Thousands have died after being found fit for work, DWP figures show
Archive for the ‘Incapacity Benefit’ Category
PIP payments: 1.6 million claims to be reviewed, a “complex exercise of considerable scale”.
Review, a “complex exercise and of considerable scale”.
Personal Independence payments: All 1.6 million claims to be reviewed
Every person receiving Personal Independence Payments (PIP) will have their claim reviewed, the Department for Work and Pensions has said.
A total of 1.6 million of the main disability benefit claims will be reviewed, with around 220,000 people expected to receive more money.
It comes after the DWP decided not to challenge a court ruling that said changes to PIP were unfair to people with mental health conditions.
The review could cost £3.7bn by 2023.
The minister for disabled people, Sarah Newton, said the DWP was embarking on a “complex exercise and of considerable scale”.
She added: “Whilst we will be working at pace to complete this exercise it is important that we get it right.”
As the Mirror rightly adds,
Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) minister Sarah Newton admitted it will be a “complex exercise of considerable scale”.
Ms Newton was unable to say how long the review will take – prompting fears disabled people will be left waiting years for justice.
Some details are emerging,
PIP is the main disability benefit and gives people up to £141 a week to meet the everyday costs of their condition.
The DWP said no one will have to endure a fresh face-to-face disability assessment.
Instead case managers will review people’s claims using existing information, and bump up their benefits if appropriate.
Case managers will contact claimants or their GPs if they need to find out more.
Priority will be given to claimants who have since died, and those who had their benefits denied entirely.
Officials will then move on to those who were paid PIP but got less than they deserved.
Labour’s Debbie Abrahams comments,
Shadow Work and Pensions Secretary Debbie Abrahams said the admission was “shocking”, adding: “The Minister refused to publish a timetable of how many months or even years it will take for this ‘complex exercise’ to be completed.
The Government was wrong to bring in the PIP regulations last year and it was wrong to ignore time and time again the views of the courts.
“This sorry debacle is one of their own making.
“They must now get a grip on the PIP process and ensure all those affected by this policy receive back payments as soon as possible.”
Corbyn Tells PM May to See ‘I, Daniel Blake’.
Corbyn Urges PM to See I, Daniel Blake.
During Prime Minister’s Question Time on Wednesday this happened (BBC)
Jeremy Corbyn asked Theresa May why she was bringing in cuts to Universal Credit.
Disability Cuts to Fund Tax Reductions for the Middle Classes.
Cutting Personal Independent Payments to reduce Disabled Burden on Wealthy.
George Osborne defends using disability cuts to fund middle-class tax break
From Enigma.
Budget 2016: George Osborne’s £1bn Disabled Cut To Fund ‘Middle Class Tax Giveaway’ Riles Campaigners
George Osborne‘s reported plan to use a billion pound benefit cut for disabled people to fund tax giveaways for the middle-class has sparked outrage from campaigners.
The Chancellor is allegedly preparing to use the £130 slashed from 600,000 disabled people’s PIP – Personal Independence Payment – support to raise the threshold at which people start paying 40p tax.
Claims about the policy, which could be revealed at the Spring Budget next Wednesday, were attributed to Westminster “insiders” in today’s Telegraph.
But fears are already mounting, with one senior Labour frontbencher saying the move would be “obscene”.
Owen Smith, shadow work and pensions secretary, posted on Twitter: “Already wicked to take another £1.2 billion from disabled, but truly obscene if switched for tax cuts at the Budget.”
One can only assume that in line with policies to stop the feckless poor from breeding – cuts in family allowances – this is part of a plan to stop people who are disabled taking up PIPs and no doubt to reduce the numbers of the disabled.
The Observer analyses the figures,
Research conducted by the foundation for the Observer has established that the cuts – including moves to increase the threshold at which the 40p rate of tax becomes payable from £42,385 to £50,000 by 2020 – will cost £2bn over the next two years, with 85% of the windfall going to the richest half of households.
Torsten Bell, director of Resolution Foundation, said: “Keeping on track with those commitments would mean finding £2bn over the next two years and would overwhelmingly benefit richer households.
“The priority should be supporting low- and middle-income families, instead of going down this route of expensive and poorly targeted tax cuts.”
Osborne also plans to increase the personal tax-free allowance, which is due to rise to £10,800 from April and £11,000 in 2017, reaching £12,500 by 2020. But 4.6 million low-paid workers will gain nothing from these cuts, because they do not earn enough to pay tax. Resolution Foundation says low-income families on universal credit will have two-thirds of any tax cut clawed back through reduced benefits.
