If it's not a bedroom tax then it's not a spare room subsidy policy either

The Six O'Clock News on Radio 4 today covered a story about a woman who killed herself and left a note blaming the government cuts to her housing benefit. I suppose I should be grateful that the BBC are reporting this story at all, because most people who get their news from the BBC would hardly know that cuts to welfare are even happening. However, I am furious about this story because of the way they phrased the report. Here's how they referred to the cuts:

"her benefits were being cut as a result of the coalition's spare room subsidy policy.
...she was facing financial difficulty because of what critics have called the bedroom tax"

This is repetition of government propaganda. True, the cut is not called the bedroom tax. Nor is it the removal of a spare room subsidy, because there never was any such thing, merely people receiving enough housing benefit to cover their rent in the available social housing. The official name of this cut in the legislation is the under-occupancy penalty. Because that's what it is - a penalty for having a spare room, even if you had no choice about the number of rooms in the home you were allocated or if you need that room for medical equipment or numerous other reasons. It was never, ever a subsidy in the first place to remove. "Removal of the spare room subsidy" was a name given to the cut by a panicking government because people were calling it a bedroom tax and that was too close to the truth.

That the BBC repeated the official government line and referred to a spare room subsidy when reporting a suicide is a serious problem. Of course I don't believe the BBC is unbiased any more; if anything the BBC follow a pro-government line no matter who is in power. But if the BBC won't call it a bedroom tax then they shouldn't call it a spare room subsidy either. They should use the official name of under-occupancy penalty, but they won't because the word penalty is too revealing about this government's actions when they are still claiming that this is not about money and that they are protecting the most vulnerable.

Labour's latest ad

"Made by the many." A many that apparently doesn't include disabled people.

Not the disabled people who used to be employed in Remploy factories who made everything from wheelchair to computers.

And certainly not a peep about disabled people being employers; using their direct payments to give someone a job.

Nothing about disabled people keeping the car industry in business during tight financial times through the Motability scheme.

Nothing about the DLA that gets poured into the local economy through takeaways when people are unable to cook. Or to local cab companies.

To Labour disabled people aren't part of the many that keep this country going. We don't even exist.

PIP faces Legal Challenge!

PIP faces Legal Challenge!

Thanks again to the impossibly passionate Jane Young, wearespartacus.org.uk have today announced they will be working with @DoughtyStPublic and @LeighDay_Law tochallenge changes to the new PIP (Personal Independence Payments replacing DLA or Disability Living Allowance) mobility criteria.

Campaigners like Steve Sumpter (@latentexistence), myself, Kaliya Franklin and Jane herself have been invited to explain on radio and TV today, just what the changes will mean.

As regular readers will know, the government have constantly misled the public over the new benefit, claiming a 35% rise when Spartacus Report showed clearly that the rise is only 13% for the working age group who will be affected. Physical conditions have remained totally stable, whilst the 13% rise is almost all due to a rise in mental health conditions and learning disabilities, a trend seen worldwide, not just in the UK.

The DWP misled the public over the first consultation, claiming broad support for the changes, when in fact there was almost none.

After a passionate journey through the House of Lords, the government simply overturned all of the amendments we'd won (amendments that were reasonable and could have made PIP safer and fairer) using an archaic 16th century law known as "financial privilege"

Even at that point, once the changes had become law, the government assured campaigners that once they announced the finer details of PIP, there would be no further policy changes, However, when "regulations" were finally announced just before Christmas, the criteria for claiming the most help with mobility problems had been slashed from 50 mtrs to 20 mtrs without consultation or warning.

This means that many of the most vulnerable claimants of all will no longer qualify. A whopping 600,000 of them. The ability to walk 50 mtrs might just get you to your car and out at the other end, to, say, get to a supermarket scooter. 20 mtrs will get few people from their homes to even their car, leaving over half a million sick or disabled people effectively housebound.

As we all rush from interview to interview, it's clear those put up to oppose us don't even understand DLA or what it does. With that in mind, I thought I'd lay out the key points here for any of you to use or pass on.

All we can do is set the record straight whenever we are given the chance, so do feel free to copy and paste the following and send to whoever you can.

1) DLA is a working benefit. It does not stop a sick or disabled person from working - quite the opposite in fact. It is often used for transport to and from a job if the recipient can't manage public transport, or for care at home, to enable the claimant to get up and dressed in the mornings just to get to work.

2) DLA HASN'T risen by 35%, for working age claimants (the only one's affected by PIP) the rise is 13%. There has been almost no rise at all in claims for physical conditions, the rise is almost entirely down to an increase in mental health and learning disability claims, a trend seen in every country of the developed world.
By far the biggest increases come from demographics, children or pensioners, groups the government aren't transferring to PIP.

3) There were always face to face assessments for DLA (Atos did those too) and claimantsalways had to support their claims with evidence from their own GP or consultant

4) The government claim DLA needs reform because so many get lifetime awards. However, they announced a few months ago that they won't even be testing those with indefinite claims at all until after the next election. Indefinite awards make up nearly 70% of all DLA awards and the government claim over and over that it is this group who have been "left to languish" yet they've decided to do nothing about it at all.

