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cutting ESA payments during appeal
anything in this? (from the times via the new statesman)
Currently, those judged fit to work keep receiving their benefit while their appeal is being heard. However, under these new plans, claimants would lose these payments. If they are successful, they will be reimbursed in full. According to the Times, this is because ministers are concerned that continued payments are acting as an “incentive to appeal”.
http://www.newstatesman.com/blogs/the-staggers/2011/10/work-fit-appeal-ruling
please god this is just a scare story.. what more vindictive strike against the most vulnerable in the community could be conceived? ...
This was also reported in the Times last week apparently.
Disability Benefits Consortium has sent an open letter to Chris Grayling to express their concerns over this issue.
The 57 charities and other organisations that make up the Disability Benefits Consortium are today united in our horror at the suggestion, reported in the New Statesman (“Judged fit to work? You could lose your benefits if you appeal “, 14 October), that Employment and Support Allowance (ESA) may be withdrawn from claimants as they appeal against decisions.
The rates of successful appeals and spiralling costs are indicative not of claimants taking advantage, nor of lenient tribunal judges, but of an assessment system that is not fit for purpose and that needs urgent reform. The Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) has already recognised this in accepting the recommendations of the Harrington report, but more must be done to make the necessary changes to the system.
It is completely unacceptable that thousands of ill and disabled people should be penalised for the DWP’s poor decision-making, and the inability to invest in a timely appeals system. Making disabled people wait on average six months for an appeal hearing is both stressful for claimants and a waste of Government resources in itself.
This proposal would be an extremely concerning attack on the right to appeal, which would not only stifle legitimate challenges to wrongful decisions, but would bury the evidence of problems with the system and hinder the urgent improvement of the Work Capability Assessment that is so clearly needed.
We appeal for your assurance that the DWP has no intention to take forward this grossly unfair suggestion, and would welcome a public statement from the DWP to this effect.
Average 6 months?? It’s 12 months where we are.
This is most ominous.
It’s interesting to note that instead of dealing with the appeals backlog, which would itself achieve the apparent purpose, the Government simply chooses to deal with it from the other end. Either it is further evidence of a government not having a clue about the real world of social security benefits (irrespective of political colour) or the mooted approach is quite deliberate and is positively intended to cause harm.
Personally, I think either it perfectly plausible.
I have just phoned Samira Shackle at the New Statesman, the person who wrote the article. She tells me that she copied the information from an article in The Times that appeared on the same day and didn’t check out the original source. So she doesn’t know if this ‘proposal’ was a throwaway comment at a conference or meeting (Ministers do occasionally make silly pronouncements on policy which are never going to go further. I recall in 2009 one of them saying that teenage single mums should be housed in the equivalent of workhouses so they could be taught communally how to be proper parents. And then there was Teresa May and the immigrant’s cat) or whether this proposal has been written in a document somewhere for serious consideration, or whether there are firm plans afoot. Since you can’t access The Times online without a subscription, I may have to go to the library to borrow a back issue to look at the Times article. Ms Shackle did offer to try and email me a copy of the original article. If I get this, or find a paper copy, I will post further when I have read it.
Since I previously trained as a journalist, I know that this kind of lazy journalism is commonplace - copying information from other newspapers without checking its accuracy - so perhaps Ms Shackle shouldn’t blamed for doing what’s considered normal practice. However, she seemed blithely unaware, or unconcerned, about what fear her article has put into the hearts of disabled and incapacitated claimants and welfare rights advisers alike. I blame her for that. Not considering the possible effects of what you write is irresponsible.
Unlikely to happen I would have thought.
The significant rise in Jobseekers would not be welcomed by the treasury at this stage.
For some reason the headline Unemployment figures are more important than the Economic Inactive count.
A slight modification to the ESA regs preventing reclaims from within 6months to 12months may end up in a few JSA short term claims which may result in useful ‘off-flow’ figures.
Sad really.
