Hopes and Dreams

(Content warning: Mentions of domestic abuse and suicide)


During his Tory party conference speech last week, Rishi Sunak, while justifying slashing Universal Credit, asked his audience “is the answer to their hopes and dreams just to increase their benefits?”

The thing is, for many people; the answer is a simple “yes;” an increase in benefits could be an answer to their hopes and dreams.

* If a parent’s dream is for their kids to have a better life than them, and increased benefits mean they’ll be able to work only one job rather than the three they have now, giving them time to help their children with homework, which will enable their children to achieve more later in life: Yes, increased benefits can answer their hopes and dreams.

* If a terminally ill person’s dream is to go on an exciting adventure before they die: Yes, increasing their benefits can be the answer to their hopes and dreams.

* If a person with a mobility impairment dreams of a really good wheelchair that’ll change their life, but the NHS won’t prescribe what they need and they’re not popular enough to crowdfund it: Yes, increasing their benefits can answer their hopes and dreams.

* If a disabled person wants to move into a more accessible property, which will dramatically improve their health, but they can’t find one within the local housing allowance budget: Yes, increasing their benefits can answer their hopes and dreams.

* If a disabled person was saving up for something special, but they blew their savings on the extra costs of being disabled/shielding in a pandemic: Yes, increasing their benefits can answer their hopes and dreams.

PIP is supposed to cover the extra costs of being disabled, but despite the fact that so many of us saw our extra costs soar during the pandemic - from having to have everything delivered costing more than being able to go to the shops while shielding, to having to turn to more expensive things like robot vacuums and having to get takeaway every day when social care was withdrawn - we got no extra PIP payments to cover those extra costs. I calculated that my extra costs related to shielding from March 2020 to March 2021 came to £5,000. I won’t say I could “afford” that, because it’s not true; but I did have access to that amount thanks to family, while not all disabled people did. At least one disabled person starved to death during the first lockdown because he couldn’t access food while many other disabled people will have gone cold, hungry, or without connectivity due to not being able to afford phone credit because their extra costs were not met. There were no campaigns to get a one-off payment to PIP claimants to cover our pandemic extra costs, because no political party actually cares enough to fight for us; and the major disability charities aren’t any better, because they didn’t demand that PIP meet our pandemic-related extra costs either.

And if you have more than £16k in the bank, you’re not eligible for any income based benefits, you can only claim £74.70/£114.10 weekly contributions based ESA (as long as you’ve been paying your National Insurance contributions in the last couple of years), plus PIP. I’ve a good friend who got an inheritance a month before the pandemic. Not huge, but enough to buy a crap house in some of the most deprived areas of the north. But her income based benefits were cut because she did the right thing and told the DWP she’d gotten the inheritance, so during the pandemic she’s had to live off that inheritance because she was paying £107 rent a week out of £114 ESA; leaving her with £7 a week to live off, plus PIP to cover some of her extra costs of being disabled. Obviously £7 a week for all bills is not survivable, so she’s had to dip into the inheritance; and now it looks like she’ll be renting for the rest of her life between the inheritance she blew on surviving while shielding, and the soar in house prices caused by the stamp duty cut. Her only hope to buy a crap house in a deprived area in the north now is if there’s a housing crash this winter.

Most political parties at various points in time bang on and on about how the system should look after those who’ve ‘done the right thing’ and worked hard and paid their National Insurance. But they don’t at all. Having £7 a week to live on after you’ve paid your rent is not “looked after”. Those who’ve paid their NI but aren’t eligible for income based benefits because they’ve got a partner in work, or got more than £16k from an inheritance or old savings from when they were fit for work, are treated like shit. And because of that, the benefits system will pay more in the end. My friend won’t be able to buy a house now, so she’ll deplete the small inheritance, and then will soon be back on income based benefits again and the state will need to pay her rent again. If contributions based benefits were fair, she wouldn’t have blown out her inheritance while shielding, she’d be able to buy a cheap house once she’s had her third jab and finished shielding, and the state would never need to help her with rent ever again.

