campaign against welfare cuts and poverty

[Treacle Toes]

https://www.gov.uk/the-warm-home-discount-scheme/overview

Benefits & credits The Warm Home Discount scheme

Overview

For winter 2012 to 2013, you could get a £130 discount on your electricity bill through the Warm Home Discount Scheme.
The discount won’t affect your Cold Weather Payment or Winter Fuel Payment.

 

[Frankie Jack]

Iain Duncan Smith to write to distraught teenager who blames Atos for father's death

How fucking dare he..!! Last thing the bairn needs is HIS waffle spin and pathetic platitudes.

THE Tory minister in charge of controversial welfare reforms is to write to the Lanarkshire teenager who blames Atos’s fit-for-work tests for his father’s death.
Heartbroken 13-year-old Kieran McArdle’s letter telling how his sick dad Brian died the day after his disability benefits stopped was hand-delivered by the Record to the Whitehall office of Iain Duncan Smith.
A Department for Work and Pensions official said: “The Secretary of State will be writing to Kieran McArdle.”
Atos benefits bullies killed my sick dad, says devastated Kieran, 13
Under-fire Atos were yesterday accused of falsely claiming the support of a Scots charity as they bid for the £400million contract to carry out the assessments.
The Scottish Association for Mental Health said they had no contact with the French firm before being named as possible partners.
The charity’s Charlie McMillan said: “We are disappointed and surprised this has happened.”
Stirling Labour MP Anne McGuire called for an immediate investigation and said: “The integrity of the process is in serious doubt.”
Atos denied that the organisations named had been presented as partners.
A Department for Work and Pensions spokesman said there was no need for a probe as the issue was not central to the award of the contract.

 

[Minnie_the_Minx]

I'm sure heartbroken 13-year-old Kieran McArdle will be much comforted from IDS's kind words

 

[Frankie Jack]

£1 a day slavery.

ONE3ONE is an enterprise with a difference. We have 131 locations across England and Wales, utilising a workforce of motivated prisoners who are looking to repay society and build outstanding business relationships with you.
We deliver many high quality products and services for household names. We help businesses with textiles, printing, laundry, woodwork, furniture making and engineering in all sorts of innovative ways. We have tens of thousands of workers in more than 450 facilities in Her Majesty’s prisons.
We offer you a social return as well as great business benefits. Our team is motivated to help change lives as well as satisfy your customer needs. Offenders are motivated to work and return to their lives outside better prepared for work. It is a way to give something back to your community.

Way to give vast profits to big business U.S. stylee and competition with China as these Tory gits bullshit on about.

 

[Treacle Toes]

Prison industrial complex.

 

[8115]

IDS being given the easiest ride ever by Andrew Marr at the moment, if you've got the stomach for it. Don't watch if you get angry easily.

 

[butchersapron]

Here's one of his questions - really:

Do you think the welfare system has been too soft for too long?"

That's privately schooled and oxbridge educated Marr who takes at least £600 000 a year from public money.

27 grand a month.

Defend the BBC everyone!

 

[Treacle Toes]

Iain Duncan Smith Launches Attack on Step-Parents – Are A4e Love Cops on the Way?

Posted on November 3, 2012 by johnny void | 60 Comments
Iain Duncan Smith launched an astonishing attack on step-parents, single parents and LGBT couples this week in a move that could see welfare to work sharks brought into the family home and even the bedroom.
Speaking at a conference on social justice, the Secretary of State warned that in future the proportion of children no longer living with the same parents from birth would be a new government measure to monitor the growth of ‘social problems’.

His comments came after research revealed that half of 15 year olds live with both parents. This is hardly a surprising statistic in world where people are no longer trapped into loveless, or even abusive relationships, in order to avoid the stigma that came with being divorced, a step-parent, in a gay or lesbian relationship or a single parent.

Iain Duncan Smith included children growing up with step-parents in a list of social vices he intends to fix, along with ‘worklessness’, youth offending rates and low educational achievement. As ever, the problem is to be fixed by giving money to private companies.
The Work Programme is the Government’s scheme aimed at reducing long term unemployment by paying huge sums of tax payers money to private companies to bully claimants into work. Despite having already cost close to a billion pounds, the Work Programme has been an unmitigated disaster. Long term unemployment has risen every month since the scheme was introduced and the DWP have repeatedly avoided releasing any information on whether anyone is actually finding jobs through the programme.

