Apologies for not blogging for some time now but I have been busy helping people who have fallen victim to DWP assessors.
As election season begins The Tories have outdone themselves with a more brutal assault on disabled people and their rights in hope of pandering to the electorate’s hatred of claimants who they have been told are fiddling the system. Talk about being hoodwinked is understatement but we must challenge this divisive rhetoric.
Back in December 2023 I wrote to express my disgust at the way the Tories announced with glee they were going to target disabled people regarding their Back to Work Plan so I spent time carefully challenging them. I expected them to deny this and I wasn’t disappointed but it was letting them know I was watching them closely given I live in a tory safe seat.
“I am utterly disappointed to see yet again disabled people are being targeted by government policy.
In particular the fact that many who have been assessed by the gov contractors and placed in LCWRA group will now be subjected to some form of work related activity and 680,000 will retrospectively lose £390 month at a time of the cost of living crisis and may have to choose which priority they cannot live without for the additional costs of their disability needs to live independently. While I support the fact those who are able or chose to work should be supported to do so, but many cannot and could lead to unsustainable employment and in some cases fatalities of which the DWP has already seen happen in its thousands. This will lead to more health issues and likely increased admissions to hospitals when our NHS is on its knees and facing yet another winter crisis.
Secondly I am rather cross the Gov is still peddling fraud as a major issue regarding those claiming state support, When claimant fraud has fallen to 0.05% while other fraud has risen when the DWP has made major errors during the Covid Crisis in not paying due diligence to assess the news claims were genuine which has lead to an overall rise. Let alone the Covid loan crisis to businesses which was claimed to be written off.
99.5% of claimants are honest and there is no reason whatsoever that the government plans to check claimant bank accounts and potentially is against the HRA Articles 8 and 14 . This kind of interference is peoples lives is unnecessary and a waste staff time chasing bogus reports of fraud 99% are unfounded and malicious. You already have robust procedures in place to track those who do commit fraud but ironically cant track the Covid loans.
Lastly I realise that government wants to reduce the welfare budgets but targeting disabled people consistently in this government’s tenure is utterly disgraceful. Living on Social Security is not a lifestyle choice as nobody in their right mind would choose to live in poverty with the threat of having support removed by flawed assessments and sanctions and the fact this task is proposed to be passed to work coaches which in my opinion will lead to worse results and dangerous than the private contractors who regularly do not apply the criteria correctly and write reports which are later found to be wanting in fact and found to be embellished at times.”
Below is the response I got from Mims Davies (but she not off the hook yet cos I plan to attack their recent announcements) also that is something all disabled people can do as well as write to the local press challenging the rhetoric being spouted by both main parties on disability.
Mims Davies Response:
Thank you for your email of 13 December 2023 to the Secretary of State on behalf of Ms Gail Ward about the Work Capability Assessment (WCA) reforms, benefit fraud, and the Third-Party Data Gathering measure. I am replying as the Minister for Disabled People, Health and Work, and I apologise for the delay.
Please pass on my thanks to Ms Ward for taking the time to write in raising these issues. I write to you with the latest update and I hope she will find the following comments to be helpful.
The Government is committed to ensuring the welfare system encourages and supports people into work, while providing a vital safety net for those who need it most. To enable this, at Autumn Statement in November 2023, we announced changes to the Work Capability Assessment (WCA) criteria. The Government’s full response can be found here at: http://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/work-capability-assessment-activities-and-descriptors/outcome/government-response-to-the-work-capability-assessment-activities-and-descriptors-consultation.
Existing Universal Credit or Employment and Support Allowance (ESA) claimants who currently have no work-related requirements will not be reassessed or lose benefit because of these changes, except in some very limited circumstances. From 2025, the WCA will be updated to better reflect the increase in availability of hybrid and home working
opportunities and better employer understanding of the accessibility needs of disabled people and people with health conditions. This will largely affect new ESA or Universal Credit claimants who report a health condition.
These changes are not about sanctioning people nor forcing them into work where this is not appropriate, but about ensuring people can access appropriate support and enabling them to have access to the advantages that work can provide, both financially and for improving their health. Existing limited capability for work-related activity (LCWRA) group claimants do not receive employment support, and that is not right given we know one in five of them are interested in working in the future. The changes will mean that around 370,000 people by 2028/29 will be offered personalised support to help them move closer towards work. Under current assessment rules, these people would receive no support from the Department as they would have been placed in the LCWRA group.
We recognise that work is not possible for everyone, and no one with no work-related requirements will face conditionality or related benefit sanctions as a result of these changes – all support towards work will continue to be voluntary for claimants with work-related requirements.
The Department for Work and Pensions has set standards for the quality of assessments for all assessment providers and its independent auditors. The Department closely monitors all aspects of the process including the performance of the assessment providers. Audit refers to a comprehensive check of the elements of the assessment, as well as the evidence collection, further evidence provided, and the assessment report completed by the healthcare professional.
The check is completed against a set of guidelines to ensure a consistent approach is taken. This ensures that assessment reports are fit for purpose, clinically justified and sound, and provide sufficient information for the Department to make an informed decision on entitlement to benefit. All assessment providers work with the Department on plans to continuously improve assessment quality through a range of measures including audit procedures, clinical observations (by the Department – only in Personal Independence Payment), tailored training and development plans, providing feedback and support available to healthcare providers.
