Don't look there, look here!

The Thick of It was set in a fictional government department: Department of Social Affairs and Citizenship, or DoSAC. But when I think about our real government, there's no other department I can imagine that would be quite as sitcom-worthy as the DWP.

There are certainly some very clever people in the department. Yesterday's death data was confusing to all who read it. Even very clever professional number crunchers couldn't really get to the bottom of it because the data was so badly presented. This was almost certainly deliberate: The DWP didn't answer what was asked of them, and dumped a load of data that would confuse people who tried to use the data to answer the simple question "how many people are dying after being found fit for work?"

Anyone can release some data while withholding the answer to a question, but the press and public will generally look at the data and find the answer for themselves. To release a bunch of data that's on-topic, but still means that very clever people can't get the answers they're looking for takes Bond-villain levels of evil genius. You have to wonder why someone who can so cleverly pretend to be transparent by releasing opaque data is working in a public sector job, and not using their evil genius skills to make themselves a billionaire.

But then there's the spokespeople who are so bad at sleight of hand that they remind you of a 4 year old trying to do a magic trick by saying "now, if you'll just look out of the window for a moment while I sort this.... OK, you can look back now."

The DWP spokesperson told the BBC for an article:

"The mortality rate for people who have died while claiming an out-of-work benefit has fallen over a 10-year period. This is in line with the mortality rate for the general working-age population.

"The government continues to support millions of people on benefits with an £80bn working-age welfare safety net in place."

None of the three sentences have anything to do with the question asked.

It was either a pathetic attempt at a misdirect ("never mind the terminally ill people we found fit for work. Look! Less people are dying whilst claiming benefits!") or they genuinely didn't understand the question and are akin to a GCSE English student rambling about Charlie and the Chocolate Factory when the exam question asked them about Romeo and Juliet.

You can just imagine a Malcolm Tucker type figure in the DWP yesterday, can't you? "We're fucking fucked. The fucking Information Commissioner's Office have fucking ordered us to release this fucking data. I'll tell you what; we'll make it as confusing as fuck and then we'll distract the fucking press with the press release. What parts of the data look good? Less scroungers are dying than a decade ago? Well fucking put that in the fucking press release. It doesn't fucking matter that it's got fuck all to do with the sick cunts dropping dead after we've stopped their benefits. And throw in a fucking brag about how many billions we waste on the scroungers at the end of it."

Either that or their spokesperson is as lacking in smarts as Terri Coverley which is why they were recruited because they would just innocently talk about something completely off topic because they understood the data even less than the press and public.

Poverty Porn is all the rage right now. Not just Benefits Street on C4. Just this week on five they had a "benefits night" with such classy shows as Big Benefits Wedding and 12 years old and on Benefits. Pointing and laughing at poor people is the hot TV trend. But I wanna see inside the DWP. I want to see inside the department that comes out with such ridiculously off-topic press statements. I want to gawp with wonder at the thinking behind sending a spokesperson out to insult the public's intelligence by hoping we won't notice that what they've said is unrelated to the subject at hand. In The Thick of It DoSAC tried to obfuscate around their role in the death of the fictional Phil Tickell. Unfortunately the DWP are trying to downplay their role in potentially thousands of real human beings dying penniless. If it wasn't such a tragic situation, I could very much enjoy an evening watching a fly-on-the-wall show set in the DWP press office as they scramble to say to the press "don't look at that, look at this!"

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

Purposefully Illustrating What? #fakeDWPstories

Yesterday every major news outlet picked up Welfare Weekly's scoop that the DWP made up "case studies" about people that were happy with the sanctions system.

But one aspect that most outlets didn't report on, was that the leaflet in question - which Welfare Weekly had archived - specifically pertained to ESA sanctions. This leaflet was solely about selling the perks of sanctioning people who are too ill to work.

All sanctioning is cruel and should be stopped. But there is something especially sinister about sanctioning people who are too ill to work for not trying hard enough to get a job that they're not well enough to do anyway.

For those not in the know; Employment and Support Allowance is split into two groups: The Support Group for people who are not expected to ever be well enough to return to work, and the Work Related Activity Group (WRAG) for people who are unable to work right now, but might be well enough to work at some point in the future.

So the WRAG is comprised of people with cancer who are expected to make a full recovery eventually, but for now they're undergoing treatment. There'll be people who've had life-changing accidents who are still in rehabilitation. People who are waiting for surgery, such as a hip replacement, before they can return to work.

It's not surprising they couldn't get any genuine quotes, is it? "I was so busy going to radiotherapy every day that I didn't have time to write a CV. Getting sanctioned for a week made me realise the importance of having my CV up-to-date whereas before I'd been solely focussed on kicking cancer."