She - like claimants of all legacy benefits like JobSeekers Allowance, Carer’s Allowance, and all types of ESA (both contributions and income based) - didn’t even get the extra £20 a week that UC claimants got. When you’re left with £7 a week after paying rent, that extra £20 would triple the amount available to spend before having to buy food out of the money she was hoping to buy a future with. The #20MoreForAll campaign was pretty pitiful to be honest because it had no mainstream support; the main political parties barely made a peep - Labour just had the very occasional tweet from the Shadow Work & Pensions Secretary - and the charities that are supposed to represent us barely made a fuss either. I suppose at least they did more for that than they did for trying to get a one-off PIP payment to cover our pandemic extra costs; with the amount of effort there being absolute zero, they’ve never mentioned it at all.

(Friend consented to being written about anonymously)

* If a parent is worried about their children being at risk of getting involved in a gang, and dreams of moving to a new city to give their kids a fresh start, but they can’t afford a moving van, a deposit on a new private rented flat, or even to pass the financial check landlords carry out: Yes, increasing their benefits can answer their hopes and dreams.

* If a person with limited mobility simply dreams of surviving this winter without dying of hypothermia, and wishes they could afford to put the heating on: Yes, increasing their benefits can answer their hopes and dreams.

Disabled people born after 26th September 1955 aren’t eligible for the non-means tested Winter Fuel Payments and despite the fact that fuel bills are higher than ever, disabled people are having to spend more time at home than ever before because many of us are still at least semi-shielding, and most importantly; many of us can’t move around to keep warm like non-disabled people who can do star jumps to warm up: There’s no campaign to introduce WFPs for disabled people in this most expensive winter ever. Again, neither politicians, nor charities that supposedly represent us, care about us going cold this winter. The WFP ranges from £100-£300 depending on age and circumstances. I’d say that £150 for those getting the low rate mobility component of DLA/PIP (who have some limitations with their ability to move around), and £300 for those getting the high rate mobility component of DLA/PIP (who have severe limitations with their ability to move around), would be suitable rates. But no-one cares if we fucking freeze, especially not those supposed to be representing us.

* If a person who recently became disabled can no longer do their old job, and they need money to pay the course fees to retrain do something different: Yes, increasing their benefits can answer their hopes and dreams.

While you can get some qualifications funded by the JobCentre if you meet certain conditions; there will always be people who want/need to train on a course that isn’t funded, or they don’t meet the criteria for funding.

* If a homeowner is off work sick long term with Long Covid, and they dream of keeping the family home, perhaps the home where their children grew up, maybe the house where their spouse died, but they can’t afford the mortgage on ESA or Universal Credit: Yes, increasing their benefits can answer their hopes and dreams.

* If someone permanently too ill to work dreams of being a homeowner: Yes, increasing their benefits can answer their hopes and dreams.

You can claim housing benefits to pay your landlord’s mortgage, but not your own. The only help for homeowners with housing costs is Support for Mortgage Interest; and even that’s a loan nowadays. So you’d have to find the money for your mortgage, and all the other expenses in life, out of your £74.70/£114.10 weekly contributions based ESA, or £324.84-£668.47 monthly Universal Credit. (Some people are still getting income based ESA, although you haven't been able to put in a new claim for ibESA since long before SARS-CoV2 made the jump to humans, so that won't apply to anyone newly claiming benefits due to long covid.)

* If a disabled person on income based benefits dreams of living with their partner, but can’t afford it because their benefits will be stopped completely leaving them wholly dependent on their other half: Yes, increasing their benefits can answer their hopes and dreams.

* If a disabled person dreams of leaving their abusive partner, then an increase to benefits that are paid directly to them - specifically PIP or contributions-based ESA, as distinct from Universal Credit which will be paid to the head of the household - could enable them to afford transport and a temporary place to stay in order to be able to leave; answering their hopes and dreams.

Disabled people are nearly three times as likely to experience domestic abuse as non-disabled people so needing to save up money that comes to you personally in order to leave is not a hypothetical risk for thousands. It's also why many disabled people daren't move in with a partner they'd be wholly dependent on because it would put them at such high risk of financial abuse, and potentially other kinds too. You never know what the wonderful, kind, gentle person you love right now will turn into when you're completely dependent on them just to buy tampons.

