Boiling the frog - dismantling welfare in the UK

Boiling the frog - dismantling welfare.

In the 19th century it was believed that if you placed a frog in cold water and heated it slowly enough it would fail to notice the increase in temperature a cook to death whereas if placed immediately into hot water it would jump out. It turns out not to be true, but it serves as a useful metaphor to desribe how slow changes can lead to outcomes which would not be acceptable had they been done all at once. With that in mind I have collected annacdotal cases and hard data on the effect of welfare reforms which follow:
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People on housing benefit live in mansions?
Our newspapers continuously bombard us with these stories. There are around five million claimants of Housing Benefit; of which there were five families who received over £100,000 per year, all living in central London. The average award of Housing Benefit is approximately £85 a week. Only 3% of families received more than £10,000 a year support, and 0.04% received more than £30,000 a year. And no-one ever mentions that housing benefit goes straight to the Landlord and not the claimant.
And those large families screwing the taxpayer? There are around 130 families with 10 children and only 10 families with 12 children IN THE WHOLE COUNTRY who are on benefits.
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Benefit cheats are bankrupting the country?
Benefit fraud amounts to about £1.5 billion a year, less than 1% of the entire budget. To put this in perspective, the bank bailout equalled 1,000 years of benefit fraud. Meanwhile, £1.3 billion gets underpaid each year and a further £16 billion goes UNCLAIMED every year.
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We can no longer afford the welfare state?
So who is really bankrupting the country? Well, the richest 1,000 people now possess £414 billion between them, a sum more than three times the size of the entire UK budget deficit. The richest 1% of the population are estimated to possess wealth of about £1 trillion. The richest 10% control wealth of about £4 trillion. The Quantitative Easing programme has increased the personal wealth of the UK’s richest 20% by enough to pay for Job Seeker’s Allowance for the next 100 years.
The people of this country are being shafted, but instead of the blame being directed at the real culprits, the rich, it is being aimed at the most vulnerable, the poor, with our own Government shamelessly leading the way.
And every one who believes their bullshit should hang their heads in shame.
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The welfare state has led to a 'something for nothing' culture?
It may be utterly repugnant to hear millionaire politicians who have never worked a day in their life telling us that they are ending the 'something for nothing culture', but it's also utter bollocks. Only 2.5% of the total welfare budget of £200 billion actually goes on unemployment, whilst the vast majority of unemployed claimants have worked, and paid taxes, for years and are now on benefits due to redundancy, sickness, disability or having to care for someone. Millions more are receiving benefits due to poverty wages. The Welfare state is actually a massive state subsidy to business which enables it to pay poverty wages and charge exorbitant rents.
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Benefit cheats are bankrupting the country?
Benefit fraud amounts to about £1.5 billion a year, less than 1% of the entire budget. To put this in perspective, the bank bailout equalled 1,000 years of benefit fraud. Meanwhile, £1.3 billion gets underpaid each year and a further £16 billion goes UNCLAIMED every year.
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In 1971, JSA equalled 20.9% of the average wage. Today, it is worth 10.9%. These people are living in poverty. There are 8.5 million people receiving benefits in this country. There are more people IN WORK who get benefits than not working. The majority of all housing benefit claimants are IN WORK. 6.1 million people classed as living in poverty are from households IN WORK.
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Living on benefits is a lifestyle choice?
Only 0.1% of benefit claimants who have claimed for 10 years or more are actually unemployed. Less than 5,000 people, out of over 9 million 16-64 year olds who don't work, have been on Job Seekers Allowance for more than 5 years. Less than 0.1% of the 20 million working age households have 2 generations that have never had a permanent job. Despite strenuous efforts, researchers have been unable to find any families where three generations have never worked.
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On BBC news, Iain Duncan Smith, confronted with irrefutable cases of hardship, said: "It's about trying to get as many people as possible out of the welfare trap and into lives they can control themselves." As the economist JK Galbraith observed: "The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy: that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness."
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A man in East Grinstead, who suffered from acute renal problems having hospital treatment five days a week, was found fit for work, and his benefits removed. He died of complications of his renal disease caused by starvation.
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I am currently helping a man of 56 who was recently sanctioned. He didnt know until he went to the bank. He didnt know why and he didnt know when. He had no idea of his rights and had not been told of any. I couldnt find any anyway after scouring the regujlations. Reason? There werent any. He had no money, no electricity, no gas and only 2 days food left.I got him to apply for a hardhsip grant on grounds of vulnerability due to a chronic health condition and it was completely ignored. I asked for a Statement of Reasons and it took 3 months to get that. Then we sent in an appeal. Now they want to know why it is late. It isnt. Delays and cockups all the way. Must be the shock. Jobseekers dont usually appeal; they go away and steal, live off relatives or live in a twilight zone. This is a mental torture. There must be a human rights angle here somewhere.
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When I was breached on workfare, the job centre did not even notify me that I was breached, which meant that I had no decision to appeal. When I had no money for food, I asked the job centre to refer to a food bank so that I could eat.
They told me to go to the council. I went to the council. The council told me that they only refer families with children.
I checked the internet site of the local food bank, which did state that they only accepted referals BUT job centre plus was listed as a referring agency, along with local churches, (I am a non-believer) and doctors.
I did go to the doctor and they told me that they had no appointments.
I was absolutely fuming that the DWP policy is putting people through real hardship, but they are taking that one step further by not permitting people to BEG for food. No doubt because lengthy lines at the food banks and soup kitchens would be bad publicity regardless of need.
It is no wonder that people are self immolating in front of benefit offices.
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http://labourlist.org/2013/03/shocking-dwp-whistleblower-letter-shows-targets-for-sanctions-in-action
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Just a reminder of what the fuss is all about - here is the Welfare Bill in numbers! Now take a good look at the bill for "Unemployment" which is the third lowest amount (in comparison say to the bill for "Elderly People") and remind me again how and why jobseekers are being blamed and demonised for the size of the Welfare Bill????????
TOTAL BENEFITS BILL = £200,978 million
Benefit: Expenditure (in £millions)
1. Benefits for Elderly People £85,011
2. Benefits for people on Low Income £41,811
3. Benefits for Families with children £36,998
4. Benefits for Sick & Disabled £31,215
5. Benefits for Unemployed People £5,164
6. Benefits for Bereaved People £623
7. Other Benefits - Christmas Bonus £155
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Jobseekers (Back to Work Schemes) Bill Second Reading
19 Mar 2013 : Column 828
Mr Byrne: A couple of years ago now, the Secretary of State gave an assurance to the House that individual jobcentres or jobcentre districts did not have targets for sanctioning jobseekers and that there were not any kind of league tables that ranked jobcentres or districts for sanctions. Will the Minister confirm that that is still his Department’s policy?
Mr Hoban: Absolutely. There are no league tables in place. We do not set targets for sanctions; I have made that point in previous discussions with, I think, the right hon. Member for East Ham (Stephen Timms). The decisions that need to be made are the right ones. They need to be based on whether people have breached the agreements they have set out with the jobcentre, and there are no targets in place. [An outright lie]
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"It was also reported that staff in a jobcentre in the West Midlands were this week told that the team who submitted the most Stricter Benefit Regime "Refusal of Employment" referrals would be rewarded with Easter eggs."
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You are not alone with these suspensions, am on one now, not the first either. I too have been sanctioned twice for not attending appointments in the last five months when I had attended and had proof. It took over two months on each occasion to get my benefit re-instated...
I have a close friend, currently sanctioned for 13 weeks for attending 4 sessions, one a week, for counseling, that the medical practitioner called 'training' in the letter to the DWP (learning coping strategies for a chronic condition to enable them to be more employable. The practitioner used the word training to give it all a more positive spin they said).
This meant that she was attending 'training' and so not entitled to benefits... 13 week sanction's almost up and she's still arguing over it and still has no income... and THE FOOD BANK IS ONLY ALLOWED TO OFFER HELP ON THREE OCCASIONS, WITH THREE DAYS FOOD FOR EACH OCCASION... dont even ask how the hell she copes with no income (lives alone) to feed herself... its not pretty or legal and we're all do what we can to help... and the effect on her health has been toxic, what was a chronic physical condition is now a major mental health problem as well, caused by the situation with the DWP. Now not only needing support from the welfare budget, but also acute mental health services too, a fantastic cash saving exercise!!!
She's'd worked for 27 years in local authorities and community jobs until last year, not a career 'scrounger' as IDS will have people think...
This is the reality of what those policies are doing. I wrote this because people need to know the reality of what is happening. It's not an isolated case, neither is Rita 2013. They are wrecking lives and peoples health
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Having the considerable misfortune to see the Work Programme close up, I have witnessed the appalling way they treat people. They only take any interest in the 'easy' people who will make them money, anyone who needs genuine help is ignored. They even refused to see one client (I refuse to call him a claimant) because they would not pay his bus fare to their site as it was out of town.
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- from personal experience trying to support my friend who is currently sanctioned (described in a post above somewhere)... what do you do with no income for 13 weeks?
you go to the food bank - three times, three days food each time is all you are allowed
social services tell you that as you are working age and single, you are not a priority to help, so there is no help for you from them
you sell your possessions on Ebay until you have nothing left to sell
you dont tell anyone what is happening to you because you feel so utterly ashamed
when the shame reaches its height, you go hungry in a freezing cold flat, become ill and try suicide. Bonus!! The NHS feed you for a few days but then you are sent home again
so you start stealing from the supermarket and get caught, so the police feed you for a day while you're locked up
you go 'skipping' - breaking onto places where food is thrown out, or ask shops and cafes for the food that is going to be thrown out at the end of the day.
you hang about at the end of the market and take the waste fruit and veg out of the bins
theres no money for the gas meter for heat or hot water, your friends are paying meter money onto the electric meter for you and you live in the living room of your flat with an electric heater on. you walk for 45 minutes each way to sit in the nearest library for the day because its warmer in there than at home, and gives you access to waste food at the end of the trading day
the loan sharks knock daily on your door, offering you money you dare not take, but feel is inevitable that you will very soon because its your last option and you're at the end of your tether
by now your physical and mental health are shot, and the likelihood of getting back into work is further away than ever, but the DWP have saved 13 weeks benefit, yippee!! But you also used up huge amount of police and NHS costs - booo!!
thats what someone is currently doing... seriously... three doors away from where I'm sat typing this
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Long term unemployment is actually way less of an issue than this government makes out. And so most unemployed people - something like 85% plus in most places - are recently unemployed and will find work within a year. That means they've paid in! They've paid into the NI fund and paid their stamps which are there for the purpose of 'paying them to do nothing' if they lose their job. Or rather - paying them unemployment benefit while they find another job!!
How would you feel if you took out an Accident Sickness and Unemployment policy with Aviva and had been paying fifty quid a month into it but when you lost your job Aviva turned around and said 'we're going to pay you your claim but you'll have to work in Tesco 30 hours a week for the money.' ??
My guess is you'd feel a little bit robbed. That's why I cannot get over the idiocy of the British people swallowing all this 'something for nothing' rhetoric. They really are fools - because they're still paying their NI - it's being taken out of their wages forcibly by the government and yet the NI fund is now to all intents and purposes a fruad. If you've got to work for your dole - why pay into an insurance scheme at all?
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I'm a "hardworking" senior manager and software developer in a small pharmaceuticals company, full of self-starters and "strivers" (of which I count myself as one). To provide a bit of balance to this twat, I pay my taxes to look after the most vulnerable in society, such as the disabled and for those who have fallen on hard times through no fault of their own, such as redundancy. I do *not* pay my taxes for pointlessly spunking up in a two week sports event (as lovely as it was) or subsidising MPs lunches and expenses. Also, National Insurance contributions are paid out by me so I can make certain I'm paid some sort of sickness payment or unemployment benefit to me when (perish the though) I suffer a bit of misfortune.

Why not recognise that life is not as structured, predictable or as stable as you think it is and that, sometimes, the world can be quite cruely arbitrary? That's a polite way of telling you to grow a fucking conscience.
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Rent £65 per week, JSA £71 and HB was £38 now £25. Total £96 per week.
Leaves £31p/w for all bills and everything else (good job I have disability bus pass as a weekly ticket now £20). After paying bills I’ve a notional £5-£10 per week left for food. Without putting myself in debt each month I was on £10 actual money left monthly for food, but that was about 4 years ago. Now in debt each month as I have to hold back rent in order to pay bills and buy food. Fucking government ministers probably think £10 is fine for a drink or dessert…JUST paid my rent in instalments, that was the remainder. But owe college fees, and some debt company wants money for stuff I never got sent…
Just to say the government are clueless wankers with no idea how much things cost. They don’t know how much a pint of milk is because somebody buys it for them. _I_ don’t know how much it is because I can’t afford to buy it any more. Tossers!
On starvation diets how are we to find the energy to jobsearch?
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Iain Duncan Smith told a boy to ‘go to the Jobcentre’ when his disabled father died a day after after being declared fit for work by the DWP. Kieran McArdle claims that the stress caused by the results of an Atos test contributed to the death of his dad, who was left half-blind and paralysed following a stroke.

When the 13 year-old wrote to IDS, however, the response from the work and pensions secretary concluded with a ’cut and paste’ invitation to make an appointment with a Jobcentre to “discuss the outcome of your father’s claim”.See letter.
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By Christine Murray
LONDON | Wed Nov 28, 2012 7:21am GMT
(Reuters) - Prime Minister David Cameron's 5-billion-pound flagship scheme to get the long-term unemployed into work found jobs for fewer than three in every 100 Britons referred to it in its first year, statistics published on Tuesday showed.

The Work Programme, which is completely outsourced to a range of private, public and voluntary sector organisations, was introduced by the cash-strapped coalition government in a bid to move the unemployed into work and off benefits.
In the first 12 months of the scheme, 18,270 people held down jobs for six months, or three months in more difficult cases, out of more than 785,000 people referred, an average success rate of 2.3 percent.

Labour leader Ed Miliband called the programme a "miserable failure", adding that a better way to tackle unemployment would be if the government paid the wages to employers in exchange for training.

"What we've seen from this government today is a failure to reform welfare," Miliband said. "Welfare bills are going up not down, not because of generosity in relation to welfare from this government, but because their plans aren't working."

The Work Programme was a central part of the coalition government's 2010 agreement, designed to encourage the private sector to take up the slack as the government cut back public sector jobs in a bid to slash the deficit.

However the approach has been seized on by critics who accuse Cameron's Conservative-led government of having an ideological preference for private outsourcing work by companies whose main priority revolves around making a profit.

The Work Programme is based on a system of payments-by-results, which the government is intending to roll out to other parts of the public sector, such as prisons.

Data for the 14 months of the programme provided by the Department for Work and Pensions showed that not a single provider had reached the minimum 5.5 percent target set by civil servants when the programme launched in June 2011.

The minimum performance target rises sharply to 27.5 percent in year two and to 33 percent in year three, targets that providers believe they can reach.

One provider in the west of England, JHP Group, found sustainable jobs for just 2.4 percent of those referred. Larger companies such as G4S (GFS.L) and Serco (SRP.L) performed marginally better but still missed the targets by some way.

Employment Minister Mark Hoban said he had sent out letters to a small number of providers demanding an improvement plan, and will monitor their performance, though he declined to give further details.

"Some are reaching the standards we expect, others have some way to go," he said. "Ultimately, we can withdraw their contract."

The government, which estimates that the programme could cost up to 5 billion pounds, has said that providers could earn between 3,700 and 13,700 pounds for every person they keep in a job for six months.

Sean Williams, who runs G4S' seven-year Work Programme contract worth 255 million pounds, defended the company's performance in the north of England, adding that he is "sector-agnostic".

"I don't think it matters whether you're from the private, public or voluntary sector, what matters is your ability to provide tailored services to unemployed people," he said.

According to the latest official statistics, the unemployment rate in Britain is around 7.8 percent, a relatively low figure for an economy that only emerged from recession in the third quarter of this year, a phenomenon that has become known as the "productivity puzzle".

However the number of long-term jobless, defined as those out of work for over a year, has increased, and reached just under a million people in September.

John, a 57-year old welder who has been out of work for two years, has just been assigned to the Work Programme.

"I'll go down there to see what they can do for me, but I don't think there's a lot that they can do - most of the work I've ever had is from people I know," he said.

John, who did not want to give his full name, said he thought young people were hardest hit.

"When I was a kid, we had technical schools, we had proper apprenticeships but I learnt welding and that's a dead trade now, for someone my age anyway," he said.
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30 hours a week at the minimum wage - £9500 a year (No tax paid as £9500 is set to become the Income Tax threshold)
JSA for adult over 21 - £3692 a year. Even with Housing Benefits it would still come to less than a wage - around £6292.
For an adult between the ages of 18 and 21 - £2912 a year, no entitlement for HB.
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Programme providers get an "attachment" fee of £400 per claimant - this attachment is a phone call or letter inviting (yeah right) the claimant for an appointment.

They can get as much as £13,000 for a "difficult to place" claimant in a "sustainable" job.

The employer can get up to £3,000.

At a recent jobs fair, people on programmes with Reed were given litle cards to give to prospective employers saying how much they could be "worth" to the company if they were taken on.

