Post by nickd on Jan 10, 2012 21:49:05 GMT 1
It is with considerable admiration that Mylegal pays a Tribute to...
No, not the blockbuster movie, nor even the legendary Greek leader of the oppressed in the Servile war - but to a group of disability campaigners who sparked off a social media frenzy yesterday on social networks. It was a phenomenally successful piece of work which even culminated in the Daily Mail seeing eye to eye with disability campaigners; - a huge measure of its success!
This was an immensely brave move by disability campaigners who showed us all how to draw attention to the unfairness with which Government is pressing ahead with its welfare reforms. At the centre piece of the fantastic campaign was an excellent document called 'Responsible Reform'. I say brave, because this report was put together by those who stand to be most affected by Government's ill-conceived reform of the welfare system; - it drew particular attention to some of the perils of proposed changes to Disability Living Allowance which will potentially be abolished in favour of a potentially very problematic replacement called the Personal Independent Payment. Government says the new allowance is set to be fairer in providing for the genuinely disabled, many disagree; - including the Mayor of London Boris Johnson.
The media promotion was an extraordinary example of using the power of social media networks; - a short time after its launch at 10.00 am it was trending on Twitter under the name #Sparticusreport and it's still going!
The welfare reforms are currently going through the House of Lords, many peers from all sides of the house have drawn attention to the hidden dangers of implementing government's far reaching reforms into legislation. Campaigners are desperately trying to draw attention to the devastating impact the reforms will have upon thousands of genuinely disabled people, their fears are shared by a plethora of disability groups and welfare advice agencies who deal with victims of poor welfare law on a daily basis. Be under no illusion, despite all government's pledges to the contrary, poor law will amplify under these treacherous reforms.
It was with a great deal of empathy that I learned how one of the authors Sue Marsh - an ardent disability campaigner - was taken ill after participating in the launch, Sue is herself disabled and spoke on BBC Radio Five during the day about her concerns; - she was more than a match for the the government Disability Minister Maria Miller who frankly came across as exceptionally unconvincing when trying to sell the reforms as a 'fairer' system; - Miller struck me as having a poor understanding of how deeply problematic the new Personal Independence Payment will become in its implementation. All new benefits are problematic in inception; - but you have to remember these reforms are set to review millions of claims.
Government is naive in failing to recognise how a poor IT infrastructure (currently a long way off being fixed, let alone being tried and tested) and lack of staff training will cripple the system even further, it can barely cope now; - it is set to get a whole lot worse when such massive changes are introduced on such a mammoth scale. In my view, government cannot quick fix a system; - it will take years before things work on this grand scale, Miller failed to acknowledge this; - ultimately the government is kidding themselves and being economical with the truth when it comes to the public. Let's not forget how around half the population claim at least one state benefit.
My empathy is all the more after spending time this morning with yet more victims of government's callously targeted review of their benefit claims. Two had been through yet more inept ATOS assessments for Employment & Support Allowance (ESA), I found it quite astonishing that the healthcare professionals had found both of these clients to have no limitation in their ability to work. One was a woman who had worked all her life until a serious road traffic accident two years ago changed her life upside down for ever, the other was a recovering drug and alcohol addict who clearly would find it hard to transition from welfare to work without the appropriate amount of support. Whereas the ATOS healthcare professional seemingly spends most of their time eyes down transfixed on a laptop programme with the dreaded software which finds so many to mysteriously have no limitation in their ability to work, my approach is to spend at least a good hour in opening the case and taking detailed instructions. It helps to carefully extricate the background surrounding the claimant's case. When it came to the addict I learned how an apparently rough and tough young man was deeply affected by early age abuse; - there's nearly always a route cause in long term welfare dependency cases, I see it as a duty to get a full history before deciding whether there is merit in the case.
The third victim was a man in his 60's who told me he wanted to drop his appeal ( it was for an increase in his existing Disability Living Allowance award), he told me he found dealing with the DWP more stressful than getting through the triple heart bypass operation he underwent last year and was still recovering from. His story struck a chord with me; - I myself had just returned to work after having to take time off following an emergency admission to hospital with a suspected coronary. I've been a welfare benefit and debt specialist casework supervisor for many years and would class myself as immensely calm on the whole but I have to confess - seeing injustice after injustice under the current programme of relentless reforms invariably rubs off on you and catches you out; - I could see where my client was coming from and I agreed to write to the Tribunals Service and withdraw his appeal; - he sighed with immense relief.
