Wednesday, 27 November 2013

Wednesday, 4 September 2013

Who do you think will pay for it ?

A message from the campaign

KEEP Disability living allowance say NO to reforms

Cut War Stop Austerity

By Mike Moulding - To follow like - http://links.causes.com/s/clL33j?r=MwbO

"Laughing like hyena's on the day they imposed poverty on millions in the UK, stigmatising millions as "benefit scroungers". Yet, despite their rhetoric because they say the country is skint, they recalled parliament, costing millions, with the intention of dragging our country into another foreign war costing us more BILLIONS we have not got. Today, Parliament has spoken. David Cameron has been humiliated and should face a vote of confidence in his judgement."

Less than 6 days left.

To save DLA - http://links.causes.com/s/clL33l?r=MwbO
To keep The Pines open - http://links.causes.com/s/clL33n?r=MwbO

Campaign to save DLA on Facebook - http://links.causes.com/s/clL33p?r=MwbO

DISCUSS THE UPDATE

Monday, 2 September 2013

Ed Miliband pledges to scrap the 'Bedroom Tax'.

In what looks like a great victory for campaigners, Ed Miliband has pledged to scrap the coalition government’s controversial Bedroom Tax levy,.. if Labour win a majority in 2015.
Despite the pledge, senior party officials are urging the Labour leader not to wait until 2015 to make a formal announcement, but to jump the gun and announce it immediately.
Labour are experiencing a boost in morale after the government was dealt a bruising defeated in the House of Commons over action against Syria, and the party is desperate to win back voters who feel they have lost their way on the issue of welfare and benefits.
A party official close to Ed Miliband told the Sunday People:
“Labour WILL repeal the Bedroom Tax. The only question remaining is when.
“But the sooner it’s buried, the better. It’s not just cruel and inhumane in impact but it’s turning out to be the economics of the madhouse.”
Shadow Chancellor Ed Balls has been reluctant to reverse the bedroom tax, the Sunday People has reported today, because he was concerned he would have to find £490 million from elsewhere, but new research has shown that the coalitions policy will push the housing benefits bill UP by £1.5 billion, because those affected could be forced into the private rental market where rents tend to be higher.
There are 1.5 million people in the private rental sector claiming housing benefit and this has increased by 70,000 in the past year. Some commenters argue this may be at least partly due to the impact of the bedroom tax.
In total there are 5,072,264 people claiming housing benefit in the UK and 987,00o of those are in work, according to Department for Work and Pensions figures.
A spokesperson for the TUC told the Sunday People:
“If Labour wants to make itself useful it should pledge now to scrap the Bedroom Tax rather than wait until 2015.
“That would hopefully encourage many landlords to hold off evictions, knowing that a Labour government will axe the tax and the associated financial losses.”
Labour MPs have said that the policy move would help unite both those on the left and right of the party by pleasing those who want to see the bedroom tax scrapped, whilst satisfying Labour MPs who do not want to see the housing benefit bill rise as a result of those affected forced into the private rental market. There remains a wide shortage in social housing homes in Britain.
By scrapping the bedroom tax it may help encourage welfare campaigners to vote for the Labour Party come 2015, unions have said.
Will this indeed be the case? Only time will tell….

Tell us what you think: Please leave your comments below.

Tagged with

Bedroom Tax Benefits Ed Miliband Government Housing Labour News Politics Reform UK news Unions Welfare Welfare Reform

Thursday, 29 August 2013

ATOS Appeals & Reconsiderations

News Flash! The DWP have finally admitted that due to the ongoing back log of pending ATOS appeals that the system is close to breaking point. With this in mind Jobcentre staff are being asked to ring each petitioner at home and try to persuade them to accept a Reconsideration instead of an appeal. They will tell you that this is a quicker process as the decision will be undertaken by your local Jobcentre and you will avoid all the stress of a formal appeal procedure. What they won’t tell you is that

· The whole point of a reconsideration offer is to bring down the number of formal appeals pending and massage government disability statistics

· That they have been authorised to pressure you for a verbal agreement there and then for you to waive your right to appeal

· That they will keep on ringing you at random intervals for up to 6 weeks in order to get such an agreement

· That phone calls will be followed by formal letters implying that you may not get your benefits reinstated/backdated unless you agree. (This is not true!)

DO NOT BE BULLIED INTO AGREEING TO THIS! All reconsiderations will be automatically conceded to ATOS and not only will your benefits will be stopped there are no further rights to appeal the decision ( in the small print on the letters). Insist on your right to a formal appeal and stick to your guns. If we all do this the system cannot possibly cope with the increasing numbers of appeals and we can give these bastards the thrashing they deserve.

Name and address withheld.

You couldn't make this up!

