These first videos were taken inside the protest outside the Department for Work and Pensions in the afternoon. It’s shaky, because I was pushed over a few times, but it rights itself here and there. There were fiery scenes, all right, and the police were pretty free with their hands:
More pushing from the police:
The protest began in Triton Square at Atos headquarters, then moved across town to the DWP’s Wesminster offices after a couple of hours. That’s where things began to kick off. There were hundreds of people present and things got pretty unpleasant. The lack of mainstream reporting of this protest seems extraordinary – as someone who was in the middle of it all day, I can tell you that it was well-attended and pretty full-on.
Outside the DWP, DPAC’s Adam Lotun tells protestors that people have entered the building with a list of demands for Maria Miller. He also announces his candidacy for the upcoming Corby byelection. That should be interesting – particularly for Labour:
This video is from earlier in the day outside Atos’ headquarters where people started yelling at police, security and a guy in a red tie who refused to answer questions about the company’s WCA record:
Can’t exactly see a fair process being rolled out here….this Treasury paper strongly implies that the 20% cut in DLA expenditure that the government expects to achieve by phasing DLA out was drawn from results of the existing, and flawed, work capability process.
Measure description
This measure will introduce an objective medical assessment and revised eligibility criteria for both new and existing working-age claims for Disability Living Allowance, to be rolled out from 2013/14. The assessment will follow a similar process to the Work Capability Assessment (WCA) used for claims to Employment and Support Allowance, with a points based system to assess eligibility to the different rates of the benefit.
The cost base
This costing uses the same caseload and expenditure projections used in the main social security forecast.
Costing Drawing on the evidence of the impact of the WCA, the central assumption for this policy is that it will result in a 20 per cent reduction in caseload and expenditure once fully rolled out. It is assumed that existing claimants would be reassessed over three years, with 25 per cent of the caseload reassessed in the first year, 75 per cent by the end of the second year and 100 per cent by the end of the third year.
Update Thursday 26 July 11am: DPAC has emailed to say a judicial review against WCA has been granted to the applicants from Mental Health Resistance discussed in the post below.
Full press release is now on DPAC site here: “Thursday, July 26, 2012: The High Court has today granted permission to two disabled people to bring a claim for judicial review against the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions to challenge the operation of the Work Capability Assessment (WCA).”
Update 22 July: heard last week that an outcome from this application for a judicial review isn’t expected before 23 July – so we might hear something this week.
Post updated 30 June 2012 to add video
The post below was first published 29 June 2012:
Short post on today’s (29 June 2012) hearing on an application for a judicial review of the controversial Atos work capability assessments:
Went down to the Royal Courts of Justice this morning, where an application had been made by members of the Mental Health Resistance Network for permission for a judicial review of the work capability assessment process.
A judge was deciding whether or not people with mental health issues should be able to apply for a judicial review of the WCA process.
Adam Lotun, press spokesperson for Disabled People Against The Cuts, said that Employment and Support Allowance work capability assessments had developed “into a vehicle that is being used to deny people [with disabilities] their rightful access to funding and resources to assist them in their day-to-day living.”
He said that the other reason for seeking the review was to stop the same damaging process being used to assess people on disability living allowance as DLA is phased out and replaced with the personal independence payment – “we want to stop the killing of the disability living allowance.”
“These (benefits) were brought in to ensure that people of all different levels would be able to get access to funding, or resources, to enable them to cope and exist with the rest of society. Well, now that’s being taken away from us.”
Claimants argue that the work capability assessment process discriminates against people with mental health issues.
Result from the end of the day:
Adam Lotun texted to say that:
“The judge will give a decision early next week. In closing remarks, the judge said that this is something that involves hundreds and thousands of people,” and that there was concern that people would ultimately fill the court system with individual claims.
Mental Health Northeast survey finds that Atos work capability assessments are having an extremely detrimental effect on people with mental health illnesses. MHNE released some of the survey results at a Hardest Hit conference in Newcastle earlier this month.
