as the BBC was a clever target on Monday. Yesterday, protestors paid visits to the Department of Health (to make the point again that Hunt has no mandate to cut and sell the NHS and that social care cuts, particularly to vital funds like the Independent Living Fund, will prevent people from participating in exactly the work and independence that the Taxpayers’ Alliance so publicly excites itself over) the Department of Transport (to campaign for the accessible transport which would aid independence in a way that endless government lip-service re: inclusion does not), the Department of Energy and Climate Change to protest about the fuel poverty many must live in while energy companies hoover up unreal profits, and the Department of Education to oppose government attacks on inclusive education. And last, but by absolutely no means least, the Department for Work and Pensions.

A few words on extremism

People carried and wore signs which read “proud to be an extremist”: a reference to the comments Paul Maynard made earlier this year: “Pat’s Petition, We Are Spartacus and other extremist disability groups that do not speak for the overall majority.”

I like to mention this so-called extremism in relation to many of the protests I attend these days. If I say so myself and I do – the things I have to say on this aspect of protest can’t be said often enough. It seems to me that we’re fast reaching a point where a mere objection will be described as extremist: a raised voice, or a sit-down protest (I thought of this when I watched a small group of anti-fracking protestors superglue themselves to the Bell Pottinger building a couple of weeks ago) is somehow translated by the mainstream as galloping insurrection (not that I would mind a bit of that either).

I make a couple of points here. The first is that sitting outside a government department and holding a banner which outlines your objections to service cuts is not extremism. It really isn’t. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. It really, really isn’t. Occupying a pavement outside the DWP and stringing up a row of underpants on which you’ve written a few rude words and drawn Iain Duncan Smith’s face (see video below – his face works brilliantly on an arse part) is not extremism. As I said during last month’s anti-fracking protests – gluing yourself to a building and refusing to move in protest at corporate plans to devastate your own planet is not extremism. It’s actually a very logical response to corporate plans to devastate your planet. By comparison, selling a public health service to your private sector mates when you’re in government – now that is extremism. It’s an extreme act. At the very least, it’s grand larceny. Taking public money from people who need public services and can’t get to work, or college and/or through life without those services, and giving that money to private companies – that’s extremism. Blowing big bloody holes in the planet with fracking gear is extremism. Those are actions that are likely to deliver extreme (read dangerous) results.

So.

The second point is that these protestors surely do speak for a majority. They speak for people who object mightily to the government’s cutting and selling of the NHS – see the Save Lewisham Hospital protests over the last year if you want to get a feel for that. They speak for people who are forced to watch as their fuel bills rise and rise as energy company profits grow. They speak for people who believe that social security ought to be a safety net for anyone in need, as opposed to a gravy train for the likes of Serco, Atos and Capita.

The problem is that more people need to hear them speak. This is where one of the major challenges lies. The political class does not want to hear these people and it absolutely does not want anyone else to hear them either. It was no surprise at all on Monday to find the BBC ignoring the protestors who’d shut down the BBC’s very own front entrance in protest at that broadcaster’s appalling “reporting” of benefit cuts, public sector cuts and austerity. No surprise either to find that yesterday, the enormous number of government and press worthies who inhabit the Westminster bubble and literally never leave it managed, somehow, to miss a large procession of people in wheelchairs, carers and supporters protesting in said bubble. A lot of tourists worked out that something was going on and asked questions (“what is happening? Is it a protest?”), but the silence elsewhere was loud.

The day finished with a lobby to deliver a disability manifesto – in, of course, a spectacularly inaccessible parliament committee room. At least half of the people who wanted to attend had to sit outside in the hall in their wheelchairs. That said it all, to be honest – a big bloody Up Yours from the government to everyone.

Disabled People Against Cuts block front entrance of BBC Portland Place

Posted on by
11

Post updates below

Some video I took at today’s DPAC protest in Portland Place. People in the group locked themselves together outside of the front door in protest at the Beeb’s rubbish coverage of social security cuts and austerity. And fair enough, too. The BBC has been garbage on these all-important topics. On the NHS, it’s been nowhere. The video shows people arriving, then Mark Thomas speaking (he was doing some work at the BBC and came over to say a few words in support of the protestors – good man) and then the closed doors.

Got to go out now – so more to say and more video to upload later on. Will observe for now that the response from the BBC was a bit…twatty. It was all a bit “JESUS CHRIST – PROTESTORS!!!! FILL THE MOAT AND PULL UP THE DRAWBRIDGE!!!” I mean – really. There was all sorts of rushing round to close the doors and pushing and shoving by Security and absolutely no sign of the many worthies who populate that building. If I was one of the Beeb’s many senior types (chances of my ever becoming one are diminishing by the hour, I imagine) I’d have just invited the group in and said – okay, let’s have a chat.

But – nobody said that. Pity. Sooner or later, somebody’s going to have to talk to someone.

Update Tues Sept 3:

More video from yesterday, in which Security got heavy and protestors explained why the BBC needs to wake its ideas up and fast. There’s text on the video and have also put it under the vid:






They’re absolutely right. Iain Duncan Smith in particular has been caught lying, exaggerating and talking total shit about benefit claimants, but he continues unchallenged by media outlets which should make it their business – their only business, if you ask me – to challenge government.

Text:

Protestor: Please understand why we’re doing this
Security officer offscreen: I do. I understand

Protestor: We’re licence payers and they need to do more proper reporting. They need to stop blocking our voices. They’ve got to get our message out. They blocked the NHS protests. Our NHS. Everybody out here uses it and they stopped people from getting the
story out. The people out there need to know what is happening in this country and people are dying.

