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campaign against welfare cuts and poverty

This is alarming and horrifying:
that article said:
“This kind of communication only shows how utterly disconnected the DWP is from the lived experience of people surviving on a low income,” Benjamin Morgan, research and communications coordinator at the PILC, told The Big Issue after the organisation’s client received the instructions.
I find it sort of amazing that you still get well meaning liberals who believe this kind of stuff is the result of ignorance at the DWP instead of deliberate hostility. If only they knew our hardship they'd change course immediately!
 
I find it sort of amazing that you still get well meaning liberals who believe this kind of stuff is the result of ignorance at the DWP instead of deliberate hostility. If only they knew our hardship they'd change course immediately!
A lot of the people working within the DWP will be only too aware of the hardships of their "customers", and will be stuck with implementing these ludicrous policies in the full knowledge of just how shit they are.

A lot of DWP frontline staff know that they're only one performance review away from joining their claimants.
 
A lot of the people working within the DWP will be only too aware of the hardships of their "customers", and will be stuck with implementing these ludicrous policies in the full knowledge of just how shit they are.

A lot of DWP frontline staff know that they're only one performance review away from joining their claimants.
Don't disagree. I took the DWP in the article to mean those setting the agenda rather than the frontline staff.
 
I think they're completely overrun. I was assessed unfit for work a few years ago, but supposed to get a new assessment last year as it "ran out". Cancelled due to Covid and still waiting now over a year later. I'm sure I've heard of people getting phone assessments though so I'm sure they're taking place? Just such a backlog of new claims they don't have time to look at the old ones. In-person appointments at the jobcentre are back now too.

Some people they assessed unfit for work, but had their assessment run out, are being told they have to get fit notes from their doctor until their next WCA comes around. That's complete nonsense though, you shouldn't have to do that!
I had a WCA last month, it was via phone. That was about a month after I got a letter saying I would be placed, again, in the WRAG ESA group. This seems to be about a six month thing.

In person appointments are happening, but the door of the assessment centre has a big "don't come in if you're symptomatic" sign.
 
Can't say I know anything about this group, but in case anyone feels moved to contribute:

The Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) is using a highly secretive algorithm forcing disabled people into gruelling and invasive benefit fraud investigations.

To date the government has failed to provide any details about the algorithm. We don’t know how it works, how and why people are flagged for investigation, what information or data about us is used in this decision making, how the government is ensuring the rights of disabled people are protected and what checks and balances are in place to ensure that this algorithm doesn’t destroy lives.

But we do know the impact of the algorithm on our community. It is fear, confusion and endless cycles of bureaucracy. We live in fear of the brown envelope. Or the out-of-the blue phone call, that fails to explain why we’ve been flagged.

That brown envelope, or that phone call, lets us know we’ve been pinpointed by the algorithm and that our lives could be about to be thrown into turmoil. Once flagged by the algorithm, an automated system is kick-started that forces targeted people to repeatedly explain why they need payments in an aggressive and humiliating process that can last up to a year.

We know that the DWP doesn’t always get these decisions right, particularly when it comes to disabled people. Incorrect decisions are made so often, in fact, that wrong decisions have to be overturned every minute of the working day. Whether or not people receive benefits can be a matter of life and death for some.

What are we doing about it?

We are the Greater Manchester Coalition for Disabled People, an organisation run and controlled by disabled people. We exist to promote the independence and inclusion of disabled people in society, and to challenge the discrimination disabled people face. We are supported by Foxglove, a non-profit fighting to make technology fair. We have issued legal correspondence seeking more information about this algorithm. If it’s unlawful, we will challenge it in court. But we need your help. Please donate whatever you can afford to help make this possible.

We have given the government 21 days to respond to our legal letter. We will let you know as soon as we receive a response. If we don’t get satisfactory answers, and the information we need about this algorithm, we will bring a judicial review.

What does the law say?

The government has a legal obligation to provide answers about how this algorithm works, what safeguards have been put in place to stop discriminatory decision making and what people can do if they believe a decision has been made about them unfairly.

The law says that the government must be transparent in this type of decision making. This includes Article 5(1)(a) of the GDPR, Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights as well as and the common law principle of transparency. We believe that the government is breaking the law by keeping this secret.

Why do we need to raise money?

We hope the DWP will give us the answers we need in response to our legal letter. If they don’t, or if their response reveals further issues with the algorithm, we are prepared to go to court to make this right. But we need your support to make that possible.