MHNE chief executive Lyn Boyd said the organisation decided to run the survey because:
“A lot of our member groups were getting in touch with us and saying that they were really concerned about the people they’re working with and the impact that this [Atos work capability assessments] was having on them.
“And individuals that didn’t belong to any organisation – they were getting in touch with us in very distressed states, not knowing where to turn where to go for help and really just being very distressed – not feeling up to coping with what was happening. So, we wanted to see how widespread the problem was. We wanted to see what effect it was having on people’s social lives, their housing, their mental states.”
Comments from survey respondents included:
“Medical evidence was routinely not sought when needed and often little consideration was given to it when received.”
“It is only at the [work capability assessment] appeal meeting that mental health concerns were taken into account. There was too much focus on physical elements of a person’s illness – for example, questions like: 1) can you walk in a straight line 2) read these words 3) [do you have] any injuries.”
A man called Steve_ (am withholding his name, because he has further WCA sessions to take) has schizophrenia. He said this at the Newcastle Hardest Hit meeting:
“I got five points [at my first work capability assessment] when I needed 15 [text changed after publication – initially said for support group]. The second time – I got none. This time, I felt well enough, with the help of the community mental health team, to go through an appeal… then I lost the tribunal. It took a year, which made me feel worse anyway.
“Then I went on Jobseekers’ Allowance, because the community mental health team said – okay, you’ve recovered sufficiently. You don’t need our help. I think it was to do with the cuts – they couldn’t provide the service. Six months after being on JSA and not getting anywhere fast…I’ve been telling my GP to refer me back to the CMH team, because I’m getting worse….I’m telling you – it’s getting worse.”
This is the second article from my series of interviews with people around the country who are affected by this appalling government’s welfare changes, NHS reform and cuts. This report is from the southwest.
The interviews from Weymouth are with a group of older men who were in and out of homelessness and battling to keep their jobseekers’ and employment and support allowances.
The names of people on jobseekers’ allowance or ESA have been changed and marked *. Most of these people were going through Atos work capability assessments and were concerned that the mere act of giving interviews would be construed as fitness for work. There are accompanying audio recordings.
There is also a list of policy changes and cuts which affect each person at the end of each section.
Lives on benefits are not, as Cameron would have us believe, simple and sorry stories of unreal “expectations” from people who believe “the state will support you whatever decisions you make… you can have a home of your own… you will always be able to take out, no matter what you put in.”
It’s one of modern politics’ most loathsome sells: this notion that people who need state support hold any cards, let alone all of them. The idea of a culture of entitlement is entirely romantic. There’s nothing left for anyone to feel entitled to. No aspect of taking state money in this day and age is painless, or liberating – except, perhaps, if you’re a bailed-out banker.
For the rest, a life on benefits is an appalling tale of financial and personal reduction, particularly when you’ve no hope of buying yourself back by finding a job. You must have the state in that case. You can’t do without it. Your desperation, though, means that the state also has you.
I’ll give you an example of this reduction from Weymouth. It will sound tiny, but it wasn’t. It’s probably common, but it wasn’t insignificant. At the time, I was worried – I thought there was a chance that I may have put someone’s benefits in jeopardy. It was probably a small chance, but the thought did occur to me.
It all started merrily enough. I was horsing around in a carpark with Sean Needham* (in his 50s and made redundant from a Woolworth’s warehouse when Woolies went bust), Pete Gyte* (ex-armed forces), Mike Gale* (also ex-services) and H*, Mike’s cheerful, turbo-charged, Alsatian when Needham made a sudden decision.
He invited me to the next meeting of the job club that the men said they had to regularly attend as a condition of collecting their jobseekers’ and employment and support allowances. All three men were in their late 40s, or early 50s. All were unemployed and all had been homeless from time to time over the years.
Nobody seemed entirely sure what the job club was for (“we’re supposed talk about getting work and CVs,” Needham said, vaguely), but they could see two clear advantages to it for me.
