Post by nickd on Oct 31, 2012 21:12:52 GMT 1
Is a perfect storm brewing
within the DWP?
Is this bungling incompetence
or a wicked deceit?
within the DWP?
Is this bungling incompetence
or a wicked deceit?
Thousands upon thousands of incapacitated benefit claimants are being mercilessly assessed each year and yet the
claimant count has hardly fallen
Serious doubts are emerging over the DWP's
re-assessment programme
claimant count has hardly fallen
Serious doubts are emerging over the DWP's
re-assessment programme
I kid you not, the DWP is 'assessing' 1.5 million incapacity benefit claimants a year, this absolutely staggering number was revealed in somewhat hushed tones when DWP Permanent Secretary Robert Devereaux gave evidence in to the department's annual accounts for 2011/2012. You can watch & listen to Mr Devereux in a Parliamentary video, the best bit is a few minutes in from the start when he admits ' I don't know' when asked how many claimants the DWP are assessing. You will hear how 130,000 claimants are being assessed per month; the committee chair Dame Anne Begg looks a little shocked - not surprising when she was under an impression it was 11,000 every week - Mr Devereux's figure amounts to an alarming 1.5 million a year.
Where this all went wrong was from the very start of the Coalition's welfare crackdown because it was they who went to print with the results before they had so much as assessed anyone under their vigorous programme of re-assessing 1.7 million Incapacity Benefits claimants nationally from February 2011. They pledged to "assess all claimants" as covered by the BBC in an article which you can read here.. From the very outset the Tory headlines were telling us how "75% on the sick were faking it". The Daily Express in blaming it all on Labour pulled their usual memory loss stunt by omitting to tell their reader's how the Tories have far from a record to be proud of given that it was they who put people on to the Incapacity Benefits they created back in the 1990's.
'Blaming it on Labour won't wash'
Have a mull over this article which refutes Iain Duncan refutes Iain Duncan smith's dubious claims on the 'Labour Legacy'. The Tories should win an award for the way they butcher the statistics. But here's some they can't get away from:
"In 13 years of a Labour government Incapacity Benefit claims increased by around 100,000 from 2.6 million to 2.7 million."
"In 8 years during a Conservative government Incapacity Benefit claims leapt up by around 1.1 million in 1988/89 to 2.6 million in 1996/97."
"In 8 years during a Conservative government Incapacity Benefit claims leapt up by around 1.1 million in 1988/89 to 2.6 million in 1996/97."
Once again the government is manipulating the figures to hide their incompetence
And once again true to form they have done it spectacularly well. This time they've been really quite clever, you have to hand it to them, they are exceptionally good at manipulating the figures. The incapacity reassessment programme is an absolute disaster which they've managed to cleverly conceal by creating a whole new ghostly cohort of benefit claimants who are seemingly 'un-trackable'. The last thing the Coalition will want in the papers is any whiff of an increase in the numbers on incapacity benefits or Jobseeker's Allowance. What they've done is created a means of hiding thousands of claimants who can fade in to the background as 'assessments'. It's a very smart way of avoiding any embarrassing tabloid coverage over increasing numbers on confirmed 'out of work' benefits.
IDS I salute you: you almost got away with it.
Except you've been caught out by the statistics you so expertly spin. What makes my blood absolutely boil is all these thousands, no millions of assessments are achieving is absolutely nothing. Government and the DWP are up to their eyes in the most cruel statistical spin of all times and what's more they are absolutely complicit in this most cruel deceit. We've all seen the wicked way Atos examined benefit claimants in the TV coverage when they were exposed on BBC Panorama 'Disabled or Faking it? with further coverage on Channel 4 Dispatches 'Britain on the sick'. This is no longer a game, it's cruel, wicked and downright inhumane.
Here's where IDS gets caught out
These are the figures by which Incapacity Benefit & ESA alter over the years. It's simple really, a + plus means the figures have increased and a - minus means the figures have reduced:
Nov 2008 -- 2,397,020 Start figure Nov 2009 -- (+) 23,700 Feb 2010 -- (+) 22,700 May 2010 -- (+) 23,090 Aug 2010 -- (+) 17,970 Nov 2010 -- (-) 160 Feb 2011 -- (-) 6,050 May 2011 -- (-) 12,400 Aug 2011 -- (-) 1,140 Nov 2011 -- (-) 3,750 Projections 2012/13 -- (-) 134,020 2013/14 -- (-) 295,020 2014/15 -- (-) 257,020 2015/16 -- (-) 276,020 2016/17 -- (-) 291,020 |
Do you see what I see?
Or are they just numbers which don't
mean a single thing?
Or are they just numbers which don't
mean a single thing?
Go on admit it, they are meaningless numbers which you along with thousands of others just don't get. Perhaps you do not care, perhaps you do not understand, perhaps you view it all as an irrelevance, perhaps you just like to believe the total rubbish and utter garbage they print in the gutter press?
Let me simplify it for you
by busting
lie after lie...
by busting
lie after lie...
What a filthy rotten lie
here's why...
here's why...
You see that meaningless 2,397,020 start figure in the table above? That the total number of claimants on Incapacity Benefit and Employment & Support Allowance in November 2008.
Now you see the 3,750 in red in November 2011? Well that's how many less claimants there were on the two benefits which government is massively & mercilessly reassessing at a cost of millions and millions of pounds
3,750?
If the total figure is 2,397,020 in 2008 and you re-assess thousands and thousands of benefit claimants allowing them to appeal where ever they think they have been given the wrong decision how can you possibly end up having just 3,750 fewer claimants 3 years later?
It's a figure which throws the media claim that only 25% are genuine completely on its head. The real headline should have been this:
" after 3 years re-assessing thousands
on the sick
98% are entitled to claim their
sickness benefits "
on the sick
98% are entitled to claim their
sickness benefits "
Such headlines would be the truth, not a lie like the wicked 75% are 'faking it' claim by the Daily Express and other tabloids. But what would Iain Duncan Smith, or Chris Grayling, or any of the politicians have to say about headlines which negated all they had claimed? Well let's just queue those in the know and see what the DWP say in their latest press release, here's the latest Employment Minister Mark Hoban giving the figures a totally misleading carefully fabricated thumbs up:
"More get unconditional support as Work Capability Assessment improvements continue"
It's just more lies
Hoban and his merry men helped by IDS and a 'cut your budget' chancellor Osborne in the background are up to their old tricks again. They're re-jigging all the figures to hide what they don't want you to see. What we can see from Parliamentary Evidence taken from National statistics in November 2011 is that there was a total of:
2,612,520
Incapacity related claims
857,890 Employment & Support Allowance
219,250 Severe Disablement Allowance
1,535,380 Incapacity Benefit claims
2,575,600 Total working age in the UK
Incapacity related claims
857,890 Employment & Support Allowance
219,250 Severe Disablement Allowance
1,535,380 Incapacity Benefit claims
2,575,600 Total working age in the UK
The latest National Statistic for this client group stands at 2.558 million claimants in February 2012.
The latest National Statistic for this client group stands at 2,558,000 thousand claimants in February 2012.
research.dwp.gov.uk/asd/asd1/stats_summary/stats_summary_oct12.pdf
2012 DWP
statistics.dwp.gov.uk/asd/asd1/adhoc_analysis/2012/ESA_Atos_recommendations_post_appeal_WCA_outcomes.pdf
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