DWP Publishes Death Statistics: 80 Average a Month Die After Being Declared “Fit for Work”.
Iain Duncan Smith, still “Fit for DWP Work”.
The Department for Work and Pensions has admitted defeat in its attempt to hide the number of people who have died while claiming incapacity benefits since November 2011 – and has announced that the number who died between January that year and February 2014 is a shocking 91,740.
This represents an increase to an average of 99 deaths per day or 692 per week, between the start of December 2011 and the end of February 2014 – compared with 32 deaths per day/222 per week between January and November 2011.
The DWP has strenuously asserted that “any causal effect between benefits and mortality cannot be assumed from these statistics”.
Read more on Vox Political.
The Guardian reports:
Campaigners demand welfare overhaul after statistics reveal 2,380 people died between 2011 and 2014 shortly after being declared able to work.
More than 80 people a month are dying shortly after being declared “fit for work” according to new data, prompting campaigners to call for an overhaul of the government’s controversial welfare regime.
Statistics released by the Department for Work and Pensions on Thursday show that 2,380 people died between December 2011 and February 2014 shortly after a work capability assessment (WCA) found they were able to work.
The administration of the WCA by officials has been widely criticised as crude and inaccurate by campaigners. There have been hundreds of thousands of appeals of fit-for-work decisions over the last few years, about four in 10 of which have succeeded.
But there was widespread acceptance that the data should be treated with caution. Because the cause of death was not recorded, it is impossible to show whether a death was linked to an incorrect assessment.
Of this number, 2,380 – or 4% – had received a decision that they were fit for work, meaning that they were at risk of losing their ESA benefit.
Of the 50,580, 7,200 claimants had died after being awarded ESA and being placed in the work-related activity group – a category which aims to identify claimants who are unfit to work but may be able to return to work in the future.
Tom Pollard, policy and campaigns manager at mental health charity Mind, said: “We’re not able to comment on these specific statistics as they only tell us the number of people who have died while on employment and support allowance [ESA], not the circumstances or details of these deaths.
“Nevertheless, we do have serious concerns about the benefit system, particularly for those with mental health problems currently being supported by ESA.
“The assessment used to decide who is eligible for ESA does not properly take account of the impact having a mental health problem can have on someone’s ability to work. As a result, many people don’t get the outcome that’s right for them, and have to go through a lengthy and stressful appeals process.
“We desperately need to see an overhaul of the system, with more tailored specialised support for people with mental health problems and less focus on pressuring people into work and stopping their benefits.”
Official Files: Mortality Statistics: Employment and Support Allowance, Incapacity Benefit or Severe Disablement Allowance.
Additional information on those who have died after claiming Employment and Support Allowance(ESA), Incapacity Benefit (IB) or Severe
Disablement Allowance (SDA).
You can read the report: here.
Iain Duncan Smith Announces Plans for more Misery for Claimants as Mental Health Targeted.
IDS: Having as a Laugh at Claimants’ Expense.
Iain Duncan Smith is planning a shake-up of the rules on sickness benefit to encourage more people into work.
Announces the BBC.
The work and pensions secretary will argue in a speech that the current system is too “binary” – with claimants deemed either fit or unfit for work.
Instead, claimants should be made to take up any work they can, even if it is just a few hours, he will say.
Labour says cutting benefits for people who are not able to work is punishing the disabled for government failures.
But Mr Duncan Smith insists that the “most vulnerable people in our society” will be protected under his latest reforms.
‘Mental Health’.
His speech, in London, will not contain any policy announcements but aims instead to start a “conversation” about the next phase of welfare reform, according to DWP officials.
Mr Duncan Smith will be focusing on the Employment Support Allowance, which is paid to those unable to work on health grounds. Those who receive the payment have their fitness to work tested under the Work Capability Assessment.
He believes those assessments should be more personalised, so if someone is able to work for a few hours they are helped to do so.
“It is right that we look at how the system supports people who are sick,” he will say.
Mr Duncan Smith argues that instead of an “either or” assessment, what is needed is “a system focused on what a claimant can do and the support they’ll need, and not just on what they can’t.”
He will add: “Nearly 11 million adults in the UK have a common mental health condition and people are much more likely to fall out of work if they do.
“We also know that being out of work for four weeks or more can actually effect people’s mental health, even if the original reason for ill health was a physical one.”
These, the Independent observes, are 7 ways Iain Duncan Smith has “helped” the disabled so far.
Ipswich Unemployed Action. 
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