Thursday 31 May 2012

Gender? Name?

I just love some of the correspondence we get from the DWP.

Like the one I have had addressed to "Mr N Bateman".  (Yes "Mr".  It's significant.  Read on).  So they know my name and they know my gender and they managed to get them both right.  Well done guys!

Then we have the salutation in the letter:  "Dear Sir or Madam".

And they say benefit claimants are confused.

Wednesday 30 May 2012

More scandalous ESA evidence

Two more cases in the press which will have a familiar ring for advice workers.  It's quite outrageous that the government and DWP officials can still assert that the Work Capability Assessment is reliable and that those who fail the test are fit for work. 

www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-2137377/Man-suffering-blood-clots-open-ulcers-loses-benefits-job-centre-labels-fit-work.html#ixzz1td5m6v00

www.guardian.co.uk/society/2012/may/29/benefits-system-fit-for-work

Tuesday 29 May 2012

The effect of the National Minimum Wage on benefits expenditure

Anyone who knows anything about the benefits system, knows that means tested benefits and tax credits decrease when earnings increase.

Therefore, it follows that an increase in the National Minimum Wage of £x an hour would reduce benefits expenditure by £y million and tax credits expenditure by £z million.

Given the significance of this I asked both DWP and HMRC, using the Freedom of Information Act, to provide me with any information they have about this.  Replies have now come back and they both state they do not hold such information.

Of course research into this subject would not be straightforward and estimates which came out of it would be subject to uncertainty.  But am I missing something by expressing surprise that neither the DWP nor HMRC have done any research about this?

Monday 28 May 2012

Unpaid labour. A free workforce for employers and funded by the taxpayer.

The government looks set to announce a significant move to extend compulsory unpaid labour for people on Jobseekers Allowance.  www.guardian.co.uk/society/2012/may/26/work-free-programme-expanded-government?newsfeed=true

The arguments have all been made elsewhere against this, self-defeating, punitive and stigmatising provision of an unpaid workforce which does not create any jobs.  But then it's a great way to force people off benefit and into the shadowlands of "no work no welfare" while also shifting the blame for unemployment onto jobseekers.

This can only come about because the opposition from the mainstream has so far been pretty hopeless.  Voluntary bodies, local authorities, advice agencies, trade unions and the Labour Party, with a few notable exceptions, have failed to build an alliance of principled and organised opposition to this.

Mark my words, if the government gets away with this, they'll be back for more.

Thursday 24 May 2012

Tax fraud vs benefit fraud

Next time you hear someone banging on about benefit fraud (annual cost £1.5 billion), remind them of the latest estimate of the "tax gap" (annual cost £35 billion). www.parliament.uk/business/committees/committees-a-z/commons-select/public-accounts-committee/news/hmrc-compliance/

Even the Daily Mail was shocked - though some of the self-justifying comments by readers are in stark contrast to what we would see if it was an article about benefit fraud . www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2149038/Cheats-avoided-paying-taxes-year-created-35billion-hole-public-purse.html

There's also a further £25 billion owed by corporations: www.parliament.uk/business/committees/committees-a-z/commons-select/public-accounts-committee/news/hmrc-tax-disputes-report/

Yes, it's a class thing.

Wednesday 23 May 2012

Doctors demand that the Work Capability Assessment is scrapped

British Medical Association's conference for GPs votes for the immediate scrapping of the WCA.  Yet still the government, DWP officials and all the main parties pretend it works or just needs tweaking.  Come on, take the doctors' advice.

web2.bma.org.uk/pressrel.nsf/wlu/GGRT-8UKF4B?OpenDocument&vw=wfmsc

Tuesday 22 May 2012

Any medals for the sponsor?

Extraordinary news that ATOS, the French owned company responsible for DWP medical examinations are to sponsor the Paralympics.

www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2012/may/21/paralympic-games-organisers-defend-atos-sponsorship?intcmp=239

There is massive evidence of inappropriate medical evidence being submitted to DWP benefit decision makers by ATOS health care professionals which then results in disabled people having their benefits stopped.  It will be interesting to learn how ATOS feel they can sponsor the premier sports event for disabled people without a shadow of a blush.

Latest example of the role of ATOS is in a report by a group of Scottish GPs:  Note the reference to the ATOS Medical Assessment Centre in Glasgow as "Lourdes":  where the sick go in and come out cured.

www.rightsnet.org.uk/?ACT=39&fid=28&aid=364_43V9KhdkodIXca7zxXLw&board_id=1

Friday 18 May 2012

Universal Credit - back to giros

A relaible source has revealed to the Welfare Righter that because the DWP's computer system is unlikely to be ready in time for the start of the national roll-out of Universal Credit (October 2013), payments of the new benefit will be made "manually".

