Why I’m scared for our future

You may say what future and you may have a point… Today we saw another government take office this time a fully Tory Tory one and lets be honest not many expected them to gain a outright majority how they managed it is open for debate but they have done and we must face facts. The labour party shouldn’t go without comment in their disgraceful backing of tory austerity they have been a hammered in the polls and rightly rejected yet we are left with the proper tories at least we know what this lot stand for and that is outright destruction of the working class if they get their way. As a disabled person I have been worrying all day what will happen to us come the next 5 years. Chills of dread have flooded me and the horrors of the last 5 years tell me with Tories on their own they can get away with so much more not that the Lib Dems stopped them with any of their brutal cuts but this time it feels we are facing the abyss in terms of our welfare state, our NHS and our public sector services. A total of 12 billion pounds is to be slashed from the welfare bill and this will I tell you now directly will hit the poorest the most vunrable in our society I fear for many of us I really do. A leak last week suggested the following cuts have already been drawn up by the Tories The proposed cuts included: • Limiting support to 2 children in child benefit and child tax credit, so cutting up to £3,500 from a family with three children. • Removing the higher rate child benefit from the first child, an average cut of over £360 for every family with children. • Means testing child benefit – cutting £1,750 for a two child middle income family • Removing child benefit from 16 to 19 year olds – a cut of over £1,000 for parents of a single child. The Conservatives have been under sustained pressure to detail how they will cut £12bn from the welfare budget by 2017-2018, and the Institute for Fiscal Studies think-tank confirmed this week the Tories have so far disclosed only 10% of these cut in the form of a two-year freeze in working age benefits. With further cuts to benefits surely on its way the DWP have wasted no time in outlining plans to slash the access to work scheme a benefit which is close to my heart and helps me every time I go to work. The attacks on this particular benefit already destroy the lie that the Tories are there to help the disabled in to work and in work they just do not care and are taking the axe to this next benefit. How it will affect me long term we will have to see but be sure I will not let any attacks on me working go unheard. In a piece in the independent tonight it is said. http://fw.to/EMNy4cK The DWP has moved further to examine cutting a scheme that helps disabled people into work – just hours after the Conservatives won the election. The fund helps people and employers cover costs of disabilities that might be a barrier to work. The biggest single users of the fund are people who have difficulty seeing and people who have difficulty hearing. A policy document originally quietly announced in March suggests capping the £108m Access to Work fund. An impact assessment of the policy was released on the day the general election results. “[Spending] has risen significantly over the past five years … One of the significant strategic questions we face is how to establish the right balance between the need to support as many disabled people as possible and what it is reasonable to offer individual users,” the assessment says. The first option outlined by civil servants in the document is “to set a cap on the maximum value of support per user”. The party's manifesto boats that "last year alone, 140,000 disabled people found work" but says that "the jobless rate for this group remains too high. "As part of our objective to achieve full employment, we will aim to halve the disability employment gap: we will transform policy, practice and public attitudes, so that hundreds of thousands more disabled people who can and want to be in work find employment," it pledges. The overall spend on Access to Work in 2013/14 was £108m, covering 35,540 people. • An earlier version of this story indicated that the policy had been announced in the hours after the general election result. In fact the impact assessment for the policy was issued in the hours after the general election result, while the policy itself was issued in the run up to the general election in March This is just a glimpse of the tories aims in this next 5 years. Be under no illusion they are coming for you and they will not give a stuff about who you voted for or anything. Its time to organise ourselvesin our communities find common allies and fightback in whichever way we can using any means at our desposable. We may never see the welfare state ever a gain if we do not fightback now. The last 5 years was justa warm up for what is coming next …..

Benefit scrounger rhetoric has gone too far now

Reading in the Telegraph today about a blind man who arranged a charity darts event to raise money for Guide Dogs for the blind has now been investigated by the DWP for frauding the system. This idea of scroungers has gone too far now and is causing unnecessary stress and unease on many innocent disabled people. This has got to end. The fact someone would report someone to the DWP for attempting to do normal things as a blind person so thinking they can’t be blind is a disgrace and brings real shame on us as a society. I know people who have been refused disabled benefits as they can walk to their local pub all be it in great pain but they do it because they wish to get out and socialize. If we are going to start going down this route of if you are not at home all the time practically bed ridden you are not disabled in the DWP's eyes. This incident roubles me greatly on many levels. It will send out the message that trying to live independent and be active in your community is not to be encouraged as you may be suspected as being on the take in terms of your benefits. What a ridiculous situation we are in. "A blind man who held a charity marathon darts event was investigated over benefit fraud because he was too good. Visually-impaired Robert Boon, 50, organised a ten-hour "arrow" throw to raise £500 to buy two guide dogs. Mr Boon is registered blind as he is completely blind in one eye and only able to see shadows in the other. He scored an impressive 61,000 points on the night by standing and playing darts on his own for ten hours. Mr Boon said due to the repetitive action of dart throwing he was able to maintain some degree of accuracy. But shortly after the event he was called to a meeting by the Department for Work and Pensions to assess his eligibility to claim benefits. He was stunned to discover a member of the public had reported him - claiming someone that good at darts could not possibly be blind. Robert Boon, of Paignton, Devon, said: "I got a letter saying I had to attend a meeting. "I felt humiliated because I don't think it is right to report me when I have tried to do something good. "I rang the hospital to get my medical records on my eye condition. I don't see why people should put me down. "I feel really intimidated now. I am registered blind and can't see virtually anything out of one eye and shadows in the other. "To be fair when I spoke to the DWP they said they would not be taking the benefits away. "I have other things lined up now including a comedy night and don't intend to stop." "It's only right that we investigate a person's benefit claim when we receive information that suggests they may not be entitled." Mr Boon held the charity event at Pond Coffee Shop in Paignton as part of a larger fundraising drive to raise £10,000 so he can buy two guide dogs. " For me this is deeply worrying and something which we should all be aware of. The deep suspicion in this country now that all disabled people if they show near normal signs of living are to be suspected as fraud is a troubling development. This links into disability hate crime where many more disabled people are being targeted due to the scroungers rhetoric coming from our dear media and politicians With extracts from the Daily Telegraph piece http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/11503598/Blind-darts-player-targeted-in-benefit-fraud-probe-for-being-too-good.html. Peoples uncaring and untrusting attitudes worry me in this day and age, Where is this all leading, I dread to think.

