Bolitics The New Condem Government

[snowychap]

BBC link

Ministers are considering drastically cutting the main Employment and Support Allowance sickness benefit, internal documents seen by the BBC suggest.

New claimants, judged to be capable of work with appropriate support, could be given just 50p more per week than people on job seekers allowance.

Current recipients get almost £30 per week more.

The Department for Work and Pensions said the ESA proposals were not government policy.

The papers reveal that the government has also been forced to hire extra staff to clear the backlog on the benefit.

Some 100 healthcare professionals are being hired to carry out fitness-for-work tests. The staff, who will be employed through the Pertemps agency, will help to reduce a backlog of more than 600,000 cases.

'Fiscal risks'

They will be in addition to any extra staff brought in when a new contractor is announced shortly to replace ATOS. The BBC understands that the American firm, Maximus, has been selected.

Leaked documents this summer showed that ministers considered ESA - formerly known as incapacity benefit - to be "one of the largest fiscal risks currently facing the government".

They also revealed concerns about claimants moving off jobseekers allowance onto ESA.

Giving consideration to cutting the differential paid to ESA recipients in the Work Related Activity Group (WRAG) - individuals who have to prepare for employment - is a reflection of that concern.

They currently get £28.75 more per week but the documents show plans are being discussed to cut that to just 50p more than jobseekers allowance. People receiving JSA, who are aged 25 or over, currently get £72.40 per week.

Employment and Support Allowance is paid to approximately two million people. Claimants have to undergo a work capability assessment to determine whether they are eligible and at what level.

Labour MP Dame Anne Begg, who chairs the Commons Work and Pensions Select Committee, said she would support overhauling the delivery of ESA but "did not envisage" any reduction in the value of the benefit.

"That's not reform, that is just saving money. I hope that is not something the government is going to come forward with."

'Best service'

Problems with the current provider, the French firm ATOS, which was appointed by the last Labour government, led to the firm reaching an agreement with the government earlier this year to leave its contract early.

Ministers raised concerns about the quality of assessments being carried out by ATOS which has led to a backlog of cases. The backlog is currently running at more than 600,000.

As ministers focus assessments on new claimants, recipients who should have been re-assessed under the terms of the benefit are not being seen, creating much of the backlog. Most of those receiving Incapacity Benefit, who should also have been assessed, are also not being tested.

The Office for Budget Responsibility said in a report earlier this month that "the backlog of applications encourages claimants previously not found eligible for ESA simply to reapply".

A spokesman for the DWP said "We are committed to supporting those people who are able to work to make the positive move into employment.

"The current work capability assessment contract was inherited from the previous government - and we have taken numerous steps to improve it. We will shortly announce a new provider. No one should doubt our commitment to ensuring that people who need an assessment get the best possible service and are seen in the quickest possible time."

The backlog is currently running at more than 600,000.

[Amsterdam_Neil_D]

These disabled people should get on their mobility scooters and look for work.

 

 

The irony,  as this Tory word removed and his group of Tory words removed was falling through floor after floor of a hotel and then ended up with a disabled Mrs.  I wonder if he regrets anything ? 

[drat01]

 

These disabled people should get on their mobility scooters and look for work.

 

 

The irony,  as this Tory word removed and his group of Tory words removed was falling through floor after floor of a hotel and then ended up with a disabled Mrs.  I wonder if he regrets anything ? 

 

Not buying a sidecar?

[villaajax]

Apparently two Tory councillors in Dudley have defected to... Labour. Unusual move.

[Eames]

Apparently two Tory councillors in Dudley have defected to... Labour. Unusual move.

Wait...what?! Chinless posh boy Tory rocket polishers joining the glorious working mans fairness and equality party? 

 

Surely not....it would almost be like they were all words removed in different colour ties. 

[villaajax]

 

Apparently two Tory councillors in Dudley have defected to... Labour. Unusual move.

Wait...what?! Chinless posh boy Tory rocket polishers joining the glorious working mans fairness and equality party? 

 

Surely not....it would almost be like they were all words removed in different colour ties. 

 

 

They were women actually.

[peterms]

Apparently two Tory councillors in Dudley have defected to... Labour. Unusual move.

Wait...what?! Chinless posh boy Tory rocket polishers joining the glorious working mans fairness and equality party? 

 

Surely not....it would almost be like they were all words removed in different colour ties.

The Labour Party has become something which Tories might want to join, and something they will be allowed into.

It started in about 1986.

Nye Bevan would have had some choice words about this.

[snowychap]

So might Attlee.

[bickster]

Merkel apparently sends warning to Cameron over EU free movement in Der Speigel, either he accepts it as it is or the UK must break away from EU.

I'm sure he's absolutely delighted with that.

[Eames]

What I don't understand is this EU migration issue, or the benefits element of it anyway is really easy to solve.

