DWP today published a ‘Statistical Ad-hoc’ document for PIP plus the first Review of PIP following its implementation.

Notable in the statistics release is the discrepancy between the number of new claims referred to the assessment provider (523,000) and the total number of new claims registered (625,000). DWP gives the the 3 following reasons to explain this discrepancy:

• some claims have either been received recently and are still with the claimant for completion and return of Part 2 information and evidence;
• or the claimant may have chosen to withdraw their claim;
• or the department has disallowed the claim before it was referred to the assessment providers (due to failure of basic eligibility criteria or non return of the Part 2 information within the time limit).

The third reason is important.  From the PIP review, many claimants have experienced difficulties in understanding the questions or filling in the form.  The PIP reviewer notes that although the claimant has one calendar month to return this form to DWP, they can ask for an extension if reasonably required.  It seems that when requested, DWP is only prepared to give a 2 week extension, but this extension can make the difference between a claim being accepted or disallowed. He also notes that: ‘At discussion groups, many claimants were unaware of the flexibility to request an extension where there is good reason’.

It is vitally important that PIP claimants are aware that they have the opportunity to ask for an extension if they cannot manage to fill in the form within the time limit, if they have good reasons to do so.

https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/398595/pip-ad-hoc-statistics-new-claims.pdf

https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/387981/pip-assessment-first-independent-review.pdf

DR UKs new training contract

– See more at: http://www.disabilityrightsuk.org/news/2015/january/dr-uks-new-training-contract#sthash.782901fD.dpuf

New research reveals that charities and other voluntary groups are often absent from campaigns to tackle the root causes of poverty. A report released today shows that voluntary groups, especially those under contract to government, face threats to remain silent about their experiences and many are fearful to speak out in case they lose their funding or face other sanctions.

The findings show a climate of fear and threats to free speech. They follow on the tails of a Charity Commission investigation into Oxfam after the charity warned of the “relentless rise of food poverty” in the UK [http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-30546517 19.12.14]. The Commission’s investigation was instigated
after a complaint against Oxfam by Tory MP, Conor Burns. It adds to fears raised by the ex-Bishop of Oxford, Richard Harries, who said this week that charities and campaign groups have been “frightened” into curtailing their public work by the new Lobbying Act [http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-30935367
22.01.15].

The report, Voluntary Services and Campaigning in Austerity UK: Saying Less and Doing More, is written by Dr Mike Aiken, a specialist in the voluntary sector and is published by the National Coalition for Independent Action (NCIA), a network of people working in the voluntary sector.
http://www.independentaction.net/2015/01/23/campaigning-in-the-spotlight/

The NCIA report states that “voluntary services are confronted by implicit, or explicit, pressures to ‘say less and do more’; they face gagging clauses in contracts which threaten to stop them advocating and campaigning; the provisions in the so-called Lobbying Act, passed in January 2014, create an atmosphere in which it is difficult to speak out”.

The research highlights the attempts to muzzle charities and shows who is refusing to stay silent:

A voluntary organisation engaged in welfare services faced “subtle and menacing” bullying on more than one occasion from significant political figures to “do” and not “say”’·
Voluntary groups under contract can be obliged to keep information or observations secret even when insights from their day-to-day work might help improve the service or conditions for local communities and individuals facing poverty and destitution.

Charities which undertake significant government contracting work devote few funds to campaigning. In the case of Shelter this appeared to be less than 10% of its income.

Despite attempts to silence voluntary groups, some still speak out (eg Trussell Trust), refuse to take government money (eg. World Development Movement) and join with campaigners to right wrongs (eg. Keep Volunteering Voluntary, a campaign against workfare). One such charity speaks plainly: “it is a democratic country…we are saying what we see…we have evidence…it’s is about being courageous and speaking out…. so you can put things right”

The report suggests that the situation for charities is getting worse just at the point when it needs to get better – in order to give a voice to those most affected by austerity. It notes that the injunction to silence the knowledgeable voluntary organisation from talking about its experiences would be quite at home in any totalitarian regime that seeks to crush independent or divergent voices.

The report concludes that funding can, and does, act as a brake on the ability to campaign and asks: if the campaigning role is stifled who will provide the evidence to those in positions of power to effect changes; and who will support disadvantaged communities to have their own voice? It predicts that if this trend continues voluntary organisations look set to be ‘saying less’ in austerity UK.

Mike Aiken said today, “Charities have played an active role in a democratic society and this can be understood as their responsibility and ethical duty. Their voice needs to be heard and amplified, to provide a vital ingredient of evidence and to speak with authority and legitimacy to policy makers and civil servants – enabling the voice and experience of the most disadvantaged to be heard in the corridors of power and by other citizens.”

Penny Waterhouse, a Director of NCIA, said “This research shows that some voluntary groups can, and do, speak out for a better world – if they are brave and think of their beneficiaries instead  of their organisational interests and professional status. But why, in Britain, does civil society need to be brave to  exercise freedom of speech? It’s a bad, and dangerous,  state of affairs. NCIA calls on voluntary services to  exercise their civil liberties and join with activists and campaigners to advocate forcefully on behalf of their beneficiaries.”

The report is one of 17  reports published by NCIA as part of their Inquiry  into the Future of Voluntary Services.

The report, Voluntary Services and Campaigning in Austerity UK: Saying Less and Doing More, can be read at:  http://www.independentaction.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/Say-less-do-more-final.pdf  (PDF).

