Repeat

(Originally posted at This Is My Blog.)

I know this is ground we've covered before, but a look at today's front pages makes it necessary to go over it again.

In the UK, we have a welfare system. The disability benefit side of it has been being overhauled for the last few years. Labour started it, the Coalition are continuing it, they're using the same company (Atos) to execute it and the same advisor (Lord Freud) to justify it. This is not a party-political issue - red, blue or yellow, to borrow a phrase, they're all in it together.

In summary:

• If you have a doctor's note stating that you are unable to work because of illness, injury or impairment, you apply for Employment Support Allowance (ESA). For the first 13 weeks of your claim you are paid the "assessment phase" rate of up to £67.50 per week.


• If the assessment classifies you as entirely unable to work, and unlikely to ever be able to work, for instance because you are bedbound and terminally ill with a life expectancy of less than a year, you are granted unconditional ESA at the "support" rate of up to £99.85 per week.


• If the assessment decides that, although your disabilities are substantial, you would be able to do *some* work at *some* point in the future with the right conditions/support/equipment/adjustments, then you are awarded ESA at the "work-related activity" rate of up to £94.25 per week. To continue to receive this you must attend regular work-related activities.


• If the assessment determines that your NHS-diagnosed conditions are not severe enough to substantially impair your ability to work in an office environment, or that you would only require minor adjustments, you are deemed "fit to work". You don't get ESA at all, and are placed on Job Seekers Allowance (JSA) which is a smaller amount of money with much higher conditionality attached. If you are fortunate, there may be a note on your jobseeking file excusing you from mandatory application for specific jobs that would aggravate or be incompatible with your condition (for instance someone with speech and hearing difficulties may be "fit to work" but excused from mandatory application for call-centre jobs).

Leaving aside all the arguments about whether the system is fair, how their fitness-to-work tests relate to what is required to perform a job in the real world, and so on... the Department for Work and Pensions released these statistics yesterday, about ESA applicants over the last two years:

• 7% were incapable of any work (Support group)


• 17% were able to do some sort of work given the correct support (Work-related activity group)


• 39% were deemed to be fit for work and were moved onto jobseeker's allowance


• 36% dropped out of the application process


• 1% of applications were still in progress

Today, the Express have taken these numbers and decided that 1% (still in assessment phase) plus 7% (Support group ESA) plus 17% (WRA group ESA) equals 25% of applicants approved to receive some form of ESA. So far, so true. However, their headline screams that therefore the remaining 75% - those moved onto JSA, and those who drop out of the system entirely - are "faking".

This is simply not true.

The fact that a person has failed to score enough points to get ESA (yes, it really is a points-based computer system) does not mean that they scored no points whatsoever, or even that they're not disabled, just that they're not quite disabled enough to be Officially unfit for work. That's why we have the assessment process! To assess people!

To apply to be assessed is not "faking".

To have a level of impairment that falls just short of the ESA bar is not "faking".

There will also be quite a few applicants who suffered an acute injury or illness (for instance, they were in a car accident) and were advised to apply for ESA as a temporary or worst case scenario - but in the 13-week assessment period, they have recovered well so they have been moved to JSA or have returned to work.

To recover from an illness or injury does not mean that the illness or injury was "faked".

There are also the people who get placed onto Jobseeker's Allowance, and go to appeal, and win. The rate of people winning their appeals is around 40% and this increases to 70% where the appellant has someone to represent them. Regrettably, there are also a number of genuinely disabled people who simply don't have the wherewithal to fight an appeal, and have to attempt to survive without the benefits they need. I myself have been in this situation.

To be too ill to fight is not "faking".

There are people who, during their assessment period, are fortunate to find a suitable job which is prepared to make the necessary adjustments, or who, like myself, have enough personal support around them to enable them to be self-employed.

To return to the taxpaying workforce is not "faking".

A very few people will be fortunate enough to have other resources to fall back on. Perhaps an insurance payout of some kind, or a lottery win, or the sale of assets, will save them from the indignity of having to complete a process that treats them as the worst kind of fraudster from beginning to end.

To have alternative resources is not "faking".

Most significantly, there are those who die before the assessment phase is complete.

To die of a condition is perhaps the strongest possible indicator that the condition was not "faked".


I'd provide more concrete statistics, but we don't have them. Once you leave ESA, you're not monitored. We don't know how many of these people have got jobs, have died, have killed themselves, have left the country... no one cares. The Express just goes ahead and calls them all "fakers".

It's never that simple

As readers of this blog are no doubt aware, yesterday Labour leader Ed Miliband made a speech attacking those disabled people who he believes can and should be doing some sort of (unspecified) work.

So far as anyone can ascertain, Mr Miliband doesn't have any basis for this belief - no background in Occupational Therapy, no medical qualifications - it goes right back to the old refrain of "if you can press a button, you can work," that we heard many times while Labour were in power and introducing ESA and their harsh Work Capability Assessment.