People who get jobs on their own get serious hassle from providers to disclose where they are going to work - they can claim the job start and the cash that goes with it. Luckily, people are getting wise to this and are refusing to tell the providers where they're starting work - this is why A4E were ticked off for claiming job starts they had nothing to do with. Amongst the ones they made up.

The lion's share of the cash goes to the providers who pass the claimants on to charities or other people to do the actual work.
If someone on JSA organises some voluntary work or a work trial of their own with a local charity or employer, they are not available for work and get sanctioned - like Cait Reilly.
If they get sent to A4E they can end up where they wanted to go anyway but A4E gets paid for putting them there. Or Poundland if the charity won't play.

DWP rules prevent people from doing their own placements, and insist that they can only apply via providers - that way, the jobcentre meets its' targets for referrals, the provider passes go and collects £400, and the charity may or may not get the volunteer.
Claimants are only allowed to be available for what the jobcentre says they can be available for - if they don't do it, sanction. Another target met.

So you have to be available for work but only if the jobcentre says you can. Strangely, you remain available for work when doing 30 hours a week at Poundland.

This is costing billions - and the results so far are worse than if it didn't exist at all.

IDS and Grayling are very keen to tell us that it gets people off benefits. It does - because sanctions are imposed. New ones come into force in October.
First strike - no benefit for a few weeks; second strike - no benefit for 6 months; third strike - no benefits for 3 years. Yes, years.
That includes other benefits for housing etc. which depend on DWP benfits.

it's not looking good.
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What is the point of all these workfare schemes? If there were lots of jobs going begging there might be some point to encouraging the long term unemployed or the disabled into jobs via specialised training but this isn't the case. The government sub contracts the schemes to large companies who in turn sub contract the schemes to medium companies who in turn sub contract the scheme to individuals or small companies. The whole process then turns into some sort of dance with everybody creaming off some profits before the point of delivery. If you set out to design a scheme which has the worst possible chance of success this would be it. No one really believes the schemes are any good. They are driven by people, called Tories, who are vehemently opposed to anyone getting something for nothing unless it is them. If some individuals don't want to work and there are no jobs for them to do then so be it. They don't actually cost that much and we are already supporting people - they are called the wealthy - who cost us vast sums and contribute buggar all to the general welfare. I don't know why the government doesn't simply save the money wasted on these schemes and spend it on schemes closer to their heart such as giving more money to deserving multi millionaires like the royal family.
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A friend who volunteers at a local CAB has told me that every volunteer will walk out if A4e come in. There is even internal talk that A4e is being forced onto them to deliberately bring down the CAB, leaving benefit claimants without any advice to help reduce claims.
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"Curiously I noticed that the Centre of Social Justice set up by Iain Duncan Smith has A4e on its list of donors!"
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I think now is a good time to point out that the Citizens Advice Bureau was declared a sub-contractor for A4e against their wishes.

The story goes that my boss the local CAB I volunteer for met with her boss in York and told her A4e wanted CAB to do tax-benefit calculations for their attached clients to show them how much better off in work they would be than on unemployment benefits. Lots of jokes are made about how many people with a Maths A-level A4e employs; but the crux of it is that the software the CAB uses for this has expensive licenses and for A4e it is cheaper to sub-contract to CAB than to fork out for licenses. CAB tells them they'll discuss it with them, but have not said yes.

A4e run to Chris Grayling with this bid candy and tell him to put Citizens Advice on his list. Without actually checking with Citizens Advice first, he then puts out this press release(ironically on April Fools day) announcing that the Big Society has been boosted by three-hundred charities joining the Work Programme, specifically naming the Citizens Advice Bureau.

My boss told me that she already knew: A4e had got back to CAB with the 'good news'. My boss said that her boss went ape and told A4e that there was no chance of them working together now if they can't respect even a basic bond of trust. Despite their complaints, this didn't stop Grayling doing it yet again with another press release falsely stating that the Citizens Advice Bureau are involved in the Work Programme.

It does make me wonder how much of the bid candy are even aware of it

Austerity? there's pots of money for party backers in the privatisation racket!

Unemployment? there's jobs for the boys aplenty once your political career is over!
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House Of Commons, Oral Evidence Taken Before The Work And Pensions Committee, The Work Programme

22 Nov 2010 Chris Grayling: "I certainly recognise the Flexible New Deal figures. It is on record that the Flexible New Deal cost £770 million and 450,000 people took part in it, of whom 50,000 achieved a six-month job outcome. That is a cost across the whole programme of about £15,000 per six-month job outcome. It is certainly the case that we have sought to do a better deal for the taxpayer than under the Work Programme than Flexible New Deal did". That represents 11.1%
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Almost 115,000 job seekers were referred to A4e in the ten months to May 2012 under the government’s work programme. Of those, just 4,020 secured jobs that lasted more than three months, according to a Channel 4 News investigation. That represents 3.5% yet Grayling hails this as a success.

The truth is claimants are off benefits not because of the sucess of the programme but because providers have been encouraged to apply sanctions at every possible opportunity.  Sanctions went from about 14,000 per quarter in Feb 09 to 140,000 per quarter in Feb 11 (DWP Quarterly Statistical Summary 16th May 2012).
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These contracts with Work Programme providers are 'black box' contracts, leaving it entirely up to the provider what they do (if anything). The payment system gives an up front payment known as the 'attachment fee' whenever an unemployed person starts on the programme. A further substantial payment only occurs if they get full time employment for at least 6 months. Not surprisingly, in the current climate, they have decided to grab the attachment fee then do nothing. It's all perfectly allowed. They see them for one day, do some nominal 'training', get a few hundred quid then ignore them. The government is proud to boast that it has given providers a fee hand to run the programmes as they wish. Obviously they are going to run the programme as cheaply as they can - so the smallest possible office with a few out of date computers, you don't need much to run it just for the attachment fee. It's scandalous really - the whole system is a complete rip off. Even the government estimates it will cost £14,000 for each full time job obtained.Yet it doesn't create a single job, apart from those with the provider (effectively leaching from the tax payer).
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Work programme providers have been keen to bring in charities as 'bid candy' to improve their chances of getting lucrative government contracts. As a result St Mungos, Salvation Army, Addaction and the members of the Disability Works Consortium which includes Mencap, MIND and Scope are participating. This is a forced labour scheme - but worse still the penalty of benefits sanctions has actually resulted in people being made homeless and forced to beg and steal. Indeed one charity SHP (formerly the The Single Homeless Project) pulled out citing exactly this. Benefit can be withdrawn for up to 26 weeks with no hardship payments. The true brutality of these sanctions are set out in the following statutory instrument:

www.legislation.gov dot uk/uksi/2011/917/pdfs/uksiem_20110917_en dot pdf

<i>Customers subject to a benefit sanction will not be eligible for hardship payments unless they, or a member of their family are a vulnerable person – for example:

A person who is responsible for a child who would experience hardship if no payment were made;
A person or their partner who is pregnant would experience hardship if no payment were made; and
The person's Jobseeker's Allowance includes a disability premium and person for whom that is paid would experience hardship is no payment were made.</i>

It is hard to reconcile charities participation in the Work Programme with their charitable aims and many have dropped out - though to the best of my knowledge, not those I've listed above. They have allowed themselves to be used as agents, for the brutal infliction of suffering and hardship - it is unconscionable. In the 21st century it seems charity is no longer automatically good or benevolent.I for one  will make a point of never giving a single penny to any participant in this brutal scheme ever and I would urge others to do likewise.
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Forced unpaid work still continues in the form of the mandatory work activity and community activity programme.

There is a word for  mandatory  unpaid work in the community, it is called a 'community sentence' and it is issued by the courts after due legal process. It is not issued by the DWP nor by their Work Programme providers. When did they acquire these powers to impose a judicial penalty? In fact it is more severe than any court could impose, (courts are limited to a maximum of 300 hours community service, this is 780 hours).  When did unemployment become illegal in this country?
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For 2010  JSA (job seekers allowance) was split as follows;  3.6 billion  was income based (the bare minimum needed to live) and 3 billion was contribution based (the higher rate based on NI contributions during the previous year). So really you ought to divide the cost of unemployment by roughly 2, assuming you believe people ought to be able to get back part of what they have contributed.

The true cost of imprisoning someone once you take into account court costs and support for dependents is about twice the cost of locking them up. In 2007 it was £49,200.

But the figure which dwarfs everything is the welfare for the rich. This comes in the form of tax loop holes and tax avoidance schemes. It is estimated as over £100 billion, a figure comparable to the cost health care (£118.7 billion) and pensions (£116.7 billion). So the average person pays £30 a year for  basic JSA and £1,000 a year to subsidise the wealthy. That's one figure the DM won't want highlighted.
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With so few jobs surely it makes a lot more sense to punish employers for not employing more people, rather than punish the unemployed for being unemployed. That at least has the virtue of creating jobs. If that suggestion sounds ludicrous, then it's time to reconsider the current policy towards the unemployed which is  punitive, very expensive and doesn't create a single job.
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Grayling claims that work experience was voluntary, what readers may not be aware of is that the instruction to A4E, Ingeus and other work programme providers was changed on the government web site yesterday. Prior to yesterday the instructions were unambiguous:

"Work Experience for JSA Claimants

14. Where you are providing support for JSA participants, which is work experience you must mandate participants to this activity. This is to avoid the National Minimum Wage Regulations, which will apply if JSA participants are not mandated."

and the consequences of that mandate are made clear in the first paragraph.

"1.   Participants who are mandated to undertake activity may incur a loss or reduction of benefit should they fail to comply without good reason."

Yesterday at  2012-02-24 15:08:39 the document was changed, the main effect of which was to remove paragraph 14 entirely. Who authorised the change and were work programme providers notified that under the new changes they should not longer mandate JSA claimants and that the Work Experience activity was now voluntary? It should be noted, contrary to the assertion of some commentators, that the first week of the program was never voluntary.

The before and after versions can be found here:
diigo dot com/0nsyi
diigo dot com/0nsym

The document is here:
www dot dwp dot gov dot uk/docs/wp-pg-chapter-3.pdf

A further question is, who made the change? Whoever did make the change made a number of editing errors:
1. The Version number of the document remained V2.00
2. The European Social Fund logo was removed - it is the only chapter which lacks the logo.
3. The title 'Work Programme Provider Guidance' was removed.
4. The hypertext links  on the first page which link to each section have become plain text.

Whoever did the edit did not seem to be familiar with the editor - I wonder where Chris Grayling was at 3pm yesterday?
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I get the feeling the CAP is illegal.The reason I say that is because it is unlawful punishment. It sounds indistinguishable from a community sentence issued as a punishment by the courts. The difference being that a community sentence is limited to a maximum of 300 hours considerable less than CAP (see Criminal Justice Act 2003 section 199 unpaid work requirement)

http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2003/44/section/199

The work itself seem to be the same (see Annex A in).

http://www.justice.gov.uk/news/press-releases/moj/pressrelease-240811a.htm

I’m fairly sure someone sentenced to an unpaid work requirement would still get benefits, so I think it would be hard to argue that CAP is not a punishment. In that case it would be a gross violation of Article 6 (right to a fair trial) as well as Article 4 (servitude). I wonder if a campaign to ‘decriminalise unemployment’ might have some public resonance? It could serve to start a debate as to why people were compelled to work unpaid – (possibly alongside convicted criminals?) but for longer and for no other offence than unemployment – sentenced without the benefit of a trial.
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What is needed is a complete rethink of unemployment.

There is going to be unemployment, because there are not enough jobs. If the government wants to keep the bill for that down then the people in employment should be those costing the government the most. The people who will cost least to keep unemployed, should be the ones who are unemployed. You should therefore pay them not to be employed, if they go after work it will simply displace someone who will end up costing more. Presumably there is a figure at which you could entice people out of work (or not to look for work) - at the moment that is likely to be high because of the stigma of unemployment. However if that was less than the cost of a highly dependent benefits recipient you'd be quids in. This would of course create two types of unemployed, the 'job seeker' with all attached benefits, and the 'non-jobseeker' with a fixed (but on average lower) level of benefit.
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I think that there is far too much work done in the world, that immense harm is caused by the belief that work is virtuous, and that what needs to be preached in modern industrial countries is quite different from what always has been preached.

I want to say, in all seriousness, that a great deal of harm is being done in the modern world by belief in the virtuousness of work, and that the road to happiness and prosperity lies in an organized diminution of work.

Let us take an illustration. Suppose that, at a given moment, a certain number of people are engaged in the manufacture of pins. They make as many pins as the world needs, working (say) eight hours a day. Someone makes an invention by which the same number of men can make twice as many pins: pins are already so cheap that hardly any more will be bought at a lower price. In a sensible world, everybody concerned in the manufacturing of pins would take to working four hours instead of eight, and everything else would go on as before. But in the actual world this would be thought demoralizing. The men still work eight hours, there are too many pins, some employers go bankrupt, and half the men previously concerned in making pins are thrown out of work. There is, in the end, just as much leisure as on the other plan, but half the men are totally idle while half are still overworked. In this way, it is insured that the unavoidable leisure shall cause misery all round instead of being a universal source of happiness. Can anything more insane be imagined?


From 'In Praise of Idleness' by Bertrand Russell 1932.
www zpub com/notes/idle html

What in effect has happened in recent years is that the increase in productivity has created profits which have been syphoned off into the banking system. The additional leasure has gone in effect to the banksters, or to be exact they have acquired the wealth to enable them to take that leasure in the future.
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"(IDS) said many of today's role models for young people seem to be those who have got to the top without working hard."

If anyone got to the top without working hard it's the current bunch of politicians.  Born into wealth, they haven't the slightest idea of the lives of ordinary people. As a result, they do more damage to the lot of the ordinary people of this country, than all the rioters put together. They are indeed role models - but only for those born into a life of wealth and privilege.

"The former Conservative leader went on to suggest there is a strong sense of injustice in society, particularly over large bonus payments handed to bankers who were bailed out by the government during the financial crisis."

Platitudinous drivel - uttered regularly every year to placate voters. Do not feign concern when you've no intention or political desire to change it. Your past inaction proves who really owns you and your principles - it's your role models, those very same bankers.

Cromwell got it right when he said "You have sat too long for any good you have been doing. Depart, I say, and let us have done with you. In the name of God, go!"
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At the moment the lack of jobs means there is no motivation to learn - I think learning should be open to all not just restricted to those of school age. I also think the lack of self motivation could be a large part of the problem.

The population of England aged 16-64 is 33,561,200 with only 25,625,700 jobs. Therefore there is no work for 23.6% of the working age population. That is a better indication of the true rate of unemployment. Having people dig holes and fill them back in again just to be employed is pointless. Likewise no amount of government stimulation is going to persuade me that I need 2 washing machines when I already have a perfectly good one. The number employed in manufacturing dropped from 6.69 million when Margaret Thatcher came to power, to 4.53 million when Tony Blair entered Downing Street to 2.75 million today. Yet this country manufactures about 30% more than when Thatcher came to power. The vast majority of jobs are service sector jobs (NHS, police etc) - the very sectors facing the biggest cuts. It follows that most citizens will have no choice but to 'doss around on the dole'. However the more educated they are the more likely they are to use their time productively.
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[man imprisoned for stealing bottle of water during riot] "As a homeless man he now has six months accommodation and full board provided. Maybe he was hoping for a longer sentence to see him through the whole of the winter months?"

It certainly wouldn't surprise me (by the way, 6 months is the maximum which can be given in a magistrates court). The impossibility of punishing those who have nothing, is surely proof enough that they have too little. This is what happens when you set benefits at such miserly levels.

The total average cost of imprisoning someone for one year was estimated in 2007 to be £49,200 - it may work out a bit cheaper for them if they have no dependents, but it is still a false economy. A more extreme case was the 6 month sentence for looting of £3.50 worth of bottled water. I can't help thinking that an £80 fine and suspended sentence might be a better use of tax payers money. I can't help thinking we're seeing a hideous form of lynch mob justice - those who want that should pay for it out of their own pocket, instead of expected me to fund their self-righteous vendetta.

As a nation we are far too fond of imprisonment; the cost to society is currently running at £4,228 million (based on the recent headline figure of 85,931 in jail). For comparison, income based job seekers allowance cost £3,601 million for 2009-10 according to the Institute for Fiscal studies.

The gap between rich and poor in this society has never been bigger except maybe at the height of the great depression. Yet only this week we see a government proposal to scrap the 50%  tax rate because it raised too little. Even by their own estimates it raises £750 million (for comparison the riots are estimated to have cost £100 million). The young have been particularly hard hit with the ending of educational maintenance allowances, raising of university tuition fees and cutting of unemployment benefit.
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We are governed by an 'elite' totally disconnected from the lives of the general population. It is government by the wealthy, for the wealthy, which is why the gap between rich and poor has grown ever wider. In 2005 the income share of the top 1% was 14% (and is almost certainly higher now) this is a record - certainly as far back as 1955, probably much further. Typically it has been about 8% through most of the 60s falling to 6% during the 70s. The real disparity however is not in income but in wealth. The top 1% own 21% of the UKs wealth. Poverty is defined by the Government as ‘household income below 60 percent of median income’. The percentage of people living in poverty in the UK is 21.8%, just behind the US at 23.8%. For comparison France is 14.1%, Germany 13.1%, Sweden 12.3%. Source: "Luxembourg Income Study & J Hills".