5) DLA does not act as a dis-incentive to work, far from it. 60% of disabled people in the UK work.

6) Fraud is just half of one percent as consistently proven by the DWPs own figures. Yet the George Osborne announced a 20% cut back in June 2010 before a single assessment had taken place.

7) DLA saves the taxpayer many times the amount it costs. Study after study shows that sick and disabled people spend their DLA with amazing efficiency. If DLA is withdrawn, the need doesn't just go away and costs are simply transferred to an already crumbling social care service or the NHS.

8) The higher rate mobility criteria was slashed from 50 mtrs to 20 mtrs without consultation or warning, meaning that over 600,000 people will no longer qualify for the benefit. These are people who can barely walk at all - the most vulnerable the government claim to be protecting.

Please join us in countering the propaganda and mis-information our government are churning out today. Every challenge shows a few more people what is really going on in their name.

Legal action against the DWP over the #PIP consultation

I am one of three people asking for a Judicial Review over the consultation for Personal Independence Payments.

The request for a judicial review is on the basis that the Department for Work and Pensions did not conduct a proper consultation for PIP and if we are successful then they will be ordered to start the consultation again. If a judicial review is granted than it should take place sometime in July.

The initial consultation for PIP used inability to walk 50 metres to define eligibility for the enhanced rate of mobility component. That is, anyone who could not walk 50 metres without the use of a wheelchair would get highest rate of the benefit. After the consultation ended it emerged that the goalposts had been moved, and that the cut-off point for high-rate mobility would be just 20 metres. Those who can walk more than 20 metres but less than 50 metres safely, reliably and repeatedly may qualify for a lower rate of the benefit.

We will be arguing that the DWP were required to consult on such a fundamental change  and that they did not provide adequate information during the consultation that did take place. We will also argue that the DWP failed in their duty under the Equality Act 2010 to assess the impact of the new regulations on disabled people.

This change will affect me personally, albeit probably not until 2015 when those whose DLA has not already run out will be transferred to PIP. Those who receive the high-rate of mobility allowance under DLA are eligible to lease a car from the Motability scheme. If this requirement is kept with PIP then as someone who can usually walk more then 20 metres but not 50 metres without pain pain and exhaustion I will lose the high-rate mobility component and will therefore lose the car that restores much of my freedom and independence.

Public Law Solicitors are taking action on my behalf while Leigh Day are representing the two others involved in this case.

Press are welcome to contact me by email on latentexistence at gmail dot com.

More information will be at www.wearespartacus.org.uk

Please sign WOWpetition to demand a cumulative impact assessment of welfare reform.

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Press release from Public Law Solicitors / Leigh Day 08/04/2013

Lawyers have announced that they are taking legal action against the Government on behalf of three disabled clients who are challenging the decision by Ian Duncan Smith, the Secretary of State for Work and pensions, to bring in more stringent measures to qualify for the higher rate mobility benefit which the Government has estimated will result in 400,000 fewer people being eligible to claim.

The three clients currently receive disability living allowance (DLA) including the higher rate of the mobility component. This non-means-tested cash benefit has been available since 1992 and provides people with assistance towards the costs of an adapted car, powered wheelchair or scooter through the Motability scheme.

Under DLA a person is entitled to the higher rate of the mobility component if they are ‘unable or virtually unable to walk’. Usually claimants are considered to be ‘virtually unable to walk’ if they cannot walk more than around 50 metres.

The new Social Security (Personal Independence Payment) Regulations 2013 (PIP) have reduced this benchmark distance to 20m.

Kim Storr has rheumatoid arthritis and other severe progressive conditions and her mobility is affected by joint swelling and pain. She relies on crutches. She currently receives DLA including the higher rate of the mobility component. Ms Storr needs an adapted vehicle to enable her to go out independently.

Steven Sumpter has ME, which has caused him increasing mobility problems. He can walk short distances with a stick, but is otherwise dependent on a wheelchair.  He was assessed as eligible for the higher rate of the mobility component of DLA last year, which he has used to lease a Motability car.

The third claimant is protected by an anonymity order to protect their identity.

Law firms Leigh Day and Public Law Solicitors argue that a consultation process set up by the Government to reassess the benefit was flawed. The Secretary of State did not consult on the proposal that the limit would be reduced to 20 metres. This suggestion was only introduced after all the consultation stages had passed.

Consultees were therefore denied the opportunity to comment on the proposal or to explain to the Secretary of State how such a restriction to the benefit will affect them and their independence.

The 50 metres distance is widely recognised in relation to other disability benefits and in guidance on the built environment, to represent a minimum functional level of mobility.

Proceedings have been issued against the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, Ian Duncan Smith, claiming that the new regulations regarding the PIP payment are flawed and unlawful. They argue the policy-making process failed to properly consider the practical impacts the withdrawal of the benefit will have on people with significant mobility impairments.

