Fit for Work?

Citizen's Advice are currently in the middle of a nationwide campaign on ESA (Employment and Support Allowance).  ESA is paid to people who are unable to work due to disability and frequently the decisions that have been made about who does and doesn't qualify have been wrong leading to stressful reconsiderations and appeals.  Many people have died after wrongly being found fit for work.  Others have committed suicide due to incorrect decisions and/or the stress of the process.  Citizen's Advice's campaign is called Fit for Work because they hope that if implemented the changes they're calling for will help make ESA fit for work (i.e. fit for purpose).

The campaign is calling for:

• The Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) should listen to evidence from the health and social care professionals who know you best.
• The medical evidence required to make your case should be provided free of charge.
• The companies running the work capability assessments should be held accountable for poor quality assessments or bad customer service.
• The DWP should continue to pay people ESA while a second opinion is given on their application.

They are doing this in a variety of ways but I wanted to blog about one of them


CABs generate evidence about problems we see.  And they have thousand and thousands of pieces relating to ESA if the evidence submitted just by the bureau I volunteer at is anything to go by (I'm both an adviser and a social policy coordinator so most of the evidence we generate I see before it gets sent to Citizen's Advice head office.).  Those pieces are great for facts.  What when wrong.  When did it go wrong.  How did that affect the client?  But they aren't so good at the more human side of it, how did it make them feel? How did it effect their health?  What happened next, how long did it take to resolve and how did that affect the client? (mostly because in my experience at least we rarely find out the long term outcome)

Citizen's Advice are looking for as many people as possible to share their own stories of ESA in their own words. What it means to live the ESA process. Whether they claim it, they volunteer for a CAB and have helped clients claim it, they've supported friends or family through the process or whatever reason.

 These stories are being gathered on their blog and through the #FitForWork hashtag on twitter.  More stories are still needed and can be submitted here.

Finally!

It's taken more than a year of begging but: 38 Degrees have finally decided that welfare issues are sexy enough to support. Here's the Email they sent out today:

"The Lords have told government to ditch plans that would leave people struggling financially if they became sick or disabled. Now 38 Degrees members can help make sure MPs listen." Kathy Peach, Head of Campaigns & Social Change, Scope


Dear [supporter],

In the next few days we could help stop some of the worst cuts to support for sick and disabled people. The House of Lords voted to stop some of the most unfair cuts - including support being ended after only a year for some people recovering from very serious illnesses, like cancer. [1]

The government is threatening to reverse these decisions and bring the cuts back. [2] But they can only do that if they can persuade enough MPs to do what the government tells them. If we work together, we can push our MPs to stand up for what's right and defend sick and disabled people.

Right now, many MPs could be on the verge of doing the right thing. A final, people-powered push from thousands of 38 Degrees members could convince them to back the Lords’ changes to the bill.

Click here to send an email to your MP - it only takes 2 minutes:
https://secure.38degrees.org.uk/stop-cuts-to-support

All over the country, disabled people and their families are anxiously waiting to see what will happen. The decision could be the difference between a decent life and serious poverty. Becoming sick or disabled could happen to any of us. Now, we’ve got a chance to stop MPs making a tough package of cuts even worse.

Send an email to your MP - ask them to make sure they back the Lords’ changes:
https://secure.38degrees.org.uk/stop-cuts-to-support

Time and again, 38 Degrees members have taken action to stand up for what’s fair. We’ve challenged the government when they’ve turned a blind eye to tax dodgers. We made it clear that we won’t put up with NHS plans that mean people who pay more get better care. And we’ve been telling MPs to protect Legal Aid for people challenging decisions about their benefits.