Get some of your staff out here and see what’s going on, because they could be next.

Protestor 2: The government are churning out proven lies and they’re being caught out over and over again telling lies, Iain Duncan Smith is supposed to be talking to a parliamentary committee for grossly misusing statistics and misrepresenting benefit claimants in this country.

What’s happening is that this organisation behind us, the BBC, has given up on all efforts to be impartial, are running wildly and gleefully with the blatant propaganda that would put Nazis to shame about anyone who doesn’t fit a very, very narrow concept of what is considered an acceptable citizen.

Outsourcing disasters

Posted on by
Reply

Our NS latest from the Secret Cuts series:

“One of the many concepts that free marketeers refuse to abandon in the face of all evidence is the idea that the private sector is better at providing public services than the public sector. Private companies have been cashing in on this fable for years at council and government level. As we file this report, another glorious outsourcing triumph is breaking: the Ministry of Justice has asked police to investigate alleged fraudulent behaviour by Serco staff in its Prisoner Escort and Custodial Services contract.

The national news stories are coming at such a rate we can barely keep up with them. But what happens at a local level often slips under the radar. That’s why we’re crossposting and adding to this False Economy blog by Kate, which features a list of some of the many spectacular council privatisation failures of the past few years (hat-tip to Barnet Unison for the idea – they published a Top Ten Commissioning Failures list last month).

The list below shows how much councils have spent to get out of private sector contracts and/or to deal with contract disputes and cost overruns. A lot of the companies featured on this and Barnet Unison’s list are sniffing excitedly around the NHS – to which they’ll doubtless bring this long-honed craft of getting heaps of public money, ditching service the second the contract is framed and delivering huge returns to their shareholders.”

Read the rest here.

Advising GPs not to provide support information for disability benefit appeals

Posted on by
1

If you’re looking for the the rollling blog/story on the above and the Bro Taf and local medical committee statements – they’re here on this link.

Excerpt:

“This is an update to the stories a number of us have been running about GPs being told not to provide support information to ESA claimants who are appealing Atos fit for work decisions.

The ante is being upped, here: Pulse is reporting “that Local Medical Committee leaders are considering a ‘just say no’ campaign to support practices who refuse to take on unfunded work.” The story says that LMC leaders have: “already drafted a letter to help them turn down patient requests for support when appealing against their benefits being withdrawn.”

Read the full post and LMC statements.

Videos: Reclaim the Power blocks Bell Pottinger office 19 August 2013

Posted on by
3

I’ve posted below some videos I took this morning at the Bell Pottinger offices in High Holborn. Reclaim the Power activists had superglued themselves to the front doors of Bell Pottinger in protest at Bell Pottinger’s fracking connections and sales pitches. And fair enough, too:

“Bell Pottinger has been retained by Cuadrilla to convince the public that fracking is safe and will bring down fuel bills. But in the secret recording the senior public relations officer admits that the effect of the technology on bills will be ‘basically insignificant’, and adds that Cuadrilla won’t be seeking permission from homeowners to drill under their properties (http://ind.pn/194TLyA).”

Interesting that Bell Pottinger’s behaviour and Cuadrilla’s and indeed the whole notion of blowing holes in the planet is/are not considered extremist by the mainstream, but protesting against those things is.

Well – glueing yourself to a building and/or blocking roads isn’t extremist. Refusing to take crap from this government is not extremist. As it happens, I’m sick of hearing rightwing twats describe protestors like these and people from groups like Disabled People Against Cuts as extremists. I don’t see how (I’ve never seen how) blocking roads and waving banners in protest at the vile, anti-society actions of a government that was never elected in the first place can be said to by synonymous with extremism. Opposing such a government is not extremism. Opposing such a government is an entirely rational response. Indeed, it is the only rational response. The fact is that this government and its galloping private sector mates are the extremists – they’re the ones who are trying to sell the line that fracking the arse out of the planet will somehow lead to a brighter future on it and that destroying social security for all will lead to greater social security for all. Or something. God knows what Cameron is really trying to say. Most days I think it is “Everybody Die.”

Anyway – the hell with him. Here is some video from this morning:

In this one, we have protestors singing with their hands glued to the front doors of Bell Pottinger’s digs:

And here we have the police dragging protestors away after a group of operatives unglued them.

In this one, protestors have their hands unglued from the doors before being dragged away by police.

Good on the protestors. And remember them and this day the next time some mainstream cock tries to say “why isn’t there any protest in Britain?” There is protest in Britain. There’s plenty of protest in Britain. The likes of DPAC and Black Triangle have been blocking roads and occupying the homes of the wealthy in protest at Cameron’s fracking of social security for some years now. It’s just that not many in the mainstream care to report that. The Daily Mail and the Telegraph were at today’s protest – doubtless to take advantage of the chance to put the boot into a few dreadlocked environmentalists and to get footage of the police rubbing said environmentalists’ noses into the tarmac. I haven’t seen the Mail or the Telegraph at too many DPAC protests over the years. “They want us to get some shots of them being carted off,” I heard one reporter instruct his cameraperson today. Said it all right there.

Next week: DPAC is holding a week of action against social security cuts, austerity and attacks on disabled people.

