Today a judge will consider whether the Department of Work and Pensions carried out a fair consultation when it decided that only people who could walk less than 20 metres would get the full amount of help for mobility.

Where with Disability Living Allowance (DLA) claimants had to be able to walk less than 50 metres to qualify for the higher rate, under Personal Independence Payments (PIP) the cut-off will be just 20 metres. People who fall between those two distances will receive the lower rate of £21.55 a week instead of the higher rate of £56.75. As a result they will no longer qualify to lease a car from the Motability scheme and if they currently have one it will be taken away. Other things that may be affected can include automatic entitlement to bus passes and local taxi or dial-a-ride schemes. The lower rate of £21.55 won’t stretch much beyond one taxi trip to see a doctor or hospital in many areas.

Although three people initially pursued a judicial review, two cases were put on hold and my case was continued as representative of the others. The judicial review will examine the consultation about PIP that took place in early 2012 and the second consultation that focused on just the mobility component which took place in late 2013.

The main case is that the first consultation did not address the change to 20 metres while, by the time it got to the second consultation it was too late because there was no realistic possibility of change. The rest of the scheme had already been put in place and so money had already been allocated elsewhere.

In response to the second consultation the DWP unexpectedly claimed that the budget that in the past helped people with physical disabilities to get out and mobile had been reallocated to help people with learning disabilities and mental health problems. This pitting of one impairment against another is fundamentally unfair.. Rather than address inequality by bringing everyone up to the same mobility level, they have chosen to help one group by seriously disadvantaging another. It would seem that the government has seen the word equality but has not understood what it really means. If they had told us what was in their minds when they were consulting we might have had a chance to put them right.

The judicial review will be heard at the Adminstrative Court in Bull Street, Birmingham starting at 13:00 today and all day tomorrow. We don’t yet know when we will hear the results. There will be a vigil outside the courts in Bull Street, Birmingham today at 13:00 which supporters may wish to attend. Please spread the word and tell your friends to look out for this story in the news.

This news report from Sky News last year includes an interview with me about the impact of the changes.

Related blog posts

PIP 20 metre rule consultation response: “We’re not listening.”

Victory! DWP to launch PIP mobility consultation

PIP Judicial Review given the go ahead

Announcement: legal action against the DWP over the #PIP consultation

Why I am suing the government

If you can only walk twenty metres you’ll get no help

Replacement of disability living allowance headline news for hours

Two weeks until PIP Judicial Review – 20 metre limit in the dock

This blog post was a little less dry but then I ran it past my lawyer. (Don’t tell her I said that.)

In today’s scary news, it has emerged that the DWP are claiming the right to enter the home of people in receipt of a variety of benefits, demand to see their ID and financial documents, and interrogate them for an hour or more. All without prior warning.

While the DWP have always had teams that investigate fraud - including spying on people through their windows from parked cars - the idea that they can select you at random and turn up unannounced appears to be new. What happens if you turn the DWP officer away is not stated.  While the website says “You can reschedule your appointment if you need to” it also says  “You won’t always get a letter in advance telling you about the visit.” Of course this is very likely to be backed up with the usual “you do not have to comply but if you do not then your benefits may be affected.” When confronted with the idea of losing all their income most people will obey against their will.

As many people have pointed out to me, plenty of sick people cannot cope with this intrusion or unpredictability. (Including myself.) Others may not have the ability to find the documents or to think well enough to provide the answers demanded. Carers who know all the details may not be present.

I suspect that the random selection and the entry into the home without warning  may breach the human rights act. I’d appreciate if someone knowledgeable could check this for me.

It is notable that the text claims that the DWP will check you if you are on Housing Benefit. That benefit is implemented by the local authority and not the DWP. This leads me to believe that this update is mostly posturing for the tabloids on the part of the SPADs that churn out propaganda for the DWP Press Office.

A page on the gov.uk website carrying a date of 2 June 2014 sets out what the DWP are threatening. The current contents of that page in full:

Home visit to check your benefits payments

The Department for Work and Pensions has announced that they are looking for a new contractor to replace Atos to carry out Work Capability Assessments.

Today we are announcing we are seeking a new provider to replace Atos for the Work Capability Assessment

— DWP Press Office (@dwppressoffice) March 27, 2014

This isn’t unexpected given the recent announcement from Atos. However it is clear that the DWP have no interest in making the process any less traumatic. In fact the DWP press office has said that they intend there to be even more assessments but will not stop inflicting punishment by regularly reassessing people who are unlikely to recover.

Aim is to drive up the number of WCA assessments and cut waiting times #esa

— DWP Press Office (@dwppressoffice) March 27, 2014

The government is of course taking the opportunity to blame the previous government for the whole debacle while glossing over the fact that the coalition took a trial of Employment Support Allowance that was going badly, rolled it out across the country and ramped up assessments against the advice of their own experts. Labour may have hired Atos but the Conservatives and LibDems inflicted this travesty on far more people. In a written ministerial statement Mike Penning talked about “the process we inherited from the previous Government” and claimed that they had listened to experts when in fact they had repeatedly ignored experts.