Rosa Curling, from the Human Rights team at Leigh Day who is representing two of the disabled clients said:

“We have advised our clients that the consultation undertaken by the Secretary of State was unlawful. People were not properly informed that the limit might be reduced to 20 metres and had no opportunity to provide the Secretary of State with their views on this proposal.

“Removing this vital benefit to disabled people will have a devastating effect on many people’s lives and their ability to access and be part of our communities. The Secretary of State has a legal obligation to consider such impacts before deciding whether to limit access to this benefit.”

Karen Ashton from Public Law Solicitors who represents Mr Sumpter, said:

“What is at the heart of this legal challenge is fairness.  The extra costs of getting out and about for those who have severe mobility problems can be huge. The higher rate mobility benefit can make the difference between being able to do everyday things that everyone else takes for granted  - such as doing your own shopping and visiting friends and relatives  -  and only leaving the house for absolutely essential appointments. But the Government failed to mention the reduction to the 20m threshold in their consultations with disabled people and so those who are potentially affected have not had the chance to explain how devastating the consequences will be.”

ENDS

For further information please contact:

David Standard – Head of Media Relations, Leigh Day 0844 800 4981 or 07540 332717

Karen Ashton -  Public Law Solicitors 0121 256 0327 or  07812 165090

Steven blogs at latentexistence.me.uk and tweets as @latentexistence

Overheard in the Waiting Room

This morning, I took a pair of gruesomely infected toes to the doctor's. During the long wait, I politely eavesdropped on a conversation between three friends who had bumped into each other (that is, they had met by accident; they weren't seeking medical help having violently collided). I would guess that they were around retirement age, or maybe a little younger, two women and a man; ordinary folks. They competed as to whose winter coat had lasted longest, discussed Strictly Come Dancing and expressed some nostalgia for The News of the World before it went trashy.

Then they had a conversation, which went something like this:

A: Of course, all these cuts have just come in, haven't they? A lot of people are going to be struggling.
B: Oh yes. It's not fair that the poorest people should have to pay when it's the bankers who got us into this mess.
C: I know. It's only going to cause the country trouble in the long run, making people so badly off.
A: But there are some people swinging the lead.
B: That's for sure. You hear a lot about disability fraud.
C: Yeah and everybody knows somebody, don't they? Someone who's working the system.
A: But there's a lot of propaganda about that, I think.
B: Of course, the government want you to think they're all the same.
C: You can't believe anything you hear, that's for sure - especially not from this lot!

It went round like this, several times, sometimes with specific anecdotes or particular stories they had seen on the television and in newspapers. At one point, there was a very nuanced discussion of workfare (although they didn't use that term), which talked about the difficulties someone might have if they had depression, would benefit from work and might sign up for one of these schemes, only to get in trouble when they struggled to get out of bed in the morning and were late for their placement. Because people with depression can have trouble getting out of bed in the morning, however hard working and enthusiastic they are.

But time and again the same sentiments were repeated:

1. Some people are on the scrounge for sure. 
2. Some people are really suffering.
3. You can't believe anything your hear.

This disbelief was extended across the board. At one point the conversation shifted from a discussion of just how difficult it was going to be for some people - just how little money people would be left to live on - to the "scare-mongering" about how difficult it was all going to be.

And this is the trouble we have; the position that ordinarily apolitical people who are not directly affected by the cuts have been placed in. They don't trust what they hear - least of all from politicians. They care about the fact that people are being left with little to live on, and the removal of crisis safety-nets like the Social Fund and Legal Aid for civil cases. But, weighing the balance of everything they've been told, they feel that there's a fair amount of cheating going on and that needs to be stopped.

Most people I speak to, outside of disabled, poor or otherwise politically active types, feel the same. They support Welfare Reform in principle (and why not? Few people feel there's no room for improvement), they are anxious about how this effects vulnerable people in practice (People like you). But they don't know what the answers are and they feel that everyone who has a voice in the public sphere is probably lying to them.

I don't know what the answers are, but I wonder if this conversation is about to change. Although there's more to come, a lot of the cuts which came into place on Monday have been a long time coming, and the real life consequences have been - while reasonably speculated about - as yet uncertain. Now it's happening. The poorest people are poorer than they've been for many years. There are many more of them.

And maybe there's some optimism to be taken from the fact that people are confused. A few years ago, when the scrounger rhetoric had just got underway, I think the friends' conversation would be less balanced. The deserving poor would have been spoken about as rare exceptions, as opposed to "many".

See Also: John Harris: We have to talk about why some people agree with benefit cuts.

Government doesn't want to know what Welfare Reform will do to people

WOW Petition - that's a petition to stop the War On Welfare - calls for the DWP to carry out a cumulative  impact assessment on all the welfare reforms together. It is obvious to most people that the impact of cutting many benefits all at once is more damaging than cutting just one. But the government claim that it is just too difficult to do a cumulative impact assessment, that the changes are too complicated. In reply to the petition (a reply that was long overdue, the petition having doubled the necessary 10,000 signatures to merit one) the government said:

"Cumulative impact analysis is not being withheld – it is very difficult to do accurately and external organisations have not produced this either.