It remains to be seen what wonders will be foisted onto welfare world by the DWP's IT problems and the government's unwise rush to get the new system going.

Monday 14 May 2012

You couldn't make it up, but they can

Dreadful story about benefit fraud investigators in Basildon pursuing a case where there was no fraud:  www.telegraph.co.uk/news/9264797/Council-claimed-key-whistleblower-who-did-not-exist-in-benefit-fraud-case.html

Here they go again

DWP Press Office has released figures alleging that thousands of those found "fit for work" as part of the transfer to Employment and Support Allowance (disputable - see post below) have been on sickness related benefits for years: www.dwp.gov.uk/newsroom/press-releases/2012/may-2012/dwp047-12.shtml

Aside from the usual misleading nature of this, the timing is interesting.  It comes on the same day that the Daily Telegraph headlined on their front page how 500,000 people will lose entitlement to Disability Living Allowance as a result of changes and the introduction of Personal Independence Payment starting in 2013 (www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/9263453/500000-to-lose-disability-benefit.html).  This was as a result of an interview with IDS himself.

Most members of the public will not have sufficient knowledge to distinguish between DLA and ESA and are likely to think that the changes to DLA are being brought in to deal with people who are not "really disabled" and are fit for work.  Indeed, there is a scent of this in the Telegraph article.

So one must wonder why the DWP chose to issue this press release today after the Telegraph article.  Was it incompetence or  a desire to deliberately conflate the issues in the minds of the wider public?  We need to know.

Wednesday 9 May 2012

Evidence of errors in benefit overpayments

Every experienced welfare rights adviser knows that the scale of errors in benefit overpayment decision is massive - time and again the amounts are inflated or even when correct, the overpayments are not legally recoverable. In my experience the vast majority of the amounts allegedly overpaid in the cases I have dealt with have been wrong - either the amounts have been assessed incorrectly and the law not properly followed, or the person is still entitled to some or all of the overpaid benefit.

Using the Freedom of Information Act  2000, I have obtained figures from DWP about the scale of errors in benefit overpayments.  The data lags behind so the latest is a while ago, but the trends are consistent. 

One of the sources is the DWP's report on standards of decision making published in March 2010 . 
(www.dwp.gov.uk/docs/secretary-of-state-report-on-decision-making.pdf)

DWP's own figures on the percentage of benefit overpayment decisions which are accurate
 
2006/7
68
2005
78
2004/5
74
2003
67
2002
68
 
Furthermore, Tribunal statistics show that between 32% and 35% of appeals against benefit overpayments succeed, which rises to 47% when someone is represented.  Again, using the Freedom of Information Act, I have also established that in addition, a very high number of appeals against benefit overpayments are revised in the appellants' favour without having to go to Tribunal.  
Whichever way you look at it, the figures illustrate the importance of always appealing against an overpayment decision and that one must not accept at face value, the amounts allegedly overpaid or the state's right to be get money off people. 

Worryingly, this includes cases of fraudulent overpayments.  Sadly too few criminal defence lawyers and the criminal courts understand the importance and relevance of the benefits appeals process. 



Tuesday 8 May 2012

Lies, damned lies and ESA statistics

Advice and disability bodies have repeatedly expressed concern about the DWP's presentation of statistics about Employment and Support Allowance (ESA) figures.  As you may know, ESA is the replacement benefit for people with long term health and disability issues which involves very harsh eligibility criteria

It is felt that the way that DWP selectively presents the figures, along with their commentary, fuels public bigotry towards people with disabilities and paints a picture that most claimants are not really sick, just workshy.  Given the repeated objections from many different organisations, either the DWP really don't get it or they are deliberately putting out this misleading spin on the figures.

The DWP press release issued in April 2012 was in the same vein: http://www.dwp.gov.uk/newsroom/press-releases/2012/apr-2012/dwp042-12.shtml

In particular the claim that 54% of those assessed are found "fit for work".  This is arrant nonsense.
The press release triggered an unpleasant and misleading article in the Daily Mail about which towns had the highest numbers who were swinging the lead (apparently it's Basildon).  Interestingly, as far as I can see, the Mail's article appeared before the statistics were officially released.  So how did they get hold of the figures for their story?

The DWP press release fails to factor in the 38% who succeed when they appeal - 38% of 46% is 17.48%.  This strongly suggests that even on the DWP's figures, 63% are "unfit for work".  That aside, what the DWP won't acknowledge publicly is the feedback from their own staff about the terrible health problems of many found "fit for work" who then try to claim Jobseekers Allowance, not to mention the well-documented evidence about poor quality medical findings from their contractor, ATOS. 