Mental health problems and fighting for ESA medical support information…

Posted on by
Reply

Our New Statesman latest on Atos work capability assessments:

“This whole [ESA work capability assessment] scene is a catastrophe. The implosions are everywhere. A few weeks ago, disability benefit claimants and campaigners were shocked to read that GPs in south east Wales had been told by the Bro Taf local medical committee to stop providing support information for disability benefit claimants appealing “fit to work” decisions, because the work was an “abuse of resources”. We spoke to the Bro Taf LMC, which sent this statement (and they said they’d be issuing another one this week, so we’ll look out for that) to say that their problem was not with providing medical evidence for claims, but for the “increasing number of appeals [which] has resulted in more GP appointments being taken up to deal with such requests.”

None of which helps claimants and we’re looking for a legal view on that withholding of support information. Public Interest Lawyers’ Tessa Gregory says: “It can’t be right that claimants are left without vital medical evidence from their GPs to support them in their appeals against Atos assessments which are notoriously unfair. We are considering the position of both the DWP and the Local Medical Committee carefully to see whether a legal challenge can be brought to ensure that claimants get the assistance they require.”

Read the rest here.

Reclaiming Our Futures week of action!

Posted on by
1

From DPAC – please reblog & share:

Disabled People Against Cuts, Black Triangle, the Mental Health Resistance Network and the WOW petition bring you:

*Reclaiming Our Futures*

Join this year’s week of action to protest against austerity, fight for our rights and celebrate disabled people.

Our rights are being stripped away day by day, by the neo-liberal policies being imposed on us all by the Condems, leaving us without much hope for our futures – or our children’s.

We have been here before. Our history is littered with examples of how our community has come together when under attack to fight – and win.

From the early campaigns of NLBDP (National League of Blind and Disabled People) through to the founding and manifesto of UPIAS (Union of the Physically Impaired Against Segregation) and on to DAN (Direct Action Network).

Now we have DPAC leading direct action and a host of other key grass root campaigns working towards reclaiming our rights and futures.

We have fought our corner over 3 centuries. And those fights have brought victories; the Independent Living Movement, our early CILs (Centres for Independent Living) and early active DPO’s (Disabled Peoples Organisations) and the significant rights for disabled people (which are now under attack).

They represent big victories, brought about by mobilizing in our communities around our common cause – and having the will and determination to see our demands met without compromising our rights. We have consistently united in anger and celebration.

DPAC Reclaiming our Futures Action

This Autumn, we are asking our community to come together in anger, and celebration again – and to unite around our demands.

We will be launching the UK Disabled People’s Manifesto setting out our vision of how the resources, structures and institutions of our society today can be re-designed to empower disabled people to take part in life on our terms.

Disabled people are, and always will be, the experts on our lives and our self-determination. It will be a vision and practical plan that we can take forward in our communities, workplaces and lives to reclaim our futures.

In the build up to the manifesto launch, DPAC is leading The ‘Reclaiming Our Futures’, seven days of action to protest against the targeting of disabled people by austerity measures, to fight for our rights for inclusion and independence as equal citizens and to celebrate the value, pride and self determination of disabled people.

From 29th August – 4th September DPAC and other campaigns will offer a range of activities you can get involved in.

These events will bring together our anger at what is happening now, and celebrate our victories won, both in the past and to come.

The plan below is only half the story. We want YOU, your Deaf and Disabled People’s Organisation, your campaign group, your community, your friends to put on events and get involved too. Can’t get to our exhibition? – then put on your own. Can’t get to our direct action? – then do your own. Barbecues, debates, quiz nights, family days, picnics – whatever! ACT – in celebration or in anger! (PS don’t forget to let us know what you’re doing).

Day by Day: 29th August-4th September

Thursday 29th August – YOU launch our 7 days  of action

A range of resources will be available for your use as we ask all supporters to start our week of action with an online blitz.

You will be the ones creating the buzz and the hype sending letters and twitter messages to targets of your choice ranging from MPs to disability charities to the media. We will be producing twibbons and memes but make and circulate your own. If you haven’t got a Social Media account (such as Facebook & Twitter) set one up now, link to DPAC ( twitter: @Dis_PPL_Protest) and let’s create a cyber wave. #dpacrof

The launch will coincide with Transport for All’s Day of Action to make CrossRail accessible.

Friday 30th August – Local Protests

Last year during the ATOS Games over 30 local actions took place around the UK Local actions mean you get to choose the target of your choice.

You could take the Reclaiming Our Futures manifesto to present at your local MP’s constituency office, spread it through social media, protest on the streets against segregated education, the proposed ILF closure or show solidarity at your local Remploy site (for those few factories in their last weeks of operation).

Alternatively, you might want to lobby your local Council on the Bedroom Tax and cuts to local services/support. Oh, and as we know  ATOS offices are still around too….we’re sure you have other great ideas to add… Remember to let us know what you are doing so we can promote your actions. We will be producing local action resource packs but any materials you develop please send us copies to share with other protests and online.

Saturday 31st – Disability, Art & Protest Exhibition and Fundraising Gig

An exhibition and sharing of work exploring disability, art and protest followed by a ticketed fundraising gig run in partnership with Madpride and Tottenham Chances. Come during the day and join in our banner making workshop to prepare for the big Freedom Drive on the 4th September. If you would like to nominate an artist, collective and/or piece of work please let us know (including any links) and we will try to get them involved. If you want to do a local, street or online art protest too-this could be the day to do it.