The Government is limited in what cumulative analysis is possible because of the complexity of the modelling required and the amount of detailed information on individuals and families that is required to estimate the interactions of a number of different policy changes."

It is not that difficult though, and certainly within the means of a government department when millions of people will be negatively affected. To prove the point think tank Demos have had a go at it themselves. They estimate that the total loss over  five years will be £28.3bn. Let me spell that out: Twenty-eight billion pounds. That is not - as my MP told me - the vulnerable being protected. That is the vulnerable being mugged.

Writing in The Guardian, report author Claudia Wood said:

At one end of the cumulative impact scale, 88,000 disabled people currently claiming employment support allowance (ESA) will feel a double whammy of a 1% cap on uprating and a 12-month eligibility limit. At the other end of the scale, at least 1,000 disabled people (possibly up to 5,000) will face six separate cuts to their benefits income. By the time the next round of cuts are due in four years, they will be £23,300 worse off per person.

In between these two groups are about 120,000 disabled people facing a triple cut, and 99,000 a quadruple cut. These combinations represent at the very least a loss of £6,309 per person by 2017. The worst loss of £23,461 per person by 2017 will be experienced by those unfortunate enough to lose their eligibility for disability living allowance and ESA, and who are reliant on other benefits that will only increase by 1% because of the rating cap or by the consumer prices index (CPI) instead of inflation.

Wood points out that these figures are an underestimate,  cuts to child benefit, the independent living fund, social fund or council tax credit being just a few other factors. Underestimate this may be, but it seems that the DWP are refusing to calculate even the minimum impact because they can't work out what the maximum impact is. We don't need to work out the worst case to be able to see that even the best case is not good.

It doesn't really matter though, because the government are just making excuses. The fact is that they don't want to know what the impact will be because if they knew then they would have no excuse for continuing with these savage cuts. It's actually worse than that, because they must know, but they don't want to be seen to know. As we saw last week, government ministers don't actually want to talk to the people affected, making bizarre excuses to get out of talking to Spartacus. They don't want to hear anything that would contradict their rhetoric.

These cuts don't make economic sense either, even when you view them for what they are rather than "reform" aimed at helping anyone. Cutting DLA will leave people stranded at home where their health will deteriorate and lead to higher costs to the NHS. Cutting the Independent Living Fund will institutionalise people, sending them back to expensive care homes and preventing them from living and working alongside the rest of society. Cutting money that is spent by disabled people on care and travel will damage the car industry and cut jobs for carers. Welfare isn't money that disappears, it is money that is ploughed straight back into the economy and its loss will be noticed. Although possibly not by George Osborne.

The government are sticking their fingers in their ears and shouting "La la la I can't hear you" when it comes to welfare reform. Sign WOWpetition to tell them that we know they can hear us and we're on to them and we won't stand for it.

Demos - Destination Unknown: April 2013
The Guardian - Claudia Wood: The government has a duty to assess the impact of its benefit cuts
The Guardian - Welfare cuts will cost disabled people £28bn over five years

Is It Coz We Is Disabled?

This afternoon Labour MP Michael Meacher obtained an adjournment debate (limited to 30 minutes) to raise the fact that DWP Minister Mark Hoban had refused to meet with himself, fellow Labour MP Tom Greatrex and Sue Marsh (@suey2y) and Kaliya Franklin (@bendygirl) of the disabled people’s group Spartacus to discuss the Work Capability Assessment, the reasons for which he details in his blog here. 

The debate descended into farce when it became apparent that of the seven or so MPs in the chamber, Mark Hoban wasn’t one of them, having apparently been delayed at the airport, with DWP Minister Esther McVey, the Minister for Disabled People, deputised in his place.

Michael Meacher opened the debate by explaining the background to his request for a meeting was the ongoing issue of Atos and the Work Capability Assessment, and that in his 40 years of parliamentary experience it was unprecedented for a minister to refuse point blank to meet with a delegation of people directly affected by parliamentary measures. He said that the recent debate on Atos and the WCA was one of the best he had ever experienced with no cross-party rancour, just cross-party condemnation of Atos, and no defence of DWP.

This was the reason he had sought a meeting with the Minister. He had waited five weeks for a reply, and ultimately had to submit a Parliamentary Question in order to force a response, a response which he described as parliamentary language for a flat ‘no’. He then approached Hoban in the lobby, only to be told 'I'm not seeing you', a statement repeated another three times, and then was told 'I'm not seeing Spartacus', again repeated three times.