Or "My brain injury from my car accident has made me forgetful and I forgot I was supposed to be going to the JobCentre. Sanctioning saved me from worrying about whether I'd remember to go shopping because I didn't have any money to buy food anyway."

Given that the press found such a massive story about ESA and sanctions, it's a shame they didn't devote a paragraph in each article about how evil it is to be sanctioning people who are too ill to work. The DWP claimed the made up case studies were for “for illustrative purposes only”. It would have been nice to use the story to purposefully illustrate the barbaric treatment of WRAG claimants, while most journos just conflated WW's story with JobSeekers' Allowance.

Oh but it's an honour, your Majesty.

The New Year Honours List 2012 makes for some depressing reading. There's not just one, not even two, but twenty DWP employees getting an award.

I'm sure some of them are decent people. Some might even be good at their job. I once spoke to a helpful guy in the DLA office: His name was Graham. The fact that I can still remember his name about 10 years later gives some indication as to the sparseness of DWP employees that can tell the difference between their arse and their elbow.

However these people are just doing their job. Those of us fighting against welfare reform are doing so without recognition, without reward, and at great cost to our physical and mental health. The pay cheque the DWP employees get each month is their reward for their work.

At a time when DWP employees are screwing disabled people so hard that it's resulting in numerous suicides their being rewarded makes a mockery of the whole system. OK, I'm a republican so in general think the system's a bit off. But there are occasions where people get rewarded for genuine outstanding contributions to society; and rewarding DWP employees undermines their honour.

Here's the list of DWP employees:

CBE

Malcolm Whitehouse. Formerly Deputy chief Information Officer and Group Applications director, Department for Work and Pensions. (Chester, Cheshire)

OBE

Mrs Susan Harding. Formerly Programme manager, Change Programme, Department for Work and Pensions. (West Bridgford, Nottinghamshire)

Roger Ernest Pugh. Team Leader, Stakeholder Team, Communications, Department for Work and Pensions. (Hull, East Riding of Yorkshire)

Arthur John Row. Deputy Pension Centre manager, International Pension Centre, Pension, Disability and Carers Service, Department for Work and Pensions. (Blyth, Northumberland)

MBE

Derek John Alldritt. Formerly Senior Executive Officer, Child Maintenance and Enforcement Commission, Department for Work and Pensions. (Kingswinford, West Midlands)

Mrs Margaret Bates. Formerly Senior Executive Officer, Jobcentre Plus, Department for Work and Pensions. (Atherstone, Warwickshire)

Garry Chambers. Head of Business Management, Commercial Directorate, Department for Work and Pensions. (Sheffield, South Yorkshire)

Mrs Phyllis Close. Executive Officer, Department for Work and Pensions. (Thornton-Cleveleys, Lancashire)

Ms Marika Fawcett. Executive Officer, Private Office, Department for Work and Pensions. (Berkshire)

Ms Andrea Haynes. Executive Officer, Jobcentre Plus, Department for Work and Pensions. (London, SE1)

Mrs Sheila Hinds. Formerly Executive Officer, Pension, Disability And Carers Service, Department for Work and Pensions. (Nuneaton, Warwickshire)

Mrs Bernadette Holgate. Higher Executive Officer, Debt Management, Department for Work and Pensions. (Stockport, Greater Manchester)

Mrs Jacqueline Howell. Executive Officer, Jobcentre Plus, Department for Work and Pensions. (Lincolnshire)

Mrs Joan Little. Executive Officer, Complaints and Appeals Directorate, Child Maintenance and Enforcement Commission, Department for Work and Pensions. (Houghton le Spring, Tyne and Wear)

Mrs Sarah McKiernan. Finance director's Office manager, Jobcentre Plus, Department for Work and Pensions. (London, E15)

Alexander Nairn. Executive Officer, Pension, Disability and Carers Service, Department for Work and Pensions. (Dundee)

David Orrell. Senior Executive Officer, Pension, Disability and Carers Service, Department for Work and Pensions. (Preston, Lancashire)

Mrs Antonina Robinson. Executive Officer, Jobcentre Plus, Department for Work and Pensions. (Birmingham, West Midlands)

Mrs Karen Mary Robson. Executive Officer, Jobcentre Plus, Department for Work and Pensions. (Hull, East Riding of Yorkshire)

Paul Taylor. Front Line Service manager, Corporate IT, Department for Work and Pensions. (Lytham St Annes, Lancashire)

Cuts to DLA 'The easiest bit of welfare reform to sell'

Benefit Scrounging Scum

The coalition’s assault on what the Conservatives refer to as “broken Britain” is underway. The government has announced for the first time how many of the UK’s 2.6m recipients of disability benefits it estimates will be reclassified as fit-to-work in this parliament. The answer: a cool 500,000 or 23 per cent of the total.