Venue: Tottenham Chances, 399 High Road, London, N17 6QN
Times:
12 – 7pm Exhibition: disability, art and protest
1 – 3.30pm Banner and placard making workshop
4 – 6pm Sharing of Work
7.30pm til late Gig

Sunday 1st September – Reclaiming the Social Model: the social model in the 21st Century

Key speakers : Anne Rae: former UPIAS and current chair of the Greater

Manchester Coalition of Disabled People (GMCDP), Colin Barnes: Professor of Disability Studies at Leeds Centre for Disability Studies

As government and the private sector increasingly use a so-called ‘modern understanding of disability’ to redefine who is and who isn’t disabled it is more important than ever that we understand, defend and promote the social model of disability.

This isn’t helped when the social model is not fully supported within our movement. This event will be a chance to hear from a range of speakers and to discuss why the social model is still relevant today to our lives and our futures and to map out what we need to do to fight for it. The event will be live-streamed with the opportunity for people to participate in the discussion virtually. We will also be promoting a range of resources around the social model.

Venue (tbc): University of London Union, Malet Street, London, WC1E 7HY
Time: 12.30 – 4.30pm
Monday 2nd September – Direct Action

Despite the huge efforts of thousands of disabled people throughout the country, it is increasingly difficult to find spaces where lies, inaccuracies and mis-use of statistics can be challenged. DPAC recently released a study into how the DWP uses all of these to vilify and demonise disabled people. But why is this down to us? People should be presented with both sides of the story and this isn’t happening. Disabled people are having to find ways to make sure our truths will be heard. Watch this space…

Tuesday 3rd September – ‘I Dare’ day

A day of online action to reinforce that we want Rights not Charity and a society where we are able to operate on our own terms as disabled people. Dare to ask for Rights not Charity. Dare to be an activist. Dare to ask more of ‘our’ organisations. We aren’t asking for Care, we want Power: Power to write the script for our own lives, and not to be written out or written off by others. A range of actions and captions will be available for you to capture in an image and circulate online.

Wednesday 4th September – FREEDOM DRIVE

A final-day march and events in and around Parliament. Four themed ‘blocks’ will meet at 4 Government departments, central to the lives of disabled people. After handing over our demands, blocks will then move towards Parliament for a lobby where we will formally launch the UK Disabled People’s Manifesto and present our demands to our elected representatives.

Choose your ‘block’ and meet at 12.45pm at one of:

•    Department for Education to oppose government attacks on inclusive education and a return to segregation (Sanctuary Buildings, 20 Great Smith Street, London, SW1P 3BT)

•    Department of Energy and Climate Change if you’re angry about the numbers of disabled people living in fuel poverty while the energy companies rake in ever growing profits (3 Whitehall Pl, City of Westminster, SW1A 2AW)

•    Department for Transport to challenge inaccessible transport, the opening of new inaccessible stations for Crossrail and proposed cuts to rail staff further reducing customer assistance (Great Minster House, 33 Horseferry Rd, London SW1P 4DR)

•    Department of Health to defend our NHS and demand our right to levels of social care support enabling choice, control, dignity and independence (Richmond House, 79 Whitehall, London SW1A 2NS)

Lobby of Parliament: 5 – 6pm – launch of the UK Disabled People’s Manifesto

WE WANT EVERYBODY TO JOIN US ON THIS MARCH ideally in person, but also online-this is for everyone everywhere. There will be accessible transport from a variety of towns and cities throughout the country (details to follow) and there is some funding available for transport but we will need your co-operation and patience to make this work for everybody, so please bear with us and note that while DPAC members will be given priority we want to support as many people as we can. If you can’t get there send a photo or your name and you can march with us.

This week of action is yours. Please take part at whatever level suits you – BUT MAKE SURE YOU TAKE PART. Share our events, resources and actions as far and wide as you can.

Lets Reclaim Our Futures, together!

Fast-food worker strikes, low pay and the useless self-appointed commentariat

Posted on by
3

Right.

Here are a few thoughts on the US fast-food-chain workers’ wage-battles and why any economic recovery will mean nothing to you if you are somebody who has to work to make enough money to live. Probably, like most people, you are in that category. Which means – tough shit for you.

I also offer this piece as an example of some of the reasons why the recent twitterstorms about misogyny have seriously pissed me off.

I will start this part of things by making clear that I DO NOT think that the threats and evil treatment that some people experience online are acceptable. I don’t think that at all. Why the hell would I?

What I DO think, though, is this. I think that an awful lot of other things happen but are passed over, because they don’t happen to the self-appointed twitter/op-ed commentariat, or don’t interest that group of people, or some bloody thing.

Who really knows. I don’t know how this shit works. I don’t move in those circle-jerks. I’m never even asked to and I don’t suppose my invite is in the mail. I just get very bloody annoyed when so many other issues that people must deal with – that women in particular must deal with – are sidelined, or completely ignored (you could say that “sidelined” is actually a good result these days, because being sidelined is better than being completely ignored), because they don’t take place on twitter and they don’t happen to twitter media “personalities.” It’s as though we’ve got to the point where if something doesn’t happen on twitter and doesn’t have a loud commentator with 10k+ followers attached to it, it just doesn’t happen. It’s invisible. Silent. It’s the tree falling in the forest – crashing down dead in the forest, really – with nobody around to hear it. It disappears. Gone. Never happened. Bye. It isn’t part of the stream of self-serving, “my pain is the most important pain and by the way have you read my very important newspaper column in the dying mainstream publication I write for” bollocks that passes for political dialogue today. Or something. I believe and will always believe that the best journalism is produced by reporters who produce work about people other than themselves and/or who don’t twist and twist a story until they’re at the centre of it.