Meacher then went on to explain how Spartacus is a loose collective of thousands of disabled people whose initial, evidence-based report showed how DWP had systematically misled the public on the degree of support for disability benefit cuts. As he pointed out, the Spartacus Report had trended spectacularly on Twitter on the day of its release and had since gone on to be referenced in the House, and by several other governmental committees. He noted that Spartacus have gone on to produce other evidence-based reports and that DWP ministers have repeatedly met with Spartacus members Sue Marsh and Kaliya Franklin, at the Conservative Party Conference, at other events, and have regularly debated with them on the BBC.

He conclude by noting that he could not understand why Mark Hoban was refusing to engage, noting that Spartacus planned to move for the immediate implementation of all reforms from the DWP-sponsored Harrington reviews to the WCA, noting that trials have shown that while full implementation of Harrington will reduce the number of assessments an Atos ‘Health Care Professional’ can carry out daily, from around 11 down to 4 to 5, the result is near 100% accuracy. (Current WCA rates show around 1 assessment in 6 overturned at appeal).

Meacher concluded that he could leave out Spartacus from the delegation but he refused to do so because he does not believe ministers can pick and choose. He said that the minister was free to persist with his intransigence, but he would not back down because hundreds of thousands of sick and disabled people have been subjected to real hardship and fear.

Esther McVey opened the Coalition’s response by explaining that Mark Hoban’s plane from Scotland had suffered engine failure and been forced to turn back. She then tried to blame Michael Meacher for Hoban’s failure to appear, saying the government would have been willing to reschedule, glossing over the fact that Michael Meacher would have been unlikely to obtain another position in the parliamentary schedule for the debate.

McVey then listed a score of charities, and companies operating in the welfare industry, who Mark Hoban had met with. It was immediately obvious that none of these are Disabled People’s User Led Organisations, but unfortunately this is not the first time that Mcvey has appeared not to understand the difference between a disability charity and a DPULO, nor to be aware of ‘Nothing for us, without us.’

McVey then emphasized that ‘We are keen to maintain a constructive dialogue to improve the work capability assessment.’ This was a very specific choice of words for which the reason would later become clear.

Michael Meacher then secured an intervention to repeat his question, as McVey apparently had no intention of getting to an answer any time soon. In fact it was becoming rapidly apparent that McVey’s primary intent was to run down the clock on the debate, and with only 30 minutes allocated there wasn’t a great deal of clock she needed to run down.

McVey then launched into a prolonged explanation of how Labour were to blame for the WCA (which both disabled people and MPs are well aware of), and how the Coalition have improved the WCA (which disabled people would dispute). She was again challenged to get to the answer, and after a further batch of playground politics – “They did it, Miss” – which she categorized as ‘essential context’ finally touched on something almost related to the issue.

This wasn’t to actually answer the question, of course, now she denied that the DWP ministerial office had failed to answer Michael Meacher within the required 20 working days. Michael Meacher responded by holding up the letter in question and reading out the dates, which were indeed more than 20 working days apart. McVey tried to claim that this was not the case, but then appeared to realise the futility of trying to shout down a man actually holding the evidence to prove her false.

With around 25 minutes of the debate gone, McVey then finally got to the point of her answer. That Mark Hoban would not meet with Spartacus, because Spartacus were unwilling to be reasonable. And DWP’s evidence for this was the language used in part of the foreword to the Spartacus produced 'People's Review of the WCA' (i.e. one paragraph in a one hundred page report). She seemed to be a little confused over what Spartacus had actually said, so for accuracy here is the original paragraph from the foreword:

"The WCA is a statement of political desperation. The process is reminiscent of the medical tribunals that returned shell shocked and badly wounded soldiers to duty in the first world war or the ‘KV-machine’, the medical commission the Nazis used in the second world war to play down wounds so that soldiers could be reclassified ‘fit for the Eastern front"

That quote was not by either Sue Marsh or Kaliya Franklin, the two Spartacus representatives who Mark Hoban had been asked to meet with, nor by any of the principal authors of the Spartacus reports, but was in fact by the author of the foreword to the People's Review, Professor Peter Beresford OBE, BA Hons, PhD, AcSS, FRSA Dip WP Professor of Social Policy Brunel University.

McVey then tried to mousetrap Michael Meacher by insisting that surely he would join her in condemning Spartacus for such outrageous language, making it clear that this would be a prerequisite for any meeting. With her careful eye on the clock McVey then sat, leaving Michael Meacher with little chance to say more than the parliamentary equivalent of “What?!” before the debate reached its deadline and the House rose, but it would be fair to say that the disabled twittersphere (which had either been watching the live web feed or following the people like me who were live tweeting it) exploded in outrage.

What makes McVey’s claims about Spartacus being unreasonable so utterly ludicrous was that the debate was chaired by the Deputy Speaker, Nigel Evans MP, and Kaliya Franklin, one of the two Spartacus representatives in question, had spent the previous week working in the Deputy Speaker’s office as a form of political work-experience, an internship arranged by none other than Minister of Work and Pensions Ian Duncan Smith (Hoban and McVey’s boss) and in part by Esther McVey herself.  