This government, like the last, thinks more of the rich bankers and media moguls than the elderly, our soldiers and the future of this country; the students. I want to see this country turn into an open and meritocratic society. Instead, the government seems intent on stamping out social mobility. They are busy turning us into a class based, medieval plutocracy - with them and their wealthy cronies at the top. The rest of us, a nation of poverty stricken serfs, grateful to be working for the minimum wage.

In 1915, Willford King wrote, "It is easy to find a man in almost any line of employment who is twice as efficient as another employee, but it is very rare to find one who is ten times as efficient. It is common, however, to see one man possessing not ten times but a thousand times the wealth of his neighbour".
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Trust MPs to know where their best interests lie


Laurence eyton, Tom Elgin:
"WIthout immigrants, more companies would out-source".

You can't outsource potato picking nor the majority of jobs done by immigrants.

"If you got rid of the dole tomorrow, companies would quickly be delighted to find a long stream of British applicants ready to work for £2.50 an hour."

No, you wouldn't. You'd see 3 million people turn to acquisitive crime as a source of income.
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There is no 'big society', just the rich getting richer, paid for by the poor getting poorer. This is a cynical move by Cameron to squeeze more money from the poor. Never has inequality been greater. When will this country turn it back on   plutocracy in favour of democracy?
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<i>The ambition of fostering a "Big Society" has been a constant theme for the Prime Minister, who has repeatedly returned to it in the face of colleagues' scepticism and public indifference.</i>

It deserves not skepticism but ridicule and only goes to show how fundamentally out of touch he is with the lives of ordinary people. Getting the poor to pay for their own welfare is the hidden subtext of the 'Big Society'. It is of course taboo to mention biggest recipients of government welfare in history - the banks and military industrial complex. Even unemployment can be a source of corporate welfare. 'New Deal' providers cost the government £30,000 per job obtained as a result of the program (source Hansard). But it's not just the service providers who benefit, Tesco, Halfords and similar large corporations obtain free labour through 'New Deal'. 'Arbeit Macht Frei' might indeed be an appropriate slogan  for this program - driven by an ideological infatuation with America of both left and right (welfare to the poor bad, corporate welfare good).

"I have the gun in my hand, I kill kings and presidents first and next all capitalists" - Giuseppe Zangara
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Child Poverty in the UK:
Gap between rich and poor wider than any time since WW2

3.5 million kids live in poverty in Britain today.
Poverty line for 1 parent 2 kids is just over 1000 pm after housing costs get £420 pm.

Child benefit £20.70
Child tax credit £51
JSA £66

Credit interest and higher fuel charges cost poor families an extra £1280 per year

Poor kids are 5 times less likely to have acess to a safe outdoor play space than rich kids

1 in 5 low income families skip meals but kids living with single parents are twice as likely to go without.

poor children are 2.5 times more likely to suffer chronic illness

82% of children are gowing up in poverty in the Gorbels

47% of children with asthma are from the poorest 10% of families

85% of children living in damp  flats suffer breathing problems

In some parts of the country 50% of children live in families with no work.

1 in 6 poor children has considered suicide

Over 1 million homes in the UK are clasified as "unfit to live in".

Out of 12 rich countries studied kids in the UK have the lowest chance of escaping poverty

60% of poor families turn off the heating in winter to save money

Low income parents are twice as likely to split up

In nov 2010 the UK came 18th out of 22 European countries ranked by unicef for child poverty; only Slovakia, Poland, Hungary and Italy were lower.

Child poverty under current policies is set to rise 11% in the next 3 years
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In the 70s when fewer went to university, it was possible to pay a full grant and those who went were those most academically gifted. For some reason it was decided that 50% should go to university. This might have kept the dole queues down, but it resulted in a collapse in standards and record graduate unemployment. No doubt this has caused distress among the wealthy class as they see their offspring having to compete  for fewer and fewer jobs. The solution (and only the Tories would come up with this), raise the cost. Price university education out of reach of the poor.

To call the policy morally repugnant is an understatement. It is vicious class driven attack by those in a position of wealth and privilege against the poor designed to keep the underclass out of education. Hitler expelled the Jews from high education, the Bullingdon boys are expelling the poor.
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Capitalism carries the seeds of its own destruction. The relentless increase in efficiency has caused the number employed in manufacturing to decrease. The number employed in manufacturing dropped from 6.69m when Margaret Thatcher came to power, to 4.53m when Tony Blair entered Downing Street to 2.5m today.

In a situation where the productive output of one person can meet the needs of (in these days) 20 or more people, you need to find some way to pay the 19 who are not working. Up until now governments have relied on the service sector to soak up the unemployed. A lot of service sector jobs that I need, are paid for by the government or local authority out of taxes - education, health, police, roads etc, (all likely to be facing cuts). Yet the most lucrative service sector, banking, employs the fewest, is by far the most heavily subsidised and has escaped all cuts.

The call for ever more consumption, and ever more growth is not a long term solution. You cannot increase consumer demand indefinitely and you cant do it by cutting services in the way the current government is doing. We should recognise the inevitability of high unemployment, which cannot be prevented, any more than we can go back to a time in the 18 th century when 90% were farm labourers.
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When companies pay the lowest salary they can get away with it is praised as 'the normal operation of the free market'. If people refuse to work for such low pay, instead of being called 'the normal operation of the free market', it is called being 'work shy'.
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 on Tom Watson MP criticizes coalition tax u-turn on videogames
"When you see a nine per cent downturn in jobs in the UK videogame sector and in the same period of time a 33 per cent growth in jobs in the Canadian sector, something is institutionally wrong with the relationship between government and the industry in allowing that to happen."

Successive governments have all been killing off the software industry from IR35 to latest outrage, (work permits for all inter-company transfers - only requirement - you have to earn more than £24K). Drive down salaries and you'll drive out talent. 'Will the last software engineer to leave the country please turn off the PC'.
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 on Cable and Osborne clash over bank bonus reform
Bonuses in the City this year are expected to top £7bn. To put that in perspective there are 2.5 million unemployed so that works out at £2,800 each. JSA is £3380 per year so they could almost pay for the unemployment they've created.
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There are not enough jobs. One mans work is another mans unemployment - you work at the expense of someone else being unemployed. You either pay for that in taxes, or you swap places with them. It is hypocritical to call for hardship to be inflicted on others, which you would find unacceptable if inflicted on yourself.
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India has spawned some of the world's richest people - and has streets lined with beggars, who have nothing other than what they can scrounge.
Is this the Tory Party's view of a future Britain?
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"Ian Duncan Smith the same Ian Duncan Smith whose entry in Wikipedia includes the following passage:

 'These worries came to a head in October 2003. Michael Crick revealed that he had compiled embarrassing evidence, this time of dubious salary claims Duncan Smith made on behalf of his wife that were paid out of the public purse from September 2001 to December 2002. The ensuing scandal, known as "Betsygate" weakened his already tenuous position.'

 Ian Duncan Smith the same Ian Duncan Smith who was forced to relinquish leadership of the Conservative Party in a Vote of No Confidence on November 6th 2003 after a short two year stint. He was caught out lying about his qualifications.

 This proven liar and cheat, whose wife took money from the government purse without working for it, has the gall to impose punishments on the vulnerable, and remove government money from them. Ian Duncan Smith and his wife lived the off your tax money under extremely dubious circumstances, and that's why he was sacked. He and his wife should be forced into a menial jobs immediately to 'encourage the others'.
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  on Jobless who refuse work will lose benefits for up to three years
 You cannot pay for education or training on JSA, also you loose your benefits if you do enter education or training (above a certain minimum). Can we afford it? £850 billion was the bank bailout, 2.5 million unemployed, that would be £340,000 each if it was spent on them. Also there's £100 billion which is siphoned off through the offshore tax loophole (that's an estimate, no one really knows for sure, it's actually believed to be much bigger than that).

 Just out of interest I did a quick annual budget for someone on JSA (just a back of an envelope calculation to see if I could live on JSA).

 £3403.40 JSA 52 wks at £65.45

 (1195) Average household fuel bills 2010
 ( 343) water bill
 ( 360) phone bill
 ( 145) TV license
 ( 200) Car tax
 ( 500) Car insurance
 ( 55) MOT
 ( 250) fuel
 ( 100) car servicing
 ( 100) household repairs
 -----
 (3248) fixed expenses

 That leaves £155.40 per year for Food and clothing (£2.99 per week).


 Obviously they don't have cars.

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 on Jobless who refuse work will lose benefits for up to three years 2 weeks ago
"Just think of yourself as being in your 40's. You have worked in the local council as an IT manager for more than 20 years, and you end up being fired as part of the councils "savings strategy". The benefits are no where near what your salary was and, over time, your financial problems just grow and grow.

 You then spend hours every day on your laptop applying for hundreds of jobs in the supposedly thriving demand for IT skills, but you get nowhere.

 After months of applications you start to realise that the management jobs are going to people in their 20's who have a nice piece of paper from the university saying they the are very good at producing games and shooting all the "baddies" on the screen!

 A few months later you are told to join one of the 4 week community work plans at a local park. It is very physical, your back and arms are sore, you get very tired.

 But somehow they think you are better than most of the others over the 4 weeks and suggest you apply for this time of work. The JOBCENTRE will put you forward for all sorts of manual or gardening work, and you have to behave like you are taking them seriously

 It makes you so angry that you are wasting your time doing something that so many other people can do; you feel you are being bullied down from all the skills and commitment of your professional life.

 CAN ANYONE ON THE PLANET CLAIM THIS IS MOTIVATING YOU TO GET BACK TO WORK?

 After about 2 years unemployment you get a bit of good luck with an interview for one of the biggest companies in the IT sector. Your application is well received, you have been keeping up with technical developments at home and you make a solid positive impact.

 However, the interviewers ask" "and what else have you been doing, what kind of jobs have you been looking for" and you respond saying "well I did apply for a few posts after I received a certificate saying I was very good at cleaning up the "dogs waste" in the local park."

 Interview Over, back to the Jobcentre, less benefits, more, more and more problems!
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 Tories can punish the unemployed forever, but it wont create a single job.
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His name is IDS

He failed as a tory leader

He wants peoples families to starve to death.

It will not be IDS's fault. It will be their choice.

IDS earns £134,565 a year of Public Money.

That is £2587.79 a WEEK of Money we do not have.

A Millionaire He can afford to work for FREE.

Do you think he should be telling people they will not be eating for 3 years?
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Jobless who refuse work will lose benefits for up to three years
Benefits are already withdrawn if claimants are considered to be making insufficient effort to find work.

This is something quite different to the relatively saccharin headline.

This is "Do anything we say, or lose benefits." This is no offer of training. It's punishment and humiliation and is paving a road to crime and swollen prison numbers. What do they expect people will do when the provider of last resort refuses even a means to acquire food? What a vicious, monstrous policy.

Attack the poor, the jobless and the sick.

These Eton-educated silver spooners have gone mad. There will be hell to pay about this. And there better be. It could be your job next.
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on Jobless who refuse work will lose benefits for up to three years 2 weeks ago
When benefits are stopped you will face starvation. At this point you have two choices:

1. Steal and if caught the defence of necessity should be sufficient to avoid a criminal record. If not the government will provide you with bed and board at a cost of £1000 a week.

2. Starve, and when sufficiently starved check into hospital. Starvation is a clinical condition - true it hasn't been seen often in this country, but that looks set to change. If the Tories would rather pay the NHS £600 a week to provide you with bed and board so be it.

The nasty party is back.
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Who will feed the UK starving?

Pledge £2 a month and we can give hot soup to a hungry family.

Pledge £10 and we can give them a tent.
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£3 an hour (however long ago that was), would afford you an income a single unemployed person can only dream of. They get £65.45 per week, £51.85 if they're under 25. You cannot live on that amount so it's not hard to see why there might be an incentive to have children when this increases income by £57.57 per week income support plus child benefit of £20.30 a week for the eldest child and £13.40 a week for each additional child. In addition there is a one-off payment of £500 for the first child and a £190 payment for all pregnant women beyond their 25th week of pregnancy (though that will be abolished soon). Its intention was to reduce infant mortality rates by ensuring mothers-to-be had sufficient funds available to help them eat well in the run-up to giving birth. When that goes we will no doubt see a rise in disabled child income support premiums, completely wiping out any savings.
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It's only right to whack the poorest to the tune of £20Bn a year - the mess is their fault, after all, right? All those preposterous mortgages and derivatives deals etc - naughty benefits claimants - how could they do this to us?

What's left unanswered is how it's possible to more 'sharply' (ie viciously) incentivise someone to get a job that isn't there. In such circumstances workfare style policies and punitive measures against benefits claimants are just vicious and malicious.

Not all of us are heirs to fortunes, you know, Osbourne and Cameron. God, they make me sick.
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It's a shame that conditions that come with claiming benefits state that you can't do anything, voluntary work, education, anything, for more than 16 hours a week without losing all benefits.

The ridiculous thing about this scheme, like most schemes that pretend to "help" the unemployed while actually trying to punish them, is that it forces them to do something that they are forbidden to do before they become punishment cases.

The benefits system badly needs reforming but the kind of people who get into government are exactly the kind of people who will never know where to begin with reforming it because they've never been on the sharp end of the system.
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It's going to work like this:

Someone down the bottom of the food chain gets her P45 from the local authority.

She goes to the Job Centre where they ask her if she would 'volunteer' to do something that sounds like her old job.

Faced with no benefits as the alternative, she agrees.

Her old job paid the miniscule wage, her new (old job) pays - according to a blogger on the Observer - £1.63 an hour.

Hey, presto, the min wage has been abolished. Simple isn't it?
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The real Tories now and 13 years of Neo-Tories before! And 18 years of real Tories before that.

Over 40 years of Neo-Liberalism! And whenever the rich don't "create wealth" for the nation like they say they will, they blame the poor and introduce "austerity".
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Perhaps of all the budget measures this though was the most unnecessary and economically incompetent. As the Observer points out this morning, the Ernst & Young Item Club now estimate that Britain’s large companies are sitting on a cash pile that between them that amounts to £750 billion. To put that enormous number in context, it is enough to fund the budget deficit from 2008-09 to 2014-15 inclusive (£761 billion in all on current forecasts). In fact, that of course is how that deficit is being paid for, at least in part. Rather than invest large companies are simply lending their cash to the government. And they have so much excess cash at present that the sum in question amounts to almost 50% of current GDP.
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A banker, a Daily Mail reader and a man on benefits are sat round a table sharing 12 biscuits. the banker takes 11 and says to the Daily Mail reader ''look out for the benefit claimant, he wants your biscuit''.
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A short introduction to the difference between political rhetoric and reality.

THE RHETORIC
15 February 2009, David Cameron has stressed that no cash bonuses over £2,000 should be paid to any employee of a bank which has a significant taxpayer shareholding. - Conservative party press release.
October 2009, George Osborne announced that he was calling on the Treasury to stop retail banks "paying out profits in significant cash bonuses. Full stop."

THE REALITY - ROUND 1 TO THE BANKS.
January 2010 Banks ignored the political rhetoric.


THE RHETORIC
October 2010 Cameron on bankers bonuses: "I think the chancellor was pretty clear yesterday when he said if these people go on paying themselves big bonuses and not lending money to the small businesses that need to get our economy going, he won't stand idly by,"
17 December 2010 David Cameron, Prime Minister, "Bankers have to realise that the British public helped to bail out the banks and it is very galling when they see bankers pay themselves unjustified bonuses."
19 December 2010 Vince Cable, Secretary of State for Business, "The banks shouldn't underestimate our determination to act. They are deluding themselves if they believe the Government is not going to take this seriously."

THE REALITY - ROUND 2 TO THE BANKS
10 Jan 2011 David Cameron admits defeat over bankers' bonuses - Daily Telegraph
24 Feb 2011 RBS bankers get £950m in bonuses despite £1.1bn loss - Guardian


THE RHETORIC
11 Nov 2011 U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron said he can stop proposed $800 million [£500 million]  investment banker bonuses at the Royal Bank of Scotland, Bloomberg reported. “We can stop the £500 million, yes, absolutely,” Cameron said in an interview on BBC Radio 2 today.

THE REALITY - ROUND 3 TO THE BANKS
23 Feb 2012 RBS loses £2bn but hands out £785m in bonuses an average bonus of 22,900 pounds per banker.


GAME SET AND MATCH TO THE BANKS.
This year bonus figures have been quietly dropped from the political adgenda.  Why should that be - why is it no longer an issue? Are they getting less - no! they are at record levels. Some clue about what is happening can be found here:

Sep 2011 Using analysis from the Electoral Commission and CompaniesHouse databases, the researchers found City donations in the 12 months to July accounted for 51.4% of the £12.2m of funds received by Central Office. Hedge funds, financiers and private equity firms contributed £3.3m – 27% – while 50 City donors paid more than £50,000. All donors contributing this amount or more become members of the Leader's Group and qualify for a face-to-face meeting with the prime minister.

He who pays the piper calls rthe tune. The Tory party is owned by a group of 50 City donors and a bunch of Hedge funds, financiers and private equity firms.
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JPMorgan nears £500m bonus tax deal
By Patrick Jenkins, Banking Editor
 ©Bloomberg FT Dec 7 2012
JPMorgan is nearing a settlement with the UK government in which the US bank and its employees could pay close to £500m in back taxes that were avoided through the use of an offshore trust for bonus payments.
The Wall Street bank is in the final phase of winding up the Jersey-based arrangement and has asked more than 2,000 current and former employees to contribute to the settlement. Individuals who choose not to participate voluntarily could face a more expensive tax bill once their trust assets are liquidated.