* If a disabled person simply dreams of not having to count every penny, of being able to spontaneously buy a new dress, of being able to get takeaway now and then, of being able to put the heating on more than 3 hours a day: Yes, increasing their benefits can answer their dreams.

* If a new computer could make someone employable, if they’re only well enough to work from home and a new PC could completely change their life, but they just can’t afford one: Yes, increasing their benefits can answer their hopes and dreams.

I don’t know if you noticed, but in several of these examples - the person who needs a new wheelchair, the person who needs a more accessible home, the person who needs to retrain, and the person who needs a new computer - an increase in benefits would ultimately make them more employable. The government thinks slashing benefits is the answer to getting disabled people back to work; but in reality the opposite is true. If you need a wheelchair to physically get yourself to work, but you can’t afford one, the NHS won’t issue a suitable one, you’re not eligible for Motability because you got turned down for high rate mobility PIP, and you’re not popular enough to crowdfund one: You literally cannot physically go into a job interview to try and get hired.

First Labour, then Tories and Lib Dems, then Tories on their own, then Tories and the DUP, and most recently Tories on their own again, have spent the last 13 years cutting disabled people’s benefits to try to get seriously ill and severely disabled people to get off their "lazy" sick and disabled arses, and into work. Never mind the fact that DLA was not an out of work benefit and plenty of claimants needed it to stay in employment; they still created PIP to try and cut the case load by 20%, spouting utter bollocks about getting disabled people into work.

But when you cut someone’s benefits, you drive them further from the workplace. If someone has a job that can’t be done from home, but their PIP is stopped so the Motability scheme takes back their leased wheelchair: Suddenly they cannot go into work, maybe cannot even get out of bed. They’ll at the very least need to take a sabbatical from work until they get a new wheelchair, they may even lose their job entirely.

You also drive them further from the workplace because poverty damages health, and we’re talking about people who are already sick. If someone has cancer but is hoping that claiming benefits is a short term thing because they’re hoping they’ll recover quickly; until they discover how little they’ll have to live on. You cannot recover from a serious illness like cancer if you’re malnourished from poor quality food, and borderline hypothermic because you can’t move much and you can’t afford to put the heat on, while the stress of poverty can also affect physical healing. A cannabis prescription may help with many facets of cancer with THC being an antiemetic, a painkiller, and an appetite stimulant, but cannabis prescriptions are pretty much only available privately; and you definitely won’t be able to afford private healthcare on £74.70 a week ESA (the amount you’ll get if you’re expected to be able to return to work in the not too distant future). Such claimants would have the chance to recover quicker and get back to work quicker if their benefits were enough that they could eat well, keep warm in winter and cool in summer, avoid having their physical healing slowed by the psychological stress caused by poverty, and afford a bit of private healthcare; whether a physio to help them get movement back after an op, or, yes; a doctor who issues private prescriptions for medical marijuana.

The stress of poverty affects even those who were the most mentally sound previously. So if you’re claiming benefits for a mental health condition, the chances you’ll be able to get off benefits is slim. But if our benefits system lifted ill and impaired people out of poverty, it would give people a real shot at recovering from a mental illness, instead of our social security system making people sicker. Especially if people could afford to pay for mental healthcare in a timely manner rather than waiting at least months, commonly years, often for the wrong therapy on the NHS.

If you just yank the social security rug out from under the feet of people claiming benefits due to severe mental illness, obviously they’re not well enough just get a job, so they end up dying like Errol Graham and Mark Wood who both starved to death because they couldn’t afford food, or they’ll die by suicide like Philippa Day, Paul Reekie, and far too many others to list. Reekie died only a month after Iain Duncan Smith succeeded Yvette Cooper as Work & Pensions secretary, so his death was as a result of the benefit cuts instituted by the last Labour government; before the Tories had the chance to make the system even worse. It's worth noting that in Australia, during the pandemic when social security payments temporarily rose and lifted people briefly out of poverty, suicides went down.