Although this will generate political heat among those affected, it is the easiest bit of welfare reform to sell. Britain’s out-of-work disability benefits have been abused. The last government belatedly recognised this and started to introduce a more rigorous system. But many of the 2.2m people who still claim the old benefit elected to do so because it is more generous than the dole."

Financial Times, September 16th 2010

This article in yesterday's Financial Times* makes very clear the ethos behind the Coalition government's slash and burn attacks on sickness related benefits, that cuts to disability benefits are perceived as the "easiest bit of welfare reform to sell" . The FT don't distinguish between the different types of sickness related benefits so I assume the figure of 2.2million people claiming what they describe as 'the old benefit' refers to Incapacity Benefit, the predecessor to Employment and Support Allowance brought in by New Labour. It seems equally safe to assume that the 2.6million they refer it is actually the 2.9 million Disability Living Allowance recipients, some 1.25 million of which are adults who claim both DLA and IB.

The official Department of Work and Pensions fraud rate for Disability Living Allowance makes it very clear that only 0.5% of the total number of claims are fraudulent. That's approximately 14,500 fraudulent claims out of an overall 2.9million.  So, less than 15,000 Disability Living Allowance awards are fraudulent and the coalition are determined to reduce the numbers claiming DLA by half a million. Playing fast and loose with the DWP's own statistics and assuming they're wildly underestimating the problem of fraudulent claims, which seems particularly unlikely, if an overall fraud rate of, say 5%, 10 times that of the official rate were assumed, that would still only be one hundred and forty five thousand fraudulent claims out of a total 2.9 million. Still some three hundred and fity five thousand short of the half a million proposed reduction.

The agenda is clear. To vastly restrict eligibility to DLA, already the most rigorously assessed and difficult to claim benefit of all.

So much for David Cameron's claim that "Those that can should, and those who can't we will always help. I want to make sure that my government always looks after the elderly, the frail, the poorest in our country." David Cameron, 11th May 2010

*10 articles available to view per month if free registration completed.

800,000 claimants face losing their incapacity benefit – The Times, Friday 10 September 2010

800,000 claimants face losing their incapacity benefit – The Times, Friday 10 September 2010*

George Osborne: said to be demanding up to £10 billion more from the £170 billion social security budget

Jill Sherman Whitehall Editor

Hundreds of thousands of people are likely to lose sickness benefits under a new assault on the welfare state, The Times has learnt.

The Treasury is considering means-testing incapacity benefit — given to those considered too sick to work — a change under which 800,000 people on modest to high incomes would lose it altogether. The entitlement, which is available to those who have paid national insurance contributions, costs the taxpayer more than £6.5 billion a year and goes to more than 2.5 million people.

Millions of disabled and sick people have been on the benefit — which is between £68 and £96 a week — for years and are able to stay on it until they retire, irrespective of their income or that of their partner.

Disability and poverty groups warned yesterday that means-testing would fly in the face of the principle of paying national insurance to fund benefits. They argued that the disabled and mentally ill were becoming the main victims of the Treasury’s spending cuts.

“It would be grossly unfair if someone who had worked for over 30 years and had paid [national insurance] throughout suddenly found the benefit taken away at the moment they needed it,” said Sue Royston, social policy officer for Citizens Advice.

Iain Duncan Smith, the Work and Pensions Secretary, has agreed to £11 billion savings a year. But George Osborne, the Chancellor, is said to be demanding up to £10 billion more from the £170 billion social security budget. Mr Osborne indicated yesterday that he had already identified £4 billion affecting those on “out-of-work benefits”.

“People who think it’s a lifestyle choice to just sit on out-of-work benefits — that lifestyle choice is going to come to an end. The money won’t be there,” he said.

One Whitehall official told The Times that means-testing incapacity benefit, which could save up to £2 billion a year, was being considered. “We are seeking more on incapacity benefit,” he conceded. “If more cuts are made to the welfare budget we should be able to reduce the bigger cutbacks to other Whitehall departments.”

Other benefits under threat include those going to pensioners, such as winter fuel payments and TV allowances, which could save £2.7 billion if scrapped.

Under the latest plans being considered, those on incapacity benefit — or employment and support allowance, which is replacing it — would receive it for a time-limited period of six months to a year. After this, those on higher incomes — generally those with working partners — would lose the benefit, and those on lower incomes would lose part of it. Those on the lowest incomes would still receive income support.