The case comes at a sensitive time for relations between UK tax authorities and foreign companies operating in Britain. Starbucks on Thursday agreed to pay a £20m tax “donation” following a public outcry over its payment of only £8.4m in UK corporation tax over a 14-year period.
Trust schemes typically offer twin tax breaks by allowing companies and their employees to avoid paying, respectively, employer’s national insurance contributions and income taxes. The trust holds bonus payments, which cannot be repatriated without triggering a tax payment. But employees can take interest-free loans from the trust on an unsecured basis.
Such schemes are being closed following the introduction of new legislation last year to outlaw employee benefit trusts. JPMorgan’s Jersey trust had previously operated with the full knowledge and authorisation of UK tax authorities.
It is unclear how much money is currently in JPMorgan’s trust scheme, which was established 20 years ago. Senior executives involved in the scheme in recent years estimated the amount at between £2bn and £9bn. Assuming a standard 40 per cent tax liability and 12.5 per cent rate for national insurance contributions, that would suggest a tax bill of at least £1bn. However, the settlement is understood to be closer to half that amount.
JPMorgan declined to comment on specifics but said: “Our employee trust has always been transparent ... and its independent trustee has consistently paid taxes in accordance with UK tax law. In addition to taxes paid by the trust, JPMorgan has paid, on average, more than £1bn of [UK] corporation and payroll taxes ... annually over the past decade.” The UK Treasury declined to comment.
JPMorgan is not unique in using trust arrangements to pay bonuses. Glasgow Rangers football club recently won a court case with UK tax authorities over its use of employee benefit trusts.
However, the bank’s scheme is thought to be one of the biggest. It was also unusual in being structured for several years as a so-called family benefit trust, bankers said. This arrangement allows assets to be passed to heirs without triggering inheritance tax.
All senior bankers at the group were eligible for participation in the scheme, though US citizens were barred due to US tax laws.
Participants in the scheme said JPMorgan had given them until Friday to volunteer to pay tax at a rate of their choosing in a “blind auction” that would be used to establish an average contribution rate. If the auction fails to generate enough money to pay the settlement, participants who bid below the overall average would be excluded from the agreement and face a 52 per cent tax liability when the trust’s assets are liquidated and repatriated. Several participants said they had volunteered to pay tax at a rate of 40 per cent.
JPMorgan itself is understood to be on the hook itself for employer’s national insurance payments as part of the settlement.
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Multinationals avoid paying any tax through cross border pricing. In the simplest case, if you make a widget for 2p in country A, sell it in country B for £1.02, you would make a profit of £1 and pay tax on that in country A. So instead you sell it for 2p to a related company in the Bahamas, that company then sell it for £1.02 to a related company in country B. Result, you make a profit of £1, but its been made in the Bahamas, so its not taxed.

Why should a company get the benefits of this country, its legal system, infrastructure, transport, police etc. if unlike other companies, it is not willing to contribute its fair share to the upkeep of those? Is it not free-loading on the rest of us (including other companies who do pay) - getting the benefit without having to chip in? I think the term is corporate benefit scrounging - pleading corporate 'poverty' to avoid paying.
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Increasing productivity decreases employment in the economy. The increased profits which result go to a tiny minority of the population. That minority will control the government and prevent itself being taxed - calling itself 'entrepreneurs', 'risk takers' and 'vital to the economy'. That will result in cuts to welfare budgets.

We are in the same position as 19th century agriculture before the industrial revolution. Rising agricultural productivity caused a drop in agricultural employment. Had factories not emerged when they did, we would have faced widespread famine at a time of agricultural plenty - exactly as happened during the Irish famine (Ireland was a major exporter of food during the famine).

The service sector is being decimated - being replaced with a handful of programming jobs. The profits from this are going to a tiny minority. We are facing unemployment on an unimaginable scale and unless the government adopts radical policies (which is very unlikely), we face complete social breakdown.
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The recent headline figure was 85,931 for the prison population. King's college Centre for Crime and Justice Studies in 2007 put the annual of imprisonment at £49,200 per year. This gives a total cost to society of £4.2 million. (Most of that is NOT the cost of locking someone up, it's police costs, court costs, cost of support for dependents etc). For comparison Income based JSA cost £3.6 billion in 2010. On the other hand City bonuses were £13 billion nearly 4 times as much.
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When the governor of the Bank of England uses a word like 'recovery' he doesn't mean recovery in the sense that the average person would understand it - far from it, they will be worse off, in fact living standards are set to decline in real terms for the next 20 years for all but the top 1%. What he means is recovery in the ability of the financial sector to leach money from the productive sector. In other words the host has grown strong enough for the parasite to continue its normal destructive activities - remember it always gets fed before the host because that's the way the economy works.
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Taxation is a burden which must be born by the middle classes. With the correct propaganda they can be trained to blame their tax burden on the unemployed and the welfare system.

The middle classes can be diverted to ignore the £100 bn lost through tax avoidance loopholes used by the wealthy. (Welfare spending in the UK 116.1bn, unemployment spending £8.9 bn - figures for 2012 HM Treasury). Tax evasion (illegal) is around 3% of total tax liabilities, while benefit fraud accounts for 0.8% of total benefit expenditure. Most of that is down to errors by the DWP causing overpayment or to claims unrelated to unemployment (insurance claims, single person discount fraud, blue badge fraud etc). Furthermore tax liabilities vastly exceed benefit expenditure making the difference real terms even greater. Tax fraud is 15 times larger than benefit fraud, while tax avoidance schemes cost the revenue over 100 times the amount lost to benefit fraud. But of course it's easier to pick on the poor.

All Governments are owned and controlled by those with wealth. Those with wealth have a disproportionate access to power and can veto any change likely to affect them. This is why a general anti-avoidance tax rule was vetoed. This is also why, despite the noises made by the Chancellor, there has been no effective move to close tax loopholes in the wake of the K2 scheme used by Jimmy Carr.

There is estimate to be £42 billion lost in (legal) tax avoidance for 2008-09. That is 9% of total tax liability - google HM Revenue and Customs 'Measuring Tax Gaps 2010'. That estimate is a quite solid lower bound. An even larger figure comes from various leading tax advisers in the tax avoidance industry who proudly boast of avoiding £100 billion a year in tax. It could quite conceivably be much higher than this. With large multi-nationals the accounts are extremely opaque - they all have subsidiaries in tax havens (News Corp for example has 60 subsidiaries incorporated in tax havens such as the Cayman Islands, Bermuda and the British Virgin Islands). Newscorp Investments (the holding company), has paid no net corporation tax within these shores over the past 11 years. This is despite accumulated pre-tax profits of nearly £1.4bn. Payments were made in some years, but in others rebates were claimed.

The combination of 'tax haven' and opaque 'transfer pricing' is what enables this massive corporate tax avoidance. There is no political will to collect tax from the rich, let alone corporations. Even widespread tax evasion (which is a criminal offence) is ignored. In 2008 HMRC were given detailed account information from LGT Bank in Liechtenstein naming customers who had been using the bank for tax evasion. In fact all major tax authorities got this information thanks to a computer technician who secretly copied the data. The outcome was predictable, the investigation was halted and in 2009 it was decided that if the 5,000 British customers come clear with British tax authorities then instead of jail they would be let off with a significant penalty reduction - a minor slap on the wrist.

According to internal sources of the German Ministry of Finances who originally obtained the data, Liechtenstein supposedly lives to "a good part from the business of evading taxes". Yet despite widespread international support the UK failed to capitalise and the 'Liechtenstein trust' loophole remains wide open for any UK citizen (with enough money) to make use of. The UK is responsible for more offshore tax havens than the rest of the world put together namely Bermuda, British Virgin Islands, Cayman Islands, Channel Islands of Jersey and Guernsey, Isle of Man and the Turks and Caicos Islands. It's appallingly hypocritical for the government to be taxing anyone earning an average salary while at the same time allowing widespread abuse for anyone with enough wealth.

What you have today is a new kind of a war. It's a financial war. You can get by privatisation and financialisation what armies used to get by force of arms. This is not the class war that people spoke of a hundred years ago. It is a financial war. And it is a war that classical economists warned against. 300 years of classical political economy sought to get rid of landlords and bankers. A hundred years ago people spoke of technology. Nobody believed that the vested interests could fight back. But they did fight back in the way that parasites do in biological nature. People think about parasites, as taking the host's energy and lifeblood. But, in biology, the smart parasites do something else: They take over the brain of the host. They make the brain think that the parasite is part of the body, to be protected - that is why every government has protected and nurtured these economic parasites while at the same time talking tough in public. Don't be fooled there are more full time anti-fraud staff at the DWP chasing  0.8% benefit fraud (2,876 in Jan 2012 - source Hansard) than the 300 chasing 3% of a far larger amount of tax fraud. Now you know where this governments priorities really lie.
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The banking system's product is debt, its business plan tends to be extractive and predatory, leaving economies high-cost. The dismantling of public attempts to steer banking to promote economic growth (rather than merely to make bankers rich) has permitted banks to turn into something nobody anticipated. Their major customers are other financial institutions, insurance and real estate the FIRE sector, NOT industrial firms. Debt leveraging by real estate and monopolies, arbitrage speculators, hedge funds and corporate raiders inflate asset prices on credit. The effect of creating 'balance sheet wealth' in this way is to load down the real production-and-consumption economy with debt and related rentier charges, adding more to the cost of living and doing business than rising productivity reduces production costs.
The only country doing well at the moment is Iceland. Iceland once had debt levels of 10 times GDP (same as the UK). Thankfully they bankrupted the banks and made the bond holders take the loss. The Icelandic economy currently enjoys a healthy growth rate 4.5%. Unemployment is low and falling with some industries experiencing labour shortage. On all reasonable measures Iceland's strategy has been an unmitigated success, all the more remarkable because it achieved this while preserving its social welfare system. "Iceland holds some key lessons for nations trying to survive bailouts after the island’s approach to its rescue led to a surprisingly strong recovery" - IMF.

We on the other hand have twenty years of austerity to look forward to such is the cost of preserving the banks. These banks don't produce anything, worse still they actually have a negative effect on the economy - they behave like tape worms sitting in your pension fund/ISA or whatever, from which they pay their bonuses.
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How about replacing the salary system with a single fixed wage for everyone. (According to my calculations it would workout at about £65,000 for each person employed). If you're earning less than that you may like to wonder who is getting your share.

When companies pay the lowest salary they can get away with it is praised as 'the normal operation of the free market'. If people refuse to work for such low pay, instead of being called 'the normal operation of the free market', it is called being 'work shy'.

We constantly hear government ministers attacking 'benefit scroungers' and the 'work shy'. Why do they not pursue 'bonus scroungers' and the 'tax shy' with the same enthusiasm, I wonder? Given that these bank have performed so badly that they would be bankrupt were it not for the injection of 'corporate welfare', what can possibly be the justification for these bonuses? But that welfare bill - £850 billion (source NAO 2011), cannot even be discussed. No this government wants to pursue the income based JSA (cost £3.6 billion in 2010). As for other forms of welfare benefits for the rich - the £40 billion lost through tax avoidance (Inland revenue estimate) or the £100 billion the
tax avoidance industry claims, well those are sacrosanct.

This is a government of millionaires for the benefit of millionaires. The population has been 'sold' like cattle to better allow their exploitation by party donors. Tory's know that eventually, with the right propaganda, all workers can be forced onto the minimum wage, to maximise profits for the few wealthy individuals in society who matter. Anything which is not of direct benefit to them such as the NHS, roads or education can be privatised and the population made to pay for it. This is what the 'free-market' is all about - free to exploit you.

"It is the chief business of a government to take care that one part of the people does not cause the other part to lead miserable lives" - William Cobbett, (1763 – 1835).
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The Financial Times (1979) reported that a 13 year old boy at Eton, wrote the following lines about poverty as part of a class assignment: "There was once a very poor family. The father was poor, the mother was poor, the children were poor. Even the butler was poor...."

I can't see what the problem is, if you get sanctioned use it as a weapon against them, go on hunger strike. After a couple of weeks get admitted to hospital. Result - free food, electricity, heating and accommodation - cost to the government over £225 a day. Make it clear, you're not refusing to eat, you've simply been starved by the government. What can they do? They can't been seen to let you starve, yet if they continue with sanctions it will end up costing them a fortune. Also you become an NHS problem rather than the DWP problem which with luck will create infighting within the cabinet
========
Rules of capitalism.

1. Executives are motivated by financial rewards, workers are motivated by fear of unemployment.

2. Workers salaries must always be compared with those in the third world, executives salaries must be compared to those in the US.

3. The closer your work is to other peoples money the more you earn - banking, accountancy, insurance to name but a few.

4. In a capitalist Utopia workers share of profits will be zero, all profits will go to a hand full of executives at the top.

5. Wealth always trickles up not down, but relentless propaganda will succeed in creating the opposite impression in the minds of the public.

6. Taxation is a burden which must be born by the middle classes. With the correct propaganda they can be trained to blame their tax burden on the unemployed and the welfare system. This has many benefits:

a)Stigmatising unemployment further motivates workers (see rule 1).

b)The middle classes can be diverted to ignore the £100 bn lost through tax avoidance loopholes used by the wealthy. (Welfare spending in the UK 116.1bn, unemployment £8.9 bn figures for 2012 HM Treasury).

c)The middle classes can be motivated to campaign to reduce public spending - this can be used to increase unemployment, privatise public services and thus transfer more wealth to the wealthy.

7. All Governments are owned and controlled by those with wealth. Those with wealth have a disproportionate access to power and can veto any change likely to affect them. This is why a general anti-avoidance tax rule was vetoed. This is also why Cameron vetoed European moves to limit bankers bonuses and it is why some options, such as linking executive pay to average pay cannot even be put on the agenda.
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Quantitative Easing. It doesn’t work, but your government keeps on doing it because its mates work in banks, and banks like money. Especially new money.
========
If only the government in this country hated poverty even half as much as they hate the poor.  I just wish they'd stop dressing up their callousness and lack of compassion in the language of righteousness and morality.
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There is estimate to be £42 billion lost in tax avoidance for 2008-09. That is 9% of total tax liability - google HM Revenue and Customs 'Measuring Tax Gaps 2010'. That estimate is a quite solid lower bound. A larger figure of £100bn comes from  for example, "thetaxexperts dot co dot uk" who claim "The Tax Experts and our other partners in the industry make use of UK tax avoidance schemes to legally shelter an estimated £100 Billion each year." It could quite conceivably be much higher than this. With large multi-nationals the accounts are extremely opaque - they all have tax havens as subsidiaries (for example about 60 News Corp subsidiaries are incorporated in tax havens such as the Cayman Islands, Bermuda and the British Virgin Islands). Newscorp Investments (the holding company), has paid no net corporation tax within these shores over the past 11 years. This is despite accumulated pre-tax profits of nearly £1.4bn. Payments were made in some years, but in others rebates were claimed.The figure of £100 billion is quite proudly boasted of by those in the tax avoidance industry.

I always think it worth putting figures in perspective:

Known loss through tax loopholes £40 billion annually. Suspected total loss £100 billion annually.

The cost of bankers bonuses last year were £7 billion roughly  a crate of vintage champagne per UK adult per year - (they were hard times).

The total cost to the UK of participating in the Large Hadron Collider project is about £108M per year - roughly the price of one pint of beer per UK adult per year for a rather more worthy pursuit.

Total UK bailout to the banking sector: announced at the beginning £600 billion, actual official cost £850 billion (source NAO 2011). This represents more than 50% of UK GDP 'lent' to banks with little chance of ever seeing it returned. The figure is now closer to £1 trillion  following the recent round of 'quantitative easing'.

There are about $360 trillion in LIBOR based derivative contracts and about $50 trillion in loans. Suppose Barclays' action shifted the LIBOR rate by the smallest amount possible, 0.01% (and it was certainly out by far more than that). What would be the change in interest payments per year? Answer $41 billion. That's $41 billion that was paid which should not have been paid. (Note the figures are in dollars not pounds). By artificially lowering the interest rates the banks are also able to make money through quantitative easing, since the money lent to them through this mechanism is at an artificially low rate.

Of more direct concern to us, unemployment benefit £7 billion (of which income based JSA cost £3.6 billion in 2010 - sorry I don't have the latest figure to match against the £7 billion.)

Cost of the Work Programme £5 billion - though I think that is spread over a number of years.

NHS spending £123.8 billion

Defence spending £47.3 billion

Education £93.3 billion

Pensions £129.3 billion

Total welfare budget £111.7 billion of which housing benefit is £52.8 billion which is mostly a direct subsidy to private landlords as councils housing has be almost abolished. The total housing spend was only £1.6 billion though I don't know how much of that was new building and how much was repair and grants.

