Post by nickd on Aug 17, 2012 23:55:01 GMT 1
17 August 2012
"We wouldn't allow a private contractor to let us down on the Olympics, we can't allow one to let down disabled people.” – Gillian Guy, Citizens Advice CEO
Citizens Advice speaks out against ATOS[/b]
Citizens Advice today renewed its call for the government to impose financial penalties on Atos for every inaccurate work capability assessment report that they produce.
The call follows National Audit Office criticism of the Department for Work and Pensions’ failure to penalise Atos – the private company with whom it has a contract to carry out ‘fitness for work’ medical assessments – for under-performance.
Citizens Advice Chief Executive Gillian Guy said:
“We wouldn't allow a private contractor to let us down on the Olympics, we can't allow one to let down disabled people. Mistakes by Atos have a human cost and a cost to the tax payer. Getting medical assessments right first time is absolutely essential to ensuring that seriously ill and disabled people get the support they are entitled to, and cutting the number of unnecessary appeals."
“Private companies on government contracts must be accountable to the public. Government should act now to put in place regular, independent monitoring of the accuracy of work capability assessment (WCA) reports and look at imposing financial penalties on Atos for every inaccurate report that they produce.”
CAB advisers helped with more than 97,000 ESA problems in the three months January to March 2012 - up 71 per cent compared with the same quarter last year, making ESA the fastest growing advice issue seen in bureaux.
In the same three month period, bureaux recorded an 82 per cent increase in advice about appeals against ESA decisions. Over a quarter of all advice given by bureaux about ESA concerns appeals. Latest official DWP figures say 32 per cent of appeals against an ESA decision are successful and CAB advisers estimate the success rate at appeal where someone receives specialist CAB advice and is represented is around 80 per cent.
Mylegal comment
You can read the full article by Citizens Advice here. This release raises some interesting points over the role welfare benefit specialists play in bringing the appeal cases which are referred to above. Citizens Advice recently reported how they faced dramatic cut backs in their funding at a time when demand on their services was leading to their specialists being overwhelmed with the workload. We know from our own research on Mylegal that out of 176,567 ESA appeals cleared in 2010/2011 - 40% were successful. Many of these appeals would have been won as a direct result of the client being legally - aided. We can base this on an assumption that out of around 135,000 legal aid welfare benefit cases a year around 50% were ESA appeals (this would fit with what many legally aided Bureau & advice centres reported during recent campaigning).
Thus we can fairly accurately say that the 67,500 ESA appeal cases funded by legal aid closely matches the number of appeals which were successful at appeal. The 40% success rate of appeals identified within the total number of appeals cleared in 2010/2011 would come to 70,628 (40% of 176,567) which closely matches the appeal casework workload reported by benefit specialists. The majority of welfare benefit specialists work within CAB, but some would also work in law centres & with other agencies.
This most recent article from CAB suggests the problem is continuing well into 2012. If the 3 monthly workload figures for CAB continues to be ESA related (at 97,000 enquiries) at this rate we could be looking at a figures of around 400,000 cases by the end of March 2013. It has been consistently reported on Mylegal that this is an escalating problem. The current DWP appeal statistics could quite easily be quoted by the Ministry of Justice in a different way so we've already taken a look at them to put forward our own evidenced based findings by using individual data sets. What the figures suggest is that the Tribunal Service is working its way through an existing backlog with a reduction in the number of cases which are received from the DWP due to delayed dispatch. You can read our analogy of the figures here.
What's alarming about these figures is how if the CAB is at breaking point now they simply won't be able to cope next April when all legal aid funding is withdrawn for benefit appeals in the first - tier Tribunals. Both the articles released by Citizens Advice recognise the problem and the need for a solution. Read more about the figures and case for legal aid funding for benefit appeals here. The Citizens Advice solution of 'fining' ATOS is in my view only a partial solution, what we need is better policing of DWP decision-making, the best way of ensuring this is to maintain proper funding for benefit specialists who can effectively challenge erroneous decisions. This can have the added advantage of arriving at an earlier settlement resolution by more effectively putting the case at an earlier stage in the dispute process. Quite the biggest failing for the disabled would be in not ensuring they are adequately assisted in effectively disputing a decision made by the Secretary of State which is wrong.