The first was that they thought it would give me some insight into the hoops they had to jump through to keep their benefits and/or find employment in their challenging patch. Employment rates in the southwest are among the country’s best, but unemployment has been on the rise. If you’re a drug addict, or an alcoholic, or have serious mental health problems, or a history of homelessness – well, the guys said that it might happen, but it might not.
“I mean – come on,” Gyte said when we touched on the topic. “They reckon everybody’s fit for work, but if I had a company, most of the people I know – I wouldn’t let them in the door! Operating expensive machinery…?”
The second was that there was a sex shop somewhere along the way. There was no real advantage to that news, I suppose, except that it made us all incredibly funny for the rest of the night.
“You can get a pair of knickers first!” Gyte giggled.
“No crotch for me,” I said, which was, obviously, hilarious. The entire conversation seemed hilarious – a whole lot of giggling and snorting about David Cameron, Tories, government, CVs and dildos. Continue reading →
This is a short report on the statements that one claimant, Cait Reilly, and her lawyer Tessa Gregory made before they went into court this morning.
There’s a video and full transcript from their statements below.
Cait Reilly and a claimant who was not named are challenging two workfare schemes. One is the sector-based work academy scheme (Reilly). The second is the community action programme (the unnamed claimant).
Say Public Interest Lawyers (who are representing the two claimants): “If it succeeds, the court will quash the regulations[1][1] under which the schemes are made and Iain Duncan Smith, the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, will be sent back to the drawing board.”
Here’s hoping.
From Public Interest Lawyers again:
“Cait Reilly participated in the “sector-based work academy” scheme against her wishes. She was forced to leave her voluntary work at a local museum to work in Poundland stacking shelves for two weeks.”
“The second claimant refused to participate in a scheme known as the “Community Action Programme” when he was told that he had to work cleaning furniture without pay for 30 hours per week for six months. No detailed information or guidance was provided to him about the scheme itself and he has recently been informed that he is being stripped of his jobseekers’ allowance for six months because he refused to participate in the scheme.”
Said Tessa Gregory this morning:
“The government’s mismanagement of these flagship reforms has reulted in a complete shambles, where nobody understands the plethora of very different schemes that have been created and where the only ones benefiting are the companies receiving free labour. Nothing has been done to improve the employment prospects of our our clients.”
Indeed.
(Have spelled “qualifications” incorrectly in there somewhere).
Full transcripts:
Tessa Gregory (Public Interest Lawyers):
“Today, we’re asking the high court to quash the regualtions under which the government has made many of its back-to-work schemes. We represent two clients who have been subject to two very different schemes under the same regulations.
Cait will speak about her experiences.
Our other client, a qualified mechanic, under a scheme known as the community action programme, was required to work unpaid cleaning furtniture for 30 hours a week for six months. The scheme was not once properly explained to him. While he desperately wants to find work, he objects to doing unpaid work which is unrelated to his qualifciations and which will not assist him in re-entering the job market.
He refused to participate and as a result, has been stripped of six months benefits of jobseekers’ allowance.
This is a post in progress which I’ll be adding to, so there’ll be changes/additions/updates etc:
A couple of months ago, Mental Health Northeast (an umbrella group which represents about 340 voluntary and community groups for people with mental health illnesses in the northeast) ran a survey to collect information about the experiences people with mental health problems were having as they went through Atos work capability assessments.
At a recent Hardest Hit meeting in Newcastle, MHNE chief executive Lyn Boyd, who ran through some of the survey’s first results, said the organisation decided to run the survey because:
“A lot of our member groups were getting in touch with us and saying that they were really concerned about the people they’re working with and the impact that this [Atos work capability assessments] was having on them.
“And individuals that didn’t belong to any organisation – they were getting in touch with us in very distressed states, not knowing where to turn where to go for help and really just being very distressed – not feeling up to coping with what was happening. So, we wanted to see how widespread the problem was. We wanted to see what effect it was having on people’s social lives, their housing, their mental states.”
MHNE is still analysing responses from their questionnaire and writing a final report, but they sent through some information. They say the responses represent the experiences of about 200 individual service users.