I suppose there is a chance that that side of things is not worth getting worked up about. We’re very likely doomed anyway. Like – people were reading Andy Burnham in this week in the Guardian and talking about him as though he was some sort of hero of the people and that superman had been found. I wanted to flush my own head away when I heard that. That told me all I needed to know about the world’s chances of rescue from austerity right there.

Anyway…. wages. McDonald’s strikers, KFC strikers and strikers here and the fight against low wages:

So – pretty much to the day that reports of striking US McDonald’s and KFC workers started to filter through, I was aboard a 47 bus and riding past the Hilton on Tooley Street when I heard whistles blowing and then saw red Unite flags waving (this isn’t the beginning of a song) and my fellow travellers and I were presented with a scene which I’ve seen a number of times now in the last weeks and months in South East London – a group of pissed-off, low-paid workers yelling and protesting, as well they might, about their appalling pay rates and/or management plans to cut their already-low pay even further. There are often a lot of women in these groups and people are often black and Asian and they have certainly said to me, from time to time, that they think these cuts are sexist and racist.

So. I thought I’d go and see what was happening and so I departed the 47 and walked back to the protest… and sure enough, the group outside the Hilton was made up of union reps and union members who clean the big hotels for a “living,” if you can call it that – they were fighting for something better than the £6-and-£7-an-hour and zero-hours, dismissal-on-the-spot working “arrangements” that hotel workers are meant to feel grateful for.

As soon as I got off the bus and walked in to the protest and the noise, a woman began to talk to me. She was furious. She got straight to the point, which I reproduce here, because she said it all: her issue, and everybody’s issue really, was simply our era’s awful and destructive problem with distribution. “All these hotels are full of rich people. They are millionaires. Some of the people are billionaires. And people have to clean their toilets for not enough money to live on. What are people supposed to live on? How is that fair? That is not fair.”

She was right. That’s it and that’s austerity. It’s not fair. It’s intentionally and dangerously and vastly unfair and that’s one of the reasons that I take a real interest in the bitter wage fights that keep cropping up and cropping up around this country and in the US and Europe and that won’t go away, no matter how the BBC and others in the mainstream press refuse to report or even acknowledge them. For most people, the future will be zero-hours “arrangements” and wages that fall, not rise, as time goes on and more excuses for austerity and wage-smashing and board-profiteering are found and as employment rights and affordable lawyers to defend them disappear altogether and as unions continue to refuse to break strike law and take everybody out on strike, for as long as it takes – and that is why these pay-and-conditions disputes that are raging across the country between low-paid workers and employers like London’s so-called hospitality sector are relevant to anybody who must earn a wage.

This disease will spread. Nobody who needs a wage will be safe from cut wages and deteriorating conditions. Fighting unions and employment rights enshrined in law were all that ever stood between working people and abuse from the hierarchy. That hasn’t changed, as we’ll see. I think a lot of people will see that, unfortunately. People should never, ever imagine that they’re safe, because they’re not. Even back in the day, they were not. When I was a trade union rep, in the mid-2000s before Unison threw me out for wanting to break the Labour link – one noticeable phenomenon was that people who’d always looked down on union membership and laughed at trade union reps and who’d always, always thought that they were safe from management attacks because they were good and because they were in – people who were well-paid, a way up the hierarchy and sometimes managers themselves – suddenly found that they weren’t as safe as all that. In fact, they weren’t safe at all.

A reorganisation document would come around and their jobs would be earmarked for redundancy in it and they just couldn’t believe it. They couldn’t believe it. They’d played the game and then suddenly found that they were no longer players in the game. Or – the insidious stuff – their own managers had begun to lean on them using the subtle, vile tactics that they themselves had always used: asking them, as staff members, why they were two minutes late in the morning, dismissing their suggestions and contributions in front of others at team meetings, calling them into an office several times a week to ask why their work wasn’t of a standard any more, or why certain decisions had been made instead of others but never quite saying what the problem was, or overlooking them for promotion, or training chances, or excluding them from decision-making, but involving people of a similar rank, or saying that management had decided to put the person they had in their sights on report, “to keep an eye on their work” without ever really explaining why. When management starts lining people up with that sort of crap, everybody knows that they’ve had it. Certainly, people who’ve used those crappy techniques on other people themselves know it. It can happen for all sorts of reasons. Suddenly, somebody somewhere has decided you’re surplus to requirements. If you feel you’re safe from all of that, you’re wrong.

You’d certainly be wrong at the moment. You’d be wrong because austerity is still the only game in town and wages cuts, and even wagelessness, is a crucial part of that. Doesn’t matter if the private sector and the economy “recover” or even if they recover spectacularly. Power is utterly convinced that a shit employment reality is the only option for people who rely on a wage.

Power believes that even when it is watching its own organisation and future disappear round the u-bend on the back of cuts. I find this part of things interesting – that management will attack and cut even while acknowledging that the outcome is likely to be useless at best.

I thought about this a lot when, several weeks ago, I had a chat – we’ll call it that, even though it was more an oral brawl – with one Bill Puddicombe, CE of an outfit called Equinox Care. I’ve had a few fucked-up interfaces over the past few years, but I’m sharing the one with Bill with you because it really rated.

Equinox is a charity which provides support services for people with drug and alcohol problems and mental health conditions across the South East. The organisation came to my attention for the same reason that the London hotel staff dispute did last week – staff were on strike and out in the street, screaming bloody hell about their pay and conditions, and people were talking about it. As well they might. Equinox staff were on strike a couple of weeks ago in protest at management plans to slash their wages – by as much as £8000 a year in some cases (Alan White and I wrote a story on that here).