Having conducted literally hundreds of benefit appeals in our First Tier and Upper Tribunals, I feel qualified to endorse the many valid points put forward in this well prepared Responsibility Report. I am pleased that the authors have highlighted government's less than honest approach to welfare reform. I deeply condemn government for participating in a right wing media campaign which has wildly misinterpreted the real facts in a preponderance of tabloid press releases issued with the sole intention of demonizing benefit claimants. The tabloids have paid scant regard to the real facts when it comes to setting apart the scroungers, fakers and fraudsters from the overwhelming number of genuine claimants. Government has apologised for this misrepresentation before, but you only ever see it in small print. I often wonder why the Levenson enquiry is not dealing with the issue of inaccurate reports in the media concerning the disabled.
It is with a deplorable lack of social responsibility that government has stooped so low in engaging with the media to get voters on side. I rather suspect government deliberately hides behind the media by deliberately courting an alarmist press over the cost of welfare as a way of concealing what we really should be questioning; - the true economic cost of these reforms in pounds, shillings and pence. It's an experiment which could go badly wrong, government simply has no way of knowing whether it will pay off. The involvement of a multitude of private companies being paid public money in welfare to work contacting is unquantified in its costs because we are dealing with the unknown; - it's why the media are saying almost all claimants are not entitled to their disability benefits. The truth is government cannot afford large numbers of claimants to be entitled as it will mean they will never be able to cover the exorbitant cost of the Work programme. The highest proportion of the benefit spend is on those beyond working age; - but government will never risk losing the vote of our more senior citizens.
I exposed many of my own concerns over the welfare reforms in a well read article on Mylegal, it has attracted nearly 51,000 views which I take to be a good measure of the concern out there. Read the Welfare Reform Car Crash post here...
mylegal.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=frontline&action=display&thread=405
It's refreshing to see how the Spartacus report got a mention in the Daily Mail, Government should be deeply concerned when its greatest allies and partners in its attack on the disabled show signs of going offside; - when the media turns, it's generally because they know what the public is really starting to believe. Read the article here...
www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-2084706/David-Camerons-Welfare-Reform-Bill-Hiding-truth-way-achieve-it.html
No tribute to the Sparticus report would be complete without a mention of our own campaign for the retention of essential social welfare legal aid. It's often the only statutory funded mechanism by which the thousands of disabled people (such as Spartacus represent) can go on and obtain justice over their entitlement to benefit according to law.
On my part, through my organisation's 12 year legal aid contract, I've been able to help hundreds of clients in social security Tribunals, we have consistently obtained commendable success rates and are often complimented for our work by the judiciary. As I see it, it's not government which stands charged with measuring its own success with welfare reforms. The proof of the pudding is in the eating and government should be brave enough to allow people to be properly assisted when bringing cases before our benefit tribunals, ultimately it's the true test of its reforms. When people are afforded the right help and the results are showing the authorities are making the right decisions with a greatly reduced number of appeals, government can see they've got it right.
As it stands, claimants are appealing in their droves and time and time again they are succeeding; - it shows the authorities simply aren't making the right decisions. You can't kick away the help people need in a tribunal - leaving people to flounder along on their own. It's reckless to disregard how complicated benefit law has become these days; - it would be ludicrous for government to claim success by adopting such cheap tactics, it's cheating the taxpayer and ultimately it will badly backfire in years to come. Here's a good case for the retention of legal aid in benefit cases...
www.leftfootforward.org/2012/01/disability-minister-ignorant-on-how-legal-aid-cuts-affecting-disabled-people/
Why backfire? - because what we will see is thousands of claimants being denied their disability status (which is often as important as the benefit itself) leading to a denial that the disabled exist, you simply will never be able to get away with 'de-badging' genuinely disabled individuals in such a way. Read how David Cameron himself viewed this as all important back in 2009...
mylegal.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=frontline&action=display&thread=542
The other important consideration is that of placing people who government asserts to be 'non-disabled' in an unprotected workplace. Think of the consequences of the DWP classifying someone with a chronic back condition fit to go into work as a shelf stacker in Asda? - imagine if the claimant transpires to suffer crippling injury as a direct result of being tasked with such unsuitable work; - it's what will happen if people are wrongly assessed, Asda will deny all liability as they'll say they were told the claimant was fit for the kind of work they set him or her to do, the claimant's GP will say no one listened to them; - the liability will rest fairly and squarely with the DWP and their appointed healthcare professional for what will become a negligent assessment. I can think of many worse scenarios, we've already seen the fatal consequences of some of them in case studies we've catalogued on Mylegal. The cost will need to borne by someone along the line, we'll reach a point where government simply has to stop pretending genuine disability doesn't exist. It's the health authorities who will pick up the bill as they start identifying those who have been incorrectly assessed.