Following the Bank Holiday weekend the entire team of an ATOS staff office in the Yorkshire and Humberside district phoned in sick with “stress” on Tuesday.

Perhaps we should arrange for a panel of disabled people to conduct a computer generated assessment upon their return to work to decide whether they are fit to have a job in the first place!

(Don't you just love it!! It's at times like this that I wonder what is going on in the head of our beloved leader. His only concern nowadays seems to be bombing the c**p out of Syria. I think he has a few urgent concerns at home which he could address.)

Monday, 26 August 2013

New Investigation into Atos Healthcare

Public spending watchdogs are to launch a new investigation into Atos Healthcare, the company that carries out controversial medical tests for people claiming sickness and disability benefits.

The National Audit Office (NAO) move emerged as the Government disclosed that Atos has been paid £754m for the tests since 2005. It has also landed other government contracts, including IT work for the Home Office and Highways Agency.

Lord Freud, the Welfare Reform Minister, revealed that annual spending on the medical services contract had risen from £73.3m in 2005-06 to £114.3m in the year to March. He said the increase in the budget is due to a rise in the number of tests.

He was replying to a written House of Lords question this week by Lord Alton of Liverpool, a crossbench peer who asked the NAO to intervene. The NAO has told Lord Alton the extension of the Atos contract to a new benefits regime for the disabled is “an area of interest” to it and it has begun discussions with the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP).

Lord Alton said: “The Atos contract with the Government has become like a licence to print money. Astronomical sums are involved. Worrying questions have arisen about whether the terms of the company's tender have been met; whether performance matches promise; and whether a project undertaken on the pretext of giving value for money has done so. When millions of pounds of public money is being diverted to private companies, it is crucial that there is accountability, transparency, and public confidence. I welcome the NAO's decision to scrutinise the Atos contract and think the Public Accounts Committee should ask Atos and the DWP to appear before them."

Stephen Timms, Labour’s employment spokesman, said: “This Government has been warned time and again to get a grip of this contract, but the truth is Iain Duncan Smith [the Work and Pensions Secretary] has let Atos spin out of control and the taxpayer and vulnerable people are picking up the pieces. Anyone taking the Work Capacity Assessment today is now eight times more likely to end up in a tribunal than a job and the cost of those appeals has soared by 40 per cent in the last year alone. Ministers have got to fix this mess – fast.”

The multinational firm, which sponsored last year’s Paralympic Games in London, has been criticised by employment rights groups for the allegedly harsh way it assesses the sick and disabled. Some 40 per cent of people claiming incapacity benefit appealed against its rulings and 38 per cent of them were successful. Despite that, the company won a further contract to assess the new personal independence payments for the disabled. The Government has been criticised by MPs for allowing a virtual monopoly to develop. But ministers insist that Atos only makes recommendations about claims, with final decisions taken by the DWP.

Atos has said that it has met its obligations in delivering a “complex and challenging contract” and implemented all the changes recommended by the independent reviews .

More than 40 per cent of the reports carried out on disability benefit claimants by the back-to-work assessor Atos are flawed and unacceptable, according to an audit commissioned by the Government.

Following months of complaints about allegedly unfair and slapdash decisions made by Atos, the Department for Work and Pensions audited around 400 of the company’s written reports into disability claimants, grading them A to C. Of these, 41 per cent came back with a C, meaning they were unacceptable and did not meet the required standard.

The lowest grade does not necessarily mean the decision was wrong, but that a serious error or omission occurred, such as no evidence to justify the recommendations, or inconsistencies in the evidence provided.

The findings mean the company will be stripped of its monopoly on deciding whether people with disabilities are fit to work. The DWP said the poor quality of the company’s written reports were “contractually unacceptable” and announced on Monday it would be inviting other companies to bid for fresh regional contracts by summer 2014 to help reduce waiting times. Liam Byrne, the shadow Work and Pensions Secretary, said: “This is a direct consequence of three years of appalling contract management by Iain Duncan Smith.”

More than 600,000 of the 1.8 million assessments carried out by Atos since 2009 have been the subject of an appeal, at a cost of £60m. Around 30 per cent of the appeals succeeded. Mark Hoban, minister for Employment, said: “Where our audits identify any drop in quality, we act decisively … It’s vital we continue to improve the service to claimants, which is why we are introducing new providers to increase capacity.”

Richard Hawkes, chief executive of the disability charity Scope, said: “It’s about time the Government told Atos to smarten up its act. But, it’s also strikingly clear to disabled people that the whole £112m per-year system is broken.”

A spokeswoman for Atos said: “Our priority is the quality of our work and, following the recent audit, we quickly put in place a plan to improve the quality of written reports.”

Disabled Disability Care in UK.