"We wouldn't allow a private contractor to let us down on the Olympics, we can't allow one to let down disabled people.” – Gillian Guy, Citizens Advice CEO
Citizens Advice speaks out against ATOS[/b]
Citizens Advice today renewed its call for the government to impose financial penalties on Atos for every inaccurate work capability assessment report that they produce.
The call follows National Audit Office criticism of the Department for Work and Pensions’ failure to penalise Atos – the private company with whom it has a contract to carry out ‘fitness for work’ medical assessments – for under-performance.
Citizens Advice Chief Executive Gillian Guy said:
“We wouldn't allow a private contractor to let us down on the Olympics, we can't allow one to let down disabled people. Mistakes by Atos have a human cost and a cost to the tax payer. Getting medical assessments right first time is absolutely essential to ensuring that seriously ill and disabled people get the support they are entitled to, and cutting the number of unnecessary appeals."
“Private companies on government contracts must be accountable to the public. Government should act now to put in place regular, independent monitoring of the accuracy of work capability assessment (WCA) reports and look at imposing financial penalties on Atos for every inaccurate report that they produce.”
CAB advisers helped with more than 97,000 ESA problems in the three months January to March 2012 - up 71 per cent compared with the same quarter last year, making ESA the fastest growing advice issue seen in bureaux.
In the same three month period, bureaux recorded an 82 per cent increase in advice about appeals against ESA decisions. Over a quarter of all advice given by bureaux about ESA concerns appeals. Latest official DWP figures say 32 per cent of appeals against an ESA decision are successful and CAB advisers estimate the success rate at appeal where someone receives specialist CAB advice and is represented is around 80 per cent.
Mylegal comment
You can read the full article by Citizens Advice here. This release raises some interesting points over the role welfare benefit specialists play in bringing the appeal cases which are referred to above. Citizens Advice recently reported how they faced dramatic cut backs in their funding at a time when demand on their services was leading to their specialists being overwhelmed with the workload. We know from our own research on Mylegal that out of 176,567 ESA appeals cleared in 2010/2011 - 40% were successful. Many of these appeals would have been won as a direct result of the client being legally - aided. We can base this on an assumption that out of around 135,000 legal aid welfare benefit cases a year around 50% were ESA appeals (this would fit with what many legally aided Bureau & advice centres reported during recent campaigning).
Thus we can fairly accurately say that the 67,500 ESA appeal cases funded by legal aid closely matches the number of appeals which were successful at appeal. The 40% success rate of appeals identified within the total number of appeals cleared in 2010/2011 would come to 70,628 (40% of 176,567) which closely matches the appeal casework workload reported by benefit specialists. The majority of welfare benefit specialists work within CAB, but some would also work in law centres & with other agencies.
This most recent article from CAB suggests the problem is continuing well into 2012. If the 3 monthly workload figures for CAB continues to be ESA related (at 97,000 enquiries) at this rate we could be looking at a figures of around 400,000 cases by the end of March 2013. It has been consistently reported on Mylegal that this is an escalating problem. The current DWP appeal statistics could quite easily be quoted by the Ministry of Justice in a different way so we've already taken a look at them to put forward our own evidenced based findings by using individual data sets. What the figures suggest is that the Tribunal Service is working its way through an existing backlog with a reduction in the number of cases which are received from the DWP due to delayed dispatch. You can read our analogy of the figures here.
What's alarming about these figures is how if the CAB is at breaking point now they simply won't be able to cope next April when all legal aid funding is withdrawn for benefit appeals in the first - tier Tribunals. Both the articles released by Citizens Advice recognise the problem and the need for a solution. Read more about the figures and case for legal aid funding for benefit appeals here. The Citizens Advice solution of 'fining' ATOS is in my view only a partial solution, what we need is better policing of DWP decision-making, the best way of ensuring this is to maintain proper funding for benefit specialists who can effectively challenge erroneous decisions. This can have the added advantage of arriving at an earlier settlement resolution by more effectively putting the case at an earlier stage in the dispute process. Quite the biggest failing for the disabled would be in not ensuring they are adequately assisted in effectively disputing a decision made by the Secretary of State which is wrong.