Going hungry this christmas

This christmas many in this country will go hungry disgracefully. To be poor is not a crime – yet in Britain, the poor have been criminalized and demonized by a propaganda campaign that gives new meaning to the word 'vicious.' In the UK, with Christmas approaching, hunger stalks the land. An ever-increasing number of lives have been reduced to misery and despair, yet for those at the top, 'austerity' remains nothing more than a word in the dictionary. It is proof that British society has now officially departed the 21st century and is heading at high-speed towards the Victorian era of the late 19th century. This is the only conclusion to be drawn from a week in which it has been revealed that food poverty – or hunger, to use the proper word – is a fact of life for millions of UK citizens. A recently published report by an All-Party Parliamentary Inquiry into Hunger and Food Poverty in Britain leaves no doubt that the UK in 2014 is governed by a gang of rich, privately educated sociopaths whose contempt for the poor is such that they are content to let them starve. That four million people in Britain are in danger of going hungry, that 500,000 children live in families that can’t afford to feed them, and that 325,000 adults do not get enough to eat, with close to a million forced to rely on food banks (charities set up to feed people unable to feed themselves), this is a despicable state of affairs. Moreover, the fact that it is happening in a country that presumes to lecture others on human rights and justice, this comes as yet more evidence of the rank hypocrisy and double-standards which lie at the heart of the British establishment. Compounding matters are the sentiments of Tory Baroness Anne Jenkin, which she expressed during the launch of the report. Calling to mind the infamous words of Marie Antoinette who, when informed of the desperate plight of the poor in Paris prior to the French Revolution, said, “Let them eat cake,” Baroness Jenkin postulated that one of the reasons was to claim that the poor do not know how to cook and should eat porrige . Tories breathtaking hate of the poor knows no boundaries. A recent excellent post by Johnny Void over at the void the report to food banks and their use has been published last week not surprisingly the real causes for food bank use's being on the increase were not spelt out. I'll allow Johnny to do this for us "The growth in foodbanks dates back to before the current Government weren’t elected as Labour’s decimation of the social security started to take its toll. The rise in benefit sanctions also began in the dying years of Labour’s administration as did the introduction of the despised Atos run Work Capability Assessment, designed to strip sickness and disability benefits from one million people. Alongside this Labour’s normalisation of workfare led to unprecedented numbers of people forced to work without pay. And then, as if things weren’t bad enough, along came Iain Duncan Smith. With him came the bedroom tax, council tax benefit cuts, the benefit cap, housing benefit cuts, freezes of almost all in and out of work benefits, more Atos tests for disability benefits, the scrapping of Crisis Loans and countless other measures all precision targeted at cutting the incomes of the poorest. Yet to read today’s report into foodbanks, you would think that none of this had ever happened. Instead it insists that the growth in people going hungry has been caused by market forces and modern economic conditions – beyond the control of us mere mortals and simply something that is here to stay no matter what we do. It is true that alongside the slow dismantling of the welfare state, the minimum wage stagnated whilst the cost of living for the very poorest soared. The erosion of social housing meant the greedy private rental sector became out of control as competition for low cost housing became ever more intense. As supermarket dominance grew, small local shops closed and with them out of the way food prices began to rise. A privatised energy market did exactly what you would expect from profit hungry vultures and fleeced their most voiceless customers, often elderly or disabled people who have no choice but to try and keep the heating on. Payday lenders and pawn shops started to appear on every high street. In some areas wherever you look you will see companies owned by the rich dressed up in pauper’s clothing as they attempt to wring every last penny of profit they can from the poor. All of these things are a direct result of government policies supported by all the major parties to allow the parasites of capital – landlords, supermarkets, energy companies and legal loan sharks – to run rampant in the name of the free market. But you won’t read that in today’s report either. Instead it proposes tinkering with the rules on prepay gas and electricity metres, vague and unspecific policies to slightly edge up the minimum wage and yet more patronising fucking garbage about cooking lessons and budgeting skills. Meanwhile calls for benefit payments to be made quicker are redundant when the government is planning a waiting period of up to six weeks for Universal Credit. This is not even mentioned in the report. They are not just willfully ignoring the cuts to social security that have already happened, but also the ones that are still set to come. The huge rise in the number of people who face benefits being stopped or sanctioned has mirrored almost exactly the growth of foodbanks. An ever more complex and draconian system now forces unemployed, sick and disabled claimants into pointless and irksome ‘work related activity’ for days, weeks and even months on end. Any breach of the rules means benefits are stopped. The report endorses this increased “responsibility to look for work”, calling it a “welcome move”. Instead it merely makes the same calls for improvements in communications with claimants and access to hardship payments that we have heard before. These bastards really think it is okay to leave someone in desperate poverty for missing a meeting with the Jobcentre as long as you write them a nice letter explaining why. This comes with a proposal for a condescending ‘yellow card’ warning system, which was first suggested by the Tory think tank the Policy Exchange. You can see their thinking on this one. Poor people like football after all, so it will be easy for our little minds to understand. Even this comes with conditions attached. Whilst they recommend claimants be given a warning with the chance to explain “their offence” before a sanction is applied, it suggests that this could come with an “additional requirement” to be met. This might as well be to go outside and hop on one leg for half an hour whilst quacking like a duck for all the good most Jobcentre requirements do to help people find work. Punishing people for their poverty is behind this idea, not helping them find jobs. Those behind the report are adamant that nothing can be done to halt the rise in the use of foodbanks. But abolishing benefit sanctions completely would slash the number of people going hungry in the UK overnight. As would scrapping the bedroom tax, council tax reform and halting George Osborne’s benefit freeze. In time honoured tradition however, politicians are clubbing together to say a functioning welfare state is over, time to move on and bring food parcels into the social security system. this. The growth of hunger in the UK did not happen by accident, it has been socially engineered. And the people who did that are the same vermin politicians who write reports telling us how terrible and inevitable it is." You can read the report at: http://foodpovertyinquiry.org/ with thanks to johnny void and his excellent blog over at http://johnnyvoid.wordpress.com/2014/12/08/savage-cuts-to-benefits-go-ignored-in-flagship-foodbanks-report-they-really-think-we-are-fucking-idiots/

Is Access to work helping disabled people or not ?