 

The "home" country regardless of where the individual chooses to live is responsible for the welfare payments for those citizens. So an unemployed Polish worker gets his benefits from Poland either paid by the UK initially and then invoiced or directly. Problem solved.

 

The Cameron/Merkel stuff is pointless posturing. The UK will never leave the EU and the EU knows full well it needs the UK, hence the £1.7bn bill recently sent. 

[chrisp65]

I'm not so sure the UK won't leave the EU.

 

It's not beyond the realms of possibility that a Tory govt or Tory lead coalition gets voted in. Then you have the much touted referendum. Once you give 'the people' the referendum and the quality of debate is similar to the Scottish Independence one, that usual tabloid standard where the loudest most media covered lie will win, well then we are out of the EU.

 

Then we'll see what a total waste of 0.75% of your income tax the EU membership was.

[Risso]

What I don't understand is this EU migration issue, or the benefits element of it anyway is really easy to solve.

 

The "home" country regardless of where the individual chooses to live is responsible for the welfare payments for those citizens. So an unemployed Polish worker gets his benefits from Poland either paid by the UK initially and then invoiced or directly. Problem solved.

 

The Cameron/Merkel stuff is pointless posturing. The UK will never leave the EU and the EU knows full well it needs the UK, hence the £1.7bn bill recently sent. 

 

I don't think it's the welfare payments issue so much, more the fact that a million people moving from one country to the other in a short space of time will have lots of unintended consequences, such as pressure on local resources.

 

edit - the idea of the Common market was fine, it's just since then that the idea has grown a million heads, most of which were never voted for.  By all means have a free trade-area, it's the all the closer political union and free movement of people nonsense that needs to be slung out.

Edited November 3, 2014 by Risso

[blandy]

 

Merkel apparently sends warning to Cameron over EU free movement in Der Speigel, either he accepts it as it is or the UK must break away from EU.

I'm sure he's absolutely delighted with that.

I doubt it. It makes him look like a dick (not that any help is needed). Why? Because here he is pretending/saying he's going to "negotiate a whole new relationship with Yurp, and get a deal that's good for the Tories, sorry, I mean Britain" - The only way he can realistically do that is to have the Germans agree and also want to go through with his ideas for reform.

So having Merkel say "Keine chance" makes him look weak and stupid, it makes UKIP look right "see, there's no talking with these Yurpeens" and has his backbenchers agitating further.

Cameron is an utter Divot, an Empty Vessel. 

[snowychap]

...free movement of people nonsense that needs to be slung out.

What are you wanting 'slung out'?

Free movement of labour (a principle at the heart of the common market, surely?) or the extension of that to all citizens?

If the latter rather than the former then it wouldn't have much reduced whatever pressure on local resources you see as more the problem [than welfare payments], would it?

[blandy]

 

...free movement of people nonsense that needs to be slung out.

What are you wanting 'slung out'?

Free movement of labour (a principle at the heart of the common market, surely?) or the extension of that to all citizens?

If the latter rather than the former then it wouldn't have much reduced whatever pressure on local resources you see as more the problem [than welfare payments], would it?

 

I think the Common Market/EEC had free market in Labour - meaning if you got a job in another CM/EEC country you had the right to go and live and work there, but it changed to the right to move and then look for work in another country. In other words you didn't used to be automatically allowed to just move, unless you had a job to go to.

 

Now quite probably most people who move to the UK do end up working here. I'm just highlighting the rule changed (can't recall if it was Witch or Blair or Major who was in Power at the time).

[snowychap]

I think the Common Market/EEC had free market in Labour - meaning if you got a job in another CM/EEC country you had the right to go and live and work there, but it changed to the right to move and then look for work in another country. In other words you didn't used to be automatically allowed to just move, unless you had a job to go to.

 

Now quite probably most people who move to the UK do end up working here. I'm just highlighting the rule changed (can't recall if it was Witch or Blair or Major who was in Power at the time).

I appreciate that things have changed over time which was one of the reasons I was asking Risso to clarify what he wanted slung out (it often just gets all lumped together when talking about immigration but then at the forefront of the complaints about EU migration in to the UK are workers from elsewhere - especially the Polish from a while ago and the 400 billion Bulgarians and Romanians who were supposed to have been invading us 10 months ago).

Also, I find it somewhat difficult to accept an argument (not being made by you) that the progressive abolition of all barriers to freedom of movement of labour (so that would be to include labour in search of employment*) was not the goal from the get go.

*Edit: And its dependents.

Edited November 3, 2014 by snowychap

[bickster]

Merkel apparently sends warning to Cameron over EU free movement in Der Speigel, either he accepts it as it is or the UK must break away from EU.

I'm sure he's absolutely delighted with that.

I doubt it. It makes him look like a dick (not that any help is needed). Why? Because here he is pretending/saying he's going to "negotiate a whole new relationship with Yurp, and get a deal that's good for the Tories, sorry, I mean Britain" - The only way he can realistically do that is to have the Germans agree and also want to go through with his ideas for reform.