As Kaliya noted on Twitter: “Oo yes, I do believe I've also found the email's to Mark Hoban's secretary where I politely request a constructive meeting on #wca” and “ Hmm. I've just found an email I sent to Esther McVey in October 2012 where I made several constructive suggestions re #wca”

Clearly utterly unreasonable….

#BedroomTax: When 'Exempt' Means Nothing of the Sort

It was widely publicised today that, being the caring, sharing, thoroughly Christian minister he is, IDS had made a bunch of concessions on the Bedroom Tax - or 'the Spare Room Subsidy' as IDS prefers it be called in an attempt to convince Daily Mail readers that even our bedrooms are scroungers.

There was a concession on severely disabled children yesterday, followed by another  three concessions today: that bedrooms used for foster care would not be taxed, that bedrooms used by service personnel still living with their families would not be taxed, and that households with disability issues should be considered for exemption (note the lesser treatment of disability). But then you dig past the headlines and into the details and the exemptions turn out to be nothing of the sort. Taking them in turn:

For foster carers, the exemption only applies to a single room, so forget fostering a brother and sister, and only if the foster parents have fostered a child, or been approved to foster, within the last year. There is no guarantee this will be applied to people who become fosterers in future, and a vile comment a couple of weeks ago by Jacob ‘Where’s Nanny?’ Rees-Mogg shows the real Tory attitudes towards people who rely on Social Housing: “If fostering had a general exemption, everybody in receipt of social housing benefit would suddenly go off to the council and say that they wanted to be on the fostering lists, so that they would not have to give up their extra bedroom, but would then refuse any child who was sent to them.” So basically all plebs are lying scroungers, then, Jake?

Meanwhile for serving armed forces personnel still living with their parents (and remember that many front-line troops are still teenagers), the devil is again in the details; their bedrooms will be exempt as long as they are on operations and intend to return home. It’s the‘on operations’ that matters here, you’re only ‘on operations’ if you’re on the front-line in Afghanistan, Mali or the like. If you’re posted to Catterick for training, and live in Cornwall, or garrisoned in Colchester but live in Newcastle, tough, that doesn’t count as ‘on operations’.

It was so obvious that these two provisions would be extremely unpopular that you have to wonder if they weren’t a calculated and pre-planned sacrifice to grease the passage of the other provisions of the Bedroom Tax, which is a pattern of behaviour we’ve seen from IDS before, such as with the threat in the Welfare Reform Bill to remove DLA Mobility Component from people in residential care that was withdrawn at the last moment as a concession by the caring, sharing Tories.

But getting back to the disability-specific changes, this is where we see the true calculation. The exemption announced by IDS yesterday was that:

“where a local authority agrees that a family needs an extra bedroom because their child’s disability means they are unable to share, the family can be entitled to the spare room subsidy in respect of that extra bedroom.

“As with the housing benefit claim, the determination as to whether their disability requires them to have an extra bedroom is a matter for the local authority to decide with the help of Department for Work and Pension guidance and medical evidence.

“We will be issuing final guidance to local authorities on a number of areas this one also this week” 

In other words we’re now going to have disabled children (but not disabled adults, because clearly all the problems of disability disappear the moment you turn 18) facing an ATOS-like process to determine if their disability is severe enough for an exemption, and we all know how well the Work Capability Assessment has worked…. More subtly, the whole responsibility for deciding whether to exempt a disabled child has been pushed down onto local authorities, so that DWP will now be able to say “We don’t make the decisions,” words which have become ATOS’s standard excuse for the failings of the WCA. And all of this in an atmosphere of catastrophic cuts, where councils are looking to save every penny they can, not to be proactive in making sure disabled people don’t face being driven from their homes by the Bedroom Tax.

Today IDS added to that ‘exemption’ with a written statement claiming:

“I am also issuing guidance to local authorities emphasising that Discretionary

Housing Payments remain available for other priority groups including the needs of people whose homes have had significant disability adaptations and those with longterm medical conditions that create difficulties in sharing a bedroom.”

That sounds good, on the surface, but the Discretionary Housing Payments are even worse than a maybe-chance of an exemption. DHP is a solely temporary measure with limited funding, only £25m across the entire country, that has to be shared between every household facing problems with the transition to the Bedroom Tax, whether the issues relate to disability, finances, or whatever. And DHP is very specifically a payment to help with the transition costs of Bedroom Tax only, but not the ongoing year-on-year costs. The average impact of the Bedroom Tax is estimated at £14/week per household, the National Housing Federation has calculated that if the entire DHP fund was spread solely over affected DLA recipients it would amount to only £2.51/week per household. Worse, all DHP payments are at the discretion of the council, and (as was pointed out to me by @theyoungjane) discretionary decisions aren’t subject to appeal, no matter how daft they are. And there are some very daft Tory councils out there.

And all of these changes, some of them requiring very carefully written guidance and that people be trained to apply them with intelligence, compassion, and a deep understanding of disability, are being made three weeks before the Bedroom Tax goes live (which is incidentally the same day 13,000 millionaires get their £100,000 tax cut).