The Work Programme is backed by brutal benefit sanctions, giving unprecedented power to welfare to work companies who can now mandate benefits claimants to almost any activity, including workfare. Those who refuse can have benefits stopped for up to three years. When Universal Credit is launched next year, this will include in work benefits such as Working Tax or Child Credits.

http://johnnyvoid.wordpress.com/2012/11/03/iain-duncan-smith-launches-attack-on-step-parents/

 

[Treacle Toes]

Tory Councillor Resigns Over Housing Benefit Threat To Young

Posted on June 29, 2012 by johnny void | 35 Comments
“I now believe that this governments economic policies – cutting spending in a depression, reducing welfare benefits for the most vulnerable, removing employment protections and cutting taxes for the richest – are completely wrong, economically unjustifiable, and I cannot in good conscience defend their actions.”
Torbay Councillor Matthew James has resigned from the Tory Party after calling Cameron’s plans to slash Housing Benefit for those under 25 “the final straw”.
In a statement on his website Cllr James says he will remain as an independent but that a “a misguided and damaging commitment to austerity” means he must leave for the sake of his “own integrity”. Basically he’s saying “I used to be Tory, but then I grew up. Sorry about that.”
http://johnnyvoid.wordpress.com/201...resigns-over-housing-benefit-threat-to-young/

 

[Treacle Toes]

Social Welfare Union · 1,998 like this.
5 minutes ago ·
Follow the Cardiff man on hunger strike against #Atos on twitter @ChristosPalmer. Please note we do not condone these actions due to fear for his health and the possibility of others doing the same and putting their health at risk. However, we do support the reasons behind what he is doing and wish him the very best.

 

[Treacle Toes]

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/201...benefits-dwp-disability-rights_n_2076218.html

 

[Treacle Toes]

The disturbing truth about disability assessments
BMJ 2012; 345 doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/bmj.e5347 (Published 8 August 2012)
Cite this as: BMJ 2012;345:e5347

1. Margaret McCartney, general practitioner, Glasgow

1. margaret@margaretmccartney.com

Two recent television programmes made public what doctors and patients already know: fitness to work assessments being conducted in the UK by the private firm Atos are unfit for purpose and damaging. Why are doctors involved in this farce, asks Margaret McCartney
Atos Healthcare carries out disability assessments on behalf of the Department for Work and Pensions. When I tried I failed to find out about the content of assessments, their evidence base, and the training and auditing of assessors.1 2 I wanted to know basic things. What medical criteria were used in assessments? How could the assessor—having no access to medical notes, test results, clinical opinions, or history—make a valid decision about whether the person was fit, or not, to work? Despite Atos’s services costing the taxpayer £100m (€125m; $155m) a year, commercial confidentiality is given as the reason why the veils are persistently and firmly drawn.

The general practitioner Steve Bick thwarted this tangled web by going undercover as a new recruit, filming his training sessions for Dispatches. It made for painful viewing. Incapacity benefit is being converted to employment support allowance, with the intention that every claimant would have a medical reassessment—the “work capability assessment.” This is a medical examination carried out by a nurse, physiotherapist, or doctor. The tests—peak flow, limb movements, pushing a box around, pressing a button—are clearly unable to distinguish someone who can work from someone who can’t. Points can be awarded in several categories and are forwarded to the decision maker, a Department for Work and Pensions assessor, for judgment. The box ticking to achieve enough points to be granted employment support allowance was ludicrous.

continued:
http://www.bmj.com/content/345/bmj.e5347?ijkey=hCXfT1z84M6BopW&keytype=ref

 

[Treacle Toes]

Editor's blog: the problem with ideology is how to ignore the evidence

Housing associations still in the dark about welfare reform just six months before nationwide rollout
http://www.guardian.co.uk/housing-n...using-benefit-evidence-based-policy?fb=optOut

 

[Treacle Toes]

The leaked #A4e internal audit report covering Work Programme fraud: Here: … #workfare

 

[Treacle Toes]

http://mikesivier.wordpress.com/201...rs-iain-duncan-smith-forced-blind-man-to-beg/

 

[Treacle Toes]

NHS Direct to close most call centres, cutting hundreds of jobs, says union

Bosses deny Unison's assertion that they have decided to close 24 of 30 sites used by helpline service

http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2012/nov/09/nhs-direct-call-centres-jobs?fb=optOut

Doctors dismayed as public health committee is scrapped

Subcommittee set up to tackle obesity, alcohol abuse and other public health problems is axed after only two years

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2012/nov/08/doctors-dismay-public-health-committee

Great news day

 

[Pickman's model]

It's strange especially as I am told councils are about to regain a responsibility for public health

