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campaign against welfare cuts and poverty

Frankie Jack said:
I'm gobsmacked..!!! Lord Freud, Aaron Antonovsky,
Salutogenesis and what the fuck next..??

https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/transforming-welfare
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This is just sinister; the job of welfare to reward work?

That's the responsibility of the employer, and if employers won't do it then government should intervene.

Fuck these people. This is just about moulding the labour market and the workforce to accept crappier terms and conditions. All headed by a grubby financier with no experience of welare nor any kind of democratic mandate.
 
There was nothing more likely than all the other channels would start their own 'benefits street' productions, these will have increasingly poorer production values, more sensationalism, etc, don't you just love a free media?
 
Steve-Bell-29.01.2014-012.jpg



"I would like to use my time this morning to reflect on the past 4 years, and in particular how different the welfare landscape is now compared to 2010.
In short, it is very different. And the change has been long overdue.
We are introducing the most fundamental reforms to the welfare and pensions systems for more than 60 years.
These are structural changes designed to reward work, encourage responsibility and help those who need it most.

And we are already starting to see the impacts of these reforms."

Lord Fraud...
 
Funny how we get to take money from the poor, at the drop of a hat, to 'encourage responsibility', but if we want to encouarge responsibility from the rich cunts at the top of the food chain...notsomuch.
 
who told him he was having a heart attack?

was it the assessor? it must have been surely. How can they argue he withdrew?

ffs this getting worse and fucking worse.
 
Bakunin said:
Having a heart attack during your ATOS medical means you withdrew from completing the assessment and can be sanctioned according to Jobcentre Plus <snip>
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It's official, the world's gone mad. :mad:
 
Awesome Wells said:
IDS is back in front oof the select committee (unless he's too busy throwing poor people under a bus or something) on Monday. Should be worth a watch on the livestream.
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Starting at 4:30, in about half an hour.

----------

http://www.parliamentlive.tv/Main/Player.aspx?meetingId=14819

Wilson Room
Meeting starts at 4.30pm

Financial Scrutiny: Department for Work and Pensions Annual Report and Accounts 2012-13
Witnesses
  1. Rt Hon Iain Duncan Smith MP, Secretary of State, Robert Devereux, Permanent Secretary, and Mike Driver, Director General for Finance, Department for Work and Pension
----------
 
Just found this...
Sent to a friend by a whistle blower.

Hi I work within the DWP so please don't use my name as it could cost me my job.

The DWP are rolling out nationally an initiative to work with 120k families whose lives are blighted by joblessness, single parents, crime and truancy. We have specially trained personnel to work closely with them to break these harmful trends and integrate them into society, improve their lives and make working the preferred options.

However what has not been released and is being kept hush hush is that these families are to achieve certain targets working with our staff and stakeholders, professional organisations which have been hand picked to get the desired results as expediently as possible. The department is investing a great deal of resources into this project and participants are to be under no illusions that equal investment and commitment are required from them.

This will not be an option where families can choose not to be involved in.....if they refuse to participate, their benefits will be stripped under sanctions. If after a period of 26 weeks results are not forthcoming and improvements tangible and sustained all benefits will be withdrawn.

The adults will either have to work in any position that can be found and will be paid via fuel food and basic clothing. If the children continue to truant and participate in anti social behaviour those under 13 will be taken into care and those over 13 will be expected to work under the same terms as their parents with tutors twice weekly to ensure a basic level of literacy and numeracy. They will not be living with their parents but in dormitory accommodation. Tenders have been received and a short list drawn up for the lots as with pip. Fore runners are G4S, Deloittes, Veolia, Capita and Serco.

Myself and many other staff are horrified but are powerless to stop this. The government are saying they will save more on what they cut on the benefits including DLA for the people in these families getting high rates for anger and behavioural problems, housing benefits and benefits for babies and children. Any of the parents having children throughout or once they've failed the initiative will be taken into the care of local authorities. The families will be allowed supervised access at contact centres as deemed acceptable by the people overseeing the project and the handlers for the individual families.