I'll close with a quote from @BendyGirl today that eloquently sums the entire situation up: "Bedroom tax? Stupidest idea evah!"

Update: It turns out that DWP have also dropped an appeal to the Supreme Court today, where they had been trying to overturn a decision by the Court of Appeal in the Gorry case that they must recognise the additional housing needs of a family with one child with Spina Bifida and another with Downs Syndrome. It is good that the action has been withdrawn, but the fact that they ever brought it, in effect seeking legal approval to insist that two very significantly disabled children must share a bedroom, is symptomatic of the true attitudes to disability within DWP. Details here.

ESA SOS - The Starting Gun #ESAendgame

Though I'm posting it here, this post was actually written by Sue and originally appeared on her own blog. Please post any comments there.

In a few weeks, I'm going to arrange for some very significant stories to break in the very mainstream press about ESA.

I've been collecting them for about 6 months and if there's any justice left at all, they will kill ESA once and for all.

They will totally change your perception of ESA and WCAs

We need a Spartacus 2 and as you all know, I've been sick as a dog.

Today is stage one. If you're in, please leave your Name and user name on twitter or Facebook (Feel free to only provide the latter if you like to keep your anonymity a little) and Constituency

There will be a task most days, so please keep watching my blog.

Today, I would like something very specific. What is the worst thing, for you about ESA/WCAs? I need you to simply leave a one line answer if possible, ie "1 Year Time Limit - It totally undermines any contributory principle"

The most popular of these "subjects" will make up every short section of the new report.

Share this post everywhere you can. This will be the start of our biggest fightback. EVERYONE will have to give this everything if it is to work. We need hundreds of responses to every request to make this a truly representative report from disabled people, by disabled people. The more join, the more powerful our voice and the more impact any final work will have.

What's more, by crowdsourcing our information and skills, believe me, we have 100 times the resources and ability of the DWP.

I have an awesome team in place - they produced #esaSOS in just 4 days. Hard though it will be, PLEASE, I'm still very weak and CAN'T read endless comments or pages and pages of Hansard or reports. Make this easy for me by keeping as close to the brief each day as you possibly can. I WILL cover everything, nothing will get missed. I'll ask the question you're itching to comment on, honest, but if we do it this way, I can delegate very much and empower you all to know exactly what we need.

Even a shadow of division will see us fail. This will need every group, every campaigner, every supporter, no matter how radical or moderate, how powerful or unknown, every journalist that has supported us, every politician who is fully signed up to our arguments.

If you have a prominent welfare/disability/political voice, website or other outlet, please cross post this from me.

So today, in the comment thread below please leave :

Name and social media name/s (or just the latter if more comfortable)
Constituency
The WORST thing for you about ESA/WCAs in one line.


****ESA is the most terrible failure of any developed nation for a very long time. The reasons are numerous and utterly undeniable. The government has failed to implement Harrington with any commitment and is actively increasing the rate at which vulnerable people face a failing and unfair test. We have engaged with a democratic process that has failed us at every stage. We have no choice left but to stop this ourselves. Over 100,000 people now face some kind of ESA assessment every MONTH. We can't afford to wait. ****

Enough is Enough.

From today, please use the hashtag #ESAendgame in all your tweets. We must build awareness and create an army or support and dissemination.

"Alone we Whisper, Together we Shout"


http://wowpetition.com/

A monumental day for equality #equalmarriage #pip

You'd have to be stranded on the island from Lost to not know that MPs were debating marriage equality in the House of Commons today.

But what might have escaped your attention was the Select Committee debate discussing the descriptors for Personal Independence Payment (PIP). It only affects us poxy disableds, of course. Someone questioned whether the scheduling was intentional; to sweep PIP changes through when all eyes were on equal marriage. But I doubt it. Everyone would have ignored PIP even on a day where there was no other news whatsoever and the press were reduced to reporting on toasted sandwiches that looked a bit like Jesus if you squinted in the right way.

They voted 10 - 7 to remove any help with mobility for disabled people who can walk more than 20 metres. So if you can walk 21 metres - which is probably the distance from your bed to your front door going via the bathroom for a wee then the kitchen for some breakfast - you can no longer get financial help towards a car or wheelchair that would allow you to get out of the front door to go to work.

I'd love the right to legally get married, I really would. But it all seems a bit pointless to me right now. Maybe that's because I'm feeling low having spent the afternoon alternately listening to disablist MPs talking about why they hate me and homophobic MPs talking about why they hate me. But I think mainly it feels pointless because with the move from DLA to PIP probably leaving me housebound I'm never actually going to be able to go out and meet a potential wife.

