The Billion Pound Gamble – film on Barnet cuts & privatisation

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From the makers of The Billion Pound Gamble:

On Monday 22nd October at 6pm, the world premiere of a new film, Barnet – The Billion Pound Gamble – will be shown at the iconic Phoenix Cinema in East Finchley (52 High Road London N2 9PJ).

The film has been made by acclaimed US film director Charles Honderick and exposes the chaos being wrought by the policies of Barnet Council as the council cuts services and pursues a highly-controversial billion-pound outsourcing deal.

Local residents are interviewed and explain just how difficult life has become. A family with a child suffering severe disability tells how no appropriate accommodation has been provided for 11 years.

Users of day centres explain how cuts to transport have affected them and how they get charged £1.20 for a cup of nescafe. Local traders tell the tale of how the parking policies have forced them to the brink.

Award winning film director Ken Loach explains how outsourcing destroys local economies. A host of experts explain how the One Barnet programme is doomed to failure, it is a Billion Pound Gamble, where private companies will pick up fat cheques, local residents will get shoddy services and local taxpayers will be left to pick up the bill.

The film also features shocking scenes filmed inside the Town Hall as uncaring local councillors dismiss the concerns of residents and laugh as important decisions, which will cause misery for thousands, are passed without proper debate.

The official trailer for the film has been released today and can be viewed on the film website – http://www.billionpoundgamble.co.uk

Notes for Editors.

1. The world premiere for the film will be shown at The Phoenix Cinema on Monday 22nd October. Doors open at 6pm and the film will be shown at 6.30pm. Entrance costs £1.

2. The film has been directed by USA film director Charles Honderick. The film is a follow up to the acclaimed film “A Tale of Two Barnets” which has been screened at The House of Commons, The Edinburgh Festival, The Unison National Conference and the TUC centre at Great Russell St. There have also been over 20 local screenings.

3. The film features a new exclusive interview with award winning film director Ken Loach, talking about life, football and outsourcing.

4. The film website is http://www.billionpoundgamble.co.uk/ . This is being constantly updated with information, details and clips as we move towards the full screening.

5. The website for “A Tale of Two Barnets” is http://ataleoftwobarnets.yolasite.com/. This has full details of all press coverage and clips from the film including full interviews with Ken Loach, Richard Cornelius (Leader of Barnet Council) and Nick Walkley (CEO of Barnet Council).

 

A few truths about benefits

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This is the latest in the transcripts from recorded interviews I’m publishing as I talk to people around the country who are dealing firsthand with fallout from public sector cuts, welfare reform and the recession. I’m posting these transcripts between longer articles and testimonies that are appearing at False Economy and elsewhere.

In this transcript, Michael H, who is 43, from Newcastle and on benefits, talks about growing up on Gateshead’s Springwell estate, his worries for his children in an era and region of high unemployment, his concerns about being moved out of his council flat if the government’s bedroom tax is enforced (he was moved to his current flat years ago after run-ins with gangs on his previous estate) and his own conviction for benefit fraud. Michael has been diagnosed with borderline personality disorder, has depression and suffers from anxiety and panic attacks.

“I know that this is going to come across really, really strong but I think that it’s a social cleansing what they [the government] are doing, with people the likes of us on benefits… because he’s [Cameron] turned around, calling us the likes of scroungers.

I go to doctors, I go to groups – I’m trying to get better, but when you’re diagnosed with things like this and you’re on the waiting list… I’m diabetic. I was diagnosed in 2005 – I almost died [in 2000]. I’ve got summat in my hands where they attack down the nerves. It’s affecting me like joints and things and the medication that they put us on, I don’t think it agreeing with us. I’m thinking like more suicidal thoughts. I don’t know if this drug is right for me.

