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Protests as Atos wins benefits contracts
From ft.com for those without a log in.

Charities representing disabled people have protested at a decision to award fresh government contracts to Atos Healthcare, which has faced criticism for the way it carries out tests to determine whether sickness benefit claimants are fit to work.
The government announced on Thursday that three contracts for assessing claimants’ eligibility for the personal independence payment (PIP), in total worth £587m, had been awarded – two to Atos and one to Capita Business Services.

PIP replaces the disability living allowance (DLA). Ministers have decided to abolish that allowance because they believe it fails to offer a systematic way of reassessing people when their conditions change. They point out that in nine years, the number claiming DLA has risen from just fewer than 2.5m to 3.2m.
Regular assessments of individual needs “by a trained health professional” are at the heart of the new benefit, said the department for work and pensions. But the successful tender by Atos sparked immediate controversy. As part of the government’s drive to slim the benefit rolls and get people back to work, all incapacity benefit claimants are being reviewed.
Atos currently has the sole contract to carry out “work capability assessments”, which determine whether those on incapacity benefit are fit for work or can remain on benefit. It has come under fire from pressure groups and claimants, who point to a significant number of successful appeals against its decisions. Figures released last year showed that at that stage about 40 per cent of those assessed had lodged appeals and of that group around 40 per cent were successful. More recent data was not immediately available.
Gillian Morbey, chief executive of Sense, the charity for deaf-blind people, said: “Their track record of poor initial work capability assessments is costing more in the long run, both in terms of money and anxiety to the individuals concerned. We have little confidence that the assessments for PIP will be any different.”
She accused the government of failing to listen to the views of disabled people, “who have again and again expressed their serious concerns about Atos’ inconsistent approach and limited understanding of disability”.
Richard Hawkes, chief executive of disability charity Scope, said: “Just this week the government and Atos . . . have come under a great deal of criticism about how this assessment is being delivered to disabled people.
“Yet in less than a year from now, disabled people could have to go through two deeply flawed assessments in the same month to get the essential financial support they need to live their lives.”
But Atos said it had “listened carefully to feedback from disability rights groups, the department and those who experience our service first hand” and would work with “familiar health providers with local and community knowledge” to carry out the PIP assessments.
Responding to Sense’s criticism, it said: “Independent audits have confirmed that Atos Healthcare is providing a high standard of service in its WCA role. We are the first to recognise that in a role as complex as this it is our day-to-day duty to continuously look for ways to improve all aspects of our work.”
The DWP said: “Providers have already been working with disabled people and their organisations in the design of the process, and DWP will be closely monitoring and auditing assessments to ensure their quality and consistency.”
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I'm still having trouble with the Harrington questionnaire. When I download the text version, all I get is a read-only document.
 
treelover said:
I think a critical mass is developing, its affecting millions, but even today Milliband hasn't replied to Sonia despite her thousands of endorsements...
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That's why I'm so pissed off at MIND using Sue and Kaliya to spread their Criteria bullshit. I'm seeing resignation, to accepting the so called bullshit changes to the crireria that arn't in any way guarenteed to actually be accepted DWP stazi, by those who follow them closely instead of the anti WCA they used to have a few days ago. That whole exercise stinks to me. :hmm:
 
Echoing what one commenter said on that blog piece, one of the things I learn't while campaigning against the initial WRA about N/L and its ideology, and now of course the Tories, is they just don't believe in any idea of 'security' people have to be 'always on the move, moving forward, never sedentary, always looking for the next opportunity, its encapsulated in the neo-liberal concept of the 'active citizen' but how it can be applied to the sick and disabled beggars me...

its truly hard to believe that once convalescence was an option for sick people...

oh, I should have added, except for them and their mates!
 
I read this thread with anger, disbelief and involvement.
But it's also almost surreal - like Logan's Run or more like Soylent Green!
I'm not meaning to trivialize, but to imagine this pervasive IT conglomerate acting in the fashion it does with no controls is as if I were reading a si fi novel from forty years ago.
That's depressing.
 
culder said:
I'm still having trouble with the Harrington questionnaire. When I download the text version, all I get is a read-only document.
Click to expand...

I've not looked at the Harrington Q culder but his has just appeared in my email.
Disability Rights UK work capability assessment (WCA) survey
Professor Harrington is undertaking his third and final independent Review of the WCA and we would like your help to shape our response. We have drafted a short survey and your answers and input could help improve the WCA. The questions from the Harrington Review form part of our survey. We also provide some extra questions to ensure we provide a response based on disabled people’s experiences.
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I'm right off charities at the moment. Not that I ever thought they were much but money making business' that cream off so much for their CEO wages and infrastructure anyway.
 
yardbird said:
I read this thread with anger, disbelief and involvement.
But it's also almost surreal - like Logan's Run or more like Soylent Green!
I'm not meaning to trivialize, but to imagine this pervasive IT conglomerate acting in the fashion it does with no controls is as if I were reading a si fi novel from forty years ago.
That's depressing.
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Aye. When everyones info and experiences are brought together it really is mindboggling Yardie. Overwhelming. Half the time my eyebrows are knitting together and the other half shooting up into my hairline.
 