As I responded to Bendygirl's blogpost yesterday: it's never that simple.

If there is a button-pushing factory in my town (despite offshoring), or in a town I could move to (despite lack of accessible housing and the housing benefit caps), and if they're hiring (despite record UK unemployment), and if I can get up and washed and dressed in the morning (despite cutbacks to Social Services), and if I can actually get to work (despite inaccessibility of public transport), and if the button-pushing workstation and the route to it is or can be made accessible (despite Access to Work cuts)...

...and if the bosses and co-workers are happy to accommodate my need for frequent breaks at unpredictable moments (despite the hundreds of other applicants for the button-pushing job who are equally qualified for button-pushing and don't need breaks or adjustments), and if I will earn a living wage (despite the messing about with Tax Credits)...

...and if we can account for the fact that I only have the energy to function for about 10 non-contiguous hours out of every 24 and I must keep three or four hours of that aside for necessary things like eating, medicating, grocery shopping, banking, cleaning and managing my household, and the bureaucratic maze of disability...

...then I, along with many others, will be right there.

Deserving

A lot of hoo-ha in the UK press at the moment about disability benefits. The essence of the story is that the government reckon 80,000 claimants who have what they consider "immoral" illnesses like drug/alcohol dependency or obesity are a justification for their plans to chuck about 570,000 genuine claimants off the disability benefits on which they depend.

According to the BBC article, the Prime Minister's position is thus:

The prime minister denied the government was stigmatising people who were genuinely ill but said the public believed recipients should be "people who are incapacitated through no fault of their own".

No fault of their own, what a strange concept. Does the man intend to start assessing not only the practical limitations of a person's condition, but also the degree of fault involved?

He continues:

"But there are some who are on these benefits who do not deserve them and frankly we are not doing our job looking after taxpayers' money if we do not try and make sure these people go to work."

Benefits are not given based on being deserving. They are given based on need. Going to work or not isn't based on being deserving. It's based on ability. An idiot who drove while high/drunk/ill/tired and smashed up his car and his head so badly that neither will ever function again is probably not considered very "deserving", but his needs will be pretty high and he's unlikely to work again. A young fireman who lost a leg while saving a helpless baby from a burning building is about as deserving as they come, but his needs, while substantial, will be easier to adapt for, and with a relatively small amount of equipment and support the chances are he will be able to do some work.

I wonder... if someone were declared Fit For Work despite a serious health condition, and in the course of making the effort to keep up with the Mandatory Work Related Activity requirement of JSA, their condition permanently worsened to the point where even the DWP and ATOS accept that they are too ill to work - would it be their fault for not saying "I can't do this," and risking having their JSA stopped?

Even taking the sort of example that I think the government mean, it's worrying. Let's imagine, for a moment, that we have a claimant, an alcoholic, and that his alcohol dependency didn't evolve as self-medication for a pre-existing but untreated mental health condition. Let's accept the government assumption that he really did skip gleefully out of the careers office at school saying "I've got a better idea, I'll get pished and the taxpayer will take care of me, bwahahahahaha!" Fixed this in your head? Good.

Now we're twenty years down the line, he has no friends and family left apart from other alcoholics, no work history, very few self-care skills, and all the physical and mental effects of long term alcohol abuse, which if you're not too squeamish you can look up for yourself. There are very few jobs that such a person could do, and even fewer employers who would take such a person on. Then what happens?

Cameron's despicable lie is that his ideal outcome involves people with dependency issues being treated and then helped to find jobs. That will never happen. It is far too expensive, and without wishing to sound defeatist, in many cases it's an impossible outcome.

We could put him into a treatment programme - one that isn't dependent on turning up sober (unlikely), and that won't send him back to his bedsit and alcoholic pals to undo all the work that has been done (so we're looking at an open-ended residential placement - unlikely, and extremely expensive). Then once he's sober, he'll be allowed to access NHS treatment for the underlying mental health conditions that will have developed (unlikely and expensive) and the physical damage as well (amazingly expensive). We'll have to hope that during those years - yes, years - the DWP don't choose him as an easy target and put him under so much pressure that he cracks and starts drinking again. Eventually, after many years of intensive treatment, a lot of money, even more hard work, and a dollop of luck on the side, he might be able to re-enter some sort of employment for a few years until he (a) retires, (b) dies of the irreversible physical damage, or (c) falls off the wagon again.

Cynically speaking, and please don't think I'm advocating this, it is in fact cheaper to allow him to quietly drink himself into an early grave without intervention.

Cameron might talk up "treatment" and "employment" but until we see actions to that effect - boosting rather than cutting the support projects* - what he really means by "getting people off disability benefits," is saving money by consigning them to the lower unemployment benefits.

The benefits system is supposed to be the last safety net. It does not provide a luxury lifestyle, it doesn't try to improve matters, it merely attempts to go towards providing what has been defined as the minimum amount of support necessary for that person to live in conditions that can be considered acceptable for a human being. Reducing that support does not propel people into sustainable jobs, it just makes their lives more difficult and in many cases perpetuates their problems, or in a few very sad cases, hastens their deaths.

