No way to treat people

Yesterday, the Daily Express and Daily Mail argued the country was full of cheating, scrounging sick people.

The Express screamed: “Blitz on Britain’s benefits madness”, contrasting those on “sickness handouts” with “hard working taxpayers”.

Tory MP Philip Davies joined the outcry, saying:

“People are sick to the back teeth of being taken for a ride by people sponging and scrounging and abusing the system.”

While the Mail shouted:

“Scandal of 80,000 on sickness benefits for minor ailments… including diarrhoea.”
To accompany arguments that “drug addicts” have been allowed to claim, they included a picture of someone snorting white powder through a rolled up note.

The papers go on to list “blisters”, “headaches”, “depression”, and “problems with scholastic skills” as evidence that there are hundreds of thousands of people living the good life at “taxpayers” expense who have nothing really wrong with them.

For a moment, let’s forget the fact that only the first ailment a person lists on their claim form is taken into account in these figures. Let’s ignore the fact that someone with “nail disorders” might also have cancer or kidney failure. Let’s ignore the fact that someone classified under “drug abuse” might also suffer from schizophrenia or multiple sclerosis.

Once upon a time (under Labour) the government took substance misuse seriously and recognized just how much of a growing problem it had become. There was a recognition that many users and abusers wanted to work, but because of the chaoitic lifestyle they lead, they were unable to find a job.

The right wing Tory press would have us believe that addicts are making a daily lifestyle choice. No – they may have made a choice when they first took the drug, but now they are addicted that has long gone out the window. Now it is the heroin, cocaine, amphetamines or barbiturates that control them. Reducing addiction to calling those affected ‘scroungers’ is not only unhelpful, it is actually unhelpful and can push those affected away from treatment and possible recovery. But there again, a working class girl coming off drugs and holding down a regular job doesn#t sell newspapers does it?

And what about “headaches?” Cluster headaches (also referred to as “suicide headaches”) are thought to be one of the worst pains known to man, not something to be confused with a hangover.

I could go on, but I’m sure you’re beginning to see why these horrible articles, fuelled by “statements” today from Chris Grayling, minister for Work and Pensions and Citizen Dave, the people’s toff, only serve to turn a sensitive, delicate subject into a form of attack. They aim to pitch one condition against another whilst asking those more fortunate to view those who are unwell with mistrust and contempt.

Perhaps there is a legitimate debate to be had over which conditions “hard working tax-payers” are willing to support. There is certainly some validity in the claim that many sick or disabled people would love help and support to find a job. Remember the Labour-inspired Pathways to Work or New Deal for Disabled People? They were designed for just this purpose, but the government scrapped these programmes and left the staff running them on the dole.

Hopefully, no reader of this blog agrees that this is the way in which to conduct this debate? Allowing politicians and media to whip up hate and prejudice against a particular group of society is something we should all be ashamed of.

Incapacity Benefit "crackdown" begins today

The one-and-a-half million people who claim incapacity benefit will start to receive letters this week asking them to be tested for their ability to work. The new assessments are part of government plans to reduce the number of long-term claimants in a rolling programme through to 2014. Almost 30% of those who took the test during pilot schemes in Burnley and Aberdeen were declared fit to work. However, disability charities say many of the assessments are unfair.

However, the question remains, how many disabled people on benefits are really fit for work? It’s an important question, particularly in light of revelations of unfair assessments being conducted during the pilot phase of this programme. Suggestions that people suffering from cancer and undergoing chemotherapy or individuals with long-term mental health problems all being deemed ‘fit for work’ does not inspire confidence in a system

Nonetheless, the government continue to publicise that just over a quarter of those assessed were “fit for work”

Put like that it sounds as though a large proportion of people on these benefits are swinging the lead – and this is certainly the story newspapers have been telling recently.

But that is entirely the wrong way of looking at it. To understand why, a little explanation is needed. Since the mid 1990s, the main income replacement benefits for disabled people have been Incapacity Benefit and Income Support. The Labour government brought in a new benefit to replace them, called Employment and Support Allowance, with a tougher eligibility test, called the Work Capability Assessment. One of the new government’s priorities has been to move people who currently get the old benefits over to ESA, which means applying the new test to them.

They expect this to take three years and the results are from a pilot project that’s mainly about finding out if there are going to be any operational problems. It was only running in two locations – Aberdeen and Burnley – so the numbers involved are quite small. (This means we have to be a little cautious about the results.)

I understand that about 12 per cent of those found fit for work are appealing. About 40 per cent of WCA appeals are successful; if that holds true the proportion finally found fit for work will come down to about a quarter.

