Fit For Work – Three Part Series on BBC Radio 4

Fit For Work – Three Part Series on BBC Radio 4 by Jolyon Jenkins

"For 30 years, governments have tried to get disabled people into work by toughening up benefit rules. Part of the motivation has been to cut the welfare bill, but it’s also been framed as an attempt to stop disabled people “languishing” on benefits.

‘But the policy has had tragic consequences, particularly for people with mental illness, who have felt coerced and pressured, as the department for work and pensions has deemed them fit for work. Many – maybe hundreds – have taken their own lives.

‘According to a former chief economist at the DWP, “it’s one of the biggest social policy failures of the last 20 or 30 years. We caused an enormous amount of human suffering. We achieved very little, we didn’t save any money and it probably cost more than it would have if we hadn’t done anything.”

Fit For Work BBC Radio 4 'player' Episode 1: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001mck1/episodes/player

Twitter thread: https://twitter.com/user/status/1664870044851945472

 

In addition to cutting off support, requiring disabled people to repeatedly reapply for financial support can be very stressful, and lead to despair and suicide.

 

@Adam pwme one for your archives.

 

Thanks Sly will check it out.

 

Really interesting so did a quick thread.

https://twitter.com/user/status/1665098977107222528

 

I suspect B1ack Triang1e are trying to counter the renewed media/government campaign against out of work disab1ed benefit c1aimants. It's a11 very distressing, it just never ends here in the UK. I don't know if the pandemic has created this sort of issue in other countries, but it's just awfu1 here.

https://www.benefitsandwork.co.uk/news/media-hate-campaign-against-support-group-claimants-begins

 

I've heard MPs on Times Radio repeated1y make the 1ink between out of work disab1ed c1aimants and the increase in immigration. They refer to the numbers of job vacancies whi1st ta1king about 'removing the financia1 barriers for sick and disab1ed c1aimants to get back into work' (i.e. the remova1 of the work capabi1ity assessment that a11ows the most sick and disab1ed not to have to seek work or engage in work re1ated activity).

Statistics show most of these vacancies are for jobs in the hea1th and care sector, couriers, 1ow paid physica1 manua1 work, seasona1 agricu1tura1 work or high1y ski11ed tech jobs. The idea of societies most sick, disab1ed and vu1nerab1e peop1e being expected to do these jobs is beyond words.

There's definite1y a revived government fue1ed media campaign against support group c1aimants that started just after the White Paper was pub1ished a1ongside the 1ast budget.

 

you might like to link to the original piece he did, on the 2001 Woodstock meet, with SW, PDW and MS
see https://www.s4me.info/threads/government-and-insurance-companies-establishing-the-bps-model.2319/

 

Thanks have added a link

 

i havent listened to the programme as i am too emotionally fragile to cope with the DWP 'in the room' atm.

But... call me a cynic but the 'fit for work test' is the WCA, which the govt are scrapping - to the doom and persecution of those of us too ill to work. So it just strikes me that this might be just another sly & utterly disingenuous way of them getting more support for scrapping it.

If they think there were suicides before... there will be many many more if they replace the WCA with the AWIC (Arbitrary Whim of the Ignorant & Contemptuous)
which will be the unchallengeable decisions of work coaches.

 

Really upset at Jeremy Vine. I darent watch it it will upset me too much, but i am shocked that he would do such a thing, i thought he was one of the good guys.
I remember him handling the Gilderdale case with sensitivity & I think i even remember him saying that he had visited Lynn, or possibly another Very severely affected PwME & said something like he had never seen anyone as ill as that (or something like that i cant remember exactly perhaps someone else does). My point being that i thought he was a friend, perhaps he thinks very seriously ill people should be wheeled into the jobcentre on their beds, feeding tubes & catheters attached, to meet their work coach, who will tell them they can go on an IT skills course at a college in a nearby town.
And if they dont go they will have all their money taken away & will starve to death.
FFS, we hare heading closer to the Hunger Games every year.

KMN

But of course i suppose those who are 24/7bedbound with 24hr care might be safer from the work coach. Its those who can leave the house for a drs appointment or to be pushed around a park for half an hour once a month, with help of a carer, & so therefore must be 'capable of some work'.

They are going to throw us to the wolves, to the haters. I cant bear it, and Vine being involved in the sales pitch to promote it. A sucker punch

 

Rest of the artic1e at 1ink -

https://www.disabilitynewsservice.c...aints-over-telegraphs-toxic-benefits-article/

 

Episode 2 now available: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001mlym

 

Has anyone listened to it?

Be interested in people's thoughts if you able/wanted to share. Particularly interested in the tone.

 

Gosh i hope they do, because so far that sounds like it has highlighted the horrors of the WCA, so the Govt can now say 'yes we realise it was not fit for purpose thats why were scrapping it. The fact that what they're planning to replace it with will be orders of magnitude worse, is the thing i hope they will focus on.

I cant listen myself it will be too triggering, i appreciate your review of it @Trish

 

Yea what was really annoying was that it was dressed up as --- we're helping these people to live a better life --- wish they were e.g. by funding research to address issues like ME/CFS ---. They would say they are in fact - there's a university "chair" (professor --- - university?) funded to provide the "research" --- think PACE.

 

Towards the end they interview Professor Barr who did some research on the WCA and suicides.
Possibly posted elsewhere on the forum was this piece by Mo Stewart
Work capability assessment: review, reform, or replace?
Mo Stewart writes.

27 August 2020

Work capability assessment: review, reform, or replace? | BPS

 

The troub1e is that disabi1ity groups and their supporters have been ca11ing for the WCA to be abo1ished, but what they meant was that the decision of whether a c1aimant is unfit to work (or do work re1ated activity) shou1d be made by their doctors, or 1ike as it used to be, by a DWP doctor based on their individua1 hea1th/medica1 impairments. This has a11owed po1iticians to twist things. Obvious1y just removing the WCA without putting a fairer and 1ess stressfu1 assessment in its p1ace is going to cause far more harm than keeping the current imperfect version.

 

This is especia11y true in the UK, as the DWP apparent1y don't have any 'duty of care' to c1aimants. Most c1aimant suicides and deaths are caused by c1aimants not being put in the support group when this is what their condition(s) require.

I think this is why the government are driving the current media campaign to 'get disab1ed peop1e back to work', as it distracts the pub1ic from what abo1ishing the WCA wi11 effective1y mean. It's basica11y the remova1 of any state out of work benefit for any c1aimant (I know current1y they say it won't app1y to the contributions based ESA, but that wou1d have to change if there is no WCA to a11ow c1aimants to 'pass' it and c1aim CB ESA indefinite1y).