*Yes, the article speaks of a £580m investment. However, this is from "private and voluntary organisations", eg not the government, and frankly it's a drop in the ocean compared to the cost of effective long-term treatment and support for that many addicts.

Cross-posted to This Is My Blog.

Now Even the BBC is Jumping on the Crip-Bashing Bandwagon

It's bad enough when the Tory Rags lay into us after the latest crip-hating press release from the DWP, but in this article even the BBC seems to be jumping on the bandwagon. Oh, there are a few quotes from charities saying it just isn't good enough, but when someone sets out to deliberately villify people for being disabled, then the BBC is required by its Public Sector Equality Duty to challenge that argument, not repeat it. Even, perhaps especially, when the person setting out to villify disabled people is the Prime Minister.

I've commented on the article itself (comments section at the bottom of the page) saying:

"I am appalled by the tone of this story, which doesn't just pander to, but actively participates in the deliberate demonisation of disabled benefit claimants, in direct contravention to the BBC's Public Sector Equality Duty. I will be following this comment with a formal complaint. As a disabled person with a complex spinal problem I feel directly attacked by this article. I am not a benefit claimant through choice, I spent four years fighting a discriminatory employer to remain in work. My situation has deteriorated to the point even the new system recognises that I am currently unable to work, but the government persists in demonising all disabled benefit claimants. It is bad enough that I find myself attacked on a daily basis in the Tory rags, but to now find that I am being attacked by the BBC is beyond the pale."

I've also filed a formal complaint about the article on the BBC's complaints page:

"Deliberate demonisation of disabled benefit claimants

The article is an uncritical parroting of a DWP press release intended to stigmatise disabled benefit claimants in order to increase public support for changes to the benefit system. The reality for disabled people is a rapidly increasing climate of fear in which, benefit claimants or not, we face attacks in the press and abuse and even physical attack in the street. Under the Public Sector Equality Duty the BBC is required to take action to promote the equality of disabled people, this article instead sets us up as a target for abuse.

I fought for four years against a discriminatory employer to avoid being made redundant because of my disability. I have made every effort possible to remain in work and now to find work, but the reality is that my disability is worsening, not improving and even the new system accepts that I am currently not able to work. Yet I find myself being attacked at every turn by the DWP's campaign and its sycophantic press. My own disability is a complex spinal problem that limits every aspect of my life, yet the DWP reduces that to 'back problems' and a nudge-nudge, wink-wink implication that I'm just swinging the lead, because 'everyone knows' back problems aren't serious. Just because 'everyone knows it' doesn't make it true and the BBC is mandated by its Public Sector Equality Duty to actively challenge the casual discrimination against disabled people implicit in attitudes of this kind.

And what applies to one disability applies to all, and the BBC's acquiescence in the DWP's deliberate disablism is implicit in the article's outright attack on claimants with addictions or obesity. Despite their misuse as diagnostic labels by DWP, addiction and obesity to the degree of being unfit for work are almost universally symptoms of wider psychological or physiological disorders, for instance Prader-Willi Syndrome. To attack a benefit claimant for being addicted or obese is to attack them for being disabled, which is disability related harassment in contravention of the Equality Act. To participate in that harassment calls the legality of the report into direct question and in my opinion the BBC is not simply failing to meet its legal obligation under its Public Sector Equality Duty but actively participating in a hate crime.

It doesn't matter if the Prime Minister is the one to say it, any statement leading to a disabled person feeling harassed or intimidated is disability related harassment and as a disabled person I find his statements offensive and intimidatory and I view the BBC's unquestioned repetition of them in precisely the same light.

My fears and the perception of being attacked by government and media at every step are not simply my own, they are echoed by the vast majority of disabled people I know. We find ourselves increasingly living in a climate of fear engendered by a deliberate demonisation of disabled people by government and DWP and their allies in the right-wing tabloids intended to allow them to gut support for disabled people while convincing the non-disabled population we are nothing but feckless parasites. I and others have been harassed on the street by complete strangers with no idea if we are benefit claimants, simply that we dare to be disabled in public is enough to trigger their xenophobic hatred and abusive claims that we are benefit frauds and faking our disabilities. It is the BBC's responsibility to highlight this behaviour as unacceptable, not serve as its cheerleader. I have given up hope of being treated as an equal in the Tory rags, but I had expected better of the BBC."

I expect they'll just try to write it off, saying that quoting a charity or two gives the article balance, but we all know that isn't the impression casual readers will get, and the difference between the BBC and the Tory Rags is that the BBC is subject to the Public Sector Equality Duty and expected to take a stand against disablism. Or at least that is the way it is supposed to be, sadly the reality now appears to be something else entirely.

If anyone wants to join me in complaining about the article, please feel free to use any or all of the words above.