I myself use Access to work for my part time job as a office worker and find it a key part to my working life. I use it mainly for transport costs to get a taxi to work and back due to the bus's being infrequent and unreliable at best. The last time i reapplied for Access to work i was given a really tough line of questioning from one of the advisors really asking quite personal and almost hostile questions to find out if anyway i can reduce the costs for them. I have found it to be a very good service on the whole and am so keen for it to be continued and even extended as it needs to be if the government are really serious about helping disabled people back to work as they claim. Of course the tories are not about helping disabled people in fact they have made it harder for disabled people who do want to work if anything. A brilliant blog post over at DPAC - Disabled people against cuts a group i'm very close to and support wherever i can takes a look at the mess taht is the Access to work scheme. You can read this in full over at http://dpac.uk.net/2014/10/what-the-f-is-going-on-with-access-to-work-join-the-stopchanges2atw-campaign/ For me as a blind worker Access to work is a god sent but alot in this blog post rings true with me too. In this piece which i'm quoting from the author uses's the term deaf in their piece this as the author is deaf but the message being put is much the same for any disabled people who have experience of Access to work. "More and more people are asking what is happening with Access to Work, the programme that supports Deaf and disabled people to get into and stay in employment, as changes are making it harder and harder to use. Despite the government’s well publicised extra investment in the scheme Access to Work’s clear direction of travel is to cut individual packages, with the result that the employability of Deaf and disabled people is being seriously undermined. When the Tories closed the Remploy factories in 2011-2012 they said there was no place for segregated workplaces in modern society and the money used to fund the factories would be better spent supporting Deaf and disabled people to get into and stay in mainstream employment through the Access to Work programme. Over the past year, with the factory closures out of the way, changes introduced to the AtW programme have decreased eligibility, brought considerable distress and uncertainty to customers who had previously and successfully used the programme for many years, pushed Deaf and disabled people out of jobs and left others fearing for their futures. It is difficult to summarise all the changes: AtW is awarded on a discretionary ‘case by case’ basis and the programme has always denied the existence of any blanket rules for particular impairment groups. What we have seen emerging are some clear patterns around the cutting of packages, lack of information and hostility to AtW customers alongside growing inefficiency and cuts to AtW service delivery. The first clear pattern emerged with respect to Deaf customers who suddenly found themselves labelled as ‘fraudsters’. Individuals contacting AtW advisers, in some cases advisers they had had for many years were greeted with a completely different and hostile attitude. They were told ‘there are high levels of Access to Work fraud in the Deaf community’. Changes brought in including the notorious ’30 hour rule’, requiring Deaf customers using more than 30 hours of BSL interpreters per week to employ a salaried interpreter, have literally left Deaf people unable to continue in their jobs. The government has sought to justify what it is doing by pointing the finger at interpreters, blaming them for ‘costing too much’, meanwhile undermining what is a highly skilled and important profession. A particularly nasty move has been the introduction of retrospective decision making experienced by both Deaf and disabled people who have had their packages cut with the cuts being backdated after support costs have already been incurred. This situation has been compounded by the fact that has review notices are no longer sent out warning AtW customers when their packages are due for renewal which easily leads to people not realising their packages have ended. Deaf and disabled people have been left owing thousands of pounds and has left interpreters and support workers owed thousands of pounds, causing considerable hardship and distress. Successful appeals against changes to packages have been made but many people do not realise they have a right to appeal or how they would go about making a complaint. Others are too worried about losing the rest of their package to make a fuss. This is where the website DeafAtW has been invaluable, providing information and support on how to challenge decisions. There is a growing level of misinformation, confusion and chaos coming from AtW itself as a result of a restructuring that has seen a dramatic reduction in the numbers of contact centres and outsourcing. AtW invoices remain unpaid from months and months ago because the addresses of the payment centres changed but customers weren’t told. Meanwhile application backlogs have amassed. Given that Deaf and disabled people often cannot start a job until their AtW package is in place, yet can only make an application after an employment start date has been confirmed, this has presumably Deaf and disabled people unable to take up job offers. Money pledged by this government for the Access to Work budget has yet to appear. This was highlighted at the Work and Pension Select Committee oral evidence session when Remploy confirmed that the £80million per year “saved” from the closure of the factories hadn’t materialised in AtW support. There was also an additional £17million that hasn’t appeared. These two amounts would mean the AtW budget should have doubled in the past four years, yet cuts are being made. For a government that claims its welfare reform measures are all about supporting more people into employment, the changes to Access to Work appear counter-productive. Moreover, in a time of austerity, changes to the programme represent a cutting back of a scheme that actually makes money for the state: the Sayce report found that for every pound invested in Access to Work, £1.48 is recouped by the Treasury. But for anyone familiar with Tory welfare policies none of this comes as a surprise. Ill-thought through ideologically driven policies are seeking to reduce ‘dependency’ and dismantle the welfare state, removing social security from those that need it and creating situations that will end up costing more. While the Tories describe AtW as a ‘benefit’ and a dependency and fail to understand it as an investment, campaigners have beaten back some of the attacks. AtW eventually conceded that it was not realistic to expect employers to contribute the on costs for salaried interpreters under the 30 hour rule. In May the Minster for Disabled People announced a review into the 30 hour rule and the DWP Select Committee Inquiry agreed not only to take evidence on how changes were impacting on Deaf people but also extended the deadline for submissions whereas originally the inquiry had been intended to focus on employment support for people with mental health support needs and learning difficulties. Individual decisions have also been revised in the face of continued campaigning and challenges. More is needed though. We have yet to hear the outcome of the Minister’s review. Meanwhile we are hearing of cuts to AtW packages impacting ever wider, putting jobs at risk and pushing Deaf and disabled people out of employment. We need to step up our campaign to make sure information is available and accessible and people know what to do if they are impacted by the changes, to fight for the employment rights of Deaf and disabled people and to protect the terms and conditions of BSL interpreters and ensure we are not divided. StopChanges2ATW campaign open meeting – Thursday 23rd October 2014, 6 – 7.30pm, 336 Brixton Road, London, SW9 7AA. For more information read StopChanges2ATW and Inclusion London’s submissions to the DWP select committee inquiry: http://www.inclusionlondon.co.uk/ATW-ILs-%20and%20stop-changes2atw-respond-to-call-for-evidence

