The Chancellor was ready to be seen as heartless. He didn’t count on also looking hopeless.
By Rafael Behr – The New Statesman
The row about work capability assessments rumbles on. These are the tests that are meant to establish which recipients of incapacity benefit should be deemed fit and moved to a lower, more conditional rate. The Department for Work and Pensions insists the tests – administered by Atos, a private contractor – are an effective way of distinguishing between those genuinely unable to take on work and those who might simply have given up trying. Critics of the process allege it is a cynical device to shovel disabled and chronically ill people from a benefit that costs the Exchequer lots of money to one that costs less – without due regard for the personal circumstances and medical nuances of individual cases.
The accusation is that the government, confident of political cover in the form of the widespread assumption that many benefit claims are bogus, is saving money by targeting people unable to fight back and who mostly don’t vote Tory. The rebuttal is that the DWP is working hard to get everyone into work – which for many people currently receiving incapacity benefit would have a rehabilitative effect, restoring independence and self esteem. As one government advisor put it to me recently: “Which part of your progressive tradition says it is ok to just let people rot on benefits their whole lives?” (Of course, for the DWP “tough love” narrative to have a happy ending, there need to be enough jobs out there … )
It is worth noting that Atos first got contracts to do these assessments under the last Labour government. The assumption then, as now, was that family GPs were too indulgent in handing out ‘sick notes’ or felt intimidated if they refused to accept a patient’s claim of inability to work. The current government has accelerated the process and ramped up the scale. A predictable consequence is the accusation of brutal targeting – setting semi-official minimum rates for assessors to clear people as fit for work. Atos deny this. The number of decisions successfully contested in court certainly suggests some cavalier assessment is going on. Today’s story in the Guardian suggesting the DWP sought to censor information about the appeals process suggests ministers think the courts represent some kind if loophole for scroungers who might slip through the Atos net.
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and this lot run the country it makes you want to pu– but still no answer on atos dwp they the mps now whots been going on and not many want to stop it whots wrong with them do they like kicking the disabled and sick when they got enough to do living on the pitance they call benefits unbeleavible the lot of them jeff3
our grandfathers and fathers fought with the unions to give the working classes a better life i am afraid to say we are letting the government turn back the clock to a time of doffing your cap for a few scraps of the squire they know we are divided thatcher seen to that it will only stop when they see solidarity amongst all of us people turn a blind eye till it happens to them are attitude is there greatest weapon at the moment
Georgie porgie pudding & pie kissed the girls & made them cry when the boys come out to play he’ll kiss them too he’s funny that way!
everything they touch for the rich are always right everything they touch for the working classes old sick injured and disabled is wrong it is open warfare as far as i am concerned they mock sneer look down on us how dare they make other people pay for there stupidity they can kiss my arse not having it