They were livid at management and livid in particular at Puddicombe, who they said refused to negotiate, or change his position.

Puddicombe, when we made phone contact to talk about all of this, was so fucked off with me and unions and the world that he just about blew a hole in the phone. And boo hoo to that in the long run, but, you know – it’s worth us having a look at here.

So I say, there was Bill. He was fucked off. He was fucked off with all sorts of things. He was fucked off with Unite and a highly amusing banner that somebody had put together: his face and a nice big caption which read “Bill Puddicombe – the face of cuts in social care.” Those posters were plastered all over the place and being waved at heavy traffic from the pickets, which were receiving a lot of support if the carhorn-honking and applause was anything to go by. But Bill was fucked off for a reason that I think he thought transcended all of that. He was angry because, he said, the union and staff and even fabulous reporters like me were in a kind of denial. We didn’t get the reality of the world that small charities were forced to operate in. That world was cutthroat and that world was competitive and the only chance a place like Equinox had if it was going to compete for contracts was to smash salaries. That, he said, was the part I DIDN’T GET. As far as he was concerned, not getting that part was just not an option. And this is my point – that these people honestly believe that tiny wages for workers are inevitable. Even when they are not sure that wage cuts will save an organisation – and Bill said he was not sure they would – wage cuts are still inevitable. The line is that we must accept that. There is no alternate narrative at all.

The part he didn’t get was why I thought this was a story.

“Can I ask for what reason you were part of the protest outside our office?” he blew down the phone by way of introduction.

“Calm down,” I said to Bill. It was all a bit early and painful on my ears and I wasn’t sure I was up to a frothing CE on the morning in question. And Jesus bloody Christ, Bill, I thought to myself. Let’s look at what was happening here. People were losing money that they couldn’t afford to lose and didn’t think they should have to (much mention was made on the Equinox pickets of MPs’ payrises, just as an aisde. People were finding it hard to buy into the general “we’re all making sacrifices” line). Had Bill really expected people to respond well to his demand that they take pay cuts of several thousand pounds a year? Did he not believe that a heated response was on the cards when he told staff they had to take that cut? I’d been talking to people on the picket who’d said that some in their number might have to use foodbanks to make ends meet. Did senior managers genuinely think that workers ought to take that sort of slap in the face and be grateful? Did they really think the government’s “we’ve all got to tighten our belts” line has been sold?

I dunno, you know. I spend time on the phone with a guy like Bill and I think– Jesus. Maybe these guys do think people will embrace them and their hatchets. Maybe they really do think that people can be convinced that the best way to provide a good service is to cut funding to it and to throw anyone who uses it or provides it onto a slagheap.

“I’m a journalist,” I told Bill. “So I go to where things happen.”

“So you weren’t there as part of the protests?” he sprayed.

“Journalists go to things where there are protests,” I told him.

“Was that at Unite’s invitation?” Bill said.

“I go to things that are happening,” I told Bill again. I was starting to feel as old as I am by this point. Did it matter how I got there? Does it matter how any of us got here? The point is that people hate being here. That’s why they’re pissed off with people like Bill. They were working away and doing fine and earning enough and then suddenly Fred Goodwin blows the lot on a horse somewhere and then the rest of us are lined up to pay for that forever and someone like Bill Puddicombe turns up to enforce it. That’s why people are hostile. It never ceases to amaze me, you know – this expectation that senior people have that people on the receiving end of austerity should, somehow, get it and get over it. They should voice their opposition to it politely, if they voice it at all.

People who are enforcing austerity don’t seem to understand why people on the arse end of cuts won’t embrace their chance to contribute their wages and futures to… whatever the fuck it is. You get this everywhere. Raised voices cause management pain and are often taken as reason to end discussions and negotiations, if indeed there are any. Protestors are expected to be peaceful and polite, and a union (which is, let’s not forget, simply a collection of workers at its essence) shouldn’t put up a full-blooded and uncompromising fight for members’ jobs and wages and complain that people are being told to eat shit while bankers and boards trouser uber wages and bonuses. I don’t know why people are surprised to find that people hate their tormentors. I mean – it’s taken years, but even I’ve learned that being a cunt to others has repercussions. I’m not saying that’s changed my behaviour, or that it will. I’m just saying I’ve observed that there is such a thing as cause and effect.

The thing is – Bill was basically saying (and this is my point) that austerity was the only game in town and that meant crap wages, for workers at least, and anyone who refused to grasp that reality would be swept away by the whole wave of shit, so people should grab these chances to keep their faces just above it. “I don’t think you understand what the world is like for small, vulnerable, charity organisations,” he said testily. “I can campaign as much as I like, I can jump up and down and say what I believe, which is that people’s salaries should not be reduced, but that will make not a whit of difference.”

I suggested that this “roll over and let others die” approach might not represent exactly the thrusting, high-end management thinking that low-paid staff and people who used the services that Equinox provided wanted, or indeed needed, at this point. You know. At some point, somebody somewhere is going to have to say That’s Enough. The Financial Sector Has Had All It’s Going To Get. The Political Class Has Had All It’s Going To Get. So It’s Time The Financial Sector and The Political Class Fucked Off. Said I to Bill: “you have a situation where people nationally are being put into situations where their salaries are being driven down and down and down. And there is no impetus from people are senior level to change that. Where’s the campaign, say, for further business, or for pushing councils for bigger contracts, or for pushing central government for more money? Wouldn’t there be a place for your organisation – even from management side – to be working with Unite to say that we need to have a bottom line for salaries here and we can’t go any further?”