Standing up for the disabled and challenging stereotypes

This week I’ve been saddened to hear several blind people I know saying the benefit system needs reforming as too many don’t go out and work and would rather sit at home and sponge off the government. Here I’ll try and challenge these myths and stereotypes and hopefully we can stop others doing the government’s job for them for a change. Firstly I am blind myself having been for 10 years now and have worked whenever I can. I do a part time job for my dads company. It’s no great shakes but its work and I always attend punctually and so on. I don’t believe disabled people are anymore lazy than any other part of the population. I want to dispel the stereotypes of workshy s benefit scroungers that don’t want to do anything to help them if I can. I do receive Disability Living Allowance son to be phased out which I’m increasingly worried about with its replacement PIP Personal Independence payment being tighter and harder for people to claim I do worry for many disabled people out there today going through stressful unnecessary tests. I also claim working tax credits as my pay is so low it needs topping up just for me to get by. Just getting a job is not the magic dream the Tories like to think it is there are many who are on poverty wages and struggling to feed them every week despite having a job. We need to unite with those in and out of work as we all face the same enemy in the capitalist system itself using us for profit making. Challenging the myths and falsehoods put out by the government and our dear media which is set to divide and rule us. If people really wanted to help more people disabled or not into work then why were good jobs like the brave Remploy workers who lost their jobs a few years back at the hands of this Tory government and why do they not extend access to work to those looking for work too. Access to work which is funding and support to disabled people in work which can be made available to those needing “reasonable adjustments” to enable them to do the job. None of this is covered by the employer so there is no additional cost to employing a disabled person which is another myth we must smash. I know many blind and partially sighted people looking for work and am struggling not many wish to remain on benefits and laze about as the government and the media would have you believe. Putting it simply there is just not the jobs out there if you’re disabled or not let’s be frank. Even if a job was there there are so many ways around discrimination laws employers can try it is made even harder by the stereotypes of disabled put out there by the establishment that disabled people are not as hard workers as their non disabled counterparts which is completely rubbish. A recent statement from DPAC a group I’m closely aligned with Disabled People against Cuts writes about the cruel Work capability assessment which the last labour government brought in for anyone thinking labour are any better towards disabled people think again. http://www.theguardian.com/society/2014/jul/29/disabled-not-lazy-stop-hounding “The WCA presumes that there are too many people on disability benefits because disabled people are too lazy or too comfortable living on benefits to work. It is founded in the idea that disabled people need to be harassed and hounded out of their comfortable life into finding work under the threat of loss of benefits. No one is comfortable living on benefits. Disabled people are no more lazy that the rest of the population. The real reason that there are so many people on benefits is that society does not include disabled people. We do not have the same access to education, transport, housing and jobs. Social attitudes ensure that disabled people in the workplace are seen as a problem, rather than an equal opportunity. And there are large numbers of disabled people who simply can not work. Why should they be harassed? Why should they be hounded? Why should they have to live in fear? We know, and this report confirms, that many people have wrongly been found “fit for work” when they can’t work. We also know and the UK courts have confirmed WCA discriminates against claimants with mental health impairments. The Work and Pensions Committee report recommends “improvements” to make the system more workable and less harmful. This is pointless, because it would not make the WCA any less wrong or any more useful” We call once again on Labour to commit to scrapping the WCA and to address the real problems that disabled people on benefits face in society. We call once again on the British Medical Association to send guidance on DWP rules “29 and 35″ which allows doctors to prevent foreseeable harm being done to ‘at risk’ patients. They didn’t improve slavery; they abolished it, because it was wrong. They didn’t amend Apartheid; they ended it because it was wrong The WCA is wrong, and it needs to be abolished Signed Andy Greene, Disabled People against Cuts Annie Howard, Disabled People against Cuts Bob Ellard, Disabled People against Cuts Debbie Jolly, Disabled People against Cuts Denise McKenna, Mental Health Resistance Network Jane Bench, #New Approach Eleanor Firman, Disabled People against Cuts Ellen Clifford, Disabled People against Cuts Gail Ward, Disabled People against Cuts John James McArdle, Black Triangle Campaign Katy Marchant, Disabled People against Cuts Linda Burnip, Disabled People against Cuts Michelle Maher, WOWPetition Nick Dilworth, #NewApproach Pat Onions, Pats Petition Paula Peters, Disabled People against Cuts Rick Burgess, #New Approach Roger Lewis, Disabled People against Cuts Rosemary O’Neil, Carerwatch Roy Bard, Disabled People against Cuts Wayne Blackburn, #NewApproach Another good piece by the excellent Johnny void that runs an excellent blog you should all check out “The shocking story of Jobcentre abuse recently published on Disabled People against Cuts’ (DPAC) website will be all too familiar to many claimants. The post tells the story of a claimant who was called on their mobile phone by a Jobcentre advisor in the middle of a blood transfusion for a life threatening condition. Instead of simply offering to call back, the advisor then began demanding that they immediately attend the Jobcentre for a back to work assessment, despite the claimant having lost six pints of blood due to kidney failure. It is difficult to call for unity between claimants and low paid (and themselves harassed) Jobcentre staff when claimants face open abuse like this. But every job has its share of contemptible bastards and part time Jobcentre staff themselves will soon be facing this brutal regime when Universal Credit is introduced. We will all be benefit scroungers then and this unites Jobcentre staff and claimants with a common cause. This is an opportunity to amplify and escalate the fight against Iain Duncan Smith’s bodged social security reforms and it should be taken by those in and out of work alike. The treatment doled out to the above claimant reveals a dangerous time-bomb at the heart of welfare reform. Without excusing at all the behaviour reported by DPAC, there is really no reason why Jobcentre staff would have any understanding of complex health problems. Jobcentre staff are not health care professionals. Neither are they social workers, mental health specialists, probation officers, substance misuse counsellors or housing officers. Yet Jobcentre staff have been granted unprecedented powers over the lives of so called ‘vulnerable people’. With a stroke of a pen, Jobcentre decision makers can sentence claimants to four weeks unpaid work, or stop vital benefits, whatever their circumstances. In fact there is no reason why Jobcentre staff would ever even know that someone has a drug problem, a mental health condition, a serious health problem or is street homeless. And if they do know, they aren’t trained to deal with it. The situation is even worse on the privatised Work Programme where the ‘black box’ style of provision means welfare to work companies can mandate claimants to almost any activity they see fit with no scrutiny whatsoever. As Jobcentre staff themselves could well testify, even before the huge re-assessment of people on sickness and disability benefits, then many of the small number of long term unemployed people often face complex problems in their lives. It may surprise people to know that if someone hasn’t had job for twenty years, it is usually not because they are lazy. Jobcentres have always dealt with large of numbers unemployed people who were sleeping on the streets, had diagnosed, or undiagnosed mental health conditions, serious problems with drugs or alcohol or a range of factors that meant full time work was a long way away*. Now those people have been joined by hundreds of thousands of claimants formerly on sickness and disability benefits and everyone of whom has been signed off work by their own GP. If a GP can order someone to bed rest only to be over-ridden by a DWP clerk or welfare to work advisor ordering them back to workfare, then what chance do social workers, mental health nurses or probation officers have. From December 3rd last year the DWP gave powers to Work Programme companies and Jobcentres to mandate sick or disabled claimants to workfare for an unspecified period. Workfare sharks like the inaptly named The Conservation Volunteers (@TCVtweets) have said they will provide their own assessment of a claimants ability to carry out the very physical workfare programmes they run**. A conservation charity worker can now force someone to work unpaid even against the advice of the claimant’s doctor. The potential consequences of this are horrific and not just for claimants. With no CRB checks, risk or health and safety assessments on the Mandatory Work Activity scheme – or any interaction with other agencies – then the possible dangers are endless. An alcoholic could be sent to work in a licenced premises for example. Or someone with a history of violence in stressful situations could be sent on workfare to work in a stressful situation. This is something workfare using charity shop managers might like to consider before being tempted by the lure of free labour. It is only a matter of time before this situation leads to a tragedy. And when it does, it will quite likely be a Jobcentre worker who faces the blame. This should be a pressing matter for the PCS Union whose members cannot be expected to have a specialist understanding of the vast array of problems that claimants face. And they should be supported by social workers, probation officers, mental health teams and other social care professionals. As Universal Credit is introduced and benefit conditionality vastly expanded then care plans, child protection measures, resettlement and treatment programmes will be torn up as vulnerable people are subject to the nasty and ever changing whims of ministers at the DWP. *Homelessness, substance misuse and mental health charities also know this incidentally. They have just chosen to remain silent as the magical belief has flourished that if only someone got a job in Tesco then all their other problems would disappear. Some people will sadly never make it in this cruelly competitive capitalist world where people are solely judged by how much they profit they can generate for the rich. ** TCV have changed their statement and there is now no reference to them saying they assess a claimant’s health before they begin a period of workfare. Presumably they now leave it to poverty pimps like A4e to decide. They have said they will not use people on sickness benefits as workfare staff – if they are fibbing and anyone knows of anyone on ESA forced to work at TCV then contact Boycott Workfare: http://www.boycottworkfare.org/?page_id=1703 Follow me on twitter @johnnyvoid