Above all, (and of course there's no way the DWP would agree with this), the Work Capability Assessment used for ESA is not actually an assessment of people's ability to work; it is an assessment of whether they have scored points for a limited number of activities and whether they have "limited capability for work", not whether they are fit for work. 

As an example, if you can sit in a chair for 31 minutes before you need to move because of discomfort, you score nil points under that heading, if you can scrawl your name with a pen, you get nil points for that and if you can understand a simple message from a stranger such as: "There's a fire in the office, get out", but you can't understand "How do you change the settings on this photocopier?", you score nil points for understanding communication.

More cap claptrap

Following the exposure on Radio 4's Moneybox programme, today saw a DWP press release about the letters being sent out announcing the cap.

"Letters are being sent this week to households who may be affected by the benefit cap, Minister for Welfare Reform Lord Freud has announced..."

Is the use of the word "may" a Whitehall-style attempt to explain why letters have also gone to families of disabled children who should be exempt?

Here is CPAG's statement about the letters.  You decide who is right.

Household Benefit Cap: letters from DWP to claimants
Key points CPAG has discovered from contact by local authorities and advisers:

  • DWP have started sending out letters to claimants warning them that they are likely to be affected by the household benefit cap.
  • DWP have also sent a letter to MPs with a Q & A intended to help them with any constituent queries and casework this generates.
  • Benefits staff and advice staff in local authorities have contacted CPAG to say that they are finding major errors in DWP’s identification of households that stand to be affected and have received the letters (they have contacted us in confidence so we are not currently able to name those authorities).
  • Households with a DLA recipient are due to be exempt from the cap. It appears that DWP screened out adult DLA claimants, but failed to screen out families with a child getting DLA.
  • Several local authorities are saying that this is not the only error. Others errors so far identified by local authorities in the DWP lists  include:
    • claimants whose total entitlement is well below the level of the cap
    • claims that are no longer active
    • claims that are in receipt of working tax credit and would therefore be exempt
  • One local authority told us that of 200 households identified by DWP in their area, they found when they checked that only 78 of them meet the criteria that would see them affected by the cap.
  • In a London local authority, out of 1100 DWP identified households, nearly 300 were found to be well below the level of the cap.
  • Many affected families, especially in London, will see very large losses to entitlement – perhaps of their entire housing benefit, leaving them no funds whatsoever for housing costs. But the letters say nothing to indicate whether the household receiving the letter is due to lose £5 a week, or £200 a week. So it does not help the households with the most serious threat realise the scale of the problem they will face.
CPAG statement:
“There is an astonishing rate of error in the households that DWP has identified as those likely to be subject to the household benefit cap from April 2013. This will cause distress and confusion to families who are not actually threatened by the cap. We are also concerned for those families who are at risk, because the letters offer very little helpful advice about what they can do. The Department must urgently investigate why it has made so many errors to prevent further failures with the implementation of the Universal Credit, which will affect millions of households. It highlights once again the precarious situation we are entering with advice services for claimants subject to severe cuts at a time when the whole welfare system is about to change.”

Added 9 May:
By the way, I did hear right about the DWP's misleading, post-facto excuse for sending out letters to the wrong people.  From the transcript of the Moneybox programme:


"...they want to make sure they include everybody, so they have included more than will actually be subject to the cap."
In which case, why not say so in the letters?  Sorry, but I for one do not beleive this excuse.

Saturday 5 May 2012

Cap claptrap

A follow up to the item below (http://thoughtsofawelfarerighter.blogspot.co.uk/2012/05/caps-it-all.html ) concerning the DWP writing to families with disabled children, scaring the life out of them by wrongly telling them they are going to have their benefits cut next April when the benefits cap comes in. 

Assuming my hearing is still intact, on BBC Radio 4 Moneybox today it was reported that the DWP said they had deliberately written out to more people than those affected.  What?

Is this really true?

Friday 4 May 2012

Having to ask for replies

In my line of work we are used to writing to DWP and either not getting a reply or finding that the reply gets sent direct to the client.  Discourteous? Yes.  Inconvenient? Yes. But if it results in the decision being changed favourably, we tend to let it go and move onto the next problem.

Today I wrote a letter to follow up an appeal.  At the end I found that I had added a sentence asking them to reply to me.

It really is ridiculous that we have to resort to this.    In most normal written communications you can take it as read (no pun intended) that the recipient will not only read what you have written to them, but will send a reply back to you.