Only in Fantasyland, said Bill in as many words.

So that was me and Bill. And that’s why people are striking and fighting like hell for their wages. Nobody else is going to do it for them. Nobody else thinks it’s even worth trying.

———-

But hey ho and on we go.

Let’s go to Barnet – a place where workers have long been able to count on wage-smashing and pay attacks at the hands of the council and Barnet council’s various rubbish private partners.

News in this week from Barnet Unison alerts us to the fact that wage cuts are on the cards for a group of low-paid workers (most of them women) whose job is to accompany and support children with special educational needs to school.

“The impact on the majority of coach escorts could see their earning drop from £8,891.67 to £5,845.84 a year,” Barnet Unison tells us. Joy. Remind me again how much money Iain Duncan Smith has blown on his Universal Credit disaster and how much is being spent bailing that useless fucker out. There are days when I almost can’t stand this.

Says one of the targeted Barnet staff members: “I work for Barnet Transport and as an employee, I have to be fully qualified to escort these children, attend courses and have certificates to prove I have passed these courses. Some of the disabilities our children have range from ADHD, to autism, Downs Syndrome, cerebral palsy…there are wheelchair users.

“The council cuts our pay and hours but there are an increasing number of the children travelling on the bus. The council needs us to continue our excellent services. Escorts are only part time, if our money is cut further as they propose, then qualified escorts will have to seek other employment which would leave the children with agency escorts who are not as qualified.”

Also from Unison:
1. Most coach escorts work a maximum 20 hours a week, although many would like to work more.
2. There are approximately 160 coach escorts providing this service. According to figures provided by the council 83 are directly employed by the Council the rest are agency workers.
3. Most coach escorts earn up to £8,891.67 a year.

So there you have it – another story of the annihilation of people’s pay.

So – the moral of today’s piece is….

In a seriously fucked-up way, it is becoming clear that I/we/everybody needs a couple of twitter commentariat celebs who are prepared to attach themselves to all of this. My own standards are not high and I’m prepared to look at anyone at this point. Except Hundal, I think. I think that would put me over the edge.

Expendable people – a list

Posted on by
4

A few thoughts.

This post is really a list of some of the people I’ve spoken with over the past couple of years who have mental health conditions and/or drug and alcohol problems and have had a revolting time as benefits and support services have been cut, and social security “reformed”.

These are the people few really give a stuff about. They’re the people who are, in our blame-laying, fingerpointing era, increasingly thought to be beneath sympathy or empathy: the people who “reformers” believe only need a good stint of homelessness, or abject poverty, to wake them up to themselves. If they don’t wake up – well, who cares? They’re austerity collateral. They don’t deserve much. If they’re alcoholics and addicts, they don’t deserve anything at all – a chance, or a second chance, or any help creating one.

They’re the people who prove that despite political blathering to the contrary, mental health conditions aren’t taken as seriously as all that and that people who have those issues are, when you get down to it, thought of as disposable. They can safely be left to rot. They cost too much and they don’t always look good and they don’t fit prettily with anybody’s narrative. They don’t even have a place in the poverty porn that some writers like to indulge in when they’re trying to tug heartstrings and prove how awful the Tories are. They’re not always clean enough for that. There’s a sense that they’ve brought too many of their problems on themselves – certainly, there’s a sense that most people with serious addiction problems have asked for those problems, as you do – and that readers won’t be able to see past that. I’ve had a lot of trouble drawing mainstream press attention to some of these people and some of the issues that they’re dealing with. I’ve had editors send interviews back to me and/or ask if I’ve got anything else. I remember watching the 16 May debate in parliament on mental health and thinking that the most telling part of the debate was that almost nobody turned up to take part in it.

And things keep happening – miles under the radar. The services that were all that stood between people and homelessness and chaos keep closing, or taking funding hits. Mental health supported living hostels – places which once provided staffed accommodation for people who’d recently been discharged from hospital and prison and so on – close. Drop-in centres, foundations and trusts have closed or taken major funding hits. Workers who provide drug and alcohol support services, rehabilitation and mental health support services are told to take major salary cuts and watch as services deteriorate. Nobody cares.

They only care when it looks like people with these issues might regain a bit of ground. If the goalposts are moved a few inches in favour of people in need, policymakers are quick to try and move them back. A couple of months ago, for example, the Mental Health Resistance Network and the Public Law Project won an Upper Tribunal decision which found that Atos employment and support allowance work capability assessments discriminated against people with mental health conditions. That decision would have made the DWP responsible for sourcing medical evidence for ESA claimants with mental health conditions at the start of their ESA claims – a step that would have helped ensure that those claimants had their complete medical histories taken into account when they were assessed. The DWP didn’t like that decision and was granted leave to appeal it. That was the sort of decision which could have improved people’s lives. Kept them alive, even. I suspect that keeping people alive isn’t quite the aim of the greater exercise.

So.

This is just a list.

Stephen: from Newcastle, aged 54. Has a long-term schizophrenia diagnoses and has been in and out of care, hospital, work, training and volunteer work all of his life. I attended Stephen’s Atos face-to-face assessment with him last year. We were both surprised when he was awarded zero points in a report that didn’t mention his schizophrenia. The schizophrenia diagnoses was mentioned in the notes that accompanied the report – but said that Stephen didn’t experience hallucinations, which he does. He appealed the decision and was placed in the support group six months later. In other words – he went from zero points in his original assessment, to the ESA support group – the group people are placed in when they have the highest needs. That was quite a turnaround. A lot of us who worked with Stephen at that time wondered exactly what criteria Atos was using.

