UK: Disability benefits (ESA and PIP) - news and updates up to end of 2020

Possession of fire or a pitchfork with 2 miles of the houses of Parliament is probably punishable by indefinite imprisonment without charge and thrice hourly beatings by people in black uniforms with no numbers on - as is filming such people.
 
I think charging the DWP for each no brainer case it loses is not such a good idea as it will cost money to the public purse.

Perhaps the individuals involved should be identified and have their incomes sanctioned to below the minimum income required to live on and should also be requested to attend regular appointments with income coaches who tell them to work more hours to make up for the losses they have incurred.

However one small difference is that any dependent children they have should not be punished by cutting the offenders income, even I am not mean enough to wish this punishment on someones children unlike the government of this country who happily push starving families to food banks and homelessness in the name of helping hard working families.
 
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As all the "mistakes" seem to be made by people above 3 feet tall surely any rational person would agree that the DWP should immediately introduce a policy to ensure all of it's staff are no longer above 3 feet tall - I believe this single measure would drastically cut the "mistakes" down to a more manageable size.

If it works in chocolate factories.......
 
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MsUnderstood said:
This article published on November 9, 2017 might be of interest to those in the U.K. Here are a few excerpts:

"A Senior Judge Has Suggested Charging The Government For Every "No-Brainer" Benefits Case It Loses In Court

Britain’s most senior tribunal judge says most of the benefits cases that reach court are based on bad decisions where the Department for Work and Pensions has no case at all.

Sir Ernest Ryder, senior president of tribunals, also said the quality of evidence provided by the DWP is so poor it would be “wholly inadmissible” in any other court.

In an extraordinary outburst against what he said was the incompetence of the department, he said he and his fellow judges were so incensed by the volume of cases where there was “no justifiable defence to the appeal” that they were considering sending them back – or charging the DWP for the cases it loses.

The percentage of cases lost by the DWP on appeal has been growing rapidly. In 2007, 44% of cases heard in the Social Security and Child Support tribunal went against the DWP. Ryder said the figures have now risen to a “staggering” 61%.

He said this was because in most instances the DWP simply had no case at all.

Benefits assessments have been mired in controversy since being outsourced to private companies who are encouraged to cut claimants."

The article continues by discussing the lack of help for PIP appeals, now running at 100,000 per year, and that complaints against the PIP assessment process increased by almost 880 percent last year.

One former benefits advisor at a Citizen Advice office stated that: ". . . the decision-making was so bad; medical evidence from the practitioners actually treating the client was usually ignored or marginalised, in favour of ‘assessments’ by a disability assessor, who was usually a nurse with no specialist knowledge of the client’s condition, but who had undertaken a short course on assessing disabilities and had examined the client for 30 minutes."

Read the entire article here:
https://www.buzzfeed.com/emilydugan...based-on-bad?utm_term=.lqb8Yl9X32#.ifvOZ48Dk5

Note: I first attempted to post this under "Living with ME/CFS - Work, Finances and Disability Insurance", but have insufficient privileges to post there.
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I won a PIP appeal myself this year. The DWP's case was complete rubbish and overturned almost every bit they looked at. Basically, as the citizens advice person says they completely disregard all evidence from other medical practitioners, even if they are much more senior than the assessor, and they give no reasons for doing so. It was a complete joke, but caused me financial difficulties and a load of stress that made me more ill. As bad as my case was I think it was typical of everyday cases the tribunal sees.
 
large donner said:
I think charging the DWP for each no brainer case it loses is not such a good idea as it will cost money to the public purse.
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That is the logical conclusion, however the whole process was supposed to reduce costs and has ended up costing more than if they'd left it alone.

All that would happen is they would somehow figure out other ways of making it harder to claim or
other ways of reducing the benefits still further.

(They've already introduced means testing by the back door on ESA (ie you only get 1 years worth if you are put into the Work Related Activity group) and then it is means tested.
I think it is only a matter of time before all disability benefits are means tested.)
 
Just remembered to go and have a look and can't find my entry - that's "a bit annoying" when it took a lot of my effort.
Nothing to do now but I will put it on my 'to do' list for this week, to contact the clerks for W&P committee and check out what happens to the responses that haven't got through moderation (didn't put anything contentious in......)
 
Valentijn said:
I don't think it's an accident, and the judge probably doesn't either. The current system has been created specifically to deny benefits to people entitled to them, while denying that anyone is accountable for the improper denials.
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Valentijn said:
The government is passing the assessments to someone else, so it's not their fault. The assessment companies can't help it if some of their employees are dishonest, so it's not their fault. The assessors aren't qualified and lack the resources to do proper assessments, so we can't really blame them either.
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Quite so. The standard slippery bar-stewards' strategy of creating intermediaries so the buck can always be passed down the line.