The total cost of imprisoning someone is £49,200 a year - a lot of this is due the knock on effect on families. With a prison population of about 80,000 that's £3.9 billion. So it cost more to imprison 80,000 than to keep millions on the dole.
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Benefits have shrunk over the years.  This has been done to drive down wages. Ultimately the objective is to have 99% of the working population on minimum wages. This will be called 'making the economy competitive' and all the sheeple will cheer. This is the fate of unrestrained 'free' market capitalism ('free' meaning to free to exploit).
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Accuracy of IMF forecasts leading up to the banking crisis:
On February 11, 2011, the IMF’s independent evaluation unit - Independent Evaluation Office (IEO) - released a report - IMF Performance in the Run-Up to the Financial and Economic Crisis: IMF Surveillance in 2004-07  which presents a scathing attack on the Washington-based institution. It concluded that the Fund was poorly managed, was full of like-minded ideologues and employed poorly conceived models. In a previous report the IEO had demonstrated how inaccurate the IMF modelling has been. But the IMF is an organisation that goes into the poorest nations and bullies them into harsh policy agendas which the IEO has now found to be based on poor theory and inadequate model implementation.
The Report:
"...finds that the IMF provided few clear warnings about the risks and vulnerabilities associated with the impending crisis before its outbreak. The banner message was one of continued optimism... The belief that financial markets were fundamentally sound and that large financial institutions could weather any likely problem lessened the sense of urgency to address risks or to worry about possible severe adverse outcomes. Surveillance also paid insufficient attention to risks of contagion or spillovers from a crisis in advanced economies".
Reasons for the IMF incompetence:
"The IMF’s ability to correctly identify the mounting risks was hindered by a high degree of groupthink, intellectual capture, a general mindset that a major financial crisis in large advanced economies was unlikely, and inadequate analytical approaches. Weak internal governance, lack of incentives to work across units and raise contrarian views, and a review process that did not "connect the dots" or ensure follow-up also played an important role, while political constraints may have also had some impact".
See
bilbo.economicoutlook.net/blog/?p=13471
========
David Cameron - May 2010
"The test of a good society is how do you protect the poorest, the most vulnerable, the elderly, the frail.
That's important in good times, it's even more important in difficult times. People need to know that if they
have me as their Prime Minister and they have a Conservative government, it will be that sort of Prime
Minister."

Nick Clegg - November 2010
"Of course, there are people who are unable to work, because of reasons relating to their physical or mental
health. And we will continue to provide them with the support they need."

Iain Duncan Smith - October 2010
"I say to those watching today and who are genuinely sick, disabled or are retired. You have nothing to fear.
This government and this party don’t regard caring for the needy as a burden. It is a proud duty to provide
financial security to the most vulnerable members of our society and this will not change. This is our
contract with the most vulnerable."

Maria Miller - Minister for Disabled People - June 2010
"Looking after the most vulnerable groups in society is absolutely at the heart of the work that we do in the
Department."

Chris Grayling - June 2010
"There are 2.6 million people claiming incapacity benefits. The Government are committed to providing
unconditional support for very sick and disabled people within that group."

Lord Freud - November 2011
"I should start by making a point about the overall attitude of the Government to people who are disabled
or who have difficult medical conditions. We are committed to unequivocal support for those people, and
that is what the support group is about."
"The work capability assessment uses a number of specific, measurable criteria, covering all types of
disability and health conditions, to provide an assessment of whether an individual has limited capability for
work. The assessment was designed to take account of chronic and fluctuating conditions. It is not intended
to be a snapshot but looks at what someone can do reliably, repeatedly and safely. It takes account of the
effects of pain and fatigue. The healthcare professionals conducting the assessment are fully trained in
understanding fluctuating conditions. Claimants get a full opportunity to explain how their condition varies
over time. The criteria provide a reliable, nuanced and measurable way of assessing limited capability for
work. This ensures that a full understanding is gained of an individual's disability or health condition, the
effects of that disability or health condition, how these effects may vary over time and whether it would be
reasonable for that person to work or not."
http://wearespartacus.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/The-Peoples-Review-of-the-Work-Capability-Assessment.pdf
========
Some of the cases I’ve seen absolutely defy any form of compassion or indeed logic. Cases include a chap in
his thirties who at the time of the assessment was on the waiting list for major surgery. He had two
conditions requiring surgery, the less serious being a hiatus hernia - the more serious being a diaphragmatic
hernia. The poor bloke couldn’t push an empty shopping trolley round the supermarket without severe
abdominal pain - including nausea. When he went to the assessment he didn’t know the name of his more
serious condition and assumed the HCP ‘would have all the notes’. The submission only mentions the
hiatus hernia as when he went to describe his other condition, the HCP couldn’t find it on the LIMA Logic
system. How on earth he was found to have no limitation is well and truly beyond me. He went on to tell
me that the surgery involved 6 hours of trying to resite his left sided abdominal organs which had herniated
into his upper chest causing many serious symptoms. The operation brought about infection related
problems and required a further 8 hour emergency op after an internal rupture. It was only after a month
in hospital that he was released and subsequently readmitted to carry out gall stone treatment and finally
to correct his hiatus hernia. The danger is that some people are going to take the word of the HCP over that
of their doctor and actually think they are well enough to resume normal activities
========
Other cases have included a young man with long term schizophrenia who experienced hallucinations so
real that he would call the Police in the early hours in the very real belief that his living room and around
the outside of his house was 'littered with dead bodies'. Sadly his problems even extended to a belief that
he had actually stopped the moon in orbit. After the HCP said there was nothing wrong with him (following
a 22 minute examination when he may just have come across as 'normal') he started to think his clinician's
were conspiring to poison him and as a result of his paranoia, he promptly stopped taking his anti-psychotic
medication; - his condition got much worse.
========
My client has had brain damage since a massive haemorrhage/coma at the age of 22. This has left him with
a short term memory of 20 minutes. He doesn't remember me, or my voice, and keeps extensive diaries of
daily events so he can record what he has to do. He has been found capable of work 3 times, and on one
occasion he lost his home, because he couldn't remember what he had to do to appeal. (IS stopped, so I
presume HB stopped, although we will never know as he doesn't remember).

He is on DLA, so most of my discussions are with his mother, for continuity, and save me going through the
whole introduction process again. Now he has been subjected to the conversion of IS to ESA.
When I first met him I had to ask what his diagnosis was, as he is very articulate. I was shocked when he told
me he wouldn't remember coming to the interview with me. He will only form a memory of me in 6 months
time - he says he will get a flash of my face. This is when it becomes a long term memory I suppose. He used
to watch the lunchtime episode of neighbours, and then watch the dinner time repeat because he couldn't
remember seeing it.