I was a caretaker years ago and I worked with a broken arm, so it isn’t if I haven’t worked or anything. I have done lots of various jobs. Obviously, growing up, I wasn’t brought up in the best world. It was like…really bad times – a very violent household if you get my drift, so I didn’t have the best of the starts in life. [But] I’m doing everything like I’m supposed to be doing…

Bedroom tax its a different way of cutting the housing benefit bill. That’s all it is. It isn’t anything about encouraging people to move on, because they know that there isn’t any one bedroom properties going. My daughter still comes across [to stay in my flat]. She lives at home with her mam and stepdad and she comes across to mine and she has that room as a little sanctuary thing, because she she’s doing 6th form now. She is going to be a teacher and it’s nice for her to have that sanctuary. In everything, you will get people who will take advantage. It’s doesn’t matter what job you are in – in any walk of life. Look at the Tories with their expenses. Those MPs – in real life, they would have lost their jobs.

I haven’t had an [Atos work capability assessment yet]. I’m on incapacity benefit…I’ve watched the things on the television and seen how [ESA] is decided for people to fail on it. People don’t understand how that plays with your mind, because if your mind is fragile enough now, when you get things like that put on top of you, it just makes you think – what I am good for? The best thing to do would be to end it, because then I wouldn’t be on benefits.

My son and his pals have been on benefits for ages and there is nothing there. He has to go around and hand in CVs to firms in the local areas [as a requirement for jobseekers’ allowance]. They [the job centre] keep asking him to do it and he’s like – if I’ve done every one, how can I go around and do it again? And they are now wanting to sanction people £72 [sic]. That’s their whole benefit, if they don’t meet whatever they [the job centre] wants. Yes, we do know that there is people who do not want to work, because there’s ones that do crime, do drugs, do whatever, but that’s always been there since day dot, but to tar every single person…

The thing is, he [Cameron] claims that it [welfare changes and bedroom tax] won’t have that much impact – but how does he know? He’s a millionaire. He’s not been in our shoes, I would love to have been in his. Because most people round these areas to be honest, they are poor and they accept their lot in life.

At the job centre, they have not got a clue. If they brought in schemes where it wouldn’t affect your benefit – employment training for 12 months, you could go out and train. If disabled people had those rights, if that would then give them the confidence to go back into the workplace and try things out and learn different things. They let the likes of us rot now. We are classed as the worst thing since bubonic plague.

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Disabled people against cuts and UK Uncut protest Friday 31 August London

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Protestors clash with police at the department for work and pensions.

Have a lot of video to upload from today – here’s the start.

This protest was called by UK Uncut and Disabled People Against Cuts as the closing ceremony to the Atos Games week – five days of events and demonstrations against Atos’ involvement in the fiasco that is work capability assessments for people on employment and support allowance.

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:

More videos to come through the evening.

Schizophrenia, little support and fit for work that doesn’t exist

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This is another transcript from my interviews with people who are dealing with cuts and welfare reform.

This transcript is from a recorded discussion with S_*, who is from Newcastle. Now in his 50s, S_ was diagnosed with schizophrenia nearly 30 years ago. He says that his symptoms – depression, and auditory and visual hallucinations – are getting worse and cuts to services mean that he is struggling to find counselling and the regular support he needs to function. This week – several weeks after his latest work capability assessment with Atos – he was found fit for work (this recording was taken before his latest assessment). He talks a lot about isolation and is especially concerned about finding and keeping a job without regular professional support.

“About 30 years ago, I was diagnosed as schizophrenic. I couldn’t talk to people, including my own parents, about things that were worrying me, particularly socially, and at the first school I went to, I was told that I was a waste of space and I got bullied. In the end, my parents ended up calling in the emergency doctor and then they called in a friend of theirs who is a doctor. He advised them to get a psychiatrist he knew.

“I was given massive injections and the next thing I knew, I was on my way to the hospital. That was just before my first attempt at college and final year exams and that was stress anyway. I was in there for one and a half weeks and came back to do the last exam, but I didn’t do that, because it [the schizophrenia] started to kick in again as the effects of the medication wore off.

“Things have got better in some ways since then, but they’re not brilliant. I do have suicidal thoughts and I get really depressed, but I usually manage to talk myself out of it. Also, I made a promise to a psychiatrist as well when I was in hospital that I wouldn’t do anything stupid, but I find it very hard. I tell people that I’m a member of society, but I feel on the fringes of it, as if I’m an outlaw and not in the mainstream.

