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Forum Home  →  Discussion  →  Work capability issues and ESA  →  Thread

WCA to be abolished .. what do we want next?

shawn mach
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Thanks to the DBC for the heads up that a White Paper, expected before the Budget in mid-March, is expected to provide for the abolition of the WCA with a new test to be introduced in its place ...

.. what would we want from a new assessment?

Elliot Kent
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Anything based around dice would perhaps provide equally high quality decision making whilst also providing value for money for the tax-payer…

Peter Turville
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shawn - 27 January 2016 04:32 PM

.. what would we want from a new assessment?

something similar to PIP looks like a credible alternative or (at the risk of offending) astrology?
Will there be a consultation Green Paper first or have Govt dispensed with this?

[ Edited: 27 Jan 2016 at 05:53 pm by Peter Turville ]
Dan_Manville
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Being realistic, a return to some aspects of the old reg 10 exemptions. I have only lost one WCA appeal in 3 years (out of roughly 200) and that was a really dodgy Support Group from WRAG appeal (that would have walked it post IM). Let’s have the Severe Mental Illness exemption back eh?

Otherwise something involving darts would at least retain a level of skill in the HCPs as well as providing transferrable skills when the contractor goes bump as is almost inevitably the case.

[ Edited: 28 Jan 2016 at 10:29 am by Dan_Manville ]
BC Welfare Rights
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A fully randomised print out from a bank of stock phrases, then toss a coin for 0 points or 15.

Oh, hang on. They want to change it? Ah, I see. Will have to have a think.

1964
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Billy Durrant - 27 January 2016 06:04 PM

A fully randomised print out from a bank of stock phrases, then toss a coin for 0 points or 15.

Oh, hang on. They want to change it? Ah, I see. Will have to have a think.

Class!

neilbateman
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I agree.  Exemptions based on the old PCA ones seem such a no brainer for both claimants and DWP alike as they would massively reduce the pain, cost and pointlessness of so many assessments.

Similarly, DWP should stop constantly re-assessing people with obvious long term conditions which will not improve significantly or even at all. It’s quite possible to identify the more common and obvious ones in guidance.  The three year maximum used for ESA is not in the law and surely could be extended to ten years like PIP?

DWP senior managers must be thick because they get shafted by the likes of ATOS and Maximus time and again with ridiculously short recommended review periods which adds to the cost and backlogs of assessments and they then get hammered by the National Audit Office and MPs.  Of course Maximus and Atos have absolutely no financial interest in re-assessing people time and again.

However, I fear the huge political capital to be made out of being nasty to claimants, combined with the culture of denial and mendacity within the DWP mean we are unlikely to see such improvements, but I’d be happy to be proved wrong.

Incidentally, look out for discreet meetings with DWP ministers and lobbying by private critical illness insurance interests.

Elliot Kent
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neilbateman - 27 January 2016 06:13 PM

  The three year maximum used for ESA is not in the law and surely could be extended to ten years like PIP?

This might be the most important thing I’d want to see. Repeat assessments for long standing chronic conditions (or degenerative conditions where the claimant is already in the support group) surely serve nobody’s interest, excluding Maximus.

Dan_Manville
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I do fear we will just see the deletion of reg 19- 33 and schedule 2. People can -of course- place reasonable restrictions on their claimant commitments after all…

Peter Turville
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neilbateman - 27 January 2016 06:13 PM

Incidentally, look out for discreet meetings with DWP ministers and lobbying by private critical illness insurance interests.

I fear Neil has a very valid point! The US approach has been favoured by some Ministers in the past.

 

stevenmcavoy
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this relates to the system as a whole but it would be great if we could have a system that accepts that the vast, vast majority of claimants are genuine and in the case of benefits like sickness and disability ones often have more going on than jumping through the benefit administration hoops.

lets just assume people are genuine, pay out the benefit, then if we have to we can do some verification work whilst paying the person and avoiding all of the crisis situations that then need expensive multi agency solutions i.e. the clients line goes missing, the wro helps and in the meantime refers to the local welfare fund….and so on.

if someone who isnt entitled gets £100 they arent entitled to the world isnt going to end.

in terms of a work capability or fit to work test….the test is never going to matter as much as the application and the culture of those applying it.