This shouldn’t really come as a surprise – the new test was designed to be tougher and everyone involved assumed that fewer people would be awarded benefit. So, when a test designed to cut the numbers qualifying is applied to a group who passed an easier test the result is that a large minority fail. If that hadn’t happened I should imagine the DWP would have been quite annoyed.
So where do we get this guff about “two in three benefit claimants are fit to work”, to quote the Telegraph? By adding together the group found fit for work and the people in the work-related activity group.
But the people in the work-related activity group aren’t fit to work, if they were they would have been found fit to work. Instead, they’ve been put in a group of people who are going to be helped to get back to work, but who don’t have to apply or look for jobs (which is what the benefits system requires of out-of-work non-disabled people). The fact that they’re going to be able to work at a future point doesn’t mean they are malingering now.

(There’s another sense in which many more of the people on these benefits are capable of work. If you use the social model of disability, then being a disabled person doesn’t mean you’re incapable of employment provided social and economic arrangements are in place to remove the barriers that currently exclude disabled people. But we are a long way from achieving that.)

When you know the history it isn’t just harder to put up with newspaper nonsense – some of the stuff from Ministers get harder to bear too. Chris Grayling once said:

“Too many people were simply abandoned to a life on benefits; we are determined to put a stop to that terrible waste of potential. The welfare state in this country is no longer fit for purpose that’s why our broad range of reforms are so important.”

But this “important” reform is one they inherited from their predecessors! Whether it is the Government or the Opposition that should be most embarrassed about this I’ll leave to readers.

One thing is clear, this morning a lot of people will be worried about their pending assessment – not because they are afraid to work. Nor will it be because they are unwilling to work. Their fear will stem from the fact that
a) The system has been designed in such a way that some of those who are genuinely unfit will be forced back into work.
b) With the demise of Pathways to Work and NDDP, the mechanisms are not in place to fully support those who have been on these benefits back into employment.

Once again this scheme is another example of the government rushing through reforms without thinking them through and without any consideration of people’s lives.

At this rate, Chris Grayling may easily win the award of being the most hateful man in British politics so far this century.

It's cruel and it's unfair

Don’t get me wrong, I have nothing particularly against any individual Tory. I confess I don’t like the fact Citizen Dave, the people’s toff talks about addressing inequalities in this country, whilst stashing away over £30m in personal wealth, but that’s another issue.

No, let’s look today at this supposed desire to address inequalities and make Britain more efficient. According to the Public Accounts Committee, the government has "no clear plan" of action for tackling errors and fraud in the welfare system.
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More than £2bn is being spent on benefit overpayments and no progress has been made in reducing it and it is also claimed officials had not got to grips with £1.3bn in under-payments, despite the hardship these cause. All this is despite the fact that the Tories have set a target of a 25% reduction in the cost of fraud and error by 2015. With these kinds of results, they have a long way to go.

Meanwhile, the popular media like to ‘carry on’ about social security scroungers but forget that tax evasion costs this country 15-times more than welfare fraud. Tax evasion is around 3% of total tax liabilities, while benefit fraud accounts for 0.8% of total benefit expenditure.
George Osborne made political capital out of saving £4bn on the benefits bill, and was happy for those making the claims he targeted to be called lifestyle choice fraudsters and layabouts – all, supposedly, because of the need to tackle the hole in the government's deficit. But he wouldn't have needed to make these cuts if he tackled the biggest category of fraud in the UK economy – that of tax evasion.

But of course we should not expect the Tories to attack business people, or the toffs when they try and save a little bit of tax. After all, for them it is all a bit of a game – can we dodge paying the taxman by not declaring all our income?

Meanwhile, John is a carer looking after his wife with chronic epilepsy. They live in social housing and would like to move, but they can’t get a transfer. John wants to work, but needs to be around his wife 24-hours a day. He doesn’t smoke, rarely drinks and his weekly treat is buying his family a small bag of donuts from the local supermarket – a treat they all look forward to as it is the only family event they can afford.

If John were to employ a professional carer 40 hours a week to look after his wife and charge the government, it would cost between £240 and £300 per week. Unfortunately, the rules don’t allow John to do this, so he had to claim Carer’s allowance – and how much the government gives him as a ‘thank you’ for doing the job? I meagre £53 per week – paltry by any stretch of the imagination.

But do the red tops cause an outcry about John’s allowance? Do they scream and shout when an unmarried mother’s benefit fails to turn up and she has to go to court because she stole a loaf of bread to feed her young child? No, she is another one of those state scroungers that want it all on a plate.