Rearranging the deckchairs on the titanic

So today we have been treated to a government reshuffle 10 months away from the general election as it stands. Many seem to be crowing about how good it is that the likes of Michael Gove have been demoted and that various others have gone even trade unions like teh NUT celebrating seeing this as a victory. This is certainly not a victory of any sorts. THe policies remain and teh damage is there fora ll to see. one of the most hated figures in the tory ranks, - IDS Iain Duncan-Smith remains at the WP too which sickens me but i never thought he would be one to go he is doing exactly waht the government ask of him and to little resistance it has to be said. So here is a run down of who's gone where and where we should look at for the next year before the coming election and hopefully this will be the last we see of many if not all of these. Prime Minister David Cameron is reshuffling his top team, with details of new appointments and exits being unveiled. William Hague (moved) Mr Hammond has left the Ministry of Defence to become foreign secretary. He has been defence secretary since 2011, having previously held the transport brief. Michael Gove (moved) Mrs Morgan has been made education secretary, taking over from Mr Gove. The former lawyer has been a Treasury minister since 2013, having joined the government a year earlier. She will continue in her role as minister for women. Liz Truss (promoted to Cabinet) Mr Fallon, a Conservative MP since 1983, has been made defence secretary. He is regarded as a trouble-shooter who deals effectively with crises. Previously he held three jobs - as a business minister, minister of state for energy and minister for Portsmouth. Stephen Crabb (promoted to Cabinet) The MP quit his role as immigration minister earlier this year after admitting to having employed an illegal immigrant as a cleaner. He is now back as minister of state in the Department for Work and Pensions. Ken Clarke (out) Mr Paterson will no longer be environment secretary, a post he has held since 2012 when he replaced Caroline Spelman. Prior to that, he had served in the cabinet as Northern Ireland secretary. David Jones (out) Mr Jones has been sacked as Welsh secretary, having been in the cabinet post for two years. He had previously been a more junior minister in the Wales Office. Sir George Young (out) Sir George has resigned as chief whip. He was the leader of the Commons from 2010 to 2012. The 72-year-old North West Hampshire MP is one of the most experienced members of the coalition government, having held office under Margaret Thatcher and John Major. David Willetts (out) Mr Duncan has resigned as international development minister, a post he has held since 2010. Andrew Robathan (out) Mr Robathan has resigned as Northern Ireland minister. He was previously a defence minister until the October 2013 reshuffle. Damian Green (out) Mr Green has resigned as policing minister. He had been immigration minister from 2010 to 2012. Cabinet ministers and others staying in their jobs Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne Home Secretary Theresa May Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt Work and Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan Smith Employment minister Esther McVey (but wi

The RNIB, benefit sanctions and the DWP

Whilst many of my blind friends have their views in terms of the RNIB I do think this issue needs bringing to that attention. I personally have no problem with them as it stands and to get nit picky with an organisation that is looking to put sight loss on the mainstream is foolish at best and stupid at worse. In the guardian today a RNIB spokese person had the following article published which I felt worth sharing for all. “Charity considering dozens of cases against department relating to their failure to send out benefits letters in braille or large print • • The Guardian, Wednesday 19 February 2014 20.29 GMT The RNIB said one claimant was forced to take out payday loans to feed himself after DWP advisors stopped his ESA and housing benefit. Photograph: Chris Ison/PA The Royal National Institute of Blind People (RNIB) is threatening the Department of Work and Pensions with court action for suspending the benefits of a blind man after he missed appointments which he was only informed about through letters he was not able to read. The RNIB has prepared five legal cases against the DWP and said it was looking into a further 50, which relate to the department's failure to send out benefits letters in braille or large print format . In a number of cases, the DWP suspended recipient's benefits leaving them in desperate circumstances, the RNIB said. The charity's intervention emerged as the DWP published figures showing the total number of sanctions against benefit claimants in the year to September 2013 was 897,690, the highest figure for any 12-month period since jobseeker's allowance (JSA) was introduced in 1996. The figures published by the Department for Work and Pensions cover employment support allowance (ESA) and JSA. The figures published yesterday also showed that independent tribunals were upholding nine out of 10 appeals against the DWP. Before the coalition, the number of successful tribunal appeals in any 12-month period was well under 2,000. It has risen to more than 14,000. The RNIB said one claimant – a blind man in his 30s who only wanted to be named as Robert – was forced to take out payday loans to feed himself after DWP advisors stopped his ESA and housing benefit on numerous occasions over a two-year period. After having worked most of his adult life, the man from Essex began receiving ESA in October 2011 and asked the DWP to send him communications in braille. But discrimination lawyer Samantha Fothergill who is representing Robert in the county court for full financial damages and injury over his benefit suspension, said he was only ever sent regular print letters which demanded further information and his attendance at appointments. The deadlines for the DWP's demands lapsed before Robert could get outside help to read the correspondence and his benefit payments were stopped. "His benefits got suspended but the letters also telling him they were suspended weren't accessible to him. So he didn't know. The first he heard about it was when his direct debits from his bank account stopped getting paid." Racking up bank charges, and extra payments, Robert was eventually forced to take out a payday loan at a steep interest rate to pay for food. Fothergill said he eventually received backdated payments plus a consolatory payment of £50 but remains "very angry". "We get these complaints all the time," said. She added that the DWP's system for sending out accessible information was "appalling" and "not fit for purpose". The DWP were "making blanket decisions" to sanction people rather than looking at their individual circumstances. The DWP said it could not comment on individual cases but that forms were available in braille or large print and that advisers were "on hand to help". "Anyone who has their benefits suspended should contact us and can, if necessary, appeal," the spokesperson added. The RNIB's threat of legal action comes as Archbishop Nichols, the most senior Catholic in England and Wales, said the Coalition's benefits system was becoming increasingly "punitive" and was leaving people destitute. Responding in the Telegraph on Wednesday, David Cameron rebuffed the criticisms saying that benefit reforms introduced by Work and Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan Smith, were part of a "moral mission". The total number of JSA sanctions in the year to 30 September 2013 was 874,850, the highest since the payment was introduced in 1996. It compares with 500,000 in the year to 30 April 2010, the last month of the previous Labour government. In the year to 30 September 2013, there were also 22,840 sanctions imposed on claimants of ESA – the chief benefit for the sick and disabled – in the work-related activity group. This is the highest for any 12-month period since sanctions were introduced for claimants in October 2008. The figures were taken from the latest quarterly set of sanctions totals published by the DWP. Ministers have conceded the issue needs addressing by setting up an independent inquiry into how benefit sanctions are communicated to claimants. Critics claim the DWP is operating a culture of fear with jobcentre staff given implicit targets to sanction claimants. The large numbers come before the government introduces tougher rules that will require claimants to do more to prove they are actively seeking work. The success rate of those sanctioned claimants who take their cases to an independent tribunal ran at 20% or less under the previous Labour government. Under the coalition, it has risen dramatically to 87% in the 3 months to 30 September 2013. Duncan Smith said: "This government has always been clear that, in return for claiming unemployment benefits, jobseekers have a responsibility to do everything they can to get back into work. Research by the Disability Benefits Consortium, the RNIB said, showed an increasing number of disabled people are becoming reliant on food banks as a result of sanctioning policies. Steve Winyard, RNIB's head of campaigns and policy, said that thousands of disabled people were losing payments as a result of sanctions, and that included many blind and partially sighted people. "Too often DWP and its agencies are not providing people with the information on what they need to do to receive benefits in accessible formats, like braille or large print. RNIB has won cases against DWP for these very failures. But sanctions have led to blind and partially sighted people being forced to rely on food banks whilst they wait for the government to correct its own mistakes," Winyard said. “

