ATOS

[go.oot.by.dog]

http://ilegal.org.uk/

Are 39% appealing the Employment & Support Allowance?

Or is it more?

Yet another misstatement by the Department of Wicked Pork Pies....

 

It's all done to make you think there's not too much of a problem, to fool you in to thinking that the vast majority are absolutely delighted and over the moon as yet another of 'fit for work' decision finds its way to another claimant embarking on the DWP's 'customer journey'. In reality the news is more likely to induce a state of cardiac arrest, but hey who cares, just so long as it helps government in their relentless scrounging rhetoric. Yes lets play a game of pretence by keeping the numbers down and make out that appeals are only being made by the disgruntled few - that's the master plan.

 

As with any numerical quote which comes out of the wicked lie factory, I decided to put their tall story to the test. I've applied their '39% appeal a fit for work decision' statement to the most up to date figures made available by the Department which has yet to catch up on 2013, the poor souls its seems are stuck on May 2012 - indeed their 'updated' appeal figures stretch back even further to November 2011, why I do believe that's a sign of a department struggling to keep pace.

 

So let's take the 39% and apply it to the most up to date 'fit for work' figures from the DWP.

 

39% of 1,215,200 is in fact 473,928

 

Which is a little bit mysterious because, as you will see from the above posts, there have been no less than 765,764 appeals lodged with the Tribunals up to December 2012 - it's a figure which will bear a distinct relevance to the DWP because it takes them some time to put an appeal together before they can forward it to the Tribunal. So we can probably safely say the Tribunal figures up to December 2012 (given that a fair few months elapse from the arrival of DWP's dreaded 'decision' letter, followed by the DWP having to prepare a 66 page wad of appeal papers before lodging them with the tribunals) are highly relevant to the number of decisions made by the DWP in May of the same year.

 

From this simple sum, the one which tells us 39% of 1.2 million is no where near the three quarter of a million appeals lodged with the tribunal, we can safely say:

 

The numbers appealing a fit for work decision is not 39%

 

What the Department of Wicked Pork Pies always forgets to include is a whole host of other equally relevant figures, they continually play them down because they don't want to be alarming their beloved voters, angering a house full of politicians or worse still provoking their very much 'on side' media friends in to thinking they've created another blundering chaotic reform.

 

What we'll do is apply a bit of 'reverse logic' and see what the percentage would have to be to get to a point where over three quarter of a million appeals have been lodged with the Tribunals - because that's the reality of what we are looking at.

 

765,764 as a percentage of

1,215,200 'fit for work'

is 63%

 

An appeal rate of 63% is in anyone's book absolutely massive.

[go.oot.by.dog]

Hitting the poorest places hardest

 

The local and regional impact of Welfare Reform

 

http://www.shu.ac.uk/research/cresr/sites/shu.ac.uk/files/hitting-poorest-places-hardest_0.pdf

[go.oot.by.dog]

Dear Iain Duncan-Smith, Thanks for nothing……. goodbye!

 

http://ladytaylor72.wordpress.com/2013/04/21/dear-iain-duncan-smith-thanks-for-nothing-goodbye/

[Wheelsup]

unless the world economy improves I can see a future where no gets any hand-outs unless they earn it

[shetlandpeat]

unless the world economy improves I can see a future where no gets any hand-outs unless they earn it

 

Total miss use of the description of benefits. For many, who cannot get a job that pays enough to live on, the top ups are a life saver. They keep folk healthy and warm. To suggest a pensioner has to earn their winter fuel allowance or pension is quite ludicrous. Also, do you expect a child then to earn the child benefit?

 

For the sake of a few, folks minds have been twisted into thinking every one who claims benefits is a fraudster or a scrounger, which is evident in your term "hand out"

 

If folk could find reasonable jobs that pay well enough for them to live a full and productive life, they will. The Conservative led administration are using the old "divide and rule" game, which many folk fall for every time, shame on them really, after all, we are talking about lives. Unless a jump back to the days before Tommy Hepburn, Robert Owen, Lord Shaftesbury and Elizabeth Fry.

Your post may probably be true if we continue down this path, the ConDemNation are already forcing the disabled into work, telling lies about facts and figures to bolster this policy and just being what they do best.

I have yet to see the justification in making the poor poorer and hungrier to satisfy a policy. As ever, the easy targets. What fecks me off more is that many grass roots Tories support this and think it is right that it happens.

 

They are even being scorned by religious leaders for their lack of compassion. They want profits from a social system. They will give away to private companies assets the tax payer financed.

 

Their policies are distressing folk that much, they are taking their own lives.

 

You may be right, we are heading for SLAVE labour.