“Yes, I do hallucinate [especially at night]…I see things like giant squid and things like that…I think I’m being eaten alive…. the drugs, the Sulpiride I take, it’s got quite bad side effects in that my limbs shake every night when I go to bed and keep me up half the night anyway.

“It has basically gone on since I was 18, if not before. I’ve coped reasonably well, but there are limits to things I can do and to the desire to do them and the motivation as well. I mean, when I get tired and run down, that’s when things can kick off again.

“When I first got out of hospital, when I was 18, I was given a job by my dad, so that he could look after me day to day and see how I was doing. Since then, I have either worked part time, or gone into full time education, or basically been on training schemes, or been on the welfare state. The labelling [as someone with schizophrenia], I think stigmatises and discriminates against you in the minds of employers.

“I’m in my 50s anyway and that’s another thing against me…and what it has meant is huge great holes in my CV which have been covered by little bits of volunteering. I can’t do really physical stuff. I don’t drive because of the medication and both prescriptions say don’t drive or use machinery or use alcohol if at all drowsy. Also, the schizophrenia means that I’ve got thought disturbance, image disturbance, particularly at night.

“I’ve been on this medication since 1998. I got recommended to go to university – the university, thank god, picked me up through student services and gave me counselling every week and gave me help to write essays. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have got my degree. But I’ve rarely seen psychiatrists since 2004 and when I was at K_, the most concerned they seemed to have been was about whether I was going to use a chainsaw or not. After that, it seemed to be a succession of different psychiatrists every time who seemed to just want to go back into the past – what medication you’re on and so on.

“The community mental health team is overwhelmed…I’m not as ill as others, I acknowledge that, but I do think that I need some help and I get very little. I’ve had to fight for what I’ve got so far, even when I’ve had a relapse and the police have been called and things like that.

“Here, you have got to go through your GP to get a meeting with a psychiatrist…I was originally referred to the cognitive behavioural therapy team. They didn’t want to know, because I had a diagnosis with schizophrenia, so they sent me back to the GP. They sent me to the community mental health team and they originally didn’t want to know and I went back to the GP again and on the second time of asking, they took me seriously. It’s taken eight months of being messed around and of getting worse and worse and feeling more anxious…

“Originally, I was on income support with an incapacity element – this was years ago, so my memory is slightly faulty. This will be my third Atos assessment. I know people who have had four or more over four years – one a year basically and tribunals as well and still been asked back..

“I got a work capability assessment under New Labour back in 2008 and I treated it like a job interview, because I didn’t know what to expect. There was nothing in [my town back then] to advise me and the job centre would have just been a joke. I didn’t know about the disability forum, which was just starting out on this thing. The whole system has become more onerous since the coalition got in and I’ve been yo-yoing between jobseekers’ and employment support allowance. If there’s someone who has asked me to do something, someone in authority, I usually try and do that thing even if I know it is going to hurt me or make me stiff. I usually try and do my best. And that’s what they are counting on – people not knowing the system.

“I would like to see someone to talk to on a regular basis, just for motivation and reassurance. And to be able to have enough a personal budget to employ someone like a gardener and a cleaner because I’m conscious of the fact that the neighbours have done most of the garden and I find mowing the lawn very hard – not just physically, but mentally – getting round to it and doing it. Also, just someone to pop in on a fairly regular basis, just once or twice a month, just to see how I was doing.

“I’d also like a psychiatrist just sort of in the background in case things get worse, but I find that making appointments with the doctor just horrendously difficult. You can’t always get an appointment straight away and frequently, I need one pretty quickly.

“I’ve got a two bedrooom house, but it’s it’s in need of a clean. You know, I’m not very good at remembering to do things like the dishes and clothes washing on a regular basis.

“Having the ESA/JSA is very important. I still get help which is organised by my family, but that’s to pay the bills. It’s never been good since the new government come in and made the conditions harder and harder. You’ve got to jump through more hoops to justify yourself and you’re looked upon as a scrounger and people ask why you’re not working. They just don’t seem to have any idea what it’s like.