The government created the non-means tested furlough scheme to keep people's finances sound while they weren't in work, because they know full well that plunging people into poverty drives them further away from work by damaging their mental and physical health, and leaves them unable to afford the essentials to get back into work like a computer and smart clothing. But they don't apply the same logic to sick and disabled people. Somehow we're a magic mirror image of the non-disableds, and forcing us deeper into poverty will supernaturally drive us closer to work. Even though the list of DWP-related deaths tells a different story.

Yet despite all these obvious examples of how increased benefits could not only answer our hopes and dreams (and in some cases save our lives), but also achieve the government’s goal of making us more employable; Thérèse Coffey said at the Tory conference that she wants to cut even more people’s benefits “to get us into work” when, of course, all it’ll do is make people iller - therefore further from work, less able to afford to get healthy, and less able to buy the tools they need to find work like wheelchairs and computers - and will ultimately lead to even more preventable deaths at the hands of the DWP.

The main reason for planning more cuts, of course, is just because the Tories love levelling down, despite all the "levelling up" bollocks that riddled Johnson's conference speech. At the exact same time that the Universal Credit cut went into effect, plunging families into poverty, increasing hunger and suffering across the country; Thérèse Coffey was making sure everybody knew that she was loving it; she was having the time of her life.

Fit For Death

The government have finally released the figures relating to the thousands of people who've died after being found 'fit for work'. This, of course, is in the same week that Iain Duncan Smith said that he wants to kick even more disabled people off ESA. (Not enough people dying penniless?)

As for very ill people being found fit for work, I couldn't help but notice that the government were kind-of telling the story through their (now withdrawn) case study leaflets.

Welfare Weekly unearthed the tale of a fictional ESA claimant called Zac.

Photo credit: DWP via Welfare Weekly

We get it. He's on ESA and he's ill enough to require hospital care.

Later in the week The Guardian found the same stock photo man in a different leaflet; this one promoting JSA sanctions.

Photo credit: DWP via Guardian

So I guess the story the DWP is trying to tell is that Zac originally claimed ESA, but then he was found fit for work and turfed onto JSA? Presumably his illness was why he didn't participate in Mandatory Work Activity or apply for a job.

Given the extremely high number of people who've died after being found fit for work - and the fact that the DWP like to make case study leaflets for "illustrative purposes only" - I'm guessing that somewhere in the DWP office there's another leaflet featuring Zac to explain what happens to ill people when they're found fit for work. And I'm assuming it looks a lot like this:

Photo credit: Template and Zac's photo by DWP, text by me

Of course; they don't need the fictional Zac to tell the story of what happens when they could hand out leaflets telling the real story of people who died fit for work. Like Moira Drury or Linda Wootton.

DWP employees: aspiring Harold Shipmans! pic.twitter.com/naqAgZNcRt

— Sheila Scoular (@sheilascoular) August 27, 2015

Intensive programs to deal with *that*...

The Conservatives have had their annual get together where they moan about how much they hate us benefit scroungers and lay out their plans to torture us just a little bit more.

Much noise was made about George Osborne's plan to make JobSeekers' Allowance claimants either attend the JobCentre every day or participate in a workfare scheme.

But a less talked about nugget of the plan is this:

Or alternatively, if you've got long-term problems like addictions or mental health issues, you will have to go on an intensive programme that deals with that.

From ITV

As we all sadly know; a great many people who are unable to work due to mental illness have, over the last few years, failed the WCA so been refused ESA and have been forced to claim JSA, despite being in no state to be job-seeking. And now it seems that people with health problems will be forced into potentially unsuitable treatment for their £71.70 a week.

A few years ago my right jaw joint crapped out. I have a bone disease so my joints are kinda crumbly. Last year I got told that that there was nothing wrong with my jaw and it was just depression. They wanted me to go for talking therapies as a treatment for my jaw pain.

About 6 months later someone finally bothered to take an x-ray of my jaw. Low and behold: There's a bloody great chunk of bone missing from my joint.