 

[Treacle Toes]

The bedroom Tax and how people are receiving the news:

http://www.insidehousing.co.uk/tenancies/knock-knock/6524584.article

IDS hints at rethink over ‘bedroom tax’

http://www.insidehousing.co.uk//6519498.article#.UJ1ITC3uHDQ.facebook

 

[Treacle Toes]

Really good RSA type animation vid from the Barnet Alliance against cuts and outsourcing in Barnet:



Barnet Eye blog:

http://www.barneteye.blogspot.co.uk/

 

[Treacle Toes]

DPAC ‏@Dis_PPL_Protest
#dpac The real WCA figures after appeal- 76% entitled to support! http://p.ost.im/p/dSeQfG #dpac

 

[Treacle Toes]

Éoin Clarke ‏@DrEoinClarke
Wrong, Wrong, Wrong: Minimum Wage job adverts emerge to replace 750 NHS Direct jobs "axed via email" yesterday http://eoin-clarke.blogspot.co.uk/2012/11/minimum-wage-job-advert-to-hire.html …

 

[Frankie Jack]

Would you like to use your clinical skills in a unique way?

NMC Registered Nurses
£32-£34k Depending upon location plus excellent package.

The position will involve undertaking medical assessments and producing reports on individual’s fitness to work. It is a highly rewarding role that requires a combination of excellent clinical, communication and IT skills.

Oh and you'll have to sign the Official Secrets Act too.

 

[Treacle Toes]

Social Welfare Union
Campaigners respond to Minister for Disabled on Bedroom Tax

http://socialwelfareunion.org/archives/2859

 

[Treacle Toes]

Wednesday, 19 September 2012

UNIVERSAL CREDIT - 83% TAX RATE FOR SOME

http://paullewismoney.blogspot.co.uk/2012/09/universal-credit-83-tax-rate-for-some.html

 

[stuff_it]

 

[Frankie Jack]

but eh,, how to fuck people up is way more real eh ffs..

 

[Frankie Jack]

Urbs are fuckwitted Cunts today.. Say it ain't so

 

[Treacle Toes]

Sunday 11 November 2012
Staff anger as benefit test firm Atos wins Government counselling contract


Tom Gordon
Scottish Political Editor
THE Scottish Government has angered staff by hiring the controversial fit-for-work benefit tests company Atos to run its counselling service.

inShare​

Protests were held against Atos this summer outside the Department for Work and Pensions in London Photograph: Neil Hall/Reuters
The award of a £720,000 contract to the French firm was the subject of a meeting between union officials, managers and Atos staff on Friday.

It has also prompted complaints on the Government's internal computer network.
One member of staff wrote: "Cannot believe that any public contract was given to this company after recent adverse publicity."
Another said: "Atos are an interesting choice given growing public concerns about their approach to disability testing."

Atos – the subject of widespread criticism over its handling of tests to determine whether those claiming sickness and disability benefits are fit for work – took over the Scottish Government's round-the-clock Employee Assistance Service on November 1.
The service, which staff can access free of charge, offers support for "emotional, practical, health and social issues", and includes a team of welfare and counselling practitioners. Atos Healthcare will run the service for two years, with a possible four-year extension.

http://www.heraldscotland.com/polit...wins-government-counselling-contract.19389977

 

[Treacle Toes]

why the Closure of the Independent Living Fund affects Everyone in the UK

http://jaynelinney.wordpress.com/20...ndent-living-fund-affects-everyone-in-the-uk/

 

[BigTom]

Universal Credit delayed by at least a year as key personell quit .. IT Problems, who'd have thought it?

www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/benefits-reform-under-threat-after-it-glitch-8303835.html

Despite assurances from the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) that universal credit will be rolled out on time and on budget, its national launch – scheduled for October next year – will now be limited to small regional projects. Sources within the DWP have told The IoS that a realistic national roll-out – regardless of the department's public assurances – is already a year behind schedule amid fears that "technical issues over computer software" could push that back further.

So I think this means regional pilots in October 2013 not April, and national rollout sometime 2014..

The programme's director, Malcolm Whitehouse, and the DWP's head of IT, Steve Dover, last week announced they would be leaving the department. The senior civil servant on the project was described as being "on extended sick leave". Other key personnel have also left.

oh dear. might this be because they can see the train wreck coming?

I really hope that this isn't going to just be delays but gets it scrapped, or at least pushes it back beyond 2015, when the change of government might cause more delays or even the scrapping of the system (no doubt Labour support UC in principle at least though).