Assessment quality is a priority for both providers and the Department. It works extensively with providers to make improvements to guidance, training and audit procedures to ensure a quality service. A high standard
is always maintained having an independent audit function that continually monitors performance and provides feedback to providers.
Independent audit, a self-contained team comprising of experienced healthcare professionals, continually monitors performance and provides feedback to providers. Improvements have been supported by five independent reviews of the WCA process, two independent reviews of the Personal Independence Payment assessment process, and the Department has also taken on board recommendations from the Work and Pension Committee. Quality performance is regularly reviewed through the Department and provider senior governance meetings at a national level and in each of the provider areas.
The Department is clear that providers should strive for 100 per cent accuracy. It wants every report to reflect a high-quality functional assessment that can be used to make benefit entitlement decisions. The Department does not want any reports to be of an unacceptable standard. It has set providers a threshold for unacceptable reports, above which there are performance guarantees.
The Department receiving an unacceptable assessment report does not necessarily lead to an incorrect decision being made on the individual’s benefit entitlement, as there are a range of measures to safeguard the accuracy of the decision.
• The Department makes the final decision on an individual’s entitlement to benefit. The information it uses to make the decision includes the assessment report, any further evidence provided by the individual or sourced by the providers, and the individual’s written application that includes a description of the effect of their disability or health condition.
• The Department can seek additional advice from the providers on their recommendations and their rationale.
• Reports can be returned to the providers to be reworked, or for an additional assessment to take place, to address deficiencies in the original report before the benefit entitlement decision is made.
Turning now to Ms Ward’s comments regarding benefit fraud, I would first like to emphasise that benefit fraud is a serious offence, depriving those who need it most, of vital support.
To address Ms Ward’s comments regarding the Department’s actions during COVID, it’s important to stress that, at the beginning of the pandemic, the Department introduced operational adjustments to the
delivery of its services. These easements were necessary to provide immediate financial support to millions of customers impacted by the pandemic.
The Department consciously prioritised payments over losses to fraud by getting money to those who needed it as quickly as possible, by streamlining checks, which allowed it to help an extra three million people in 2020-21. However, as previously reported, unscrupulous fraudsters, including sophisticated organised crime groups, chose to take advantage of the situation. Exploitation of the benefit system is simply unacceptable, and the Department never lost sight of fraud, which it has continued to invest in fighting and developing new policies to tackle in the future.
As the Department lost over £8 billion per year to fraud and error, since the pandemic, it is vitally important that public money is spent efficiently and fairly, and the Third Party Data Gathering measure Ms Ward cites is a strong, yet proportionate step to prevent the exploitation of the benefit system.
The proposed measure, being progressed as part of the Data Protection and Digital Information (2) Bill, was first announced in the Department’s fraud plan, ‘Fighting Fraud in the Welfare System’, published in May 2022, which outlined the steps the Government would take to reduce fraud and error.
The measure is solely designed to identify individuals who are potentially committing fraud or have errors in their claim. It will only seek information on people that have been paid a Departmental benefit and where the data suggests a potential risk of fraud or error. Furthermore, it will only request the minimum information needed to establish that and enable further query.
Regarding the specific concerns raised about privacy, I can assure Ms Ward that the Department adheres to the Data Protection Principles, including the Purpose Limitation principle, which would mean that it must ensure that data collected in accordance with this power is used for the purpose for which it was collected and incidental matters.
Furthermore, I can also assure Ms Ward that the Department fulfilled all the requirements of the Public Sector Equality Duty (PSED), as set out in section 149 of the Equality Act 2010, and in line with the Department’s statutory duty keeps the impact of this measure on groups with protected characteristics under continuous review.
More widely, I would also stress that the Department is always careful to process data lawfully, proportionately, and ethically with meaningful human input and safeguards for the protection of individuals.
For further information about the measure, Ms Ward can access the Fraud Plan at: http://www.gov.uk/government/publications/fighting-fraud-in-the-welfare-system.
Mims Davies MP
Minister for Disabled People, Health and Work
While she is correct to point out fraud is a serious criminal offence she still avoided answering the questions in reality and this latest assault will breach our human rights yet again and sadly they know they are and none of them don’t give a chuff because they are brazenly being let off the hook daily. She must think we are all stupid not to have read the links she provided.
So if you think this blogger is going to stay silent forget it, that’s just not going to happen! I will keep challenging in whatever capacity I can because benefit deaths are happening and will continue to until someone from a legal background steps up and is prepared to take them on through the courts and stop this death train in its tracks. Yes its not being dramatic to say those with Mental Health issues are not just got mild depression or anxiety, but many have serious debilitating mental health problems that IAPT simply cannot fix which could lead to them taking matters into their own hands because of the lack of support or those who are very sick dying in a job.
Finally If you can , and only if you can please donate/ support this following fundraiser to challenge this Government under Art 4.3 of Human Rights Act which is stated in the fundraiser.
https://www.justgiving.com/crowdfunding/kathryn-bole?utm_term=REq4PQavQ
blueannoyed 