[go.oot.by.dog]

Iain it would seem you have you got your numbers wrong again http://i1359.photobucket.com/albums/q799/magnacube/9a96f071-5df4-46f6-a948-922d8f8444c1_zpsbabbe317.jpg

http://fullfact.org/factchecks/are_a_million_people_fit_to_work_yet_living_on_benefits-28895

[Distortio]

i do hope he takes up the £53 a week challenge...

 

http://i954.photobucket.com/albums/ae26/distortio/IDScrisis.jpg

[janeleask99]

Just feel sad about all that is going on right now.

 

I grew up to be proud to live in a country that cared. Children got to go to school, there was a health service for all, the workhouses were a thing of the past, racial and disability descrimination laws were passed. My parents and grandparents spoke of times that could not be described as the 'good old days' with there abiding memory was being hungry most of the time.

 

So what happened to us all? Where is the country/people who cared for each other and where is the government that cared for us all?

 

Surely none of us wants to go back to the old times.

 

So, maybe the message to all (including our politicians) is please care. Not sure what this country will become with out that.

[go.oot.by.dog]

Figures from the UK's main provider of food

banks show the number of people using its

services more than doubled last year.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aMBZpdmvJ9I

[go.oot.by.dog]

http://i1359.photobucket.com/albums/q799/magnacube/a3d9d71a-b59f-4a82-9c2b-0a73a37780a0_zpsd00e44ca.jpg

[go.oot.by.dog]

http://welfarenewsservice.com/story-of-a-mentally-ill-person-living-in-disability-denial-britain/#.UXq06qLU8oO

Story Of A Mentally Ill Person Living In Disability Denial Britain

By Anonymous

 

As a mentally ill person I have become ashamed to live in Britain, ashamed to be living in a country full of people who would prefer to believe press propaganda hype and government rhetoric about those on benefits being ‘lazy scroungers’ and a drain upon the state over the words of our sick and disabled themselves.

 

I have a much misunderstood invisible disability known as Social Anxiety Disorder, or as Americans would like to call it Social Phobia, and spend most of my time behind closed doors, away from society, and away from those who would see me as a leech upon their hard-worked taxes. I do not have many real friends, my social anxiety disorder and the subsequent effect it has had on my ability to mingle with others has taken care of that.

 

My life is dependent upon others in the main, in order for me to be able to eat and pay the bills. I cannot go to the shops like a ‘normal’ person would, unless I am accompanied, as that would result in my mental state completely breaking down, embarrassing myself before those who do not care or even want to understand what it is to be a mentally ill person living in disability denial Britain. Couple my mental problems with the fact that I also have irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) which severely affects my ability to go out anywhere, or even work due to one of its symptoms and you then have a recipe for a very smelly and embarrassing disaster. I’ll leave you to your own imaginations to work that one out.

 

Regularly I hear others say, “you have legs and do not need a wheelchair so how can you be disabled?â€. That is true, I do have functioning legs and I do not need a wheelchair but a mental illness can be just as disabling as a physical disability,.. if not more so. At least those with a physical disability can still get around with the aid of an electric wheelchair or other mobility aid, I have to rely upon being accompanied at all times, and if there is no-one available then I do not eat, do not pay the bills, and am left with no option other than to be a recluse, a prisoner in my own home.

 

The government is now saying that they expect all ‘sick’ people on benefits to take steps to ‘getting better’ if they want to be able to continue receiving sickness benefits. Well Mr Iain Duncan Smith,.. no number of visits to my GP and no amount of drugs or therapy is going to help me ‘get better’. My GP has said that I will always be a sufferer of social anxiety disorder, drugs do not work and therapy is completely ineffective in my case.

 

I know what you are thinking, “other people with mental health problems get better, so why can’t you?â€. Of course you would be right, most people with mental illnesses such as social phobia do eventually get better, but just because some people do it does not mean that everyone can! Just because most people can run and walk it doesn’t mean they will ever become elite sportsmen, and just because most people can read and write it doesn’t mean they can write a best-selling novel – This is life.

 

I could write all day about my illness but if you don’t yet fully understand how it is to live life with a mental disability then please read up and learn about it. That is not something most people without a disability, mental or physical would do, because why bother reading about something that doesn’t affect you? Anyone can develop a mental illness, and anyone can become physically disabled as a result of an accident or other life event, but until that actually happens most people will remain closed to what it is to live life with a disability.

 

I too once held down a job and went night-clubbing on the weekends, a mystery illness took that away and resulted in the person I have now become. A person who sees disability very differently from how I used to and a person who is much more compassionate and understanding of others, a person I am proud to be. You could become that person too and it doesn’t require you having to experience a mystery illness or get involved in an accident. All it requires is a book or a computer and an hour of your time to read and learn.