Now, my health problems are much more complicated than one little joint and I wouldn't be out of work for just one teeny joint (no matter how painful it can be at times). But lets hypothetically say I was on JSA because my jaw had made me lose my last job. It's possible. As a comedian my job depended on me being able to talk a lot. On some days that's really excruciating. I could have been forced to go through pointless counselling because at one point an idiot doctor decided to not look for physical evidence and proclaimed that my jaw pain was a mental health problem.

Now, in that example we're looking at forced treatment that's a complete waste of time and money, but ultimately harmless enough.

But some enforced treatments could be very dangerous indeed. Could you imagine someone with severe schizophrenia being sent to a barely-qualified counsellor? What about someone with Crohn's who has been misdiagnosed as bulimic by a doctor that won't listen and is then sanctioned by the DWP for not complying with their treatment when they - unsurprisingly - continue to throw up.

Forced treatment is a very dangerous route when you consider all the misdiagnosing that goes on. In fact: Forced treatment is pretty dangerous anyway. Last time I saw a neurologist about my migraines he prescribed a drug which prolonged my heart's QT interval. This can be fatal. If the DWP decided that I needed to get my migraines under control to make myself more employable and forced me to either take the drug the neurologist recommended or I'd be sanctioned and have no money for food; I might be dead by now.

Making people sign on every day is a waste of taxpayer's money. It will create havoc in JobCentres where they've barely got the staff to manage the current workload of people signing on once a fortnight. But this aspect of Gideon's 'Help to Work' program is downright dangerous.

Workfare: Exploitative and cruel, especially for disabled people

Some disabled people are completely fit for work, but cannot find any, so claim Jobseekers' Allowance. This is particularly an issue because disabled people face many barriers to work, including inaccessible workplaces, employer prejudice and employers being ignorant of, or refusing to adhere to the Equalities Act in relation to reasonable accommodations.

Increasingly, however, disabled people who are not fit for work are finding themselves claiming Jobseekers' Allowance, when they are reassessed and fail to meet the limited criteria for ESA. The result of this is that more and more people are signing on, but also unable to work, for health reasons.

The Guardian has published a press release from the DWP, which states,

People who have been unemployed for more than two years and haven't secured sustainable employment could be referred onto compulsory community work placements under plans being considered by the government.

Under the proposals people who have been supported intensively through the Work Programme for two years yet have still not entered sustainable employment, may have to do community work or ultimately they could lose their benefit entitlement.

Ministers believe a minority of jobseekers struggle to engage with the system fully, are unable to hold down a job and therefore require a greater level of support.

The government is to test compulsory community work coupled with more intensive support through Jobcentre Plus in four key areas ahead of rolling out the scheme
nationwide in 2013.

This is fundamentally unfair. We are in a position as a country where unemployment rates are rising, and job opportunities are shrinking. If someone has failed to get a job in 2 years, it is most likely to be due to circumstances outside their control, and to then force them into unpaid labour, against the threat of losing their pittance of an income from JSA, is exploitative.

For disabled people, even moreso. People who are disabled but genuinely fit for work will still require adaptations, accommodations, and accessibility. These people are less likely to have found a job in 2 years because of the reasons I explained above. And will the people who are happy to take unpaid labour also be happy to accommodate people with complex needs and requirements?

And those who have been found fit for work but are, in fact, not at all fit for work, will be in the most trouble. All of the above, on top of not being well enough to do it. Will their regular sickness absences or inability to be reliable cause them to lose their benefit entitlement? I would imagine so, according to what the press release says.

Workfare is exploitative and unfair to everybody who is forced to do it. For disabled people it has added layers of unfairness, which have the potential to leave, yet again, the most vulnerable abandoned without financial support.

Cross-posted at incurable hippie blog. Thanks to @m_s_collins for prompting me to write this.

