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I think we should be told…
From today’s Rightsnet News section…
“Giving evidence to the committee yesterday, senior vice-president of Atos Lisa Coleman said -
‘Unless something is done around educating people what the actual operational reality of that policy really is and what they mean potentially for individuals going through that then I find it difficult to see that actually just changing the supplier will change things…. We often find that when somebody makes a comment that Atos has done an assessment incorrectly, actually, against the policy, what has happened has been right.”
What does Lisa mean by ‘policy’ as mention twice above? Is it something to do with refusing all but the most irresistible entitlements? I think we should be told.
‘Unless something is done around educating people what the actual operational reality of that policy really is and what they mean potentially for individuals going through that then I find it difficult to see that actually just changing the supplier will change things…. We often find that when somebody makes a comment that Atos has done an assessment incorrectly, actually, against the policy, what has happened has been right.”
That’s wonderfully Golgafrinciam. You almost have to admire her.
Isn’t she saying “the Work Capability Assessment is inevitably going to be unpopular and unless the govt shoulders that burden then the new WCA provider will be in the same boat as us, all their staff will quit within 6 months and it’ll be the same all over again?”
[ Edited: 11 Jun 2014 at 11:09 am by Dan_Manville ]That may be what she is implying but it has to be said that the standard of Atos assessments, according to the records I have seen, are routinely dreadful.
Unless her point is that DWP policy has been to, off the record of course, brief Atos to try and ignore the very obvious symptoms and limitations that clients present with as a result of their health conditions and instead produce stock reports containing virtually identical wording, usually scoring 0 points for 2 out of every 3 people? Shurely not…
How many ATOS staff will be TUPE’d to the new provider?
Unless something is done around educating people what the actual operational reality of that policy really is and what they mean potentially for individuals going through that then I find it difficult to see that actually just changing the supplier will change things….
I think she does deserve some credit for recognising and speaking up about this. Anyone meeting any Schedule 2 descriptor (with perhaps a couple of exceptions) clearly has very severe barriers to work, but as most descriptors score less than 15 points a person essentially has to qualify doubly or triply. And that’s just to get into the WRAG, which (when convenient) is still spun by the government as them being ‘fit for some work’ or similar.
Unless something is done around educating people what the actual operational reality of that policy really is and what they mean potentially for individuals going through that then I find it difficult to see that actually just changing the supplier will change things….
I think she does deserve some credit for recognising and speaking up about this. Anyone meeting any Schedule 2 descriptor (with perhaps a couple of exceptions) clearly has very severe barriers to work, but as most descriptors score less than 15 points a person essentially has to qualify doubly or triply. And that’s just to get into the WRAG, which (when convenient) is still spun by the government as them being ‘fit for some work’ or similar.
True, but I do wonder (i.e. I can’t be bothered to check) whether the “standards and norms” were set by DWP; that has massively skewed the effect of the WCA and may well be the “policy” Ms Coleman was referring to