They may well do this and then get the express and mail to put a positive spin on this. “Yes Jobseeker allowance claimsare up but we are paying them significantly less than we did when we paid them “sick” money”. We have succeeded in reducing the burden to the taxpayer blah blah blah” Very scary. There will be a high rate of JSA sanctions as well, as people appealing these decisions may not be able to fulfil their “jobseeking responsibilities”. What are ill people meant to live on? All i know is that when the tories get in life just keeps on getting worse for so many people.
[ Edited: 17 Oct 2011 at 11:51 am by benefitsadviser ]What are ill people meant to live on? .
Perhaps they are not meant to live. Afterall, that would certainly decrease benefit expenditure….
Declaration of interest for transparency: I have a personal vested interest which I may or may not expand on in a wider context at some point in the future.
There will be a high rate of JSA sanctions as well, as people appealing these decisions may not be able to fulfil their “jobseeking responsibilities”.
For a lot of people ESA is no longer the benefit for them whether because they’ll not score the points or be better off on JSA with the higher income.
In those cases its best to advise them on JSA, making them aware of the Disability Employment Adviser, the restrictions that can be put in place, the fact that they don’t have to have a reasonable prospect of getting a job etc for the JSAg.
I got the original Times article which was written by Michael Savage. (I can forward it by email if anyone is interested in seeing it) It doesn’t say where the story came from except that it is from “Whitehall sources”. The phone number for the Times is 020 7782 5000, but Mr Savage proved as hard to get through to as the DWP! I was either put through to the wrong extension or cut off before I could get through to the right one; gave up after six attempts.
What I have heard before, more than once, is that the government sometimes arranges to deliberately leak information about controversial policy ideas to journalists to see what reaction they get before they pursue them. This may be an example of a deliberate leak.
I think it would be useful to get more information about the source of this proposal because that would make it easier to stop it dead in its tracks before it goes any further. Of course, I am working on the assumption that most people on this forum do want to stop it dead in its tracks.
However, as other people have indicated, it might not be entirely straightforward for the government to prevent people from appealing incapacity decisions under threat of starvation. I won’t go into a lengthy discussion on the possibilities here, but welfs will know well the regs on claiming JSA while appealing an incapacity decision, and to what extent the JSA rules in general are manipulable. It also helps to know your local job centre staff and what conditions they are working under. Most of mine are on short tern contracts with no certainty of having them renewed and they happen to thoroughly despise their management. This seems to make them more sympathetic towards claimants.
This appears to be a thoroughly spiteful bit of legislation (if that it what it is going to be). I think we have to assume that people who fail the WCA will have to claim JSA while the appeal is pending, this was always an option with IB (albeit at a reduced rate for those lucky enough to be too young or too old and confused to remember 2008). I cannot see that the change from ESA to JSA will save the country very much money at all which leads to the rather disquieting notion that an official announcement of this as a policy can only really be seen as a sort of bullying to stem the tide of ESA appeals.
If large numbers of appellants are forced to go and sign on for JSA I can see an exacerbation of an existing problem in that people who are clearly to unwell to work but try and sign on are sometimes being told that they cannot do so as they cannot fulfill any reasonable jobseeking plan and they should claim ESA instead. I’m sure the advice is kindly meant as it is probably safer to do this than risk a sanction to the JSA but it is both upsetting and frustrating to the appellant.
... people who fail the WCA will have to claim JSA while the appeal is pending, this was always an option with IB (albeit at a reduced rate for those lucky enough to be too young or too old and confused to remember 2008)
I think the confusion has set in Pete C.
The JSA would have been paid at the full rate and IS would have been paid at a 20% reduced personal amount.
You’re right, thats what I meant to say but somehow didn’t quite manage it!
It was bad enough when my beard went grey but to have a failing memory as well….............................
I knew, that you knew that you knew it.
I wonder what effect Article 6 (1) on the Human Right to a fair hearing in a reasonable time by an independent and impartial tribunal would have on those possible proposals
After all, being unfit to work which means you cant lawfully claim JSA, but having nothing to live on wouldn t really give access to a fair hearing. I guess it would be an interesting challenge - but who could do it in this age of legal aid cuts??