The disgusting ATOS and the DWP

We have all heard of ATOS now the company who has the contract to decide and carry out work capability assessments. The WCA which are hugely distressing for many who have to go through them every day. "A leaked report shows 97% of people undergoing its assessment are 'expected' to recover within two years. Leaked data suggests the Department for Work and Pensions is holding Atos to extremely tight tolerances. Photograph: Janine Wiedel Photolibrary/Alamy Ask Atos, the company responsible for executing the work capability assessment (WCA), or the Department for Work and Pensions, which defines how the WCA is conducted, and they will tell you that they have no targets for the number of people who pass. Yet a new report from the Centre for Welfare Reform, How Norms Become Targets, uses a leaked set of Atos data to suggest that the DWP is holding Atos to extremely tight tolerances on its results. Atos and the DWP admit to the existence of "statistical norms" and that these are used to manage the performance of individual healthcare professionals carrying out the assessments. Campaigners have long claimed that these norms function as de facto targets, but were surprised by the detail of the data logged and matched against acceptable ranges. Not only are there figures for overall numbers of people awarded the points needed to qualify for the employment and support allowance (ESA), figures also exist for individual prognoses, for the points awarded, even for the word count of the summary findings. And each Atos region is expected to stray no further than 20% from the national average. Combining any data-gathering system with pressure to meet expectations will drive staff to converge on the "official" numbers; norms will become de facto targets, and no manager wants to be forced to justify their region's figures. Unfortunately pressure to meet expectations is exactly the process described to the Guardian by Atos whistleblower Dr Greg Wood, who went public after being repeatedly asked to change assessments, including at least one case that conflicted with his professional medical opinion. Whether the Atos data represents targets, as the CWR report suggests, or norms, as Atos insists, the numbers themselves are deeply problematic. An assessor is expected to see about 40 people per week, 65% of who, the data shows, are expected to fail the assessment. The remainder will be split between the ESA support group (14.5%) and the work-related activities group (20.5%). Those who pass, in either group, are then further divided across five sub-groups, which specify whether an applicant should be expected to recover in six-24 months or "longer term" (in practice three years). Only 2.6% of WCAs are expected to result in a "longer-term" prognosis, which effectively means an assessor can allocate the prognosis to just one person a week; allocating a single extra person across a month hovers on breaching the allowed 20% variation. All other applicants, no matter their disability, are labeled as expected to have recovered within two years or less. This suggests an explanation for some of the stranger Atos rulings, where people with lifelong or degenerative disabilities have been told their conditions are expected to improve in six months. Any assessor struggling to keep down their average for longer-term prognoses has to be tempted to assign a shorter prognosis instead. Someone with a long-term disability should theoretically face an assessment once every three years, but if they are consistently assigned to the six-month prognosis group, they will potentially face not one but six assessments in that period. Similar problems exist for points awarded during the assessment. The "descriptors", if matched, are worth six, nine or 15 points, and many disabled people will match multiple descriptors. It takes 15 points to qualify for the ESA, yet the report suggests national averages of 2.1 points for physical issues and 3.6 points for mental issues. The only way to maintain such low averages is by scoring several people at zero points for each one who passes. Are cases of people who score zero points when they clearly should pass simply evidence that the assessor saw too many seriously ill and disabled people that week? There is already an outcry over the state of the work capability assessment, with roughly one in six of all assessments successfully appealed against, at a cost to the Tribunals Service, and the taxpayer, of more than £75m per year. If that failure rate is not caused by poor quality work at the healthcare professional level but is a consequence of the Atos management system, which in turn is driven by the contractual requirements placed on it by DWP, then shouldn't that outcry be louder still? Extracts via http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/dec/09/atos-disabled-people-assessment-fit-work-report?CMP=twt_gu&utm_content=bufferc4ef2&utm_source=buffer&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=Buffer