Let this blog send out a clear message to any Tory reader. Yes there are a small number of people who rip off the system – and they should be punished. But the vast majority of claimants are decent law-abiding people who just want a chance in life. Tory plans to bring about Universal Credits will not help them today (if at all) and the Work Programme is nothing more than a repeat of Labour’s mistakes. The DWP's own research has stated that "one quarter (27%) of claimants who leave unemployment to obtain a job return to claim unemployment benefits within 13 weeks, whilst two out of five (40%) return within six months". In addition: "just over half (53%) of workers return to JSA within 3 months of taking a permanent job either because they resigned or were sacked".

It is time the government opened their eyes and saw there are very clear injustices happening in this country and they are doing nothing to resolve it.

Unemployment - Do the Con-Dems know what they're doing?

A Political Overview
As the Coalition government settle into their roles it is becoming increasingly unlikely the two parties will breech their agreement and bring about an early general election.

Several reasons help support this notion:

• Neither of the two major parties will be eager to enter into a new round of campaigning after having spent between £3 – 4m during the last campaign and with their financial backers hesitant to give more so soon.
• The electorate are unlikely to change their existing voting pattern for at least the next 12 – 18 months and by that time the budgetary restriction shortly to be imposed by George Osborne will have impacted, probably meaning the coalition will be at its lowest popularity.
• David Miliband is likely to be elected leader of the Labour Party in September, 2010 and the hierarchy are unlikely to want to push for an election until he has had a chance to develop and bring forward a new team (with Ed Balls a likely contender for Shadow Chancellor).
• The fixed-term parliament ties members of the coalition to being in government for 5- years and they might squabble during this time, there are no serious breaches imminent.
• It is now apparent many previous prospective parliamentary candidates would be willing to stand again if a snap election was called in the next two years, but would be unlikely to stand in May 2015. This option is likely to be favoured by the Miliband team as it will help to eradicate elements of the New Labour project and allow for a new influx of candidates more attuned to centre left values.

Over the last few months David Cameron has shown himself to be much more of a political heavyweight than was seen in the run up to the election. His presence at the dispatch box has been formidable and he has shown himself to be a hard-hitter when confronted by accusations from the opposition benches. Equally, Nick Clegg and Vince Cable have proven to be much stronger than first suggestions would have implied, although the Lib-Dem leader will need to play a cautious role now with Simon Hughes recently elected to the deputy leadership. Cable has a commanding presence and his knowledge of economic issues is unquestionable – what remains unclear is how he will emerge as he reinvents himself from being a Keynesian to a more traditional deficit hawk.

Economic factors
In their Pre-budget forecast, the Office for Budget Responsibility suggested the economy would expand 2.6% in 2011, down from the 3 – 3.5% estimate given by Alastair Darling in the March Budget. They also predicted that the public deficit would fall from 10.5% of GDP in 2010 – 2011, compared to the 11.1% estimate of the last government. Underlying these forecasts is a fundamental belief that World GDP is set to rise by 4% in 2010 and world trade will increase by 6% this year and 6.25% in 2011. These figures should be read cautiously, as the World Bank have indicated global GDP is projected to increase by 3.3 percent in 2010 and 2011, and by 3.5 percent in 2012.. However, should current uncertainty regarding developments in Europe persist, outturns could be weaker. A high probability alternative baseline, characterized by an accelerated tightening of fiscal policy across high-income countries, would see a more muted recovery, with global GDP expanding by 3.1 percent in 2010 and by 2.9 and 3.2 in 2011 and 2012.

Additionally, the OBR Report suggests CPI inflation is expected to fall to around 2.25% by the end of 2010 and then stabilizing at around 2% by the end of 2012. Alternatively, the Bank of England suggest inflation could drop to as low as 1.3% by 2012 (with a potential high of approximately 1.6%).

The Office for Budgetary Responsibility forecast the Public Sector Net Borrowing (PSNB) is £3 billion less than in the March budget largely because of lower forecasts of social security spending. According to the London Stock Exchange, recent months have shown some signs of improvement in the public finances, with tax receipts picking up after a prolonged period of weakness. Analysts at the Stock Exchange expect these trends to continue, although both measures of public borrowing in May are still forecast to be higher than the same month last year.

Unemployment
The Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) has an annual budget of approximately £139bn and account for 24.7% of all civil service staff, although this has been reduced recently by George Osborne by £535m (0.38% of the total budget) and further cuts will be implemented under the departmental spending review this autumn. Only 26.6% of DWP staff work in London, with the remainder scattered throughout the country. At the present time it is impossible to gauge the extent of future cuts, though analysts are estimating anything from 2.5% to 7.5%. One of the pressures faced by DWP is the fact that social security payments for the unemployed alone account for £12.5bn (assuming the existing level of approximately 2.51 million people unemployed). If you add to this the estimated 700,000 additional numbers out of work suggested by some economists and this is increased by a further £3.57bn. In effect this could result in a situation where the DWP budget is pruned to £128.5bn and the social security payment increased by anything up to 28.5%.