This is all underway and being arranged as we speak. The government see these families as an absolute blight on society and one way or another are determined to get rid of them in any way they can. Their view is that support and money haven't helped, ASBO's are a joke and seen as a badge of honour and children whether in these families or other families on low incomes are a drain on resources and they believe if they stop paying then the children will stop being born and those already here will have to either conform or to be excluded and earn their keep.

To get disability allowance for children is going to be nigh on impossible which is why the reforms haven't targeted them, new plans are underway as the perception is that ALL children need care and parents know this before having them therefore there are only very rare circumstances where additional support is justifiable. Thank You.
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Jackobi said:
Starting at 4:30, in about half an hour.

----------

http://www.parliamentlive.tv/Main/Player.aspx?meetingId=14819

Wilson Room
Meeting starts at 4.30pm

Financial Scrutiny: Department for Work and Pensions Annual Report and Accounts 2012-13
Witnesses
  1. Rt Hon Iain Duncan Smith MP, Secretary of State, Robert Devereux, Permanent Secretary, and Mike Driver, Director General for Finance, Department for Work and Pension
----------
Click to expand...
I missed most of it. Though I did hear them saying that it cost 48p to process a fast track bank payment (same day iirc) and so that costs too much money for IDS' liking, even though he's 'saving' money elsewhere - mostly from them chaging the index to which benefit rises are linked and from time limiting ESA (the miracle cure!). So fucking use that money then you morons!

Then I heard IDS say that it's better for crisis loan claimants to have face to face assessments, rather than just claim over the phone. Apparently too many people were receiving loans this way (if he thinks its easy he didn't talk to the wanker I talked to a few years back who played me for a right mug). Some people were apparently receiving 10 or 11 loans per year! Shock horror - can't think why that might be!

What he doesn't explain is how people in crisis are meant to attend face to face appointments because there's no way they will come to you!
 
According to the Mirror, IDS is considering scrapping winter fuel allowances for OAP's, as well as bus passes and TV licenses. Not sure if this is new news - he's probably been considering it for a while.

He revealed today: “We need maximum flexibility with the cap. Pretty much all existing ringfences will have to disappear.”
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Crisis has a pdf about Universal Credit. It's probably nothing new, but it does confirm, once again, the stupidity that lives inside IDS's head:

16. Will claimants who are in work still be subject to conditionality and
sanctions?
Yes. UC claimants earning under the ‘conditionality earnings threshold’ (usually the
equivalent of 35 hours at National Minimum Wage – currently £210 per week for a
single person or £420 per week for a couple) will continue to be subject to
conditionality requirements and any resulting sanctions once they enter work.
Sanctions received before moving into work will continue whilst the claimant is
working. However, sanctions will be cancelled if the claimant works for six
consecutive months or more above the conditionality earnings threshold.
Click to expand...

So if you are working and you fall foul of the system, for whatever reason, you can kiss the support you need to continue in that job (and live), which will likely compound your 'offence' and subsequently bump up the sanction period.

And you will stand no chance of making a go of a job unless it pays substantially since you won't get any benefit if you subsequently find work while sanctioned.

This has to be the most retrograde self defeating and wholly counter productive nonsense ever.

The CAB also cover it.
 
Awesome Wells said:
Crisis has a pdf about Universal Credit. It's probably nothing new, but it does confirm, once again, the stupidity that lives inside IDS's head:



So if you are working and you fall foul of the system, for whatever reason, you can kiss the support you need to continue in that job (and live), which will likely compound your 'offence' and subsequently bump up the sanction period.

And you will stand no chance of making a go of a job unless it pays substantially since you won't get any benefit if you subsequently find work while sanctioned.

This has to be the most retrograde self defeating and wholly counter productive nonsense ever.

The CAB also cover it.
Click to expand...

Yeah, absolutely grim, only upside is that it's something that is going too far imo, I think that the majority of people accept the idea/principle of sanctions for unemployed people and actively support them for people they consider undeserving unemployed (with many people putting all unemployed people in this category), but the idea that people who are already in a job should be sanctioned for not doing enough to find work is beyond this acceptance (at the moment at least).
I await the first person getting sanctioned because they got called in to work and missed a JCP appointment. Will definitely happen.
 
Haven't they done away with hardship payments (or passed them onto local authorities along with crisis loans)?