And for those who've not seen Spartacus, have a look here...
mylegal.proboards.com/index.cgi?action=display&board=frontline&thread=548&page=1#1313
I for one, fully endorse the Spartacus report. It is a very effective expose of the depths government is prepared to sink to in order to get these ill-conceived reforms passed into law. I hope more and more disability organisations, advice agencies and welfare benefit advocates will, even at this late stage, join forces and fight government all the way against its perilous welfare and legal aid reforms.
Government simply has to stop pretending this is all about saving money to pay off our structural deficit. I don't get how we can say we are as poor as church mice when Government can sanction the go ahead of a £33 billion pound spending spree on Cameron's high speed train set. Such extravagance will only benefit the relatively well to do in being able to get from London to Birmingham 20 minutes faster; - it's another example of Government's absolute obsession with city wealth generation - it won't bring prosperity and protection to the country at all.
Nor can we go on ignoring the vast money which continues to get wasted on private/public funding contracts. Only recently did these lead to deep concerns being expressed by the National Audit Office over more than £30 billion pounds being frittered away on yet more welfare to work projects. Frankly, we need to be more realistic about how such schemes will work - we can't ignore the failure to put money directly in to real time job creation. Read more here..
unemploymentmovement.com/forum/welfare-to-work/1258-work-programme-audit--wasteful
The Twitter #hash tags you need to look out for are #LASPO (legal aid) and #Spartacusreport
We all owe a huge amount of gratitude for those who worked so hard on putting together and promoting the Spartacus Report, they've stepped up to the plate and set an example to us all.
Mylegal salutes you![/b]
No, not the blockbuster movie, nor even the legendary Greek leader of the oppressed in the Servile war - but to a group of disability campaigners who sparked off a social media frenzy yesterday on social networks. It was a phenomenally successful piece of work which even culminated in the Daily Mail seeing eye to eye with disability campaigners; - a huge measure of its success!
This was an immensely brave move by disability campaigners who showed us all how to draw attention to the unfairness with which Government is pressing ahead with its welfare reforms. At the centre piece of the fantastic campaign was an excellent document called 'Responsible Reform'. I say brave, because this report was put together by those who stand to be most affected by Government's ill-conceived reform of the welfare system; - it drew particular attention to some of the perils of proposed changes to Disability Living Allowance which will potentially be abolished in favour of a potentially very problematic replacement called the Personal Independent Payment. Government says the new allowance is set to be fairer in providing for the genuinely disabled, many disagree; - including the Mayor of London Boris Johnson.
The media promotion was an extraordinary example of using the power of social media networks; - a short time after its launch at 10.00 am it was trending on Twitter under the name #Sparticusreport and it's still going!
The welfare reforms are currently going through the House of Lords, many peers from all sides of the house have drawn attention to the hidden dangers of implementing government's far reaching reforms into legislation. Campaigners are desperately trying to draw attention to the devastating impact the reforms will have upon thousands of genuinely disabled people, their fears are shared by a plethora of disability groups and welfare advice agencies who deal with victims of poor welfare law on a daily basis. Be under no illusion, despite all government's pledges to the contrary, poor law will amplify under these treacherous reforms.
It was with a great deal of empathy that I learned how one of the authors Sue Marsh - an ardent disability campaigner - was taken ill after participating in the launch, Sue is herself disabled and spoke on BBC Radio Five during the day about her concerns; - she was more than a match for the the government Disability Minister Maria Miller who frankly came across as exceptionally unconvincing when trying to sell the reforms as a 'fairer' system; - Miller struck me as having a poor understanding of how deeply problematic the new Personal Independence Payment will become in its implementation. All new benefits are problematic in inception; - but you have to remember these reforms are set to review millions of claims.