This week: take action to stop workfare and sanctions

The Week of Action Against Workfare and Sanctions begins tomorrow (Monday December 2nd) with a noise protest outside the annual welfare-to-work conference. There will be online actions everyday, announced on the Boycott Workfare website (and probably here a bit later). Tomorrow will see online action aimed at the ERSA conference where delegates will be tweeting using the hashtag #ERSA2013 – more details are to come on how to challenge the poverty profiteering conference online. Please help spread the word and share, tweet and blog details of all events both on and offline! Here’s the list of what’s taking place so far via Boycott Workfare: Things are very wrong: each month 70,000 people face hunger and hardship due to benefit stoppages – ‘sanctions’. Millions of hours of work which should be paid are being replaced by workfare. But we’re taking action and having an impact. This week, from 2-8 December, join thousands of others across the UK to push back against sanctions and workfare – with action online and on your high street. Here’s the latest list of actions planned across the UK. Let us know if you’re planning something too and check back here Monday-Friday to take online action every day. Edinburgh: flyering all week and a demo on Saturday 7th Cardiff: Wednesday 4 December at 6:30pm, Marks and Spencer – 72/76 Queen Street, Cardiff London: • Noise Demo at workfare industry conference at the University of London, 12.30pm 2nd Decemeber • Kilburn Unemployed Workers Group demo at Hammersmith Job Centre against the introduction of Universal Credit. Meet 11am on Wednesday 4th December at Hammersmith Job Centre, Glenn House, 22 Glenthorne Road, W6 0PP • M&S picket, Islington – Sunday 8th December 1pm outside Holloway Road M&S • M&S picket, Wood Green – Sunday 8th December 2pm outside Wood Green High Road M&S (Nearest tube: Turnpike Lane) Reading: Saturday 7th 4pm at Reading town centre. Planning meeting for the action on Tuesday at 7pm. Please sign/share/tweet the petition calling for all benefit sanctions to be scrapped without exceptions: http://you.38degrees.org.uk/petitions/benefit-sanctions-must-be-stopped-without-exceptions-in-uk?bucket&time=1385073159

Disabled people feeling the pain from workfare, the misery must end !

The number of claimants on sickness and disability benefits facing sanctions looks set to have doubled since December last year. 11,400 claims were slashed for failure to participate in work related activity or missing a meeting with the Jobcentre in the seven months between December 2012 and June 2013. This compares to 10,130 sanctions inflicted on claimant's of sickness or disability benefits in the previous 12 months. Sanctions have also soared for people on the mainstream unemployment benefit Jobseeker's Allowance, with the DWP boasting today that over half a million claims have been sanctioned between November 2012 and June 2013. Benefit sanctions lead to desperate poverty and are often handed out for the most trivial of reasons. A recent report by Citizens Advice warned that sanctions have led to people to attempting suicide, becoming homeless or resorting to begging or going through bins for food. This is all wonderful news according to Employment Minister Esther McVey who today proclaimed: "We always make the rules very clear – it’s only right that there is a penalty if people fail to play by them." The trouble is many do play by the rules as they are known but still find themselves sanctioned and in deprivation as a result including many disabled people. There are many reports of people being sanctioned for some incredible reasons and many are quite farcicle if we are honest. At the fantastic Johnny Void blog who i follow closely now on a recent post Johnny writes "Astonishingly many of those who have faced sanctions will have been plunged into poverty by charities who have been only too happy to sell out their service users for free workers and lucrative Work Programme contracts. Household names including the Salvation Army (@salvationarmyuk), YMCA (@YMCA_England) and The Conservation Volunteers (@tcvtweets) have all defended these vicious measures whilst employing countless unpaid workers under threat of sanctions on mandatory workfare schemes. Members of the Disability Works coalition have also got their snouts in the trough. Some of those on sickness or disability benefits who were sanctioned will have had benefits slashed due to 'compliance doubts' raised by charities such as SCOPE (@scope), Mencap (@mencap_charity) and MIND (@mindcharity). These so-called charities are Work Programme sub-contractors and have agreed to report back to the Jobcentre if a claimant misses a meeting or fails to attend 'work related activity'. Charities claiming to support disabled people are now complicit in destroying people's lives by snitching to the DWP that they aren't trying hard enough to find a job. This is despite these claimants having undergone a notorious Atos assessment which has agreed that they are unable to work at present. Appalling however sick and disabled claimants can still be sent to work unpaid on the Work Programme or face sanctions. They may be unfit for work, but they are fit for workfare in the eyes of the DWP. With yet more workfare planned, alongside ludicrous new 'conditionality' for unemployment benefits which expects people to spend 35 hours a week looking for non-existent jobs, the number of sanctions is likely to rise even further. The poverty now being socially engineered by the DWP is unprecedented in living memory in the UK. In one of the richest countries in the world people are now being left to go hungry or homeless with the collusion of charities - whilst the Labour Party boasts they will be even tougher on unemployed or disabled claimants than the Tories. It is down to claimants themselves - and all those who support a welfare state that does not abandon people to destitution for any reason - to fight back against this callous war on the poor. A good place to start is the Week of Action Against Workfare beginning on 2nd December, please spread the word, tweet and share: http://www.boycottworkfare.org/?p=3060 There is also a petition (I know) on 38 Degrees calling for all sanctions to be scrapped. Please sign/share etc: http://you.38degrees.org.uk/petitions/benefit-sanctions-must-be-stopped-without-exceptions-in-uk (It's not all doom and gloom. Disabled people fighting the closure of the Independent Living Fund today had a major victory in the courts.) Above pic via the Benefit Claimants Fightback group on facebook. Follow me on twitter @johnnyvoid For quotes and extracts with thanks to Johnny over at http://johnnyvoid.wordpress.com/2013/11/06/benefit-sanction-rate-doubles-for-sick-and-disabled-claimantss/

Workfare the blight of Britain

The Tories plans are for mass workfare in affect lowering the minimum wage to a new level that is below poverty wages. Working for your benefits is the new workhouse I’d say. So many people who are out of work will experience workfare at some point if they cannot find a job. George Osborne's latest idea to be presented at Tory party conference this week which his latest attacks on the poorest in society and the unemployed. His latest idea is to force everyone who is looking for a job to attend the job centre every day in a working week to sign on. This is similar to a punishment for not having a job. Anyone can lose their job through all sorts of reasons and could turn from a hard worker to being on the doll at the turn of the day. Workfare is horrible and very degrading for anyone having to work for your benefits becomes working for low pay not seen for a long long while. Workfare could be the new low pay society in this country where labour costs are driven down to a new level. This is all in order to make the UK competitive again on the world market apparently the global race for capital to become profitable once again. Take the Tories latest idea that the unemployed which are all stereotyped to be lazy work shy scroungers of course are to pick litter for their benefits. Those out working will maybe think oh good they shouldn’t be getting something for nothing as George Osborne would most probably agree. Yet cleaning litter is already someone’s job. Not a very well paid one granted but by paying someone’s benefits to pick litter is taking someone’s job further division even more. Can you start to see yet where this is all going? It is clear to me that workfare on a mass scale will likely become the norm if capital in Britain gets its way. Fighting back is a must but so many are on the verge and finding getting by incredibly hard as it is. The threat of losing their benefits which are at a low level is something many do not wish to go through with so does end up going along with it. I think this is where solidarity must come in. Those of us who are in jobs should in my view be looking to set up hardship funds for those who are possibly looking to boycott workfare to help out those who will lose their benefits as a result. I am not sure how this could work but this is certainly something I think could help if we are going to look to take on workfare with mass action. Making people aware of what workfare is and who is still involved in the scheme is key. The actions taken by boycott workfare for example calling out companies and charities involved in the scheme is a good way of targeting them but clearly bigger action is needed to really take it on. Another question is will we see workfare workers in the public sector such as the fire service, police etc? Could we see this? It’s possible I guess with the help of the private sector no doubt. This is the route we are heading unless we do something about it. This post is simply highlighting my fears and thoughts of workfare and where we are heading. I would be interested and happy to cover anyone who has been on workfare and their stories keeping your identity hidden if you so wish.