Destructive error upon error

Another example from Rev Paul Nicolson Chair of Zachaeus 2000 Trust (www.z2k.org)

We saw him through all these crises due to his dire poverty when receiving adult unemployment benefits. He is now employed. The universal credit will not change the problems associated with rent and council tax arrears, the enforcement of overpayments or the blame free errors by claimants and officials.

Lone father, aged 40, reared three boys while receiving unemployment benefits. No job for 20 years and desperate for work, he gets a job maintaining council houses at £10 per hour.

Wycombe Council says he can keep housing and council tax benefits but then they decide they have made a mistake and debit his rent and council tax accounts with a total of £2000.

Eviction is threatened and Bailiffs are sent in. HM Revenue and Customs give him £2000 tax credits then decide they have made a mistake and seek the return of the payment. He has a nervous breakdown and is committed to hospital for three weeks. Consequently he loses his job and is back on £65.45 a week (2010). We asked for a Doctor’s letter; the surgery wants to charge £60. He slips into overdraft. The bank wants immediate repayment of £854, most of which is charges.

The reality of benefits administration

The following harrowing example was provided to me by Reverend Paul Nicolson Chair of the Zachaeus 2000 Trust (www.z2k.org )
Local Government Ombudsman reports the case of “Mr Watson”, a single, semi- literate adult living alone in Southwark, London. Jobcentre Plus mistakenly cancelled his JSA so Southwark cancelled his housing and council tax benefits creating arrears in both accounts. On the 12th January 2001 CSL, Southwark’s out sourced agent collecting council tax, sent Mr. Watson a summons for unpaid council tax of £235.10, plus costs, for a court hearing on 9th February 2001.  The summons contains the following threats, in bold type and highlighted. Thousands are dispatched daily:

“If a liability order is granted the council will be able to take one or more of the following actions:  instruct bailiffs to take your goods to settle your debt - this can include your car.  You will be liable to pay the bailiffs costs which could substantially increase the debt. Instruct your employer to deduct payments from your salary or wages. Deduct money straight from your jobseekers allowance or income support. Make you bankrupt. Make a charging order against your home. Have you committed to prison”.     

His sister-in-law called on him. His body is hanging in his flat.  The police found the  summons with him, paper littered with rough calculations and a note:

“Dear ….          I at to do this I am in so much in Detr good By for ever Love……”

Threats of eviction for rent arrears were not far off. JSA was £53.05 a week after rent and council tax (now £64.30).  The Joseph Rowntree Foundation minimum income standard for healthy living after rent and council tax  is £144 a week for a single adult.

Thursday 3 May 2012

Caps it all

The benefits cap is a highly publicised cap on benefit payments which is to be introduced in April 2013.  The idea of a cap is flawed - most of the money in high benefit cases goes to landlords because of the UK's failure to regulate rent levels, for purely market-based ideological reasons.  The best cap is a cap on rents which, because of the poverty trap effect of means tested benefits, would also make it easier for people to move from worklessness into paid work.

The DWP have started writing out to people to be affected by the cap.  People receiving Disability Living Allowance (DLA) are excluded from the cap.

However, it looks like something may have gone badly wrong with the DWP's data because it seems that in at least one area, letters have been going out to families with disabled children who receive DLA and who are thus exempt.  What a mess.  Watch this space.

A selection of recent events and news which illustrate just how dreadful things in welfare-world have become.

How to create Northern ghettos and socially cleanse central London: Hammersmith and Fulham, Kensington and Chelsea (The "Royal Borough"), and Westminster Councils are reported as proposing to to offer homeless people on benefit a take-it or leave it move to low rent areas - presumably places such as Burnley, Hull and Liverpool.  Of course, this will nicely disrupt the educational chances of the children involved, break up extended family and community support networks for such families and ensure they never get a job again by packing them off to places with lots of empty housing.  The reason the houses are empty: far fewer jobs, and so people have moved out.

Heads we win. tails you lose:  Client obtains medical evidence from his GP showing he has a serious illness with a grim outlook.  DWP officials quickly passport him through to the Support Group of Employment and Support Allowance.  That's the way it should be.  Also tries to get his Disability Living Allowance increased to reflect the new prognosis.  Now, often DWP staff dealing with DLA applications take a sneaky look at people's ESA applications and quickly use any negative evidence (even if it's inaccurate) to justify refusing DLA.  But no, his positive ESA decision was not considered relevant, so an ATOS Healthcare "professional" is asked to give advice. And lo and behold, without examining or even meeting the client, without seeing his medical records and doubtless with less clinical experience than the GP, comes up with a different prognosis (clinical practise by telepathy, methinks) DLA increase refused.