Evidence currently being utilized by the government is proposing that labour market indicators are stabilizing. This is based on the fact that the International Labour Organization (ILO) unemployment rate has been broadly stable for the past year at or below 8% and the claimant count has fallen in five of the past six months (the NAIRU rate adopted in the UK for ‘full employment is 5.3% unemployed). However, these assumptions ignore several critical issues that will emerge over the coming months:

• 2.6 million people, now on incapacity benefit will be reassessed and there is a belief that as many as 40% of these people could be added to the unemployment register, accounting for slightly over 1 million new claimants.
• Even without these additional claimants, the Chartered Institute of Personnel Development has forecast an additional 450,000 new claimants by 2012 and this figure will remain until 2015. Other analysts have extended unemployment as rising up to 700,000 new claimants.

If these forecasts are accurate – and there is compelling evidence to support their conclusions – it mean the government prediction of achieving 1milion unemployed by the end of 2014 is ill-founded and unachievable.

All of this begs the question - have the government truly thought out their strategic plans to how they will deal with unemployment during this parliament. Existing evidence offers little to no assurance they have done their homework.

How the Coalition ignores the unemployed

Already the coalition is starting to show signs of attacking our hard earned welfare system. Over the coming months, 2.6 million people currently in receipt of incapacity benefit will be reassessed and ‘judged’ as to whether they are fit for work. Now accessing IB in the first place is not exactly easy and requires the co-operation of a GP, so one can only assume the Con-Dems are unwilling to accept medical opinion because they want to get these ‘skivers’ back to work.

Add to this the 8.1 million people who are deemed economically inactive and you have the basis of a return to Thatcherite oppression of the working class, with the government threatening to implement a series of ‘initiatives’ to force people back into work.

You don’t believe me? Take a look at Tory policy. They state:

“... anyone declining to participate on the single Work Programme will lose the right to claim out-of-work benefits until they do”.

Their manifesto (and now Coalition policy) also indicated that refusal of a job offer could lead to “forfeit of benefits for up to 3 years”.

Clearly, this approach stems from an underlying belief that the unemployed are no more than a bunch of ‘skivers’ determined to milk the welfare system. This diatribe harks back to the days of Thatcherism – an era few amongst this readership would wish to see repeated. But who exactly are these ‘skivers’ the Tories are so determined to persecute? Are they the economically inactive? The unemployed?

If they are amongst the 8.1m people deemed economically inactive, then let us break down the figures:

- Slightly over 2.3 million are students
- A bit under 2.3 million are looking after their family /home (eg housewives).
- Just over 2 million are long-term sick.
- Just under 600,000 describe themselves as retired.
- Just over 1 million part-time workers who are on reduced hours and unable to find full-time work

It is also worthy of note(before the Tories trash the record of the last government - when Labour was elected the working age population was just under 35.3 million; in the latest figures it is just over 38 million – 2.75 million higher.

Alternatively, if the Tories are referring to the unemployed, then a simple glance at the figures shows there are currently 2.51m people unemployed, with 1.51 of these receiving Jobseekers Allowance. At the same time, the number of vacancies for the three months to April 2010 was 475,000. It does not take a mathematical genius to work out there are not enough jobs to go around.

So how will the Con-Dems get people back into work?

Will they revitalise British industry? No.

Will they generate a massive house rebuilding programme to address a chronic housing need and take 750,000 workers off unemployment benefit? No.

Will they protect our public services and guarantee the safety of jobs for those employed by local, regional and national government. No – latest indicators are there will be approximately 750,000 redundancies.

But the good news is the Con-Dems are going to implement a new shiny welfare to work programme. Of course, they don’t know how it will work – they have asked independent training providers to offer some suggestions; they don’t know when it will happen – but they want it to happen soon. They don’t know how it will be paid for – although they accept smaller third sector providers might struggle to deliver the programme. Oh .. and they have absolutely no idea on where these training providers will find jobs for the unemployed.

But we don’t have to worry, because Nick and David and now Ian (I didn’t want to be party leader anyway) Duncan-Smith and Chris (of course I’m not homophobic) Grayling have a plan. They aren’t telling us what it is ... and as days turn to weeks it is rapidly becoming apparent they are trying to work it all out on the hoof. Meanwhile, 2.51 million people remain unemployed, 600,000 of these young people – with no hope of a future whilst the Con-Dems implement savage cuts across all services.

Not the best way to develop a radical new welfare system.