Doctors have studied him, he is so unique. And yet he scored 6 points. The DM told him he could have got
better. Like he could grow a new brain. I don't think any employer would want to explain to him every 20
minutes what he is meant to be doing. A complete waste of government resources.
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I saw a client yesterday, he was brought to our office by his MHP (Mental Health practitioner, the new name
for a Community Psychiatric Nurse). He suffers with paranoid schizophrenia, which was diagnosed many
years ago. He was asked to attend a medical examination at the beginning of March this year. The
appointment at the medical centre was made on a Sunday. When he got there it was shut, no lights on and
no sign of life, a support worker from his mental health team was with this and can confirm that this was
the case. Surprise, surprise, a week later his benefits were stopped. The client has been living off his DLA
payments. His MHP only noticed when he checked his bank account this week. Yesterday, we phoned the
DWP and we were told his benefit was stopped because he failed to attend a medical examination.
========
A lady asked me for help after being awarded 0 points in a WCA , nothing strange in that you say !!! Well the
lady had a wca 10 months previously with a Doctor, a home visit was needed the second WCA was also a
home visit.
To have two home visits in itself says a severe illness is present, they do not do them frequently.
In the first WCA the Doctor awarded 25 points, in the second the Doctor awarded 0 points, now I have no
medical training but common sense tells me something is wrong here, none the less the DWP DM upheld
the award of 0 points, so to appeal, the Tribunal were aghast and awarded 19 points within minutes.
They admitted discrepancies in the Medical Report , as did their own Independent Tier.
The whole case must have cost the DWP £10,000, this lady only wanted her stamp paying, she did not claim
any benefit.
========
Over the last few weeks we have started to see more ESA appeals lapsed quite early on due to revision by
the DWP. The letter sent to the claimant simply says that it has now been accepted that they are entitled to
ESA and in the work-related activity group - no details of the descriptors awarded. On contacting the DWP
for more information it became apparent that in at least 3 of those cases the Schedule 2 descriptor
accepted by the DM would also have met the Schedule 3 criteria, but the claimant hadn’t been put in the
support group. It wasn’t a case of the DM needing to make a decision about whether the Schedule 3
descriptors were met, the wording in the two schedules was identical so it should have been automatic.
When we contacted the DWP by phone to clarify why the claimants weren’t in the support group, the
response was along the lines of ‘she’ll have to appeal’ or ‘I don’t think he should be in the support group,
there’ll be some work activities he can do’. The claimants had just been happy to be back on ‘full’ ESA and
would have accepted the revised decision without question. This may of course not be a move to usher
people into the WRAG so payment ends next April, but it does make you wonder…
========
I know Prof Harrington’s evidence gathering exercise was undertaken, but I haven’t noticed an
improvement and most clients are still saying the assessor barely looked at them but focussed on the
computer - still getting cases where the assessor has said the client did something ie picked up a handbag,
got onto the couch without difficulty, takes the dog for a walk every day - when they didn’t have a handbag,
didn’t get onto the couch and don’t have a dog. Basically they’re crap…..not sure I’m allowed to say that so
sorry if I’m not.
========
One man in his fifties with MS who has spent his life driving trucks has recently reluctantly accepted that he
is no longer able to do so because of his problems with vision, movement in his hands and fatigue. While his
MS prevents him from taking on any physical work, his low literacy levels and lack of experience in an officebased role mean that he may find it almost impossible to find other work.
Healthcare professionals often fail to understand the fluctuating and/or degenerative nature of MS, and
how this affects an individual’s ability to work. They fail to ask probing questions to discover whether
activities could be carried out reliably and repeatedly, and to find out how the condition affects an
individual on good and bad days.
The cumulative effect of a number of lower-level problems should also be recognised by the WCA.
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I am a mental health nurse for a crisis team and have recently been inundated with cases whereby people
have experienced social crisis due to having ESA stopped by the assessors. Most of these cases get
overturned by appeal, quite rightly so as the initially decision was ludicrous. Assessors do not look at reports
etc. Recently a lady with paralysis in arm was deemed fit to work. Also the cost of the appeal process is
completely contradictory in terms of trying to save money. If appeals turn over the decision, the assessor
should be financially penalised in my opinion
========
My client who had recently lodged an ESA appeal, got a call from the DWP asking about her health
conditions etc. Only with this one they told the client that the decision was obviously wrong and that it was
disgusting that she had scored 0 points, and that it wouldn’t happen again. After the client told me about
this I gave the DWP a call to ask if they had revised the decision, but mysteriously there was no record of the
call and the matter had been passed to tribunal.
========
It really is getting beyond a joke isn’t it. My ‘best’ WCA failure so far this year is the client with a mental age
of 7. She scored nil points. GP and SW provided very helpful letters and decision was eventually revised.
It’s not the point though- the extent of the client’s learning difficulty should be glaringly apparent to anyone
spending more than 5 minutes with her.
========
Personally I have seen a steady rise in my caseload, their medical reports are still as nonsense as ever - (i
have a client who explained to the medical examiner how she was feeling down as her dad died and when i
received the appeal pack it said ‘her dog died recently’ !!), there are still very few reconsiderations even
when we are posting in decent evidence. I’m starting to struggle to fit obviously unfit for work clients in to
the new descriptors.
I work for a provider under the Flexible New Deal (soon to be Work Programme) and during my time doing
this I have seen more than 30% of "fit for work" JSA claimants who are, not to be rude, unemployable. With
the struggles that genuine fit and healthy people are having finding employment - anyone who has a barrier
stands little to no chance - it beggars belief that the work programme will be mandatory for transfers off IB
to JSA (ie those who are deemed fit for work) from month 3!!
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Client’s husband is in hospital in a coma. He was sent ESA50. Client contacted DWP to explain situation and
was asked to obtain letter from hospital confirming he is in a coma. Did so. Was told to send it to ATOS
rather than local BDC. Did so. Husband has now received decision letter- yep, as he has failed to return the
ESA50 without good cause and is therefore capable of work and no longer entitled to ESA… You couldn’t
make it up.
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My Client committed suicide, the family are devastated and unable to talk about it.
========
I have a brain tumour and was left disabled because I had the left side of my cerabellum amputated,
because of this my balance and co'ordination to my left side is shot coupled with the fact that all the cancer
could not be removed I am also terminally ill, I DID NOT MAKE IT INTO THE SUPPORT GROUP. I was told I
should be working in a set period of time, funny as it was the same as my lifespan, I contacted my MP who
was luckily an x GP and gave him permission to look at my medical notes he was disgusted and got my
decision reversed I am now in the support group. The letter from the DWP stated that I was not terminally
ill for the purposes of benefit entitlement.
========
I've been diagnosed with Dilated Cardiomyopathy (Heart Failure), Sleep Apnoea and Depression. I've been
for two medical assessments and been found fit for work at both. On appeal, those decisions were
overturned - meaning I've been found unfit for work. My GP has given me a sick note covering me until
March 2012; benefits people say his medical opinion counts for nothing - it's what the Healthcare doctors
decide. They've been found to be wrong twice already concerning my fitness for work. Why aren't GP's up
in arms and damned angry about having their opinions dismissed? I now face attending some course - the
Jobcentre Plus staff didn't know any details regarding it - and will be sent a THIRD medical questionnaire in
August 2011 and may face a third assessment at the hands of these incompetent bufoons!
========
It’s like doing a crime. I am a human being who needs additional support but here I am facing a panel who
are making a decision on my life. I am tired of fighting officials who seem to think they know more about
my disabilities and needs than I do. It now makes me feel ashamed of who I am. I am being punished for
being disabled and feel powerless."
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I was in a road accident, suffered bad whiplash.the road accident aggravated other injuries i already had. ie
2 fractures in pelvis,2 fractures in right ankle, fracture in left shoulderblade, fracture in right
wrist.spondilitus. i also have serious skingrafts and muscle loss in my upper left arm due to severe
lacerations and tissue loss. however the healthcare professional awarded me 6 points for the entire
interview. even though i could not walk without a crutch and have not had full use of my left arm for the
last 14 years. the healthcare professional claimed i could put both hands above my head (Even though the
muscle loss prohibits this with my left arm) that i carried a bag (even though the bag was tied to the crutch)
that i did not bring my medication (even though in the bag was the medication) and i could sit and bend and
do a squat and kneel down with no problem (even though im having treatment right at this moment for
cartlidge damage, hence the crutch) and that i could walk 60 meters without aid. isnt a crutch an aid?
========
I can honestly say there are lies that go into that assessment. I do shorthand and I took down word for word
my husband’s whole assessment. What actually came back was practically the opposite of everything he
said. They question you in such a way and twist it round so they make you out to be practically an athlete.
It traumatises and upsets a lot of people who feel that they have been made out to be liars.
========
I suffer from chronic back pain, IBS a hiatus hernia and am totally deaf all caused by work related accidents
during my 35 yr working life. i appealed and was granted the 15 points needed with the help of CAB on the
basis of my hearing problem alone, i did query the tribunal abt why no points for my other injuries and was
told 15 is what you need and 15 is what we gave. On the 2 oct DWP again cut my benifit citing late return of
a self assessment which is incorrect and there is only their word but they did put me back on at the reduced
rate. They then carried out another medical assessment late oct and yesterday i received a letter that i no
longer qualify as i only have 9 points on the basis of my hearing problem. so it seems they can overide any
tribunal findings even though they know you have the points awarded legally.
========
every day i panic when the post arrives, waiting for that brown envelope from DWP.
iv got to a point that i now have nightmares over this WCA .....im so frightened, i, like many other disabled
people are worried to the point of suicide, i couldnt wait a year for an appeal...only to start it all
again!......im nearly 60, single...8 years ago social worker told me i should have married, then I would have
someone to look after me, that i must make the effort to use my parilised limbs......i have tried the best i
can, being 80% disabled makes it difficult to cope.....i only go out to get shoping....without DLA there would
be no 500cc vehicle to get me to a shop.....im in a rental property, so i would end up homeless while waiting
for an appeal [no housing benefits while on appeal] death is the only way out.
They insisted on giving me a 'medical' three weeks before going into hospital for a major lung operation,
then judging me fit to work, based on the fact that I was heavily drugged and these drugs were masking the
true condition. This is how the same test gave 12, 18, and 0 points for the same condition - the so-called
'health professional' was a nurse who clearly didn't understand anything about COPD - she simply misused
the information given to her.
I do not consider this company a fit and proper body to be making decisions about peoples health, and
intend to get the matter raised in Parliament. One way or another I intend to find out where accountability
lies for the decision that I was fit to work whilst undergoing a lung operation.
========
At the assessment the man let the door slam in my face so I had to open it by myself and it was a big old
heavy door. Well as I can't push things I usually use my bottom, I managed to turn the handle and then
walked in the room backwards, so he put that I could open doors fine, he deliberately dropped my stick so I
had to get it and then put that I could bend down and stand up fine, even though I had to use the table for
support. He also had me trying to touch my feet, even when I said I probably could (hypermobility) but that
I wouldn't be able to get up again, he just said he wanted to watch! He wanted me to sign a form so I got
out my big fat pen & that went down as normal too. When I finally managed to get his report from DWP I
cried, it was all lies, he had written everything wrong, even things I had said were twisted out of context.
========
I attended a Medical and a couple of months later I received a letter from DWP saying ESA has been
stopped. I was fit for work. That was towards the end of July. I was getting worse by this point.
Two weeks ago, I was admitted to hospital with the symptoms I had been suffering from - and have been
there ever since. It turns out I have been previously misdiagnosed, and having had a number of CT scans
and what not I am being treated for a far more serious illness. One of my conditions, the one that makes
walking almost impossible, was diagnosed as arthritis and old age by my GP. Nearly a year later, after being
taken into A&E it was found that I had been suffering from Periphial Vascular Disease, and had emergency
surgery to remove three bloods clots in one leg, hoping that that would solve the problem, if not the right
leg at the hip would have had to come off.
The woman was very friendly, but i realised she was trying to trip me up all the time, she said "so when
you're running up and down the stairs, do you get any back pain?" well, i've never complained of back pain,
so the answer would have been "no" but of course i cannot walk up stairs, never mind run.....i did point that
out to her, she just smiled. the worst thing she did was to get me to lie on a couch and asked me to lift my
legs and then to rotate them at the hip, i can do this with my right leg but not the left, she got hold of my
ankle and twisted my left leg, i had to limp out of the place, my gp said the popliteal something or other had
ruptured...so i'm still recovering from that. basically, she inflicted an injury on me!
========
They are now ordering claimants (and their companions) to surrender any notes they have taken during the
interview. Before the assessment even began, both I and my companion were warned that we had to first
agree first to hand over our notes at the end of the assessment. We were told that the notes would be
photocopied and stored on a database.
I was told that the penalty for refusing to agree to this condition was the immediate termination of the
assessment. There was an implicit warning that my file would be returned to the DWP with a note stating
that the assessment had been terminated because of "claimant non-compliance".
========
My Dad failed his medical. he has Spinal, muskulo-skeletal and bowel problems. The person he saw said he
used to be a Cancer doctor. What the hell does he know about prolapsed disks, sciatica, spondylosis? My
dads GP of 20+ years, his 3 consultants (orthopaedic surgeon, Spinal surgeon and bowel specialist) all agree
my dad will never be in a position to be able to return to work. these people have all the facts to hand, they
know the history and are experts in their own field. The Cancer doctor reported that there is no debilitating
function with my dad, and that he will be fit for work within 6 months. These ‘doctors’ are there for one
thing, to bring down the number of accepted claims.
========
My husband who has a terminal cancer - it may be some years before it does kill him - lives in fear daily of
the phone call and brown envelope landing on the mat. Our main topic of conversation is creating fall back
plans in case he is ...turned down. It is worse than living in a police state. Is this how the Jews who were
persecuted felt in the 1930's? And now a new century later when we are supposed to be a civilised society
it happens again against the weak and disabled all because of political ideology. I feel for the lady who took
her life but I can totally understand what drove her to it. This government has the taint of death on it's
hands. It is evil and I would not have said that a year ago. I feel ashamed to say it. I hate this government for
making me think how I now do.
========
I have now gone through the tribunal process twice and won twice. The cost has been a further
deterioration of my mental condition, my psychiatrist being afraid to try and alter my medication while I
was dragged through an 8 month ordeal as he felt it was unsafe, to the point of giving me emergency
contact details for the local acute care team (suicide).
The person who did my second assessment was a "nurse". But not a mental health nurse (I've seen so many
over the last 15 years, I know the lingo, she didn't) and seemed to be operating on an assumption that I was
claiming to be functionally retarded (which I'm not). Without good emotional support from family and
friends, I would have given up the fight. And that is the point, to bully/coerce people off the system. I've had
to do it twice now and, in a few weeks, it will begin again (the common sense to refer to a recent tribunal
judgment probably will not register). Not only do they not save anything - but my health is harmed.
========
This is what really worries me. I noticed a lot of questions have been altered. They used to acknowledge
pain and discomfort. But now it's as though you can either do something or you can't - no middle ground.
Surely if you can do something but it causes a great deal of discomfort then it should be taken into
consideration. If you then do a job that causes a great deal of pain and you leave, you'll be classed as
making yourself unemployed. But if you struggle on then you're going to end up in a worse state of health
and possibly a risk to yourself or others.
Iain Duncan Smith claims that those in need, need not worry. this is total garbage. some of the questions
make it look as though you are perfectly fine, but this is only because there isn't an answer that you can
honestly tick regarding your state of health. Hands for example. It seems you can answer that you definately
can do something or you can't. what about being able to write but it causes you pain and then results in you
having stabbling pains on top of the pain you started off with. Yet you could not in all good consciense say
that you couldn't write, but there doesn't seem to be anything that states doing a task takes ages and
causes more pain. Iain Duncan Smith and the rest have absolutely no compassion for genuinely ill people. it
seems that if you're on life support then they'll accept you can't do anything, otherwise we're all jiggered. I
can't tell you how all this worry has added to my problems.
========
i was diagnosed with fibromyalgia, pain amplification syndrome, weak bladder, uncontrollable number 2's,
and chronic fatigue syndrome. i take what feels like a chemists stock of medication for these problems and
they make me so out of it it beggars belief. i gave the assessor all of this info and all of my meds and she
couldnt have been any less bothered. i was kept waiting for over an hour, and when i was finally seen i was
in there for a total of 8 minutes. my wife was with me, she was allowed to give her input into how my
conditions affect me as she helps me out a lot, she has to help me in the bath, help me shave, wash my hair
and a few times ive been caught short in the toilet department, help clean me up. the assessor totally
banished this information from the report. my wife goes everywhere with me, my legs buckle under me and
i just collapse at any given time, this happened on my way to hospital when i fell in the road and blacked
both eyes and broke my nose after smashing my head off the kerb. even at the medical i had the broken
nose and the black eyes yet she said i looked a picture of health. completely disregarded how my plethora
of medications make me pretty much out of it all day
========
I felt relief at getting ESA awarded, but 3 months later I've been sent a questionnaire to start the whole
medical process again. Nothings changed in 3 months. I have a chronic condition, it's not going to go away.
Tipped me further into depression. Stress of the ESA makes my condition worse. I am worthless and a
burden to society. Add my name to the tally of 3 dead, I want it all to end. This isn't blackmail to politicians
or trying to highlight the issue. It's just how i feel.
========
My finances were cut off without warning (benefits) as a result of being scored 0 points (year before i had
passed with 15). the pressure of lack of finances and support caused a mental breakdown. i was sent by the
hospital to a respite centre for two weeks. i had to be monitored by home treatment team afterwards. i was
suicidal and was placed into an acute psychiatric ward within three months of failing the test as i had
become stressed, severly depressed, suicidal and annorexic. i am currently awaiting for a date for a tribunal
to appeal esa decison
========
my offical diagnosis now:
1, Chronic Kidney disease Stage 4
2, Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus
3, Hypertension
4, Hyperchloreserolaemia
5, Diabetic Retinopathy
6, Diabetic Nephropathy
I've had several courses of laser treatmant in each eye and I have been told that I will eventually have to
start dialysis.
I had my medical on inOctober. Medical was Ok, the man (don't know if he was a doctor) doing it seemed
pleasent and pointed out I had quite a few medical problems. It only lasted about 15/20 minutes.
So I've been waiting 6 weeks to hear and this morning i got a phone call off the DWP and guess what - I
failed the medical.
========
My sister has MS, an auto-immune disease that varies in severity from day to day. On the days she's mobile
enough to attend an assessment, she's told she's fit to work, and her benefits get cut. On days she can
barely move or see, she simply has her appointment rescheduled to when she is better. It's a catch-22, and
the stress of it has landed her back in hospital on more than one occasion.
========
The assessor did not accept my answers to his questions, instead he tried to bully me into accepting his
answers. None of my answers were taken at face value. His medical knowledge was very poor, I used to
work as a registered nurse, so I was able to evaluate his medical knowledge which was exceedingly lacking
in all areas.
========
Most of the questions they are given to ask were not relevant to my condition and those that were I
explained in great detail how they affected me and the strategies I had put in place to try and keep a good
independent quality of life. I also explained that it was taking enormous effort to keep this up. I had said I
could do jigsaws so that apparently meant I had full function in my hands??? What I failed to say was that I
did them with my 4-year-old Grand Daughter and they were big pieces. In the descriptors for this action the
question is can you pick up a pound coin from a flat surface? If this had been asked I would have said off a
table yes, I would slide it to the edge and drop it into my other hand. Could I pick it up off the floor? No. I
feel that there is not enough known by the people who make the decisions regarding such illnesses as
Rheumatoid Arthritis for them to make an informed decision on paper. One of the contributing factors of a
chronic flare up is stress and yet the system is causing so many sufferers of this disease stress through it’s
mismanagement and forcing people to go to appeals that are totally a waste of time, effort and resources.
========
A while after I first failed my ESA test I had a industrial injuries exam and the results were totally different.
I was awarded Industrial injuries as 30% disabled yet the ESA exam said I was totally fit.
When I complained, the DWP said that the two exams were different and wouldnt take it into account.
The two exams were by the same doctor too!! During the Industrial injuries interview the doctor writes
down your answers and then you get to read it and sign at the end to say you agree with what is written. If
this happened at the end of the ESA exam then there would not be so many appeals.
========
I got a hard time from the assessor. I hope he was one of the worst examples. He was qualified only as a
nurse, had a difficult to understand eastern european accent, and was totally devoid of empathy. He didn't
understand arthritis and obviously didn't have a clue about mental health issues - and scored me 100% fit.
Luckily, he was stupid enough to change my diagnosis on the form, fabricate statements, and contradict
himself frequently in his report. The tribunal was a walkover, and I had the judge on my side before she
finished reading the first page.
For me, the whole process took 14 months and was incredibly stressful, but hopefully they have learned…
========
I have a date for my 2nd medical, and had a support worker with me for the first one. Awarded nil points,
and eventually won my appeal.
When I received the 80+ page document of my medical, I showed it to my support worker. One of the first
things she said to me was "but you didn't do that!"
As I said "I know that, you know that, but it is printed there in black and white that I did!"
Hence even more reason to have this one recorded.
========
John is so severely disabled he has to wear nappies and is fed through a tube.
He is blind and deaf, cannot speak, suffers frequent seizures and requires 24-hour care. But he has now
been told by a Government decision maker that he is “capable of work” — and that he is no longer entitled
to benefits. Family members have contacted officials who say that an appeal against the decision will have
to be lodged.
========
The nurse was working within a very rigid criteria and when I tried to explain or be proactive in expressing
my difficulties within this very narrow scope I became very anxious and agitated. The nurse was clearly not
trained in mental health nursing as they do not employ Mental health nurses as part of their recruitment
policy. The manner of questioning from the nurse and the aggressive/defensive stance adopted would also
suggest very little or no training of working with people with mental health probs. I am a registered nurse
on the learning disabilities part of the NMC register and therefor feel confident in making this appraisal of
the assessors performance. I have had 17 yrs experience of working with people with mental health
problems and special needs
========
They said I could lift my leg 70 degrees above the ground. I can’t do that; even if I lift my leg two inches I’m
in excruciating pain. It said I appeared to have no difficulty in removing my coat; I should have told them
how much pain I was in. The report said I had a normal grip, but I can’t use a tin opener or peel a potato. It
said the muscle tone on my left leg was normal, but I haven’t been able to drive a manual car for 12 years
because of a weakness in my left leg.
========
I am coming up to my 60th birthday i have sufferd two heart attacks, need triple heart by-pass, impaired left
ventricula function, poli-arthritis, degenerative spine disease,sciatica, and just today been informed that i
am fit for work
========
I went to one of these tests and had my benefits stopped plus they sent a letter to my doctors telling him to
stop signing me off, i could've appealed but would've had to travel for 4 hours to get to the court! I felt so
bad and had to get some work to survive but this then led to me having a heart attack! I have had to have a
pacemaker fitted. They said is was deemed fit to work because in the test i sat on a table and all i did was
swing my legs forward and back!!!!! Plus asked to bend over!
========
I suffer with borderline personality dissorder anxiety and depression plus i faint sometimes or have black
outs. I am being forced back into work and to go to work meetings. I have been threatend with loosing my
home, so i ended up self harming and now being threatend with loosing my benefits. If I don't get my
benifits nothing will get paid, and i'll either end up topping myself or dying of starvation. I am now terrified,
i am not ready to go back to work, and if they force me into work i have no idea how i will react. 1 mintue i
can be fine next i feel like the anticrist. I can't control my personality dissorder, mental illness does not have
days off.
========
In a Mirror.co.uk article on 4th March 2012, a journalist used a Freedom of Information Request to discover
that, between January and August last year -
1,100 claimants died after they were put in the ESA "work-related activity group" and 1,600 people died
before their assessment had been completed.
By July the numbers had risen.
1,300 people died after being put into the Work Related Activity Group. 2,200 people died before their
assessment was completed. 7,100 people died after being put into the Support Group.
In total, between January 2011 and November 2011, some 10,600 claims ended and a date of death was
recorded within six weeks of the claim end.
The figures are derived from administrative data held by the Department for Work and Pensions and
assessment data provided by Atos Healthcare.
========
Larry Newman attended a work capability assessment when a degenerative lung condition made it
impossible for him to go on working. The Atos staff member who carried out the medical test awarded him
zero points. He received a letter stating that he was not eligible for ESA and would be fit to return to work
within three months. Before three months was up he died from his lung problems.
========
Two claimants died from the conditions which caused them to claim Incapacity Benefit while waiting for
their appeals to be heard.
One was deemed fit for work during a work capability assessment, despite having a deteriorating chronic
illness, and lost both incapacity benefit and disability living allowance.
When his support worker appeared at the appeal tribunal she had to report her client could not be there
because he was dead.
The other had a congenital condition which caused difficulty in walking but was assessed capable of work
and his incapacity benefit was withdrawn. He was waiting for a date for an appeal tribunal when he died.
A third person could not work due to severe heart and lung problems caused by a degenerative syndrome.
He died recently after winning a second appeal tribunal following three years of repeated assessments and
decisions being overturned.
========
George worked all his life, first as a miner and foundry worker, then as a communications engineer, until a
heart attack in 2006 when he was 53. In George's 39-minute exam, the "disability analyst" noted that
George had angina, heart disease and chest pain, even when resting. But this wasn't "uncontrollable or lifethreatening" and George "should be able to walk at least 200 metres".
He appealed, waiting eight months for his case to go to an independent tribunal. He was put in the "work
related activity" group. But months later George collapsed and died of a heart attack, the day before
another Atos medical. His widow is convinced the stress of claiming killed him.
========
A man with mental health problems who was worried about benefit cuts killed himself while he was
searching for a job. A suicide letter and next of kin note were found in which he expressed concerns about
Government cuts.
========
The police are not looking for anyone else in connection with the deaths of Mark and Helen Mullins, from
Bedworth in Warwickshire. One theory is they may have committed suicide.
Before their death Mark said "Helen is learning disabled, but it took her a very long time to get any kind of
benefits or social security. The job centre decided that she couldn't sign on because she wasn't capable --
she had no brain functions, no numeracy, literacy skills. "But the incapacity people ... wouldn't recognise
her until she had been fully diagnosed, which meant month after month after month of specialists. So
basically we were caught in a Catch-22 situation. I think the system is very unkind. We have lost count of
how many appeals we have had. We've had to fight tooth and nail every step of the way to get benefits."
Neighbours said before they died, the couple were living in one room because they could not afford to heat
their home.
========
A young man explained how his uncle, who had severe mental health problems, committed suicide after the
test gave him zero points and found him fit to work. He had appealed against the decision, and won at
tribunal. But shortly after that decision, he was called in for another assessment, and for a second time
scored zero points and was told he did not. He began appealing against the decision again, but a few days
before another tribunal date was set, he hanged himself.
========
Police have confirmed a body found in the River Wear five weeks ago is that of the 30-year-old, who
disappeared five months ago. Leanne, who had battled depression for a number of years, had taken a turn
for the worse after receiving a letter telling her she had to be assessed by a doctor to see if she was fit to
return to work.
========
My Daughter was deemed fit for work in November, she was so worried about losing her flat, she had to sell
her Jewelery to get heat and food, given to her by Family, broke her Heart, my Daughter was 36 on the 9th
of March 2012 and had died in her sleep on the 12th of March, post mortum showed nothing, inquest in
May. when I ring DHSS they keep sending me from pillar to post, sent in a complaint no reply, not giving up,
will carry on until I get an explaination, My Beautiful Daughter is gone, and my Heart is Broken
========
Behind every statistic is a person. I personally knew one of the 1100 people that died while in the Work
Related Activity Group of ESA that the writers of the (Mirror) article above have talked about. And I sat
holding the hand of this lady who was in the Work Related Activity Group of ESA , and I kissed her goodbye
the day before she died. And as a support worker, among the many other things I had to deal with after she
died, I had to write to the local 'back to work service' to tell them she would not be attending any more
mandatory 'work focussed interviews'.
Any person with any conscience - do you think it's ok for a person dying of cancer to be forced to work for
£70 per week benefit in their local Poundland? Do you think it's ok to be served in MacD by someone who
has a Hickman line in? Does anyone out there actually know what a Hickman line is? Not the DWP
clearly......
========
My brother died 4 days after having his medical. I went with him to it and saw how terrified he was. He had
aspergers and I have seen some links saying he didn't need to attend in the first place. He died of an aortic
dissection, brought on by high bp-I'm convinced raised fatally due to the thought of the assessment. At
present I am trying to get the notes from the meeting but not getting anywhere.
========
My father David Groves shown in the article was at his second appeal tribunal which he was due to attend
the day before he died. He was trying his up most to sell any assets that he had built up over his life time,
the family caravan, his car, and anything else of value to try and raise fund to keep a roof over his head,
because he new that this system was going to fail him. Those that have said that is was not the government
that killed him speak to my mother who found him dead at the computer getting the best price for his
assets
========
Martin Rust, 36, was declared fit to work following a Department of Work and Pensions assessment in
September, two months before he was found dead at his home in Parmentergate Court in the city centre on
November 21.
Coroner William Armstrong said the DWP’s decision “caused distress and may well have had an adverse
effect”, recording that Mr Rust had committed suicide while suffering from a treatment-resistant mental
illness.
========
Stephen Hill, 53, of Duckmanton, died in December of a heart attack. The dad-of-two had suffered heart
problems for around two years and was awaiting major heart surgery but following a ten-minute medical
examination on November 17 he was deemed well enough to work.
Mr Hill’s brother Anthony, 52, said: “I think the worry put so much pressure on him.
Mr Hill’s family – and Chesterfield MP Toby Perkins – are now calling for Atos’ ‘tick box’ system to be
overhauled
========
Mark Scott, 46, who suffered from anxiety, epilepsy and chronic alcoholism, was left penniless when
jobcentre doctors said he was fit to work. He was deprived of oxygen as a baby which left him prone to
epileptic fits and panic attacks. He died on January 26 in the Southport flat where he lived alone. His father
told the ECHO: “I think the anxiety Mark suffered over this decision killed him.
They pulled the rug from under him and I think the stress of it led to his death. I want to fight for justice, not
just for Mark but for all the other people in the same situation. If I am offered the money I won’t take it, I
will give it to charity. I just want the DWP to realise the impact of what they are doing."
An independent tribunal ruled the decision to stop Mr Scott’s employment support allowance was
incorrect
========
Janet McCall aged 53 had pulmonary fibrosis and scarring of the lungs - she was struggling to breathe. In
the summer of 2011 an Atos doctor did a home assessment and declared her fit for work. Five months later
in January 2012, she died.
========
A man set himself on fire outside a Birmingham jobcentre after what reports suggest was an argument over
benefit payments.
The 48-year-old unnamed man is understood to have doused himself in flammable liquid and tied himself to
railings after a dispute inside the Jobcentre Plus in the Selly Oak area on Thursday.
A source with links to staff at the centre told the Guardian the man had been recognised by the staff as
vulnerable with outstanding health issues but had recently been found fit to work precipitating a move from
one benefit to another.
An unnamed witness said "He would have to have been very desperate to have done something like that.
It's shocking that somebody could have been driven to those depths."
The incident follows an attempted suicide in a Liverpool benefits office earlier this year.
========
Mr. D had diabetes, heart condition, and lymphoedema. The DWP made 3 appointments for him because
he had major walking difficulties. The DWP then agreed that he could complete the ESA form in his car,
though he had asked the DWP officer to come out to complete the form, which was refused. Mr. D died
while completing the form.
========
Brian McArdle, 57, collapsed and died in the street near his home in Larkhall, Lanarkshire He had suffered a
heart attack. A previous stroke on Boxing Day last year had caused a blood clot on Brian’s brain. He was left
paralysed down his left side, unable to speak properly, blind in one eye and barely able to eat or dress.
Brian had another stroke days before his WCA appointment because of stress, but was still determined to
attend. He was found “fit for work” and his benefits stopped on September 26th. On September 27th he
died.
His 13 year old son has had to resort to writing to the Press about his loss.
On 1st November The Daily Record newspaper hand-delivered his anguished appeal to end the hated
assessments to Iain Duncan Smith’s Whitehall office. The DWP said “The letter will be brought to the
attention of the Secretary of State at the earliest opportunity.”
========
A survey of over of 1,000 GPs across the UK by ICM found that six per cent of doctors have experienced a
patient who has attempted or committed suicide as a result of “undergoing, or fear of undergoing” the
Work Capability Assessment.
========
Staff working for jobcentres and other Department for Work and Pensions contractors have been given
guidelines on how to deal with suicide threats from claimants as the squeeze on benefits takes hold… A
document sent to jobcentre staff in April details what it calls a "new policy for all DWP businesses to help
them manage suicide and self-harm declarations from customers”. The internal document was sent to the
Guardian by a senior jobcentre employee who has worked for the DWP for more than 20 years. It was
accompanied by a letter from the source that said: "Absolutely nobody has ever seen this guidance before,
leading staff to believe it has been put together ahead of the incapacity benefit and disability living
allowance  cuts."
========
Being sanctioned – losing your benefits over an apparent ­misdemeanour – is commonplace.