20 Metres, Coming Up Short

The Coalition are proposing to replace Disability Living Allowance (DLA) with Personal Independence Payments, or PIP, and as part of the change, they are proposing to ‘clarify’ how much difficulty in walking you must have to qualify for the PIP version of what was the Higher Rate of Mobility Component of DLA. The previous level was that you had to have significant difficulty in walking 50m, this has now been ‘clarified’ to 20m, a 60% cut, or rather less than the distance between the stumps on a cricket pitch. In the shambolic performance by Minister for(?) Disabled People Esther McVey and her advisors before the Select Committee on Work and Pensions on Monday 21^st January it became clear that the cut to 20m had been intended from the outset, and that references to 50m in all published drafts of the PIP descriptors except for the final one had been ‘inadvertently misleading’. The DWP’s Chief Medical Officer stated that 20m had been ‘intended to get someone from their car to the door of the supermarket’, only for (disabled) committee chair Anne Begg MP to ask him, ‘So it gets me to the door, what about getting me around the aisles?’ 

Taking advantage of Google Earth, I thought I would look at exactly how useful 20m is in the real world, by zooming in on the disabled parking in my local town centres, Rochester and Chatham, which should be fairly typical, and significantly better than many. In each case the yellow line on the image marks 20m from the nearest disabled bay towards the shops, banks and other facilities a disabled person might need to access, the arrow pointing towards where you would want to go.

Rochester

First the major carpark (it isn’t normally used as a market as it was in the Google Earth picture), which only has six disabled bays near the High Street. As the High Street is up a small bank there is an accessible ramp, and 20m will barely get you to the top of it. Double it and a bit more and you might make it to the door of the local chemist/post office. (Town Centre redevelopment plans propose turning this car park into a square and relocating parking several hundred metres away).

Next the other group of disabled parking bays in the same car park, which are hidden away around its furthest corner, between the A2 dual carriageway and a bit of the old city wall (you really couldn’t make this up). 20m won’t even get you into the main carpark and there is quite literally nowhere else to go (and special kudos to Mr White-Van-Man for parking over 3 disabled bays).

Moving on we have the small disabled car park at the other end of the High Street, just four bays in this one, I think I have managed to park in it once in a decade. The line shows you that again 20m won’t get you on to the High Street, never mind to any of the shops or other facilities (the vehicle apparently parked closer is using a turning space).

Finally for Rochester, the spot I normally have to park in, because by the time I get over to Rochester, every disabled bay has inevitably long since been occupied. This is the closest legal on-street parking spot to the High Street on a Saturday, and 20m doesn’t get you remotely near it.

Chatham

Chatham is perhaps an even more important test for disabled bays and 20m, because not only do we have the normal range of shops and banks, but also DWP’s Jobcentre Plus, and the Atos Assessment Centre.

The first of two large disabled parking areas is behind the theatre, less than ideally it is situated up a relatively steep bank. As can be seen, 20m will barely get you to the top of the ramp down to the High Street.

The second large disabled car park is tucked away at the back of the shopping centre (servant’s entrance yet again!), there are three potential directions out of this one, so I have combined the results from Google Earth onto one image. Heading out of the car park to top right takes you into the shopping centre, but only onto a corridor, barring a single café it is another 100m to get to any shops and several hundred metres to the only post office in Chatham. To bottom left you have the choice of a rather icky alleyway towards the High Street, or a longer route that takes you to the High Street along the road, but the first half of that road has no footpath. Unfortunately 20m barely gets you out of the car park. And tucked away at the bottom left of the picture, 150m from the car park, is the Atos assessment centre (marked ‘A’) and another 20m beyond it the closest bank to any of Chatham’s disabled parking. To bottom right of the carpark is a pathway around the edge of the shopping centre, 20m will barely get you started on that route, but 200m away, across the dual carriageway, is the Jobcentre Plus (marked ‘J’).

There is one further car park with a couple of disabled bays, and a couple of on-street disabled bays next to it, 20m from that will get you to the 1^st floor back door of one of the department stores, but not actually into it.

And that is it for Chatham Town Centre, as the High Street is surrounded by bypasses, there is no on-street parking that can usefully supplement the disabled bays.

And finally my local out of town supermarket. 20m will actually get you through the doors, but as Anne Begg pointed out, just getting in the door doesn’t actually do you much good.

Remember, in all of these cases I have measured from the closest disabled bay towards the nearest useful destination. In almost every case 20m from the furthest bay won’t even get you out of the disabled car park, and if you want to get to something other than the nearest destination, such as to any bank in either of the two town centres, and likely in the whole of the 265,000 population Medway Towns, then you are looking at considerably further. The last bank even remotely close to 50m from any of these disabled bays closed a few months ago, and you are now looking at significantly more than 100m to get to one. And demand for these disabled parking bays massively exceeds provision, the Chatham situation is so bad I go into the town centre about once a year, yet live less than 5 minutes drive away.

So there we have it, 20m may be the Coalition’s chosen mark for what constitutes a major mobility impairment, but it is so short a distance, less than the length of the floor of the Commons, that it is functionally useless, even with the help of a blue badge. So if 20m is so short that it can’t get you anywhere, why is 21m long enough that it no longer qualifies as a significant impairment?