Ignore the rule book:  DWP Compliance Officer insisting on seeing evidence of capital which the law clearly states he has no right, nor any need to see.   And he asked to see it within 14 days - see below.

Nothing's urgent: Client facing prosecution.  Have pointed out errors in the amount overpaid and sentencing hearing is looming.  Made request that DWP revise the figures, setting out in some detail, why they are wrong.  So far it's taken the DWP 7 weeks to just get the papers into one place.  Was told today they have now assembled the file and next week ill allocate it to a decision maker to reconsider - which might take up to another four weeks.  And this is with the helpful input of a manager to move the thing along.  I just pray that the hearing doesn't get listed before.

Client claimed Income Support back in November 2011.  Nothing has been heard.  The matter eventually much later, comes my way.  I've written chasing up on 13th April.  Still not a sausage.  So will just have to escalate with a  formal complaint.  Yes it will take up more of their time, but what else does one do?

Snakes and ladders: Phone call from a DWP appeals officer.  Alleges that my notice of appeal and a chasing letter were never received by them.  But my subsequent letter of complaint was.  Long discussion where I try to educate them that letters sent by post are, in law, deemed to have been received and that Royal Mail say that 99.99% of all mail is delivered, so it is inherently improbable that not one, but two letters never arrived.  I also point out that everyone knows that the DWP regularly lose correspondence and that the cutting of administrative assistant grades has made it a lot worse.  At which point appeals officer relents  and agrees that things are awful and that my letters probably were received.  In the meantime, they no longer have any decent information about the client and have wiped the client's records because she hit age 61 and the problem I was appealing against has gone away...or so I thought until client's daughter phoned to say they had just had a letter saying mum has been overpaid benefit.  Back to square one.

Patience: Still waiting for a reply from the DWP's Permanent Secretary to my carefully written and detailed complaint about the client who was convicted and sentenced for a £22,000 benefit fraud.  I had pointed out all along that it was nearer £5,000.  She was so petrified about prospect of going to jail, she tried to kill, herself two weeks before the sentencing hearing.  DWP dismissed my report as irrelevant and inadmissible.  Anyway, two months after she was sentenced (thankfully, a wise and  enlightened judge who didn't quite believe the DWP's figures, suspended her jail sentence), I had a call from a DWP appeals officer to say "Yes Mr Bateman.  You're absolutely right.  it's a closed period supersession.  Overpayment is £5,000".  Anyway, my complaint has been with the Permanent Secretary (and also IDS himself following input by client's MP) since the end of January.  Still we wait.  It appears that the DWP lawyers are playing very hard to get and won't explain what they did or why.  A question in the House looms. 

Absurd: Off up north next week to do an appeal.  Client has horrendous long term health problems with a list of chronic and painful serious illnesses as long as your arm.  Hasn't been able to work since 1984 when he was fired for not telling his then employer about his health condition.  DWP sweep him up as part of welfare reform and assess him for ESA, declare he is fit for work and can go back to work within 3 months. Since then client is also diagnosed with angina.  Let's hope it's like the one I did last week where I got client moved from nil points into the Support Group.  As is standard, DWP didn't even bother to respond to my written Tribunal submission nor to attend the Tribunal to justify their decision.  Outrageous.  Even more outrageous that such behaviour is now the norm.

My first foray into the bloggosphere...

All the main political parties have promoted the myth that the benefits system provides over-generous handouts which destroy the will to work among recipients, half of whom are on the fiddle.  The constant stream of skewed stories in the media, many of which emanate from the DWP's Press Office are largely responsible for creating the folk demon of the benefits scrounger.  it all helps lubricate the wheels of welfare reform and to justify the punitive benefits system which millions have to endure.

Welfare rights advocates spend their working lives challenging the reality of the system - the all too frequent delays, incompetence, errors and off-hand attitudes of too many benefits officials.  Absurd decisions which flout the rule of law and deny people what they are entitled to.  Barmy, illogical rules which defy any logic.  Call-centre based services with their endless waiting-music which ruin one's appreciation of Vivaldi's Four Seasons.  Daft poverty-traps and scary rules which prevent people from improving their lives.

And even when the system works properly, we then explain to our clients, "Yes.  £71.00 a week is what you are expected to live on - pay all your food, fuel, water, travel, replace clothing and worn-out household items out of it.  Any by the way, as many of you also won't get all your rent met by housing benefit, you'll have to make up that shortfall as well."

So this blog shares a few personal reflections about the reality of the welfare reform juggernaut now hitting our streets.