Even with the changes the Lords have made, there are big worries about what these plans mean for disabled people. But if MPs don’t back the Lords’ changes, it could end up being even worse. Our voices will be joining hundreds of other groups, including Scope and Sense, who want MPs to protect these improvements. [3]

Together, we can persuade MPs to vote the right way on cuts to support for sick and disabled people:
https://secure.38degrees.org.uk/stop-cuts-to-support


Thanks for being involved,

Hannah, Cian, Becky, Johnny, David, Marie and the 38 Degrees team


NOTES
[1] http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/9009079/Boost-for-cancer-patients-as-reforms-that-would-cut-support-defeated.html
http://www.newstatesman.com/blogs/the-staggers/2012/01/welfare-disabled-government
[2] http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-16523649
[3] Read more about some of the other groups campaigning here:
http://thehardesthit.wordpress.com/
http://www.scope.org.uk/
http://www.sense.org.uk/
http://diaryofabenefitscrounger.blogspot.com/2012/01/i-support-spartacus-report.html

A cynical person might speculate that they're only jumping on board now that disabled people have made headlines with the Spartacus Report and they're hoping to dash in and claim a victory. But whatever their motivation it's great to have them on board, and here's hoping it will result in them offering more support for disability issues in the future. So please support this campaign so they realise that, actually, disability issues are a popular choice for them to engage in.

Disability Campaigners are fighting for all

It might sometimes seem as though disability campaigners are asking you to take an awful lot on trust.

We tell you that we are not opposed to all welfare reform, yet only write about the parts we disagree with. We point out that genuine support to find rewarding employment would be welcomed, but ask you to believe us when we say that it is the system put in place that fails us - and you.

You watch TV programmes and read newspaper reports that claim virtually all on sickness benefits are "scroungers" or "skivers", yet we keep pointing out that in fact fraud is the lowest of all social security benefits at just 0.5%. Perhaps we should spend a little more time acknowledging that many people on sickness or disability benefits would like to work and would welcome the chance to try.

If you happen to be aligned to a Conservative viewpoint, it's hard to continually hear that a policy is not only chaotic and mis-informed, but potentially dangerous and cruel. As a Labour leftie, I know all too well how frustrating it is when you have the best of intentions in government, but face a constant wall of opposition. If you believe passionately that work is the best medicine, it's hard to hear that for some, that just isn't the case.

Nonetheless, when something is wrong, it's wrong.

Employment Support Allowance (ESA, the replacement for Incapacity Benefit) was wrong when Labour introduced it and it's just as wrong today. It was based on flawed assumptions and spurious research. In 13 years, it was the first thing I openly opposed my own party over. It was clear that it would cause great suffering and injustice and I simply could not let it go unchecked.

Worst of all it might just sound like self interest : "Don't cut our benefits, don't make us pay."

Some ask how I (and my campaigning colleagues at The Broken of Britain) manage to write so passionately or find time to research our work, yet don't take a "real" job. Well this is why.

We are making ourselves (more) ill. We are pushing ourselves too far. Daily, we take on too much and fight too hard. Yet at some point a kind of fatalistic "nothing left to lose" attitude crept over us. We don't have wealthy supporters or powerful voices to fight our cause. If someone wants an "expert" for a radio show or newspaper column, it has to be us. There is no-one else. If someone wants an article within the hour on a particularly pernicious benefit story, we have to write it. There is no-one else.

But we're doing it for you too.

Sickness or disability can happen to anyone at any time. You might think that you would cope, work on through, but we who have been there know that sometimes there comes a time when you simply can't. We know that life can change in a heartbeat. That cancer or car accidents, disease or despair can strike anyone at any time - from the CEO who has a breakdown that he thought could never happen to him to the student diagnosed with leukaemia.

We know that skis can come lose or motorbikes can spin into ditches, crushing our hopes for the future as surely as our limbs. We know that defective genes or delinquent organs can lurk as surely in a lawyer as a clerk.

And we know, through terrible experience that when, God forbid, the lottery of life comes calling, you have a right to dignity. Not wealth or special favours, just a little basic provision and a knowledge that we live in a society that won't let you fall.

So, we have to fight. We have to be controversial. We have to grab your attention. We have to find ways to have our voices heard by a media and political class who largely don't want to know. But I just wanted you to know that we're fighting for you too.