What these people never seem to realise about plausible deniability, is that the denials cease to be plausible once the behaviour becomes an established pattern.
 
Barry said:
In principle I agree, but the problem in this case is that it would ultimately be the taxpayers' wallet.
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I disagree. The point of fines like this is to make them think twice about making pointless stupid rejections in the first place. Its the fear of having to pay that encourage changes that cut down the number of appeals, which aren’t cheap in themselves and of course paid for by the taxpayer. It should have minimal effect on public finances but a huge effect on the people not having to appeal their case for no reason.
 
The whole set up is flawed isn't it. It is never going to be an easy thing to get right and no doubt if left to GP advice there would still be a lot of issues especially for ME patients and a total lottery where you could get people treated properly, or GPs being too strict or too lax.
I don't understand why DWP are taking so many to tribunal. They should be reviewing their decision making guidance based on the case law. Or if the rules aren't meeting the policy objectives they have to tighten them through changes to primary or secondary legislation. the fact is it was always going to be practically difficult to tighten access to disability benefits but this was,at the time, seen as a less scary challenge politically than subjecting retirement pensions to austerity limits. Which would have been a very simple way administratively of making savings on welfare.
 
Barry said:
In principle I agree, but the problem in this case is that it would ultimately be the taxpayers' wallet.
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I think the organisation that needs to be hit in the pocket is the private company that has been given the contract to do the medicals. In my area it is ATOS which is, I understand, one of the huge multinational companies that take on practically anything, then employ and train the people to do the task, cutting corners and bending rules whenever possible in order to make maximum profit.

I gather that in many cases the problem is the people they employ to do the medicals - nurses or physios mainly I think, are not knowledgeable about most of the disabilities they are assessing. For example, a physio is unlikely to understand the level of disability caused by mental illness. The reports they produce are not a true reflection of the patient's situation and what they can and can't do.

I think in any case that goes to appeal where the report is found to be wrong or inadequate, the company, ATOS, should have a heavy fine reflecting the full cost of the appeal and a compensation payment to the patient (I wish).

I suspect as a result the company would pull out of the contract, as they do when the profits drop away, leaving the government forced to directly employ and train the medical assessors, or redesign the whole system.
 
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Trish said:
I think the organisation that needs to be hit in the pocket is the private company that has been given the contract to do the medicals.
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But the government won't do that, since ATOS is doing the job which the government paid them to do. If they are not violating their contract with the government, then they probably can't be punished for what's happening.

Trish said:
I suspect as a result the company would pull out of the contract, as they do when the profits drop away, leaving the government forced to directly employ and train the medical assessors, or redesign the whole system.
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Pulling out of a contract is almost always a violation of that contract, and likely to have some nasty expenses involved. And there will always be another profit-driven company ready to step in and squeeze the government for every penny that it's willing to pay.

The government created this mess, and they're the only ones in a position to fix it. They don't want to, so the voters have to force them to do it or replace them with politicians who will.
 
Trish said:
I suspect as a result the company would pull out of the contract
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ATOS did pull out of ESA (because all the bad press was affecting their share price amongst other things).............then the DWP hired Maximus............but then they got ATOS back to do PIP assessments(?) they must have come up with some changes/financial incentives(?)

Maximus tried where possible not to use their name (to try and protect the brand) but it hasn't worked and are going the same way:
"
Maximus miss fitness-to-work test targets despite spiralling costs
Company took over contract from Atos in March to carry out medical assessments of claimants for ESA. The bill for ESA and PIP assessments has now reached £579m" (from2016)

"
Maximus ‘admits’ using brutal and dangerous suicide questions"

https://www.disabledgo.com/blog/201...and-dangerous-suicide-questions/#.Wglcm7iLDCM

But then there is the introduction of Universal Credit which (at the moment) is replacing 6 benefits and includes Income-related ESA.

https://www.turn2us.org.uk/Benefit-.../Which-benefits-will-Universal-Credit-replace
 
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chrisb said:
If only we were privy to the departmental discussions and advice that Peter Lilley received prior to hiring John Locascio, and the advice which he subsequently gave.
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I wonder if so much time has now passed that copies of things like that might start becoming more accessible under the FOIA? I can't believe that this has been going on for so long!
 
Esther12 said:
I wonder if so much time has now passed that copies of things like that might start becoming more accessible under the FOIA? I can't believe that this has been going on for so long!
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That is rather what I was wondering, but I am not in a position to do anything about it.
 
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