[The image is a black and white photograph taken at a protest in New Zealand against a Workfare programme. There are numerous people with placards saying, "The rich get rich at the expense of the poor" and "Real jobs not workfare". It was taken by SocialistWorkerNZ and is used under a Creative Commons Licence]

The Inept Leading the Clueless: JCP, JSA and Disability

Professor Malcolm Harrington’s review of the ESA WCA claimed that disabled ESA claimants had nothing to fear if they were rejected and placed on JSA instead because 'Support is available on JSA that if explained to claimants could allay some of their fears about “failing” the WCA'. As a recent disabled JSA claimant (December 2008 to February 2010), I thought it might be interesting to take a look at the reality behind that blithe assurance. 

With an extensive outsourcing process behind me I was likely better informed than many JSA claimants and I made it clear in my initial contacts with JCP that I would need to talk to a Disability Employment Adviser. Getting the initial JSA paperwork back full of errors was worrying, the initial interview with the DEA was worse. Having explained to her that I was a highly qualified, highly experienced engineer and that the only thing stopping me being a strong candidate for any of dozens of available posts was my physical inability to commute or relocate, she promptly started advocating that I apply for minimum wage positions and it was fairly clear that that was her default setting for any disabled person sent to talk to her. As far as I am concerned there are two words that define that attitude: Institutional Discrimination. As I had suggested one possible way ahead for me would be to study for a doctorate she did pass me on to a careers adviser colleague of hers, who somewhat floored me by revealing that until the month before she hadn’t been allowed to talk to anyone with more than two GCSEs; how she was meant to help someone wanting to talk about a doctorate I’m not certain. To her credit she did manage to pass me on to an actual university careers advisor, but that was through a personal contact of her own rather than a regular JCP route.

I then moved into the fortnightly grind of signing on; initially with the DEA, but within two months she had thrown me back into the general pool, saying she couldn’t offer me any further help. This put me on a par with most JSA claimants, which may not seem like a problem, but my disability means that I am not most people. The Job Centre was pleasantly decorated and furnished, but it doesn’t seem to have occurred to anyone that they might need on-site disabled parking, or that couches and non-adjustable seats, no matter how smart, might not be adequate for someone who has problems sitting or standing for any length of time (and when you are running the better part of an hour behind scheduled appointment times with twenty people waiting and only eight seats in the waiting area…). It averaged out that every other trip to sign on was leaving me curled-up in pain for the rest of the day. That was just the physical access issues, I was also seeing a different JCP clerk pretty much every time, some of them obviously half-trained back-office staff dragged out to try and deal with the ever-increasing number of claimants, and almost every time I would be questioned about why there were agreed restrictions on commute distance in my Job Seeker’s Agreement. Surely the whole point of defining the Job Seeker’s Agreement with the DEA was to have it agreed by someone with some knowledge of disability? Not for it to then be questioned by everyone else who came into contact with it? Nor for me to need to explain the details of my disability to every JCP clerk I dealt with in order to justify myself. As soon as the DEA dumped me, and even though my crutches demonstrate to everyone who sees me that I am disabled, JCP lost sight of the fact that I was disabled and started trying to treat me as indistinguishable from anyone else, if not actively pressuring me into being precisely that.

JSA working practices for signing-on were enough to make any efficiency expert curl up in the corner in despair. Their computer system seems to be some Heath-Robinsonesque lash-up, part working in Windows, part needing them to spawn out into some proprietary tool. My part of the process as the claimant was to provide a list of job search activities made in the past fortnight and a little slip of a paper form was provided for this. As part of my disability means I can’t write legibly or comfortably, and the form was in any case too small to cover more than a fraction of my job-search activities, I simply ran-off a word-processed list each time, only to have several of the JSA clerks take umbrage that the list wasn’t on the ‘official’ form. What did they do with the form once I handed it over? They copied it, manually, into an on-screen form, taking anything up to five minutes of hunt-and-peck typing, then handed me back the original. Hello, this is the 21^st Century! Why drag me physically into the Job Centre, causing me considerable pain and distress, for a transaction that can be done more quickly and more efficiently using a telephone and/or email?