So having Merkel say "Keine chance" makes him look weak and stupid, it makes UKIP look right "see, there's no talking with these Yurpeens" and has his backbenchers agitating further.

Cameron is an utter Divot, an Empty Vessel.

Sorry, I thought my sarcasm in the second line was obvious, my bad

[blandy]

Sorry, I thought my sarcasm in the second line was obvious, my bad

 

 

I did wonder. I know you well enough. Sorry.

[mockingbird_franklin]

nice little story that illustrates the possible dangers of workfare.

 

http://www.theguardian.com/society/2014/nov/03/dwp-benefits-electrician-work-placement-labour

 

• News
• Society
• Unemployment

DWP orders man to work without pay for company that let him go

John McArthur is sanctioned by jobcentre after refusing ‘forced labour’ at firm where he was previously paid minimum wage

 

• nS

• Shiv Malik
•  
• The Guardian, Monday 3 November 2014 17.27 GMT
•  

John McArthur makes his one-man protest outside LAMH in Motherwell after having his jobseeker’s allowance cut. Photograph: Alan Watson/HE Media/South West News

A man who was let go at the end of a temporary job has been ordered by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) to work for the same firm for six months without pay.

Electronics specialist John McArthur, now unemployed, says he is living off 16p tins of spaghetti and without heating after being sanctioned by a jobcentre for refusing to work unpaid for LAMH Recycle in Motherwell, a Scottish social enterprise.

He says he was happy to work for LAMH under the now-defunct future jobs fund for the minimum wage in 2010-2011, but refuses on principle to do the same job unpaid.

McArthur, 59, says he is surviving on a monthly pension of £149 after the DWP stopped his unemployment benefit until January as punishment for his refusal to go on the 26-week community work placement (CWP).

For almost three months, McArthur has spent two hours each weekday morning parading outside the plant wearing a placard reading: “Say no to slave labour”.

“It was simply a case of: ‘Go here, work for nothing and if you don’t we’ll stop your subsistence level benefit,’” he said.

McArthur, who says he has been applying for 50 jobs a week without joy, said the CWP programme was “entirely exploitative” and came at the “expense of poor people who’ve got absolutely no choice”. He added: “They [the government] deny it’s forced labour, that you can say no, but forced doesn’t always mean physical, it can be psychological or economic.

“The person who is trying to survive already on subsistence level welfare has absolutely no choice in the matter … especially if they’ve got young children to look after.”

LAMH confirmed it has 16 people working for six months without pay under CWP but added that since the end of June, six had progressed into paid employment.

The social enterprise, which repairs computers and recycles tin and cardboard, says it helps dozens of people each year who are long-term unemployed, many of whom have health issues.

Joe Fulton, the operations and development manager, said he believed the scheme “worked for people who want to make it work for them”. He added that out of the organisation’s paid workforce of 39, 25 had previously been unemployed.

McArthur said there were no jobs for someone his age in the Lanarkshire area. He said support for his placard demonstration had been overwhelming and just one person had objected.

Following conversations with local councillors, North Lanarkshire council passed a motion in October strongly objecting to forced employment schemes saying it would not get involved itself. “This council will not provide jobs or placements without pay as a condition of receiving benefits unless it is truly voluntary,” the motion read.

“We do not support any mandation of unemployed people to work without pay that puts their benefits at risk.”

The motion added such measures were ineffective and could “further stigmatise and demotivate” the unemployed in their search for work.

Last Wednesday, the DWP continued to battle the information commissioner and hostile court judgments ordering it to reveal where possibly hundreds of thousands of people are being sent to work without pay, sometimes for months at a time.

At the tribunal, the DWP argued that if the public knew exactly where people were being sent on placements political protests would increase, which was likely to lead to the collapse of several employment schemes and undermine the government’s economic interests.

The DWP confirmed some of the UK’s biggest charities, including the British Heart Foundation, Scope, Banardo’s, Sue Ryder, and Marie Curie had withdrawn from the CWP scheme, causing a significant loss of placements.

Giving evidence, senior civil servant Jennifer Bradley confirmed that numerous charities and businesses were receiving cash payments as an incentive to take on the unemployed.

She said several DWP schemes used mandatory unpaid work as a tool to help people but stressed that it was written into the terms that charities and businesses could not use people out of work to replace their paid workforce.

The DWP said it could not comment on individual cases but added that community work placements “help long-term unemployed people to gain work experience which increases their confidence, helps them to gain vital skills and crucially, improves their chances of getting a job.

“We are not naming the charities and community groups involved in the scheme in order to protect them from those who seem intent on stopping us helping people into work.”

[mockingbird_franklin]

Whilst I would add, they are not conservative in their views lets call them by who they really are

 

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