Government is naive in failing to recognise how a poor IT infrastructure (currently a long way off being fixed, let alone being tried and tested) and lack of staff training will cripple the system even further, it can barely cope now; - it is set to get a whole lot worse when such massive changes are introduced on such a mammoth scale. In my view, government cannot quick fix a system; - it will take years before things work on this grand scale, Miller failed to acknowledge this; - ultimately the government is kidding themselves and being economical with the truth when it comes to the public. Let's not forget how around half the population claim at least one state benefit.
My empathy is all the more after spending time this morning with yet more victims of government's callously targeted review of their benefit claims. Two had been through yet more inept ATOS assessments for Employment & Support Allowance (ESA), I found it quite astonishing that the healthcare professionals had found both of these clients to have no limitation in their ability to work. One was a woman who had worked all her life until a serious road traffic accident two years ago changed her life upside down for ever, the other was a recovering drug and alcohol addict who clearly would find it hard to transition from welfare to work without the appropriate amount of support. Whereas the ATOS healthcare professional seemingly spends most of their time eyes down transfixed on a laptop programme with the dreaded software which finds so many to mysteriously have no limitation in their ability to work, my approach is to spend at least a good hour in opening the case and taking detailed instructions. It helps to carefully extricate the background surrounding the claimant's case. When it came to the addict I learned how an apparently rough and tough young man was deeply affected by early age abuse; - there's nearly always a route cause in long term welfare dependency cases, I see it as a duty to get a full history before deciding whether there is merit in the case.
The third victim was a man in his 60's who told me he wanted to drop his appeal ( it was for an increase in his existing Disability Living Allowance award), he told me he found dealing with the DWP more stressful than getting through the triple heart bypass operation he underwent last year and was still recovering from. His story struck a chord with me; - I myself had just returned to work after having to take time off following an emergency admission to hospital with a suspected coronary. I've been a welfare benefit and debt specialist casework supervisor for many years and would class myself as immensely calm on the whole but I have to confess - seeing injustice after injustice under the current programme of relentless reforms invariably rubs off on you and catches you out; - I could see where my client was coming from and I agreed to write to the Tribunals Service and withdraw his appeal; - he sighed with immense relief.
Having conducted literally hundreds of benefit appeals in our First Tier and Upper Tribunals, I feel qualified to endorse the many valid points put forward in this well prepared Responsibility Report. I am pleased that the authors have highlighted government's less than honest approach to welfare reform. I deeply condemn government for participating in a right wing media campaign which has wildly misinterpreted the real facts in a preponderance of tabloid press releases issued with the sole intention of demonizing benefit claimants. The tabloids have paid scant regard to the real facts when it comes to setting apart the scroungers, fakers and fraudsters from the overwhelming number of genuine claimants. Government has apologised for this misrepresentation before, but you only ever see it in small print. I often wonder why the Levenson enquiry is not dealing with the issue of inaccurate reports in the media concerning the disabled.
It is with a deplorable lack of social responsibility that government has stooped so low in engaging with the media to get voters on side. I rather suspect government deliberately hides behind the media by deliberately courting an alarmist press over the cost of welfare as a way of concealing what we really should be questioning; - the true economic cost of these reforms in pounds, shillings and pence. It's an experiment which could go badly wrong, government simply has no way of knowing whether it will pay off. The involvement of a multitude of private companies being paid public money in welfare to work contacting is unquantified in its costs because we are dealing with the unknown; - it's why the media are saying almost all claimants are not entitled to their disability benefits. The truth is government cannot afford large numbers of claimants to be entitled as it will mean they will never be able to cover the exorbitant cost of the Work programme. The highest proportion of the benefit spend is on those beyond working age; - but government will never risk losing the vote of our more senior citizens.
I exposed many of my own concerns over the welfare reforms in a well read article on Mylegal, it has attracted nearly 51,000 views which I take to be a good measure of the concern out there. Read the Welfare Reform Car Crash post here...
mylegal.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=frontline&action=display&thread=405
It's refreshing to see how the Spartacus report got a mention in the Daily Mail, Government should be deeply concerned when its greatest allies and partners in its attack on the disabled show signs of going offside; - when the media turns, it's generally because they know what the public is really starting to believe. Read the article here...
www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-2084706/David-Camerons-Welfare-Reform-Bill-Hiding-truth-way-achieve-it.html
No tribute to the Sparticus report would be complete without a mention of our own campaign for the retention of essential social welfare legal aid. It's often the only statutory funded mechanism by which the thousands of disabled people (such as Spartacus represent) can go on and obtain justice over their entitlement to benefit according to law.