They report that 99% of respondents reported that their work capability assessments had a negative impact on them, their families/carers and their recovery. Many mentioned despair, outright trauma and suicidal thoughts.
About 85.7% of respondents felt that no notice was taken of medical evidence submitted in support of their employment and support allowance claim.
Other comments from respondents include:
“Medical evidence was routinely not sought when needed and often little consideration was given to it when received.”
“It is only at the [work capability assessment] appeal meeting that mental health concerns were taken into account. There was too much focus on physical elements of a person’s illness – for example, questions like: 1) can you walk in a straight line 2) read these words 3) [do you have] any injuries.”
S_ (am withholding his name, because he has further WCA sessions to take) has schizophrenia. He said this at the Newcastle Hardest Hit meeting:
“I got five points [at my first work capability assessment] when I needed 15 [text changed after publication – initially said for support group]. The second time – I got none. This time, I felt well enough, with the help of the community mental health team, to go through an appeal… then I lost the tribunal. It took a year, which made me feel worse anyway.
“Then I went on Jobseekers’ Allowance, because the community mental health team said – okay, you’ve recovered sufficiently. You don’t need our help. I think it was to do with the cuts – they couldn’t provide the service. Six months after being on JSA and not getting anywhere fast…I’ve been telling my GP to refer me back to the CMH team, because I’m getting worse….I’m telling you – it’s getting worse.
“I’m going back to Atos in the next few weeks and what Lyn has been saying – I fully concur with all of that. They don’t listen to anything to do with mental health. They’re not trained. They don’t listen to your GP at all – they barely look at your medication prescriptions. Basically, if it wasn’t so tragic, it would be an utter laugh, but it’s just the fear of going through that process again without any help and at the moment, the GP and CHM are arguing [about] whether I’m going to get that help, but they’re not with me every night when I get the schizophrenia coming back, so really, I’m basically between a devil and the deep blue sea all the time and it’s going to get worse.
“It’s tickboxes and if you don’t fully satisfy most of their criteria, you get nowhere and that’s what I found all the time and basically it’s a very very bad system.”
If you’re in Barnet on Saturday 7 July, this event really is one that is worth attending: Barnet Council Not For Sale conference.
It’s on Saturday 7 July from 12pm to 3pm at the Greek Cypriot centre, Britannia Road, Britannia Road, North Finchley, London N12 9RU.
Something very interesting is happening in Barnet and it is worthy of serious attention. A group of extremely organised residents, bloggers and Unison members (John Burgess is branch secretary) has begun to put real pressure on (Tory) Barnet council as it has pursued much-derided plans to mass outsource council services to the private sector. There’s groundswell in Barnet and it’s worth keeping an eye on. For all the odds against them, local people, workers and writers in Barnet are scoring direct hits. They take hits, too, of course, but on they go.
A lot of the people involved in the Barnet fight for public services and against the government will be at the Barnet Not For Sale Conference. It will be worth hearing what they have to say about strong, anti-government, community-driven organising.
At a recent Hardest Hit meeting for people with disabilities in Newcastle, the woman* in the video below (who describes herself as severely to profoundly deaf and whom I talked with at some length after she spoke at a Local Cuts session) said she’d been told by her welfare rights advisors to expect her application for Disability Living Allowance to be turned down on first application.
She says in the video:
“What I find incredible is now is that I’m being told by professionals – “Well, you’ve got that far [completed an application form for DLA] but expect it to be turned down. That’s normal. You know, you’re going to have to go to appeal.””
She wasn’t sure what sort of hint she was supposed to take from this – either, that she wasn’t eligible for DLA at any rate (although she wondered why she’d be encouraged to apply or appeal at all if that was the case), or that the application process is now so stringent that many applicants are failed on first application as a matter of course (“that’s normal”) and their only hope lies in the second part of the process – appeal. That makes the application process even more complex and even more drawn-out and likely deters people from pursuing their claims. Already, this woman is worried about it, as well she might be. Continue reading →