Michael: 43, from Newcastle. Has severe depression and borderline personality disorder. He was especially worried about having to pay the bedroom tax out of his benefits. He had a small spare room in his flat – he was moved to a two-bedroom flat years ago after run-ins with gangs on his previous estate. The council moved him to his current flat for his safety. He was terrified of being moved back. He and Stephen both felt it would be impossible to get a job now because of their ages and their mental health histories.

Sean: from Wellingborough. In his 40s. Has an Asperger diagnoses and suffers from severe depression. Sean asked for his ESA face-to-face assessment to be recorded and had to wait more than six months for his assessment because of that – it took Atos six months to find working equipment to make the recording. I attended Sean’s assessment with him at the end of last year. The stress of waiting for the appointment nearly overwhelmed him in the months before it – he called and emailed regularly to say that he was thinking about suicide. Meanwhile, staff at his local mental health support facility had told Sean that he and his wife Maggie could no longer attend, because their needs were not serious enough (he said that the last thing their social worker told them at their last meeting was to call the police if things got really bad). In addition to their problems with ESA and Atos, the couple must also pay bedroom tax and council tax now that council tax benefit has been cut.

Maggie: from Wellingborough. In her 30s. Like Stephen, she has a long-term schizophrenia diagnoses and has been in and out of hospital since her first breakdown – when she was 21. She was diagnosed with schizophrenia in 1997 and was sectioned then. She says: “it’s hard to tell the difference between what’s real or in my head with paranoid schizophrenia. Seeing things that aren’t really there. Hearing voices in your head and things like that. Suspicious of what people are thinking. Not knowing what’s real and what’s not.” She and Sean must pay the bedroom tax and council tax out of their benefits. Maggie has been on incapacity benefit, but recently had notice that she will be moved from IB to ESA and will have to undergo an Atos face-to-face assessment as part of that. She asked her doctor if she would be eligible for an exemption. He said he could not help her and that she would have to go through the assessment.

Dean: in his 30s, living in Stroud. A long-time heroin addict, he recently walked from Cheltenham to Stroud to live to get away from the heroin scene he was involved in when he was living in Cheltenham. He’s had problems with his ESA, because, he says, he gave a “Care Of” address for his application and had trouble keeping up with paperwork. The truth is that he has no home address, because he’s been living in a tent. The local Christian group which puts on free meals for people on benefits in Stroud made a point of introducing him to me, because they thought his story should be told. Dean had managed to stay clean and off heroin for four weeks when I met him last week – all while hiking about and living in a tent. He said that he believed that he needed to be resident in Stroud for a few more months (he’d been there for four months) to be eligible for services. As Darren and the people serving meals on the day we met said – if there’s any time at all that you want to help a guy who is trying to come off heroin, it’s when he’s managed to stay off heroin for a month while living in a tent. That’s when he should get benefits – not when he shouldn’t.

Agnes, living in London. She had a schizophrenia diagnoses and a long-term alcoholism problem. Her local council, which was closing her mental health supported living hostel, said it had found her a new place to live when it had not. She was terrified of being placed in a B&B or a low-support hostel, because she’d been abused in places like that before. After the article I wrote about this appeared in the Guardian, the council in question tried to sack the staff it thought had spoken to me for the piece.

Peter (name changed), in his 40s. Lives in Weymouth. Has had long-term problems with drug and alcohol abuse and a long history of street homelessness. “I actually went round to the council one morning, because I was so done in from sleeping on the pier. It was chucking it down with rain – gale-force wind – and I only had 30 minutes’ sleep, because of the fucking generators going on the bastard ferry. I walked into the council and I said “why don’t you just take me to the hospital and give me a lethal injection?” You can’t imagine it, can you? Like – everything you’ve got now is gone. [You’ve got] no money. As soon as you change anything, your housing benefit is gone. They put me off ESA and put me back on jobseekers’ (Peter was recently found fit for work after an Atos assessment. That means his income is about £65 a week). I went five weeks without any money and I went to the council and three bloody forms I had to fill in. I said – “excuse me. How many trees [are you using for these forms]? I can’t wait for you to wipe out the rainforest, because I won’t have to worry about paperwork any more.”

John, 60. Living in Stroud. Had trained as an engineer after leaving school and had worked long-term in electrical engineering jobs for most of his life. Was made redundant several times, the last time about ten years ago. His marriage broke up as well and he had to sell his house. Since then, he hasn’t been able to find another job – his age, he thinks – and the savings have gone. So, he’s on JSA and is regularly sanctioned. He lives in a room in a house that is occupied by people who are in similar situations. He really, really would like a job. Without one and an income, he won’t be able to change his situation. At the age of 60, he doesn’t think that chance is likely to come around.

Jim. In his 50s. Living in Stroud. Had a signmaking business, which fell apart about five years ago. Became very depressed, went on a drinking binge and lost the little money he had left. Has a daughter in the Army and a son who is working. Is on JSA and – like most of the people on benefits I met in Stroud last week – had regularly been sanctioned. Was very keen to get a job, but thought his age and drinking history were working against him. Was finding out how difficult it was to get a second chance.

Unless you’re Andy Coulson, etc.