Also, it's not just that the DWP can be incompetent, lazy, dishonest, obstructive and generally difficult. They can also be downright vindictive. Anyone who read my thread on the benefits forum about my fight with them last year will remember that I went to the appeal tribunal and lost, fair enough.

What i don't think I mentioned was that at the end of the hearing when they were giving their ruling, the head of the tribunal told me that there had 'been a request' (he didn't say from whom, but who else could it be?) that they look at the mobility component of my DLA (I'm on lower rate mobility) with a view to depriving me of the mobility component entirely, but that the tribunal wasn't even going to look at the mobility component at all.

Now, I wonder, precisely from where could that 'request' have emanated..?
 
treelover said:
'Did any of you see the article on page 17 of the SUN on Thursday August 2, top right hand corner? It throws light on what IDS said about the Judges at Appeals making the "Wrong" decisions.

Article reads. Clamp on the cheats. Bogus benefit claimants are to be stopped from abusing lengthy appeals so they can carry on drawing money while avoiding getting a job. Instead of a costly tribunal, anyone unhappy at losing handouts will have to argue with Whitehall direct.Ministers hope the crackdown will stop people running rings round the system to put off getting job. Claimants loose almost seven out of ten appeals at tribunals. But a quarter of cases take more than 33 weeks to complete - with millions in benefits pais out along the way.

There is no attribution to the article.'
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Where on earth do they get that figure from? The majority of claims are succcessful. Sadly, the majority of the paper's readers will most likely take it at face value.
 
Bakunin said:
Also, it's not just that the DWP can be incompetent, lazy, dishonest, obstructive and generally difficult. They can also be downright vindictive. Anyone who read my thread on the benefits forum about my fight with them last year will remember that I went to the appeal tribunal and lost, fair enough.

What i don't think I mentioned was that at the end of the hearing when they were giving their ruling, the head of the tribunal told me that there had 'been a request' (he didn't say from whom, but who else could it be?) that they look at the mobility component of my DLA (I'm on lower rate mobility) with a view to depriving me of the mobility component entirely, but that the tribunal wasn't even going to look at the mobility component at all.

Now, I wonder, precisely from where could that 'request' have emanated..?
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Shit Bakunin... yeah. Can you link to those other posts m'dear ta. I remember them but so much is going on I've lost the plot. I'd appreciate having a re-read.
 
toggle said:
did you mention the letter about migration to esa that arrived the same week as the tribunal?
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Ah yes, and let's not forget that they tried to have the tribunal without actually telling me they were having one at all. My original tribunal should have been in December. I only knew had a tribunal that day because they rang me up and asked me if I still wanted to appeal as it should have started 20 minutes BEFORE I'd picked up the phone, then had to send in yet another form explaining why I hadn't turned up and wait until January for the tribunal hearing I actually got at which the DWP did their best to shaft me out of the mobility component of my DLA as well.
 
leading on from the critical mass notion, what is noticeable is how incredibly informed many people are , not just disabled and sick people, on the nature and petty brutalities of the welfare system, and the roles of ATOS, etc, this is so different from a few years ago when no one wanted to know,

if only there were progressive political parties to take up all this...
 
Bakunin said:
Ah yes, and let's not forget that they tried to have the tribunal without actually telling me they were having one at all. My original tribunal should have been in December. I only knew had a tribunal that day because they rang me up and asked me if I still wanted to appeal as it should have started 20 minutes BEFORE I'd picked up the phone, then had to send in yet another form explaining why I hadn't turned up and wait until January for the tribunal hearing I actually got at which the DWP did their best to shaft me out of the mobility component of my DLA as well.
Click to expand...


just mind boggling, the DWP have been without scrutiny and out of control for a long time...
 
Bakunin said:
Ah yes, and let's not forget that they tried to have the tribunal without actually telling me they were having one at all. My original tribunal should have been in December. I only knew had a tribunal that day because they rang me up and asked me if I still wanted to appeal as it should have started 20 minutes BEFORE I'd picked up the phone, then had to send in yet another form explaining why I hadn't turned up and wait until January for the tribunal hearing I actually got at which the DWP did their best to shaft me out of the mobility component of my DLA as well.
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Blimey, and I thought I'd become a bit too cynical about the DWP. :eek:
 
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