I’ve had many letters from people trapped in a Kafka-esque nightmare – pushed to food banks, loan sharks, hunger and sometimes ­homelessness by a “computer says no” system.

Some sanctions can last months.

So, thanks to Birmingham Against The Cuts for producing A Selection of Especially Stupid Sanctions.

All of the below are true stories and are fully sourced at www.birminghamagainstthecuts.wordpress.com.

1. You attend a work programme interview, so you miss your job centre appointment – SANCTION

2. You apply for more jobs than required in your agreement but forgot to put down that you checked the local paper – SANCTION

3. It’s Christmas Day. You don’t do any job search, because it’s Christmas Day – SANCTION

4. You get an interview, but it’s on the day of your nan’s funeral. You have three interviews the day before and you try to rearrange the ­interview, but the company reports you to the job centre – SANCTION

5. You get given the wrong forms and fill them in – SANCTION

6. You have a job interview that overruns, so you arrive at your job centre appointment nine minutes late – SANCTION

7. You retire on the grounds of ill health and claim Employment and Support Allowance. You go to your assessment and during it have a heart attack, so the nurse says she has to stop the test – SANCTION

8. You get a job, isn’t that great? The job doesn’t start for two weeks, so you don’t look for work in those two weeks – SANCTION
================

I have written on these pages many times about the various anomalies within the social security system which will mean that universal credit will not be able to get to the bottom of the situation.
I have a client who was on long term sickness benefit about 5 years ago; they had the opportunity to do a couple of day's work. They tried to enquire whether or not it would fit into the "permitted work rules" of £20.00 per week in perpetuity but however hard that client tried, they were not able to get a straight answer. So they did the couple of days work and the result was that they informed the DWP. Weeks after, one week's benefit was stopped and an NIC contribution suspended. The point about this was that no-one at the time was able to give any sensible advice. Now, run that in parallel with the issue about "voluntary work" and have a look at the DWP fraud rules. These state that even if someone claims and then does voluntary work, that it will be treated as work with the expectation of payment and the benefit overpayment will be adjusted accordingly, with a further expectation of prosecution. In other words, the DWP know that the client did not get paid but will treat them as if they did get paid if it is work which would normally be renumerated.
Exactly how they would prove that a client got paid under this vile and abusive system for prosecutions, no one exactly knows.
These are just two of the many anomalies I have pointed out here - the system is heavily laden with law and is unfit for purpose. On to this unfit system, the government is seeking to impose a layer of universal credit. No-one can any further be expected to know what the rules are or will be anymore and I would urge the government to fix what is creaking within the system NOW. not further complicate it with more nonsense.
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Hansard 11 Sep 2012
Universal Credit and Welfare Reform

3.45 pm

Mr Liam Byrne (Birmingham, Hodge Hill) (Lab): I beg to move,

That this House notes that the Universal Credit is late and over budget; recognises that there is widespread unease surrounding the implementation of the £2 billion scheme’s IT system; further notes that the project is so badly designed that it is set to reduce work incentives for over two million people and hurt small businesses and the self-employed; believes that Ministers have failed to properly account for numerous basic details of how the scheme will work, such as its interaction with free school meals or what is to be done with 20,000 Housing Benefit staff; further believes that the project is poorly thought through and is now at risk of descending into chaos; and calls on the Government to publish the business case, so that the House can see a detailed plan of implementation, and urgently to set out a plan to address these deep flaws before it is too late.

At the heart of the debate is a very simple principle, which is that anyone in this country should be better off in work than they are on benefits. That is a principle in which we in the Opposition passionately believe. We are a party that was founded by and for working people and that is why we want universal credit to succeed. It is now, however, an open secret in Whitehall that universal credit is a flagship that is sinking fast. The Treasury, says Mr Nick Robinson of the BBC,

“have long had deep anxieties that”

the Secretary of State

“might not be able to control spending”

on universal credit. Last week, the Minister for the Cabinet Office and Paymaster General, who is an old friend of the Secretary of State, was asked how universal credit was going. He said:

“Are we there yet? Am I absolutely confident we are there yet?”

His answer? “No.” This morning, an unnamed Minister weighed in to support the Secretary of State in his own way with a ringing endorsement, saying that universal credit

“is another car crash waiting to happen”.

The Secretary of State is no stranger to friendly fire. Indeed, back in 2002, he described himself as the “quiet man” who was about to “turn up the volume”. Today, we are not asking the Secretary of State to turn up the volume. We are asking him to dial down the chaos and dial up the competence in his Department.

The Secretary of State and I share a faith. He, like me, believes that confession is good for the soul, and today is confession time. We need answers to a host of questions about universal credit and we cannot help to get this vital project back on track unless he comes clean about exactly what is going on.
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Mr Byrne: Let me start with precisely that risk. We were told when universal credit was first proposed that the IT costs would be in the order of £2 billion. Some £200 million was taken off for subsidies for another problem with child care created by the Secretary of State’s friend, the Chancellor. The former Minister responsible for unemployment, the right hon. Member for Epsom and Ewell (Chris Grayling), before he departed for the Ministry of Justice, said that the cost had spiralled to £2.1 billion. Already, two years in, the project is £100 million over budget and we learned yesterday that universal credit, when it is introduced and fully rolled out in 2017, will demand an extra £3.1 billion in welfare payments each year. That was the figure that the Department for Work and Pensions gave to the Office for Budget Responsibility in July last year.

Yesterday, however, the Secretary of State told the House that he had agreed to a Treasury target of £2.5 billion, wiping £600 million off tax credits by so-called policy designs. Where on earth is that money going to come from? It is, I am afraid, a mystery. It is a mystery shrouded in further questions about whether people will be better off in work when universal credit is introduced. What on earth is going to happen to free school meals, which are worth £410 million a year to families in many of our constituencies and are a vital lifeline every week? The Children’s Society says that if universal credit integrates free school meals in the wrong way, that will wipe out incentives to work for 120,000 families. What is going to happen to that budget?

Then there is the question of council tax benefit, which is worth £5 billion for 6 million households in Britain. As it turns out, we are going to get not a national scheme but a local scheme, because the Secretary of State lost his battle with the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government. He was sat on by the right hon. Member for Brentwood and Ongar (Mr Pickles), which is a fate we would not wish on anyone. The result is that whether someone is better off in work or on benefits will depend on where they live. The Institute for Fiscal Studies says that universal credit “severely undermines” the simplification.

Then there is the question of how universal credit will interact with increases in personal allowances, which were introduced with such a great fanfare over the past year or two. Last week, Gingerbread said that because
universal credit is calculated on post-tax income, the lowest paid would see most of the increase in personal allowances wiped out. In fact, when universal credit is introduced, the low paid will lose two thirds of the increase in personal allowances. Somehow the Chancellor of the Exchequer forgot to tell us that when he unveiled the proposal in his last Budget.

Then there is the question of how universal credit will lock in the cuts to tax credits that hit so many of our constituents this April. Those cuts now mean, according to answers given to my hon. Friend the Member for Stockport (Ann Coffey), that a couple with kids working part time—and goodness me, there are more people working part time these days—will now be more than £700 better off on benefits than in work. How on earth can that send the right signal?
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Mr Byrne: [...] We need from the Government transparency about the business case, which is being kept secret. Until we get to the heart of how the policy will be rolled out, until we get some answers to these basic questions, it is difficult for us to offer some constructive advice—advice we would offer for free.
John Healey (Wentworth and Dearne) (Lab): Will my right hon. Friend take a look at the Rotherham citizens advice bureau survey, which I have sent to the Secretary of State today? The bureau questioned more than 100 people who had been through employment and support allowance assessments last year; more than half said that the assessment was rushed, nearly two thirds said that the assessor did not listen to them and only a quarter felt that the assessor was fully qualified to assess their medical condition. Does he agree that a fair benefits system and a fair universal credit depend on a fair and accurate system of assessment?

Mr Byrne: It absolutely does. Our chief concern is that that open and fair system of assessment will not fall into place for universal credit, with enormous consequences for our constituents.

The final point about the basic principle of whether people will be better off in work or on benefit is the evidence published by the Secretary of State’s own Department in the impact assessment that he signed earlier in the Parliament. The evidence shows that the marginal deduction rates will not go down for many people but will go up—2.1 million people will see their marginal deduction rates go up when universal credit is introduced. The incentive for them to work does not increase with universal credit; it goes into reverse. We have problems with free school meals and with council tax benefit, a short-changed personal allowance, the lock-in of cuts to tax credits and a worse incentive to  work. That raises fundamental questions about a system that is about to go live in 150 days. That is why in this debate we want some answers on how these problems will be solved.

The Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Mr Iain Duncan Smith): I will just give the right hon. Gentleman some answers on the marginal deduction rates. The fact is that 1.2 million people will receive a reduced marginal deduction rate as a result of what we are doing with universal credit. At the moment, 500,000 families see marginal deduction rates of well over 80%. Virtually nobody will see that once universal credit comes in. Some 2.8 million households will gain and 80% of those gains will go to the bottom 40%, improving their life chances dramatically.

Mr Byrne: But the Secretary of State refuses to admit that the marginal deduction rates will get worse for 2.1 million people. Until he answers the question about what will happen to free school meals and to council tax benefit, he cannot give us the assurance that that number of people will be better off in every single part of this country. He has to come clean about a system that is about to go live in 150 days. He is cutting it too fine, which is why No. 10 is worried, why the Treasury is worried and why his old friend the Minister for the Cabinet Office is worried.
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Mr Byrne: [...] we are here to help the Secretary of State this afternoon by setting out some of the questions on which, if he was only a little clearer with the House, we would be happy to engage and help. One of the issues in which we share an interest is the way we support the enterprise spirit in this country. The CBI and the Chartered Institute of Taxation have flagged up their worry that universal credit will be a car crash for Britain’s entrepreneurs. The number of self-employed people in this country increased by 280,000 over the past couple of years and many people must now look to their own resources for work, but what is being prepared for self-employed people is frankly chaotic.
[...]
We have heard from the Chartered Institute of Taxation that the system proposed for entrepreneurs will require self-employed claimants to report their transactions each month and that they will have only seven days after the end of the month to file them. They will have to put all that information into a great big IT system and calculate their earnings using a system that is different from the one they use to calculate their tax bill. How on earth does the Secretary of State think Britain’s entrepreneurs, who are busy doing other things day to day, will deal with the new system? I thought that the Government were committed to cutting red tape, not swaddling entrepreneurs with it if they want any chance of help with tax credits. Perhaps the hon. Member for St Albans (Mrs Main) can explain a way through it.
[...]
Members on both sides of the House want this to work, but if the hon. Lady looks at the evidence submitted by the CBI and the Chartered Institute for Taxation to the Work and Pensions Committee on Friday, she will see that there is now a real worry that this is going to be a catastrophe for the many entrepreneurs who rely on tax credits for help to balance the books at the end of the month. What I want from the Secretary of State is clarity about how this is going to work in practice.

This is the start of a whole series of risks that have been brought to the attention of hon. Members here and in the Select Committee. Flagged up in the evidence submitted on Friday was the decision to deny people a choice about who receives the money. I hope that the Secretary of State will reform this before implementation of universal credit, because many people who run women’s refuges say that the system is so badly thought through that refuges for women fleeing from domestic violence will have to close. In fact, Refuge tells us—[Interruption.] This is not scaremongering by me; it is evidence submitted to the Select Committee by Refuge, which says that the idea is so badly thought through that unless changes are made, 297 refuges will have to close. This is not scaremongering; it is bringing to the House’s attention information and arguments provided by one of the most important charities in the country.
[...]
This element was not in the original design. Yesterday we finally extracted from the Secretary of State a commitment to change; now we want to know how it, along with a host of other things, will work in practice.

Some of these issues are now bedevilling local authorities. There is a serious risk that direct payments of universal credit, which includes housing benefit going to the individual, will result in local councils’ arrears bills and eviction rates beginning to rise. We are still no clearer about what will happen to the 20,000 housing benefit staff who work for local councils and will no longer have to process housing benefit claims once the DWP takes over the task. Are they going to be sacked or made redundant? Who will pick up the bill? Is it yet another bill that will fall on the shoulders of hard-pressed council tax payers?
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP): In my constituency, housing benefit applications are up by between 10% and 15% and extra staff have been employed. The waiting list for applications to be processed takes anything from six to eight, or even 10, weeks. Yesterday the manager of the housing benefit office told me that only six months into the scheme he is already cutting back on the moneys that are allocated to try to make them last until next April. Does the right hon. Gentleman think that in the case of housing benefit, chaos is knocking on the door?