As I passed various JSA milestones I would occasionally have a more in-depth interview with someone at which I would have to justify everything yet again. Facing a highly-qualified disabled person clearly puzzled them, their systems could barely cope with a highly-qualified claimant, add disability to the mix and they simply had no reference point on how to deal with me. They did send me to talk to an ‘executive’ recruitment consultant at one point, but as soon as I explained what effect disability has on my ability to work, a look of absolute panic swept across her face and the only suggestion she could come up with was to pass my details to the Royal British Legion’s training agency – 18 months later I’ve still heard nothing back from them. The one real change was that after 6 months of claiming Contributions-Based JSA I stopped receiving any benefit at all.

When I reached the one year anniversary of my JSA claim, I became subject to ‘Flexible New Deal’ and received a letter telling me that if I didn’t attend an interview with a training contractor my benefit would be docked – that would be the benefit I wasn’t receiving anyway? No ‘Dear Sir’, no ‘please’ or ‘thank you’, just ‘Be Here or Else’. I know a lot of disabled people who would be seriously distressed by, if not completely unable to deal with, a threatening letter of that nature, yet the DWP propose to expand ‘conditionality’ of this sort to all ESA claimants, never mind just the ones rejected onto JSA.

So I turned up on time for the appointment with the training contractor, only to find that the address they had given me was wrong. Fortunately I was able to figure out which building on the out-of-town trading estate was likely theirs, even though its signage was for a completely different training contractor. If I had turned up using a wheelchair I would have been completely unable to access the building, as it was the step was so high that I fell over the threshold. The downstairs office was completely unmanned, with a handwritten sign on a piece of torn cardboard propped on a chair advising me that I needed to go back outside and up the stairs. How a visually impaired client was supposed to deal with that arrangement is anyone’s guess. The staircase I was supposed to climb was an exposed iron arrangement of the type commonly found in warehouses. On a wet day I would never have attempted it, and this was the middle of a notably wet December; even on the one dry day of the month I had to seriously consider whether I could safely make it to the top.

Having decided to risk the stairs, a corridor at the top led to a small office, into which were crammed a dozen desks with workstations surrounding a large central table. Inside the office were two staff members and another client. If I had somehow been able to get a wheelchair to the entrance to the room I would not have been able to get it inside, and even using crutches I had considerable problems navigating to a chair. Telling the staff who I was, and who I was due to see, produced consternation. I was apparently scheduled to see their ‘disability specialist’, but she was scheduled to be in a completely different office in an entirely different town. So one of the other staff decided that she would deal with me instead, and started working through a computerised form. Before I quite realised what was happening I was being asked intimate questions about my disability, despite the fact there was a complete stranger sitting immediately behind me. Apparently the entire concept of data protection, and their legal obligations under the Data Protection Act and the Disability Discrimination Act, had completely passed them by. To give them their due, once I had explained the limitations resulting from my disability the staff member immediately said that she felt that I was completely inappropriate for their programme, which apparently allowed them to compel me to apply for jobs, but did not allow them to first consider whether I was physically capable of doing the job, and that the only action she was giving me was to urgently contact JCP and tell them that she thought I needed to be on ESA, not JSA. The physical after-effects of that 45 minute interview put me in bed for the next week with massively increased pain levels.

After that clowning glory of incompetence I decided enough was enough and wrote a formal letter of complaint to JCP, copying it to the then-Minister for Disabled People (also my local MP as it happened). I also called JCP, spoke to a supervisor and left the switch from JSA to ESA in their hands while I went to visit family over Christmas. I returned home, a week later than expected due to the snow, to find a letter dated 5^th of January saying I had failed to sign on and my JSA claim had been stopped (hello, national crisis, massive snow disruption, not claiming JSA any more) and a letter dated the 6^th confirming that and sending me my P45. Despite my supposedly terminated JSA claim there was also a letter from the training contractor demanding I attend another interview. I rang JCP to complain, only to be told by the supervisor I had spoken to before Christmas that she had never heard me say anything about switching my claim to ESA, and had phoned me on my home number (despite me having told her I would be away) to confirm that I should be on the scheme with the training contractor

I arranged a face-to-face meeting with the supervisor, but by the time the meeting happened my complaint to the minister had obviously filtered through as I was greeted with a slightly awed ‘You’re the one that wrote the letter, aren’t you?’ and a general falling over themselves to get my JSA claim reinstated and then transferred over to ESA, which eventually happened a full two months after I had initially asked JCP to put it in hand. I also received a fairly abject written apology for the way I had been treated, which admitted JCP had completely lost sight of the nature of my disability, but still attempted to push the majority of blame onto the training agency – apparently the concept of being legally and morally responsible for the behaviour of your contractors hasn’t penetrated into JCP.