Same with rapid reclaims (as I overheard last time I signed on).

Someone who's sanctioned will struggle if offered a job in a great many cases and then will be hit again for refusing a job. The PCS need to get their act together on this. I pu this to the Socialist Party, having joined them last year, and was told the PCS have been on strike more than any other union, but get no solidarity (more or less).
 
Carers and those with a personal care plan should have a read of this posted by a good friend and carer who has struggled a while with the system and SS.

https://www.facebook.com/notes/tismes-page/fraud-just-got-personal/479142662190018

For those not on FB

Fraud just got Personal
8 February 2014 at 19:23
If you are a carer of a severely disabled person, you might recognise this story.

I am the unpaid carer of a severely disabled young man. In 2010 my son was offered a personal budget for the first time. I have struggled and struggled for the past three years to get the Personal budget to work - with little help from Social services I have become an employer for the first time, I have had to deal with employment disputes, payrolls, insurances all sorts of things that I never thought I would have to deal with as a private individual.

However, in 2012 I realised that one of the reasons things were "going wrong" was because Social Services kept blocking approval for the spending of the money that had been allocated in the Personal budget. They kept saying "there's no money left" which was absurd as the budget was more than ample to accommodate the things that my son needed.

The way Personal budgets are worked are actually relatively simple.

If you are a severely disabled person with CRITICAL NEEDS you will undergo a care assessment by a Social Worker. This determines exactly how much care support you need. Carers and family members can inform on this assessment to ensure that needs are appropriately recorded. You are then invited to outline a 'wish list of activities" if you had the money, these are the things you would spend it on. This can be for ANYTHING to do with social care but NOT medical needs, food and drink or any illegal activity (well of course!). Other than that - anything goes.

This is what makes a personal budget "personal". Before, if you were severely disabled, you were collected in a mini-bus and taken to a day centre where activities were organised for you to participate in. Now this is great for many people but for a lot of people this can be seen as a bit restrictive, and in some cases patronising and if you are a young disabled person - who wants to be "lumped" with older disabled people?

So, the Cameron Government decided to close the day centres. Instead, the money spent providing transport and day centres would be put into a central fund and Councils would then be able to 'give' the money they WOULD have spent running that kind of social care directly to the people to use the way they want to use it, for the things they actually want to do.

This is what a personal budget is.

You decide what you want to do if you had the money to do it. For some people this might be employing a Personal assistant to help them get out and about or do things around the home, for others it might be used to pay for a course in college. Some people use it to go horse riding or to pursue hobbies like gardening. It is for whatever you want to use it for to make your life more SOCIAL.

So, you have your care assessment. You decide what you want to do. The Social Worker then decides how much that will all cost and this is all set down in a LEGAL DOCUMENT called a Care Plan. The budget has to be included in the Care Plan.

Then, the usual way of administering the budget is that the Yearly total is divided into monthly awards and paid to an administrating management company - usually a local charity. From their bank account, they then pay invoices, pay roll etc. you submit to them approved for payment.

If for any reason you do not use all your budget in a year, then at the end of that year the budget is reviewed, and the excess money is then 'clawed back" by the council to be 'recycled' the next year.

Once the budget has been assigned it is YOUR money. Social Services cannot block payment of your budget and noone should be able to access your budget without your express approval.

The management company should issue you with regular statements stating exactly HOW MUCH you have

- Coming in from the council each month
- What monies have gone out and who they have been paid to

- and What money is left in the budget.

This is basic good practice.

If you do not get these statements and if you cannot account for ALL the money that is going out of the budget, not only will Social Services hold you liable for the loss, but they might take away your right to a personal budget, allege fraud and pursue an investigation against you and in some very sad cases for carers of severely disabled children, face losing the care of those children altogether.

However, you never get to actually HAVE any money - the money is paid to the management company directly from the Council!

What I have discovered is that many people with personal budgets are being told that there is "no money left' to pay for the things they need and their management companies are not producing the statements to enable disabled people or their carers to track the payments properly. Care support is blocked, invoices go unpaid, and activities are refused.

Where is the money going?