Mr Byrne: I am afraid that that is absolutely right. That is the message that is coming back from local authorities all over the country. In fact, the Local Government Association told the Select Committee on Friday that there is

“a real risk that the central Government universal credit IT systems will not be ready on time”.

That was part of an array of evidence submitted about the mounting risks. The CBI said that the

“tight delivery timetable…is a risk to business”.

Citizens Advice said that universal credit

“risks causing difficulties to the 8.5 million people who have never used the internet”.

The Chartered Institute of Taxation said that for many people

“The proposed procedures for self-employed claimants…will be impossible to comply with.”

Shelter has said:

“Social landlords and their lenders have voiced considerable concern at the implications of direct payments for social tenants”.

The Association of Directors of Adult Social Services says that the abolition of severe disability premium is an

“apparent contradiction of the Government’s stated aim to protect the most vulnerable.”

================Hansard Universal Credit and Welfare Reform=====================================
Dame Joan Ruddock (Lewisham, Deptford) (Lab): I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for reciting the concerns of a whole range of people and organisations. One of the things that has surprised me most is that every employer in the country will have to report to Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs on the circumstances of every employee on a monthly basis and sometimes, perhaps, even on a weekly basis instead of annually. Is this not going to be an incredible burden on British business, which is already in difficulty?

Mr Byrne: Exactly—as if British businesses were not struggling enough. The point is that the 500 pages of evidence submitted to the Select Committee on Friday present to the Secretary of State a whole range of issues to which we have received no answers, despite the fact that the system will go live in 150 days. The system is already over budget and late, and I am afraid that we now need some urgent answers from the Secretary of State this afternoon.

Kate Green (Stretford and Urmston) (Lab): Does my right hon. Friend agree that one of the great concerns of the many agencies that he has mentioned—they are worried about how universal credit will affect the client groups that they work with—is that the funding of those advice agencies that could support individuals is being squeezed and that there will simply be no access to support, either to make applications or to sort out problems when things go wrong?

Mr Byrne: That is a real concern. I know from the fact that a number of advice centres in Birmingham have been forced to close that advice is simply not available for many people in some of the most deprived parts of our country. They are being asked to contend with a new benefit system that is complicated and vital to their living standards, so that is a real worry. I hope that the Secretary of State will take that into account in his response.

I am going to draw my remarks to a close, because I know that many hon. and right hon. Members want to contribute to the debate. All I will say to the Secretary of State is that, following the recent attacks on him by the Treasury, the Cabinet Office and No. 10, he could be forgiven for wanting to retreat to the deepest, darkest bunker in Whitehall. The truth is that his Department is already one of the most secretive in Government. He is refusing to publish information about the Work programme and he has refused Labour’s freedom of information request to release the business case for universal credit.

I know that he does not always see eye to eye with the Minister for the Cabinet Office, but I hope that he will pay heed to his words:

“Transparency is at the heart of our agenda for government…We are unflinching in our belief that data that can be published should be published.”

Unflinching indeed.

Universal credit is a massive project—it is too big to be allowed to fail. We need to make sure that it is on track and I hope that the House will join us in sending an unequivocal message to that effect this afternoon.

The Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Mr Iain Duncan Smith): This debate cannot take place in a vacuum, as the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill (Mr Byrne) would wish. Let me start by saying that he is wrong: we are not over budget on the programme and we are not out of time. Both are proceeding much according to the plans that we laid. He referred to a report or note that mentioned £3.1 billion. That was considered as a possible end position and the Office for Budget Responsibility, which is independent, looked at it well before Members of both Houses had completed their scrutiny of the legislation. It was done in July of last year. Since then we have had a series of discussions with the OBR. It has looked at the modelling in detail, and continues to do so.
[...]
As far as the OBR is concerned, we are progressing in the right direction and the modelling seems to be about right. We are committed to the £2.5 billion a year and the £2 billion of investment in our IT programmes.

Mr Byrne: I am grateful to the Secretary of State for being characteristically generous in giving way so early in his remarks. Will he explain what policy designs resulted in the £3.1 billion estimate, made by his own Department, dropping down to £2.5 billion? Will he also confirm to the House that everybody affected will be on universal credit by 2017, as initially planned?

Mr Duncan Smith: First, I will answer the second question. That is exactly what we intend and we believe that we are on track to do just that. The right hon. Gentleman and the House should realise that this is not, as has been the case with previous IT programmes, a “waterfall” approach whereby everything explodes and is launched on one date, which I think the previous Government used to realise was probably not a good idea. This will be a progression over four years, so that, as we bring in different groups, such as jobseeker’s allowance recipients, and first address the flow, then the stock, and then look at tax credits and how they fit in, we can make sure that we get this absolutely right at every stage. We know that there are important things to consider so that people do not suffer as a result of universal credit. We want to get this right, even as we do it.

We agreed on the £2.5 billion figure. That is our position. As we look at all these things, including the disregards, we see that we can realise better ways of doing them. It is a work in progress. That is how we are able to achieve these things, just as when we looked at them originally.

The right hon. Member for East Ham (Stephen Timms) has peppered us with freedom of information requests, which is exactly what an Opposition Member should do. However, it does him and the shadow Secretary of State ill to lecture us about releasing business cases. When they developed employment and support allowance, a system about as large and complicated as this one—I think that the right hon. Member for East Ham was a Minister in the Department at the time—at no stage, despite the request, did they ever release their business plan to us.

Kate Green: I wonder whether the Secretary of State will clarify something that he said in response to my right hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill (Mr Byrne). He said that the change would be implemented in stages, with first the flow, then the stock and then tax credits. Surely the tax credits for the first claimants to receive universal credit will have to be brought in on the first day of universal credit.

Mr Duncan Smith: No; it has always been part of the process that jobseeker’s allowance will be the first to move across. I am happy to discuss that further. Universal credit will run in parallel with the other systems until we shut them down and move them across. That is the way it will work. That has always been clear. I think that the Chair of the Work and Pensions Committee knows that, because I have been open with her about it from the word go.
[...]
John Healey: The Secretary of State maintains that the project is on track, when everybody else seems to think that it is in serious trouble and way off track. Rotherham Jobcentre Plus staff have told me that he has told the public that jobseeker’s allowance and new claims for out-of-work support will be treated as new claims for universal credit from October 2013. Is that still the case?

Mr Duncan Smith: I thought that I had been pretty clear about that. The plan is that, starting in October 2013, we will move through the different groups of benefits and tax credits progressively over the four years, bringing in different groups at different stages. That is how it will work. We will be giving a big presentation next week for members of the media.

John Healey: Has the timetable not slipped?

Mr Duncan Smith: The timetable is not slipping at all. We are on target. The right hon. Gentleman needs to be happy about that.
[...]
Luciana Berger: I listened closely to what the Secretary of State said about 1.2 million people having better marginal deduction rates, but his Department’s own impact assessment shows that 2.1 million people will be worse off in work as a result of universal credit.
[...]
Mr Duncan Smith: I am going to make some progress, and I will pick up on some of the points that have been made as I go through my speech. If the right hon. Gentleman will bear with me, I will certainly give way to him later.

I turn to the delivery of universal credit. As I said earlier, its implementation is on time and on budget. Of course, the process is challenging, and I have never said anything else. The right hon. Member for East Ham knows that I have a huge amount of time for him and believe that he was an effective Minister. When we have discussed universal credit I have always told him that all our programmes have challenges and risks to them, but the job of Ministers and our officials is to manage that risk. Life has risks, and we deal with them and manage them. The universal credit programme is challenging, but we are investing £2 billion—I say again to the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill, that the figure is £2 billion—to get the infrastructure and IT systems right.

Mr Byrne: But the Secretary of State must have seen the parliamentary answers that his ministerial colleagues have provided stating that the implementation costs for parts of the programme are now running at £103 million, £391 million, £600 million and £1 billion. By my maths, that adds up to £2.1 billion, which is £100 million more than the budget that he has set out. Is the programme on budget or over budget?
[...]
Mr Duncan Smith: Perhaps the hon. Lady will give me a little time. I think I have been reasonably generous—I am trying to be because I hope that we can discuss this issue in the right spirit. I will give way to the hon. Lady in due course, but first I would like to make a little progress.

We will be ready to roll out universal credit across the country in October 2013, and before that we will launch the pathfinder scheme in Greater Manchester in April 2013—perhaps some hon. Members do not know that yet, but that is the reality. As I have said, the phased transition from current benefits and tax credits is expected to be completed by 2017, and the safe delivery of universal credit will be my primary objective throughout. For what it is worth, I take absolute, direct and close interest in every single part of the IT development. I hold meetings every week and a full meeting every two weeks, and every weekend a full summary of the IT developments and everything to do with policy work is in my box and I am reading it. I take full responsibility and I believe that we are taking the right approach.
[...]
Mr Duncan Smith: Perhaps I could make a little progress, and then I will give way because I know that hon. Members have questions.

I believe that we are taking the right approach; we have supported the scheme and our methods have received support elsewhere. Our use of the “agile” process has received good support from the independent Institute for Government, which in “Fixing the flaws in government IT” stated:

“The switch from traditional techniques—”

those used by the previous Government, and others—

“to a more Agile approach is not a case of abandoning structure for chaos. Agile projects”—

those used in the private sector—

“accept change and focus on the early delivery of a working solution.”

I do not underestimate the scale of the undertaking. Some 8 million households will be affected because they are in receipt, either wholly or in part, of some kind of support. I believe, however, that the Department is capable of implementing programmes of this kind. It has the best record, just as it did when the Labour party was in government, as Opposition Members will recall. The delivery of employment and support allowance was a good example of that, and the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill who was involved in that knows too well the quality of the Department for Work and Pensions. Although the scheme is not without risks, the Department understands that and we have brought in a huge number of people and bodies from outside the Government to help implement it.
[...]
Chi Onwurah: The Secretary of State was speaking about his pride in the investment in IT systems that his Department has undertaken, but is he concerned that by making universal credit available primarily—and eventually solely—online, he will be dependent on investment by other Departments in the broadband infrastructure in this country? By abandoning Labour’s universal promise of broadband availability, many vulnerable people will not have access to broadband, and will not be able to benefit from universal credit.

Mr Duncan Smith: I was coming to that point, but I will deal with it now because the hon. Lady has a legitimate interest and all hon. Members will want to know about this issue. Two things are important. First, we must understand that the Government and the benefits system must move alongside what is happening in work. Those in receipt of benefits—often long-term benefits—are often outside and excluded from the workplace because of their lack of ability to work with and manage IT systems. We want to help them to enter the world of online work.

Secondly, the vast majority of people claiming benefits today already use computers and the internet—around 80% of those who claim jobseeker’s allowance use computers. Importantly, however, not all of them use their computer for claiming benefits, which they often do on the telephone. Over each month we intend to move more of those people to an online process of claiming—already more than 30% of people have started on that, and we intend to increase that figure first to 50% and eventually to 80%. We know, however, that to do that we may need to help people enormously, so jobcentres will be fitted out—we are doing trials—with computers and telephones that connect people directly to contact centres. My plan is for contact centres to get people on to their computers and work through the process with them. One reason people are worried and do not want to go online is that the present online system is not good. It is notchy and difficult—I have used it myself—and difficult to get through. We are developing and designing with claimants, jobcentre staff and local authority staff a front-end system that will be much simpler and easier. I will demonstrate it to colleagues on both sides of the House when we have time—I will do so next week, but on other occasions, too.

The whole idea is to move people to the new system, but we will of course retain the scope to deal with those who have difficulty.
[...]
Mr Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con): The problem with IT systems in the public sector, rather than the private sector, is the sheer scale of numbers—8 million households will use the new system—the complexity of the issues and the lifestyle of the recipients. I saw more failed Government IT systems in my time on the Public Accounts Committee than I have had hot breakfasts. I beg the Secretary of State to be cautious, to test and re-test, to pilot and re-pilot, and not to believe a word spoken to him by IT companies or his civil servants.

Mr Duncan Smith: My hon. Friend was an excellent Chairman of the Public Accounts Committee—he is highly respected among Members on both sides of the House—and I absolutely agree with him. That is how I see my role. One thing I have done is brought into the system a red team, whose job is to go through and doubt everything I am told, and to ask questions. Being a sceptic and not believing are part of the process of delivering. I absolutely understand that. We are involving others in the process—that is our purpose.
[...]
Mr Duncan Smith: Let me make a bit of progress, because others might want to speak.

We have discussed finances. The Government have always made it clear that the £2.5 billion is additional and that that was how it would work. We have always agreed on that. The nature and design of universal credit means that this is an iterative process. The reality is that we learn as we do the developing. One thing that “agile” allows us to do is to rectify previous assumptions that things have improved because of changes. I can confirm to my hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough that, as we proceed with the IT project, “agile” will allow us to ensure that we do not wait to the end moment to test it; we are testing stuff pretty much the whole time.
[...]

Dame Joan Ruddock: I am extremely grateful to the Secretary of State for giving way. He said earlier that he would not publish the business case, despite the request. I wonder, however, whether he can tell us something that we assume might be in the business case. How many more hours working in the economy does he expect to see as a consequence of introducing universal benefit next year?

Mr Duncan Smith: If the right hon. Lady will forgive me, I am not going to give her specific details now, although I am happy to talk to her at greater length later on. The point I would simply make is that universal credit is designed to get more people who are below work, as it were, to cross the line into work. When people ask, “What is universal credit really about?”, they always talk about the taper. That is really important: simplifying the taper allows people to move up the hours. In truth, however, universal credit’s key component is the disregards—the bit we call the participation tax rate. In other words, right now, unless someone goes straight to 16 hours as a lone parent, for example, the participation tax rate—the moment when they join work—is so high that there are households that need two earners in work just to have enough money to survive. The idea of universal credit is to break that down and improve their lot. I cannot give the right hon. Lady the detail, but I believe that more people will move up the hours, with more people moving into higher hours and longer-term work.

Mark Durkan: I thank the Secretary of State for giving way. He has said that he is taking a hands-on approach to the developing IT system. Will he assure us that the IT system, which will also cover Northern Ireland, will be formatted to allow both the continued weekly or fortnightly payment of benefits, if that is the policy of the Northern Ireland Assembly, and the direct payment of housing benefit to social landlords, which is the policy of the Assembly? Will the IT system also be able to cope with the problems of cross-border workers?

Mr Duncan Smith: I was going to deal with a lot of that in my speech, so the hon. Gentleman is helping me to speed up. Let me deal with monthly payments. I genuinely believe that we need to get people on to monthly payments, for a very good reason. Right now, about 75% of the work force are on monthly payments. We looked at this issue—as I am sure others have—when I was at the Centre for Social Justice. One of the biggest stumbling blocks we found is that when people are out of work, everything is paid directly to them every fortnight, but when they go back to work they really struggle—particularly those who have been out of work for a little time—to cope with the first few months in work. We are looking to get as many people as we possibly can on to a monthly payment, so that when they go into work they have already completed that process and it is not a big break for them.

Of course we will want to identify—working with councils and local groups, and so on—those in real difficulty. Now, here’s the thing. Until now, nobody has really bothered much about them, unless someone—maybe an MP—makes a specific effort to try to get something resolved for them. What we are doing will make us look at why those people cannot cope and then start to surround them with support. It might be about their ability to budget; it might be that the family has serious drug problems, in which case we will need to get to that. So, we start looking at the reason, then we can resolve that and move them into the process. We will allow for the ability to settle at two weeks where we think it vitally necessary, but the mainstream will go to monthly payments. However, I am happy to talk to the hon. Gentleman further about that and help him out.
[...]
Ian Paisley: I thank the Secretary of State for his generosity, and I hope that I will not be too boring. What contingency plans is he working on to deal with a catastrophic failure of the new IT system? For eight weeks over the summer, the Ulster bank in Northern Ireland was effectively closed as a result of such a system failure. If it can happen to a bank, it will happen to the new system.

Mr Duncan Smith: As I have said, we are working through all of that. Of course we have to prepare for contingencies and for certain events, and we are looking at that right now. It is part of the process of developing the system.

No one has asked me about the security of the system, but I might as well be open about it. That is of course an area that we are working on. We are learning the lessons from what happened when the banks started operating online, and we are now engaged with various organisations, including GCHQ, and talking about those matters. A long, detailed, iterative process of work is taking place to try to cover every eventuality, and I promise the hon. Gentleman and the House that we shall leave no stone unturned.

I recognise why the Opposition wanted this debate, and I know that people have read bits and snippets from the newspapers. People should not always believe everything they read in the newspapers, however. Personally, I do not read them often these days for that very simple reason! None the less, I say to the Opposition and to every Member that if we get universal credit right—I believe that we will, and we are working to achieve it—it will benefit all our constituents. It is a major plus and a key reform—one that will genuinely define us as a Parliament that cared enough to take on the risks and achieve this. Not to do so risks too much for people as they head into the modern world unable to cope, unready and believing that they and their families will never see the process of work, which will scar them for the rest of their lives.

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