We are launching this crowdfunder to cover the cost risks associated with the case. Our legal team work on ‘conditional fee agreements’. That means they only recover their costs from the other side if we win. But if we lose in court, we could have to pay the other side's costs. If we bring a judicial review we will be asking the court for a “Cost Capping Order”. If the court grants that it means that there would be a limit on the amount we can be forced to pay in the event we lose. To make this case possible we need to raise £10,000.

What happens to funds raised if we don’t spend it on legal fees?

If for some reason we don’t need to spend all the donations on this case or if we don't end up in court, you will be offered a refund. Should you choose not to request a refund your donation will go to us, the Greater Manchester Coalition for Disabled People to support our work fighting for the rights of disabled people in society.
 
Why do you need to be an Anarchist Communist Group to have a problem with the DWP - virtually everything that qualifies as Human will have a problem with the DWP.
 
A couple of things here, regarding the DWP and Therese Coffey...


Coffey dismisses call for new WCA review, despite claimant deaths evidence

The work and pensions secretary has dismissed the need for a new review into the work capability assessment, despite being told that her own department failed to pass information about its links with claimant deaths to an independent reviewer.

Therese Coffey also appeared to mislead the work and pensions committee yesterday (Wednesday) about evidence that should have been shared with the reviewer in 2013 and 2014.

and

Coffey ‘is damaging disabled people’s trust in DWP’ over ‘unmet needs’ report

Work and pensions secretary Therese Coffey has been accused by a senior MP of damaging disabled people’s trust in her department by failing to publish a report that concluded that claimants of disability benefits had “unmet needs”.

The report, commissioned by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP), was watered down after the department told its authors to delete some of its analysis and reduce the number of times it referred to disabled people’s unmet needs.

A whistleblower told Disability News Service (DNS) last week that DWP had refused to publish the watered-down report, despite promises made to more than 100 disabled benefit claimants who had agreed to be interviewed that it would be published.
 
The statistics they quoted of people who had contemplated suicide because of trouble with the DWP were shocking.
The Suicide Act 1961 (which decriminalised suicide, which is why we don't say "committed suicide" any more) made it an offence to "aid, abet, counsel or procure" a suicide.

I don't think it would take that much of a hotshot lawyer to argue that DWP, in knowingly mistreating someone who had already indicated suicidality, was "procuring" their suicide. I'd very much like to see a prosecution brought on that basis. I wonder if Good Law Project might be interested...although they are already very busy :hmm:
 
These people are doing really great things but the fact that they feel they have to step in and help is a very sad indictment on our society:

They're a local charity to my workplace - I'm familiar with some of the families they help - it's unbelievable what living conditions people are forced to endure - much of the rest of society are totally unaware of just how poor poor is in this country
 
Depends who you are listening to.

The Tories believe in the self-resilience of the peasantry "build them and the people will come" - they see them as a good thing, people getting on with things totally oblivious to the fact they created the problem in the first place.
My outlook is that the First-Aid box is needing to get bigger and bigger and bigger etc and that no! they are not a good thing in that we need to use them.
 

Andrew Bailey told the BBC wage rises needed to be moderate with firms showing "restraint" in pay talks.
When asked whether the Bank was asking workers not to demand big pay rises, Mr Bailey, said: "Broadly, yes."



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MPs force publication of report into struggles of poorer disabled Britons​

MPs force publication of report into struggles of poorer disabled Britons

[The report] that found low-income people reliant on disability benefits are struggling to meet essential living costs such as food, rent and energy bills.

The report has been kept under wraps for over a year, with the work and pensions secretary, Theresa Coffey, repeatedly refusing to release it on the grounds it was necessary to “protect the private space” in which ministers develop policy.

[It] was finally published on Thursday morning after the cross-party work and pensions select committee invoked rarely-used parliamentary powers to force its release, and accused ministers of “trying to bury uncomfortable truths”.
 

MPs force publication of report into struggles of poorer disabled Britons​

MPs force publication of report into struggles of poorer disabled Britons

[The report] that found low-income people reliant on disability benefits are struggling to meet essential living costs such as food, rent and energy bills.

The report has been kept under wraps for over a year, with the work and pensions secretary, Theresa Coffey, repeatedly refusing to release it on the grounds it was necessary to “protect the private space” in which ministers develop policy.

[It] was finally published on Thursday morning after the cross-party work and pensions select committee invoked rarely-used parliamentary powers to force its release, and accused ministers of “trying to bury uncomfortable truths”.
"Theresa Coffey" - that's the bloody Grauniad's spelling mistake, not mine! Should've checked it though.
 
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