“At my second Atos appointment, I didn’t go with anyone. That was a mistake. I’ve learned now. I got help to prepare all the documents and that sort of thing with the disability forum here and I was told what to take. I have done [the same] this time as well, but the first one I did, I had no idea what to expect and no idea about anything – no idea about medical evidence. I thought you took a note of what your GP said, but they seemed to ignore that, so that’s why I’ve made a point this time of getting back to the community mental health team and secondary services because I think they might pay a bit more attention to them than to a GP.

“The way I feel varies. Some days I just can’t be bothered to get out of bed – I just feel so low. Sometimes, that goes and I physically can’t get out of bed. Even the GP reckoned years ago that I couldn’t handle stress very well, so he was very surprised when I went to university. I always got a bit of extra time, because they were very good – they acknowledged that I had difficulties and they worked around them. I just wish employers would, because I reckon that I’ll be found fit for work again. It’s got to be limited – it’s got to be limited travel, no more than 20 hours a week and less than an hour a day travel, but beggars can’t be choosers, I’m afraid.

“I think I’ll need a bit of advice after [his next work capability assessment], to see what I’m going to do – whether I’m going to appeal. I certainly will if I get no points at all. I need 15. If they say there’s nothing wrong with you, I will appeal, but if they say there is – you have got this health issue but we can work around it, I’ll probably go to the disability employment advisor again. I’ll have to go through jobseekers’ again. Otherwise, I will appeal for my employment support allowance if they say there is nothing wrong with me.

“I just think that the whole welfare state and people who depend on it are being attacked wrongly and the elite bankers are getting away with it – fraudulent things, but getting a mere slap across the wrists and I think it’s totally wrong, it’s immoral. Neither New labour or the Tories are going to rapidly change this. There’s one law for the rich and one law for the poor and I just happen to be in the second bracket.

“I would hate to think where I’d be in six months’ time without support. I think I would be back in hospital at the very least, if not on my deathbed. It’s been a constant struggle anyway, with what limited support I get and I’m trying to get more, but if I didn’t have what I’ve got I think it’d be even worse and I think I’d be on far more medication.

“The help I’ve got at the moment – well, I come here [to a voluntary support organisation for people with mental health problems] as often as I can. I go and see my GP when I think I need to, but that’s difficult, trying to get an appointment. I want to be able to almost on a switch of a button talk to someone, but you’ve got to plan it and even then, there are lots of other people with other problems trying to access their GP as well. I think I need a visit from a carer, or a social worker, a couple of times a month just to see how I’m getting on, but with these cuts I don’t think I’ll get that. And as I say, a fairly regular meeting with a psychiatrist, or a self help group.

“The report I got back said that I am a very passive individual. I thought – oh what else? Then it went through the descriptors and it was like – none of this applies sort of thing and that’s the reason that I appealed. I eventually got to the tribunal and during that wait, I was getting worse.”

*Name withheld.

Other articles: people with mental health illnesses win judicial review of work capability assessments.

Targets for reforming disability living allowance

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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.

From Treasury 2010 budget costings documents (see page 36)

Reforming disability living allowance – 

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.

Touchstone blog from 2010 on that 20% cuts figure in DLA here.

Video from counter-Olympics protest, Mile End, 28 July 2012

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Short video from yesterday’s counter-Olympics protest with a few scenes to give you an idea of scale, etc. Doubtless, Locog is claiming you could have fit the whole thing in a phone booth, but I’d say it was a bit bigger than that.

The slightly shaky shots at the beginning are of people who very much appear to be soldiers looking down on the march from the top of a turret. Interesting times we’re living in here.

There were a lot of international journalists present, asking people why they were protesting. They were all wearing their Olympics accreditation cards. It was obvious in their minds at least, something was happening.

 

Judicial review: Atos and work capability assessments

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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.

 

Interesting link: How times change. The Conservatives introduced Disability Living Allowance.

Other posts:

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.”

More video to be uploaded.

See also – Sue Marsh: BMA demands an immediate end to work capability assessments.