So there we have it, my experience of just how well JCP manages to deal with disabled JSA claimants: Professor Harrington, I am afraid that I will have to differ with your review; disabled ESA claimants whose claims are rejected and who are placed on JSA have everything to fear from JCP’s complete cluelessness about disability and their total lack of support for disabled claimants.

And my ESA claim? That’s a sad tale for another day.

"Pregnant mother leaps to her death with five-month-old son in her arms after losing benefits" Daily Mail

Just a quick post because the woman in question was neither disabled nor claiming (or trying to claim) disability benefits, so the story isn't 100% on topic for us. But I think it's relevant enough to justify a short post because it further illustrates an issue I brought up before: The human cost of benefits cuts.

A pregnant woman jumped to her death while clutching her baby son after her benefits had been stopped, an inquest heard.

Read the full story on the Daily Mail website.

Edit: I should make clear that this is news from 9 months ago so not directly related to Osborne swinging his axe. I felt it was pertinent to WtB (which didn't exist 9 months ago) because it highlights what happens when people find themselves financially unable to go on living; because these cuts will put more people in that position.

CAB Report on the Coalition Budget 2010

The Citizens Advice Bureau has written a report on Key welfare changes and their impact on low income households.

It makes for very depressing reading, and while it does not look specifically at disability benefits, it reports on the reductions and changes in Housing Benefit, JSA and tax credits, all of which are claimed by many disabled people. For instance,

From 2013/14 any claimant on JSA for more than 12 months will have their HB entitlement cut by 10 per cent. This will continue until they have “left the benefit system and been in work for a while”.
This seems a crude measure as it appears that it will apply even where the tenant is fully complying with their JSA requirements to actively seek work. The cut will fall hardest on those who face disadvantage in the labour market, such as people in poor health or with a disability who have failed the harsher medical tests for incapacity benefit and employment and support allowance, and have therefore been moved onto JSA.

It also explains why changing benefit levels from rising in line with the Retail Prices Index, to the Consumer Prices Index, will result in a reduction in the value of benefits and tax credits.

At the end of the study the report highlights scenarios illustrating the impact of the cuts on specific households, and several of the case studies include the issues of people who are ill or disabled. For instance,

A 50 year old man with mild learning disabilities and literacy issues has done manual work all his life until arthritis in his knees, hips and shoulder forced him to stop work. He has worked and paid contributions all his life until that point. He pays rent of £110/week and council tax of £18/week.
He claimed ESA but was found fit for work, so is now claiming JSA. The number of jobs he will be able to do is severely limited. He also has no access to his own transport and finds public transport very difficult because of the arthritis. His Jobcentre Plus personal adviser finds it difficult to suggest jobs for him. He has been out of work since his arthritis made it impossible to continue in his job two years ago and he has been claiming JSA for a year.
After housing costs he has a disposable income of £65.45 a week (his JSA). After a year as a result of changes in up-rating of JSA and also the LHA rates, his disposable income is likely to drop in real terms to about £64. However he may well also lose a further £8 off his HB as the 30th percentile rate is used to calculate the LHA rate. If he is unable to find a job after a year he will lose a further £10 a week of his HB. If he can not find somewhere cheaper to live he will have a disposable income after housing costs of about £46, a 30% reduction. Even if he can find somewhere cheaper to live, his disposable income will drop to £54, a 17.5% reduction.
If he had been allocated to the work-related activity group for ESA, his income would be £91.30 a week.

(cross-posted at incurable hippie blog)