Mrs Royston argued that people would lose all entitlement to incapacity benefit if their partner had an income of about £8,000 a year or had savings of more than £16,000, if the present rules for other means-tested benefits were applied.

“This is causing enormous concern,” she said. “If someone who has worked for years became seriously ill and his partner earned over £150 a week, he would get nothing, despite his contributions.”

Treasury officials believe that many people remain on sickness benefits until they retire even if they could do some type of work.

Figures from the Office for National Statistics, published this week, show that in more than 840,000 households all members of the household over 16 are too sick to work. In a further 612,000 households, at least one member is too sick to work.

The Government is already clamping down on payments to the disabled and has pledged to introduce more rigorous medical tests for all incapacity benefit claimants by next March, but the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) is already having trouble finding enough doctors to carry out the checks.

The severely disabled, who receive disability living allowance to help to pay for carers, are also facing medical tests for the first time.

Sources at the DWP yesterday made it clear that negotiations were still going on but did not rule out reducing or scrapping benefits for those on higher incomes. “We are presently looking at a range of options for welfare reform and any decisions will be made in the context of the spending review,” a spokesman said. “Our reforms will ensure that the most vulnerable in our society are protected.”

Richard Hawkes, the chief executive of Scope, the disability charity, condemned the plans to means-test incapacity benefit, claiming that people would be denied the support they had paid for.

“People will effectively be penalised for working hard, saving and contributing to society,” Mr Hawkes said. “The Government has made much of its commitment to ensuring that the impact of cost savings is spread fairly, but this feels like another example of disabled people bearing the brunt of cuts.”

*No link provided as The Times is now behind a paywall.

Cameron's credit-spying plans to cut benefits

Today’s announcement by the Cameron administration on the latest tools they intend to use to crack down on benefit fraud is worrying news for disabled claimants.

The governments wants to use information from credit reference agencies and other third parties to identify suspicious claims. Cameron says welfare and tax credit fraud and error cost the exchequer £5.2bn a year, with a further £1.6bn a year lost on  administrative incompetence. He made no distinction today between the amount of fraudulent claims and the amount of error, although it is widely accepted that fraudulent disability claims are only around 1%, while administrative errors average 2.5% a year.

However, benefits minister Ian Duncan-Smith, who is overseeing reform of the system, was interviewed on the Today Programme today and was forced to admit that the Tories had overstated the amount fraudulently claimed by some five times and that the true figure for fraud was in fact just £1.5bn, according to official Treasury figures, which show that along with the cost of errors amounts to just £3.1bn.

A pilot scheme is already operating in Manchester where the city council works alongside the Department for Work and Pensions to uncover fraudulent claims and co-prosecute. They use data-matching software to examine the financial habits of claimants – where they see someone appearing to spend more than their benefits they will then launch a more in-depth investigation. There is an average of three court cases a week in Manchester at present.

Under the new plans, this scheme will be rolled out nationwide. While cracking down on fraudsters is to be welcomed, it is highly likely that disabled claimants could find themselves being unfairly investigated.

Many genuine disabled claimants live in constant fear of having their entitlement cut off. The current daily rhetoric that lumps together fraud and error, combined with “helplines” that encourage people to report neighbours they suspect are defrauding the benefits system, is now discouraging many from leaving their homes, particularly those who use mobility aids only part of the time. The BBC’s Ouch disability forum has already documented some cases where neighbours reported genuine claimants for fraud because they left their house on foot rather than a wheelchair.

A further concern over the decision to use credit reference companies to piece together claimants’ spending habits is the issue of invasion of privacy. Disabled claimants already surrender almost all their privacy when filling in complex claim forms. Being forced to describe toilet needs, for example, to faceless administrators is very distressing for many claimants. But, at present, claimants can still spend their Disability Living Allowance as they wish so they can make their lives as easy as possible. Snooping by credit agencies could mean many will be forced to justify how they use their benefits. There is a real fear that under such circumstances, official disapproval of how benefit money is used could result in more disabled people finding their meagre income will be severely reduced or even cut off.

Cameron’s announcement was made in the Manchester Evening News and he has given no further statement to the media, leaving Duncan-Smith to do that. An as yet unsubstantiated rumour has been flying around Manchester Twitter users that the MEN rejected Cameron's article when it was first submitted.

And finally, to put this latest proposal into context, it’s worth remembering that the TUC says the cost of benefit fraud is minuscule compared with that of tax evasion and avoidance. The most recent figure from the organisation Tax Research put the figures for combined tax evasion and avoidance at £95bn. Maybe this is where government resources should be targeted?