Mike Aiken, the report’s author, has led research on community development, advocacy and community participation for over 15 years. He has published articles and book chapters on social enterprises, civil society and advocacy. He has undertaken research at the Open University and lectured at the University of Sussex. He has been a member of the Voluntary Sector Studies Network for 10 years and a committee member for four years;
he currently co-edits the practice section of the Voluntary Sector Review. Over the last ten years Mike has been an invited speaker at academic and practitioner
events from Germany and Poland to Japan and Mexico. Previously he worked at Community Matters, Save the Children and Development Trusts Association. He remains active in Latin American affairs and local community action in Brighton.
For more information, please contact Symon Hill on 07920 037 719 or penny@independentaction.net

Reblogged from Johnny Void with thanks

Shadow Minister for Disabled People Kate Green has pledged to return the despised Work Capability Assessment (WCA) back to its “original purpose” raising fears that gains made by capaigners over the last few years could be lost as Labour attempt to rehabilitate the despised tests for sickness or disability benefits.

Her comments were made at a union meeting late last year and were filmed by  Kate Belgrave who has made the video available to Disabled People Against Cuts (DPAC).  According to Green, Labour will: “make sure that the work capability assessment is returned to its original purpose of being the first step in the process to diagnose and identify what sort of support somebody who could work at some point would need to have in order to enable them work, and so we will give every single person who goes through the work capability assessment, at the end of their assessment, a statement of how their condition or impairment impacts on their capacity to work.”

Labour introduced the Work Capability Assessment (WCA) in 2008 with the ‘original purpose’ of stripping out of work benefits from over a third of sick and disabled people.  Speaking to Parliament about the reforms in 2006, the Labour Secretary of State for the Department for Work and Pensions John Hutton said: “I believe that if we take the measures that I have outlined … we can get 1 million people off incapacity benefit within a decade. In doing so, we could ultimately save up to £7 billion a year for taxpayers. That should be the scale of our ambition.”

Whilst the tests were first introduced for new claimants only, in the 2008 budget (PDF para 4.5) Labour announced that all claimants on Incapacity Benefit would be re-assessed from April 2010.  All Iain Duncan Smith did, after the Tory Party weren’t elected in May 2010, was to continue the work begun by Labour.

The contract to carry out the shoddy tick-box style assessments was handed to the little known French IT firm Atos Origin, a company who had previously sponsored events at the Labour Party conference.  Atos were tasked with dividing claimants on sickness or disability benefits into three groups – those unable to work who were placed in the Support Group, those who might be able to do some work at some point in the future – the Work Related Activity Group (WRAG) – and those who the company judged ‘fit for work’.

The results have been horrifying as people with serious health conditions have been forced off benefits after a brief computer based test ignored medical opinion to find them able to work.  Many in the WRAG group have faced benefit sanctions after being unable to carry out DWP mandated ‘Work Related Activity’ such as endless job search, compulsory training and even workfare.  The assessments have even become too much for Atos to stomach and following fierce campaigning by disabled people the company announced last year that they would be ending their contract with the government early.

The introduction of the Work Capability Assessment was based on the tabloid myth that hundreds of thousands of people were faking their health conditions  and were really able to work.  This lie took hold despite the UK not having significantly more people unable to work due to sickness or disability then other comparable economies.  Yet still the abuse persisted from politicians of all parties.  In 2011 Ed Miliband even attempted to blame benefit claimants for the financial crisis claiming many of those unable to work were “ripping off society”.

On the ground however a very different picture was emerging.  As early as March 2010 Citizens Advice published a damning report (PDF) backed by disability charities revealing the horrific suffering the WCA was causing.  It turned out that most people were not lying about their health condition after all and tragic stories began appearing in the media of poverty, homelessness, ill health and even suicides linked to the new sickness benefit regime.  Huge numbers of decisions made by Atos and the DWP to remove benefits were being over-turned at appeal.  Protests against the process began to spread throughout the UK.  And slowly, the number of people found fit for work, began to fall (as can be seen in the above graph which represents new claims, not re-assessments).

Just as significantly, the percentage of people placed in the Support Group – meaning they are not expected to look for work at all – has risen sixfold between the last period of the Labour adminstration and the most recent figures.  Of course this – combined with a huge backlog of cases as Atos struggled to find enough healthcare professionals nasty enough to carry out the assessments – has meant that the number of people entitled to sickness and disability benefits is back on the rise, and rightly so.   The job of new contractors, US based outsourcing firm Maximus, will be to reverse this trend.

Labour have promised to tinker with the WCA but have no plans to scrap it.  As DPAC rightly point out, Kate Green’s comments suggest those in the Support Group could soon be in the firing line and face pressure to look for work.  Last year Ed Miliband endorsed a think tank report which suggested the removal of the WRAG group for under 25s who would instead face workfare and their benefits being reduced to the same level as those unemployed.  Maximus, who will be taking over from Atos in March this year, have recently employed a former Labour special advisor alongside a prominent Labour blogger on a huge salary to manage ‘customer relations’.  Bill Gunnyeon, the DWP Civil Servant who oversaw the introduction of the WCA under the Labour government, has also recently been employed by the company.

Anyone who thinks that things might get better for sick and disabled claimants if the Tories are voted out this May could yet be in for a horrifying surprise.  Because if history is anything to go by, then under a Labour administration, things could get a lot worse.

Join the Day of Action against Maximus called by Disabled People Against Cuts on March 2nd.