Work? What work? Work programme failing as economy tanks

With the DWP’s own figures out today and a startling figure whatever you think of the pro’s and con’s to the work programme has seen only 3.53% of those who were enrolled on the work programme in finding employment. That is staggering what a huge fail by this government and the previous gov who brought in the programme to help get people back to work. It’s clear to me at the time and also now that you can’t get people into jobs that do not exist. The right scream benefit scroungers and work shy but its clear there simply isn’t the jobs out there for people to get into. • Work Programme was launched nationally on the 1 June 2011 and replaced Flexible New Deal. • Work Programme official statistics on outcomes were released for the first time at 9.30 on 27 November 2012 by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP). • The latest Work Programme official statistics on referrals and attachments were released on 7th November 2012. Work Programme Official Statistics The latest official statistics on Work Programme include figures to the end of July 2012. Key points from the latest release are: • The total number of job outcomes paid to providers from 1st June 2011 to the end of July 2012 is 31 thousand; • The total number of referrals and attachments to the Work Programme from 1st June 2011 to the end of July 2012 are 878 thousand and 837 thousand respectively Just 3.7% of people referred to workfare found work and just 2.3% kept jobs. This backs up the socialist party and Youth fight for jobs views at the time that we still need real jobs that pay a living wage for young and old people to live on. 0 hours contracts which I know many people on are not sustainable and are unreliable and poorly paid. If this is the Tories idea of getting the economy moving again there is real trouble ahead. The poor figures are more indication of a government in denial about its strategy of cuts and austerity. The work programme was never designed to get people back to work it has been used as a stick to beat the unemployed with and to demonise them as scroungers if they fail to get work and remain on benefits. It’s an awful system and something which capitalism loves your unpaid labour for nothing this is pure gold to a capitalist not even having to pay for their workers subsistence. Quite clearly we need to demand real jobs with a living wage, socially useful jobs that can help meet people needs not dead end jobs which give you nothing at the end of it.

My difficulties with access to work

I recently found out I had to reapply for Access to work a scheme designed to aid disabled people in work and to enable them to complete tasks to achieve work tasks as any other able bodied person would do. All was going reasonably fine until today when I received a rather stern phone call from one of their advisors. Clearly they re checking up on every single case now and going through your case with a fine toothed comb to see you’re not cheating the system or getting any money you shouldn’t. I must stress now my situation has not changed at all in the 3 years I have been working and my support has remained the same. On the governments own website they state Access to Work - practical help at work Access to Work can help you if your health or disability affects the way you do your job. It gives you and your employer advice and support with extra costs which may arise because of your needs. Check if you qualify for Access to Work. Today I was interviewed over the phone about my claimant I was asked all sorts of probing questions in attempts for the government to save money it didn’t have to pay out to support me in work. I was asked could I get a bus instead of a taxi each week now the taxi I get is only 4 journey’s a week as I only work two days at present and gets me door to door taking a bus which are very infrequent and highly unreliable I’d have to get to work 2 hours early and not get home till 2 hours after I finished work. All for a 3 mile trip. More questions were fired at me could I change my working hours to fit? umm no I’m employed for a certain amount of hours I cant change it I told them they wanted to know every last detail it felt and I came off the phone feeling very shaky and highly intimidated by the whole interview. It felt like I was being accused of claiming for things I shouldn’t or I shouldn’t be claiming for support I should support myself. Now I don’t earn much at work and I only get DLA and working tax credits to make my income up to something near liveable on I certainly can’t contribute anymore than I already am. I pay 50p in every mile for my journey to work and am allowed to claim back the rest and I don’t think this is too unreasonable. I am working at the end of the day part time maybe and it’s not the greatest job in the world but I’m working. If this government want disabled people to work they need to get their finger out and support the properly making the necessary adjustments however much they cost as how else can they expect us to work ? All this rhetoric about scroungers and benefit cheats about the disabled makes us out to be on the fiddle all the time when we’re not the vast majority of people disabled or not just wish to earn a living and live comfortably if that means we need extra support the government or the employer should make the funding available to meet our needs in my view. I thought about it after but didn’t say so on the phone to this advisor that we are not a poor country there is 750 billion pounds of money stashed in the banks of big business not being invested don’t tell me we are a poor country as we are not these companies just refuse to invest this as they see no profit to be made in investing at this time. As socialists we would say there needs to be an immediate 50% levee on that figure to invest in public works, s new schools, the NHS and a programme of council housing building on a mass scale could start to get people back to work and start to meet people’s needs. This incident today reminded me of the ATOS exposure on panorama where they would try any tactic to get your off benefits back into work, I’ve not been through that ordeal and never wish too but this felt similar but ridiculously I’m in work and trying to gain support. The Tories, labour and their dems all talk of getting disabled people back to work and yes to a extent I agree with them where there is a job and a job is needing doing pay people a decent wage for it and employ people on proper terms but and this is the crucial point if you are disabled like myself we do need that little bit more support than others. No sham in that but the money is there and can be used to support us they often just choose not to. Both the government and big business would rather take money back off you or not spend it in the first place. Its hugely hypocritical that they claim to want to get disabled people into work yet when they make it as difficult as possible for them to gain thnecessary support they need to complete work related tasks. I just think the system is wrong and instead of intimidation and threats to cut your support they should be looking to go the extra mile to support disabled people who wish to work. Of course there are those who can’t work and accept that and they shouldn’t be bullied or discriminated because of that fact instead should be allowed to live their lives comfortably and contribute in other ways to society. At the end of the day we work to live not live to work. Perhaps the government who are hell bent on austerity ought to take note of this. A society which put peoples needs before anything else is what we strive for as socialists if people wished to work they should be a ble to and no barriers in front of them. A socialist society would support everybody’s needs not just a few rich individuals who call the shots at present.