The fact is that while Atos are complicit in inflicting suffering on sick and disabled people, they were following orders from the DWP. When Atos are replaced by another company the contract will still hold the replacement to “statistical norms” that allow only a tiny number of people to actually receive the help that we expect the government should provide. In reality the replacement of Atos by another brand name is unlikely to change even the staff carrying out the assessments or the buildings in which they take place. (Most of which are rented from the DWP anyway.) In his written statement Mike Penning said

“It is expected that the Transfer of Undertakings Protection of Employment regulations will apply and most of the Atos employees will transfer to the new provider.”

The replacement for Atos will include the same staff, the same buildings, the same descriptors, the same statistical norms. Nothing will change. Same shit different scapegoat.

It is important to note that Atos will carry on under a separate contract in Northern Ireland and that Atos will still carry out WCAs until a replacement is found, though most repeat assessments will not take place. Do not assume that your WCA is cancelled! 

Written Ministerial Statement: Early exit of Atos from WCA contract (PDF)

Doc Hackenbush sums it up well:

There are rumours circulating that Atos might be about to get the sack from their role assessing sick and disabled people to supposedly determine if they could work. The Guardian reports:

“A leaked Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) financial review says ministers across government are working together to build up competition to the multinational company by commissioning other private firms to add “further capacity” to the assessment system. The DWP will then enable “these providers to take over the whole contract” from Atos after the present agreement expires in 2015.”

Unfortunately the main candidates for the job are G4S, Serco, A4E and Capita. None of these inspire confidence and in fact these names will justifiably inspire anger and hatred in most people that I know. But the problem is not just with Atos. The problem is with the Department of Work and Pensions, politicians (both Conservative and Labour) and with the whole concept of testing sickness and disability and fitting people’s problems into boxes in order to say yes or no to supporting them. Atos have helpfully put the problem in their own words in a blog post pleading with protesters not to blame them. 

“However, Atos Healthcare has no control over welfare policy, the design of the Work Capability Assessment (WCA), or the specific eligibility criteria for Employment and Support Allowance (ESA).  These are set by government.  Our healthcare professionals use their clinical judgement in order to apply the government-designed criteria and they do not have the scope to make any assessment outside of these guidelines.”

Now I am not siding with Atos here, they are definitely responsible for huge suffering inflicted on people at their most vulnerable and no amount of claiming that they don’t set the rules, or that they are only following orders, is going to change that. However they are correct to say that the eligibility criteria are set by government. More importantly, they are accurate in stating that Atos assessors do not have the scope to make any assessment outside of the guidelines.

This is actually a very important admission. You see, there have been consistent accusations that Atos staff work to targets when deciding whether to recommend that someone is able to work or should receive support because they are not. That is, that they are told how many people must go on to receive the social security that they are entitled to and how many must be denied that support. Both Atos and government have denied that there are targets but this is through twisting words rather than actually being true. The DWP may not have targets but they do have “Statistical norms” which say how many people they think should be placed in the Support Group, the Work-Related Activity Group (given some support but continuously pestered to find a job), or kicked off sickness benefits and on to Job Seeker’s Allowance. Pressure is put on Atos to conform to these statistical norms - the logic being that Atos must be doing something wrong if they do not meet them. In turn Atos place pressure on their staff to keep the numbers of people recommended to get support down to absurdly low levels. Dr Greg Wood, a former assessor for Atos, and Kaliya Franklin have both done a lot of work to investigate and expose how this works in practice and I have included the links at the end of this blog post.

So Atos absolutely are complicit in denying support to people in desperate need, and they know it and their staff know it, but at the same time replacing Atos with Capita will definitely not solve the problem since the replacement will be held to exactly the same requirements.

While many believe that this problem with the Work Capability Assessment can be fixed, I am not one of them and so although I will support those who are working towards making the WCA fit for purpose, I also firmly believe that the whole thing should be scrapped. It would be a step forward to believe the reports of the doctors and other medical practitioners that care for sick people and only rely on a specific test for those who do not have access to this for whatever reason, but even that is not enough. I believe that to achieve full support and equality as a society we must introduce a Universal Basic Income / Citizen’s Income that would be paid to everyone regardless of whether they work or not, and not conditional on ability to work or willingness to work. We would still perhaps need some form of checking for disability benefits (currently DLA or PIP) which are paid on top of wages or sickness benefits to those who need it, but even then we should believe people’s own doctors where possible.

Further Reading

Dr Greg Wood:

Work Test Whistleblower

Why I blew the whistle on Atos fitness-for-work test

Kaliya Franklin:

How Norms Become Targets - Investigating the real reason for the misery of ‘fit for work’ assessments

Leaked Evidence Shows DWP Set Quotas For ‘Fit For Work’ Assessments

Politics, Policy and Persecution - The People’s Review of the WCA - Further Evidence