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The politics of ESA
Rightsnet reports Steve Webb’s comments from the LD conference….‘but if someone hasn’t done the assessment properly there is much more of a safety valve now to say hang on this assessment says no problem but I have got all these reports from the medics’
and also…‘The way Chris put it, is the contribution of the Atos judgment to the decision will be a smaller part. And that has got to help.’
Yeah, and it will help suppress the JSA figures at a politically sensitive time. All completely coincidental of course.
If the department accept now that Atos must have a smaller say in the decision making process does this mean that they acknowledge that : a) the WCA is completely flawed and/or : b) Atos arent doing their job properly.
As a UK taxpayer (got me Daily Mail head on here!) I would like this medical company thoroughly audited and investigated with regard to them being fit for purpose. They are quick enough to sanction claimants for supposed transgressions so why not Atos?
Is this any different to what Chris Grayling said back in May? Then he said that the WCA had been downgraded in the decision making process.
There is an apparent danger here in the sole focus on the (very real) problems with ATOS. I think the Lib Dem resolution fell for this and a lot of the big disability organisations are doing so. The real problem is the completely unbalanced and unreasonable nature of the work capability assessment.
The Harrington Review was widely touted as the way forward but it was essentially only procedural in focus. And just as it was reporting the WCA itself was considerably tightened, with little opposition or reporting, from 31.3.11 which rather proves my point. Medical assessors can be made as competent as you like, decision makers can be as flexible as you like but if the test itself is wrong, that isn’t going to take us far. And the test of course has been set by politicians - of all three parties - who will be quite happy to have ATOS take the brickbats.
The underlying problem is that the WCA just isn’t what it purports to be - a test of limited capability for work - but a medicalised grading of degrees of disability using a very crude functionalised approach and driven by the requirement to reduce expenditure. Most medical conditions and disabilities of any significance - likely to be certified by a GP for instance - cause limited capacity for work. Most people who fail the WCA have in fact, on any reasonable view, limited capability for work.
But then this isn’t really about finding the optimum solution to assessing health and disability and we are all going to be very disappointed if we expect that. To borrow a phrase from the US Republicans, it’s about class war, robbing the poor to help the rich. Quite nakedly so in the case of CESA time limiting from next April.
Richard Atkinson
I too agree with Richard.
One of the most cynical elements of the process is the fact that many people will cycle between ESA and JSA (particularly those that do not access/cannot access apropriate advice). The net effect of failing to ‘qualify’ for ESA, claiming JSA and returning to ESA is quite simply a reduction in benefit to the order of £26 - £32 a week.
The ESA(C) cuts are another budget cut of course and have no policy objective other than to reduce the bill. Such a cut might be justified had ESA(C) come from general taxation, but of course it comes from our contributions.
In my personal view, politicians have conspired to undermine OUR social security system with a barrage of stories about ‘scroungers’ and the national debt.
The Disability Benefits Consortium (DBC) has produced a ‘myth buster’ highlighting five myths about incapacity benefit and employment and support allowance used by the Government and the media.
The ‘myth buster’ rebuts that:
most people claiming incapacity benefits are faking it;
people get sickness benefits just by visiting their GP;
as contributory jobseeker’s allowance is time-limited to six months it is right that contributory ESA should also be time limited;
only people with other means of support will be affected by the time-limit to ESA; and
most people in the work related activity group should be able to find a job within a year.
The DBC myth buster is available @ http://www.disabilityalliance.org/dbcmythbuster.htm
Tony
Do you know the source of this nonsense?
Tony
Do you know the source of this nonsense?
I don’t know either but first saw this about 3 years ago - it is disgraceful
It’s a viral thing that has been adapted as it drifted across several countries before reaching the UK. It isn’t the result of a deeply-thought plot by one specific group, it is an emanation of the general antipathy that has been fostered against immigrants by the prevailing political and media wind. There is quite a good briefing for UK MPs on its provenance and veracity here.