You cannot complain - Social Services seem very reluctant to investigate, and often refuse to take complaints. If you do not have a complaint accepted by the Council you cannot go to the Local Government Ombudsman. You cannot get legal aid for this matter because this is deemed a "Civil Law" matter which, being on a benefit income you cannot get legal aid for any more.

You are left in a rapidly decreasing spiral of frustration, neglect and downright danger from prosecution.

Remember, if you do not spend all the money in a given year, it is then 'clawed" back to be 'recycled". On paper it LOOKS like you have had this sum of money to spend on care, courses and activites. In reality, you are getting a fraction of that amount. But because the Care Plan is a legal document and once signed and the budget allocated cannot be changed without another review - it is YOUR money for you for your disabilities and noone should be able to take it away!

So are councils "giving budgets" with one hand then "taking it away? with the other? Submitting the accounts to the Government to get MORE money? Rinse, repeat the cycle. What is happening?



I have had to deal with this very same issue in my son's care.

Well, it has taken two weeks and some 8 hours of phone calls - a lot of work by all involved - but I finally spoke to the National Fraud Agency yesterday and it has now been agreed that some £30,000 has gone "missing" and that there are indeed MAJOR questions to answer.



The National Fraud Agency is a new way of investigating Fraud in this UK set up under this Government. Initially, they declined to take my complaint, suggesting this was "merely a civil complaint" but having taken my statement and looking at the evidence I have provided so far they have now decided that it is a case of Corruption and has been sent to a specialist team in London for Investigation.

They are going to decide if it is Corruption (as it involves SS and quite frankly the NFA were quite alarmed by the reaction of the Police when I tried to report the crime), or if it is Fraud. Either way, I will be getting a CRIME NO. and this WILL be investigated now.

This is excellent news for both my son and myself.

This means that I can now go to the Charities Commission and get them to investigate also, and I have been referred to Victim Support, which potentially means that I can claim compensation for the distress of the past four years.

Now, this is the good bit.

I KNOW I am not alone. I know that there are many many people out there who are suffering with the same problems with their personal budgets and local authorities.

The National Fraud Agency want to hear from YOU.

I know that at least FOUR of my FB friends are having similar problems. That is 1% of my friends list. Carers UK says that there are £6.5 MILLION carers in the UK. If 1% of ALL carers are facing the same problems then this means that there are over 60,000 carers in the UK who are facing the same problems.

This accounts for MILLIONS of £££s being "lost" and the consequences for our carees is immeasurable. I KNOW that there have been deaths because of this.


We have long said that there is noone we can complain to. Social Services won't investigate, the Local Ombudsman won't investigate, we can't get legal aid and so on and so on.

Well NOW there is.

You need to ring the National Fraud Agency - Action Fraud.

0300 123 2040

You need to make a complaint of FRAUD and corruption.

When you make the complaint you should ask for your complaint to be copied for the attention of Clare Farrell in the Edinburgh Office. Clare is the lady who is dealing with MY case and she is now very aware of Personal budgets and Personalisation.

You will be given a CRIME No. You are also able to refer yourself to Victim support. This will enable you to a) get counselling and support and b) potentially get compensation.

Victim support can be contacted on 0845 303 0900

Get calling Monday and don't forget to CC Clare Farrell in the complaint?

Do let me know via email if you complain? There are further steps we can take once we get crime numbers!

unpaidcarer@gmail.com

- Tisme
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I'm reliably informed that councillors in Bristol voted 70% against evictions over the Bedroom Under Tax Occupancy Charge Subsidy (or BUTOCS :D - sorry i have barely slept thanks to the latest storm overhead).

Índependent' Mayor Ferguson overruled them and cut opposing speakers off mid flow.

Hooray for the Merchant Venturers of Bristol (and their honourary only female member, Maggie Thatcher)!
 
The lady who wrote that has been in constant battle with SS and other agencies for a good couple of years now Greebo Thankfully she's well genned up on all aspects of care for her severely disabled son. Plenty of practice fighting against bullshit in the care sector.
 
Media is reporting that Govt is seting up a new 70m private sector organisation to get long term sick back to work, anyone who has been on sick leave for more that four months can apply, apparently its non compulsory, yeah right, so with U/C that means nearly all the working/non working population will be under Sauron's gaze, I mean the DWP.
 
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