 

I ask you how many employees would be willing and able to cater and pay for a person with a social anxiety disorder or other mental disability like myself? Would they be willing to assign someone to accompany me from home to work and back again, and would that person be trained in mental health issues and be able to monitor me closely at work in case my disability becomes too much? Would they be understanding when things get too much for me to cope with and I have to take time off on the sick, something which would happen on a regular basis,.. trust me I’ve tried.

 

Britain has come a long way in the way it treats its sick and disabled,.. well it did until the current Tory-led coalition came to power and set it all back at least 20 years with their policy of demonising the sick and disabled, aided by the right-wing press and television programs like Saints And Scroungers.

 

Often I hear people talking away those “amazing paralympiansâ€, and how if they can do it why can’t other disabled people do the same? Frankly I don’t believe I should have to explain why, and if you feel the same as those people then no matter how much I try to persuade you otherwise you will always remain a cruel small-minded individual, devoid of any compassion or understanding for those who don’t have it quite as good as you do!

 

Britain is no longer a welcoming place for people with disabilities and crime against those with disabilities, both for those with physical and mental disability are on the rise, especially hate crime. Many, including myself believe this is due to the increasing ‘sponger’ rhetoric from the press and the systematic attack on sickness and disability benefits by the coalition government. The majority of the public now believe that most people on benefits are cheating and undeserving despite the governments own statistics which state that benefit fraud for sickness benefits is as low 0.8% and as little as 0.5% for Disability Living Allowance.

 

Sick and disabled people are now forced to continually prove time and time again that they are still sick, still disabled and still incapable of work through attending humiliating work capability assessments every six months. The experience of those peoples doctors and specialists replaced by someone who knows little to nothing about mental health conditions or physical disabilities and a computer program with a pre-set list of questions and boxes to tick.

 

People with disabilities are increasingly choosing to hide themselves away from society fearful of how they will be treated and perceived by a nation who has a responsibility to protect its most vulnerable.

 

Benefits continue to be cut and the ‘scrounger’ rhetoric in the press and media is worse than it has ever been. Britain has become very much anti-disability and it would seem as if mental disabilities like social anxiety disorder are becoming unacceptable in today’s society. How dare we be sick or disabled when others have to work all week and give up their hard-earned wages to pay our benefits? How dare we lay around all day because our health and disabilities and the way society treats us has resulted in us becoming prisoners in our homes?

 

I am very much worried about how those reading this will perceive what I have said, another result of how people in Britain is now treating sick and disabled people, and so I refuse to divulge my identity.

 

I am ashamed and disgusted of the country Britain has become, and so should you be!

 

Anonymous

[go.oot.by.dog]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/theguardian/2013/apr/26/atos-zoe-williams

Visit to Atos adviser leaves man with criminal record

 

http://i1359.photobucket.com/albums/q799/magnacube/93acbe32-e41b-4d5c-975e-e77c02ee8703_zpsbb773a46.jpg

The atmosphere in Nottingham crown court on Friday morning was predictably bleak, crackling with rage, frustration and people slamming doors.

 

But the friends and family of Steve Topley, standing outside, seemed perplexed rather than angry, although they have made a FREE STEVE! banner. All families think bad things will never happen to them, and all families – until one of them is arrested – would tell you, as Gina Topley told me: "We're really not this kind of family. We're never in trouble with the police."

 

The case is puzzling: why would a man of 49, with no history of violence, no record of mental illness, never mind a criminal record, suddenly appear in court charged with threats to kill? As criminologists often note, you don't get many 50-year-olds who decide to start being psychopaths.

 

On 11 April, Topley was in a meeting with Atos, the firm that assesses if you're fit for work, and eligible for benefits. The assessor asked him how he felt about a particular guy – guy X, let's call him. Topley said that if he saw him in the street, he would kill him.

 

Atos called the police, who took him for a mental health assessment. Doctors could find nothing wrong, and gave him back to the police, who charged him.

 

His solicitor, Roger Wilson, said with a shrug that this is pretty standard: if you threaten to kill someone, even if you do so to a third party, that counts as a threat to kill. So Topley pleaded guilty, in front of his bewildered ex-wife and daughter, his sister, his best friend of 30 years and a chirpy judge, who concluded: "I take the view that you are not a danger; I just think that you got rather worked up."

 

To reveal why he wanted to kill guy X, would inflame a case that has already proceeded out of all proportion to its seriousness – just take my word for it that it's a situation in which any of us might use this phrase hyperbolically.