On my part, through my organisation's 12 year legal aid contract, I've been able to help hundreds of clients in social security Tribunals, we have consistently obtained commendable success rates and are often complimented for our work by the judiciary. As I see it, it's not government which stands charged with measuring its own success with welfare reforms. The proof of the pudding is in the eating and government should be brave enough to allow people to be properly assisted when bringing cases before our benefit tribunals, ultimately it's the true test of its reforms. When people are afforded the right help and the results are showing the authorities are making the right decisions with a greatly reduced number of appeals, government can see they've got it right.
As it stands, claimants are appealing in their droves and time and time again they are succeeding; - it shows the authorities simply aren't making the right decisions. You can't kick away the help people need in a tribunal - leaving people to flounder along on their own. It's reckless to disregard how complicated benefit law has become these days; - it would be ludicrous for government to claim success by adopting such cheap tactics, it's cheating the taxpayer and ultimately it will badly backfire in years to come. Here's a good case for the retention of legal aid in benefit cases...
www.leftfootforward.org/2012/01/disability-minister-ignorant-on-how-legal-aid-cuts-affecting-disabled-people/
Why backfire? - because what we will see is thousands of claimants being denied their disability status (which is often as important as the benefit itself) leading to a denial that the disabled exist, you simply will never be able to get away with 'de-badging' genuinely disabled individuals in such a way. Read how David Cameron himself viewed this as all important back in 2009...
mylegal.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=frontline&action=display&thread=542
The other important consideration is that of placing people who government asserts to be 'non-disabled' in an unprotected workplace. Think of the consequences of the DWP classifying someone with a chronic back condition fit to go into work as a shelf stacker in Asda? - imagine if the claimant transpires to suffer crippling injury as a direct result of being tasked with such unsuitable work; - it's what will happen if people are wrongly assessed, Asda will deny all liability as they'll say they were told the claimant was fit for the kind of work they set him or her to do, the claimant's GP will say no one listened to them; - the liability will rest fairly and squarely with the DWP and their appointed healthcare professional for what will become a negligent assessment. I can think of many worse scenarios, we've already seen the fatal consequences of some of them in case studies we've catalogued on Mylegal. The cost will need to borne by someone along the line, we'll reach a point where government simply has to stop pretending genuine disability doesn't exist. It's the health authorities who will pick up the bill as they start identifying those who have been incorrectly assessed.
And for those who've not seen Spartacus, have a look here...
mylegal.proboards.com/index.cgi?action=display&board=frontline&thread=548&page=1#1313
I for one, fully endorse the Spartacus report. It is a very effective expose of the depths government is prepared to sink to in order to get these ill-conceived reforms passed into law. I hope more and more disability organisations, advice agencies and welfare benefit advocates will, even at this late stage, join forces and fight government all the way against its perilous welfare and legal aid reforms.
Government simply has to stop pretending this is all about saving money to pay off our structural deficit. I don't get how we can say we are as poor as church mice when Government can sanction the go ahead of a £33 billion pound spending spree on Cameron's high speed train set. Such extravagance will only benefit the relatively well to do in being able to get from London to Birmingham 20 minutes faster; - it's another example of Government's absolute obsession with city wealth generation - it won't bring prosperity and protection to the country at all.
Nor can we go on ignoring the vast money which continues to get wasted on private/public funding contracts. Only recently did these lead to deep concerns being expressed by the National Audit Office over more than £30 billion pounds being frittered away on yet more welfare to work projects. Frankly, we need to be more realistic about how such schemes will work - we can't ignore the failure to put money directly in to real time job creation. Read more here..
unemploymentmovement.com/forum/welfare-to-work/1258-work-programme-audit--wasteful
The Twitter #hash tags you need to look out for are #LASPO (legal aid) and #Spartacusreport
We all owe a huge amount of gratitude for those who worked so hard on putting together and promoting the Spartacus Report, they've stepped up to the plate and set an example to us all.
Mylegal salutes you![/b]