 

The circumstances don't involve any child protection issues, any racism or religious hatred, or any terrorist threat.

 

This must happen all the time; in doctors' surgeries and psychiatric appointments, between counsellors and patients, in healthcare settings across the land, people must be sitting in rooms saying they want to kill one another. It's part of our rage vernacular.

 

Topley's solicitor Roger Wilson says:"If it were somebody with a duty of confidentiality, they wouldn't be allowed to call the police and this wouldn't have happened."

 

Gina Topley explains that her brother went into the Atos meeting thinking it was a confidential health meeting, like a doctor's appointment. Steve has had cancer, he only has one kidney, he has heart disease – and was advised to come off jobseeker's allowance and move onto a sickness benefit. As part of this process, he went to his GP and was referred to a counsellor (this session was in confidence) and he got his Atos appointment at more or less the same time. He has no history of mental illness, but it was legitimate for any one of these people to probe him on his feelings since, as Gina explained, "all his other illnesses have built up and made him feel useless."

 

An Atos assessor may have medical training, but isn't employed in a medical capacity; they're just a sub-contractor of the DSS; the hippocratic oath doesn't mean squat to them. But people assume that they can be frank – Gina says she has had more than 20 phone calls from other people who've fallen foul of Atos in this kind of situation – when actually, they should approach it with the wariness of a parole hearing.

 

Back in court, Topley's 19-year-old daughter is crying. "They're tears of happiness," she says as the judge assures her father: "I'm quite sure I can deal with this in a way that won't mean you'll lose your liberty."

 

To an outsider, this looks like a man in very poor health, in an area of the country with very high unemployment who went to the jobcentre to look for a job and came away with a criminal record. It doesn't seem very efficient.

[go.oot.by.dog]

Well said that man -

[go.oot.by.dog]

https://www.facebook.com/ukhealthassessments

 

IHRC - UK Appointed Disabilities & Claimants Anti Discrimination Task Force

On the authority of the Worldwide Chair and within the Constitution of The International Human Rights Commission a task force has been set up to collate information, monitor, investigate and press for public enquiry and Justice.

 

Under the leadership of and in conjunction with The sub commission International Human Rights Commission for Children, Youth and Women's Issues under The Presidency of His Lordship, Sir Leslie R Angell, High Commissioner of the IHRC and Ambassador to The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

 

There is much concern about assessments orchestrated by DWP and made by ATOS whereby claimants benefits have been refused, cut, refused or incorrect. In many cases Courts of Coroners Enquiry have found that people may have taken their own lives following assessments and rulings by ATOS assessors.

 

Allegations have been made that assessments have been unfair, incorrectly carried out and over 34% have been overturned on appeal with many claimants just not bothering to go through the unacceptable protocols and red tape that the appeals process entails.

 

This task force as authorised by The world wide chair after some months of consideration is to work with pressure groups and other organisations whom are working independently, it is therefore the wish of this organisation to allow a cohesive enjoining together to call for public enquiries and policy/protocol changes to ensure that people's rights under Human Rights legislation are enforced and maintained.

[go.oot.by.dog]

http://www.eastbourneherald.co.uk/news/local-news/tragic-christopher-s-story-could-help-save-others-1-4925157

 

Tragic Christopher’s story could help save others

 

A 27-year-old who committed suicide at Beachy Head wanted his tragic story to save someone else’s life.

 

Christopher Thorne, of St James’s Crescent, Bexhill, told mother Dee he was going out to visit a friend on February 26 but instead he rode his motorbike to Beachy Head where he jumped to his death.

 

Chris was a long-term sufferer of Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS) consumed with worry about his physical health who felt he was not getting the help and attention he needed. In October he was told his income support would be stopped and he would receive Jobseeker’s Allowance, and this added to his stress and depression because he felt he could not cope with added pressure.

 

Chris believed his IBS had been initially caused by a parasite caught from a dog and having researched this online he took medication he bought on eBay.

 

Dee said, “He didn’t get the help and support he needed and he felt let down by the system. He didn’t think people believed him as to how serious his problem was.â€

 

Chris had already made one attempt at suicide but was saved by a Samaritan warden at Beachy Head.

 

At this point a crisis team stepped in to closely monitor him but overall medical support came “too little too late†according to Dee, and Chris decided he couldn’t carry on with life.

 

In the last few months he took to writing his feelings down so that his experience could help other people not suffer on their own.

 

He wrote, “My life revolves around my stomach and a little hope that one day I might be better. Some don’t even believe me and just think I am going mad. All this, and the depression because your life’s not going anywhere, really makes you think – what is the point? So why is this treated so poorly on the NHS and people are in chronic pain in this day and age?â€