Citizens Advice blame rent arrear rise on Universal Credit & welfare reform : Universal Credit Sufferer

A new report released by Citizens Advice Scotland (CAS) has blamed the UK government’s welfare reforms for a rise in clients seeking help for rent arrears on. The report comes the day after the government whipped their MPs to block the release of papers showing how Universal Credit will impact families.
The report starts by saying that in Scotland, the agency has seen a 40% rise in clients seeking assistance for rent arrears. Before you can even get into the report their findings are listed, and it doesn’t make comfortable reading for the government in Westminster.
The first and possibly most damning finding for the Tories says;

 

Source: Citizens Advice blame rent arrear rise on Universal Credit & welfare reform : Universal Credit Sufferer

Maximus Make ‘Jaw Dropping’ Profits From ESA Assessments

So Maximus are making “‘jaw dropping profits’ for sub-standard work” and in 2017 Frank Field, chair of the commons work and pensions committee, went on to say “the government will surely want to look at whether assessments would be better delivered in-house”.

What have the Government to say about this, I hope they will only be paying Maximus for the work that is done to standard, being the Governments standard and not that of persons claiming or what a reasonable person would accept, which would be a considerably higher standard.

I would hope that the DWP have only paid Maximus for work that is standard and if work was already paid, to then claim back where the work was subsequently found to be sub-standard, for to not do so means the contract did not state quality standards, when one would have expected it to do so.

These welfare reforms leave a lot to be desired as claimants have found to their cost.

In effect the welfare reforms are a ‘shambles’ and should be deemed ‘not fit for purpose’ and this goes for the organisations that have been contracted to do the work on behalf of the DWP.

Same Difference

With many thanks to Benefits And Work.

The Times is reporting that the Centre for Health and Disability Assessments, better known as Maximus, has doubled its profits from carrying out ESA assessments.

According to the Times, Maximus made a profit of £26 million in the year to September 2017, double the profits it made in the preceding year and representing a rise from 8.4 to 16.1 in its profit margin.

Maximus says the cash has been earned because it has been hitting volume performance targets.

However, as we revealed back in December 2017, Maximus have never met their targets for the proportion of reports that are deemed unacceptable. In October 2017, 7.9% of reports were judged to be unacceptable, well above the target of 5%.

Frank Field, chair of the commons work and pensions committee, told the Times that the committee had heard “appalling evidence about the shoddy work…

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UK cuts ‘have created a human catastrophe for disabled people’ | DisabledGo News and Blog

Cuts to social services have “totally neglected” the needs of disabled people and created a “human catastrophe”, the chairwoman of a UN human rights committee has said. Theresia Degener, who leads the UN’s Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD), accused British politicians of failing vulnerable members of society. UK officials have also faced allegations of misrepresenting the impact of policies through unanswered questions, misused statistics and statements on policies and legislation. Ms Degener said evidence seen by the committee and a review it carried out last year made clear the impact of austerity policies in the disabled. She said the controversial “fit to work” tests were based on a correct assumption that disabled people could find employment. “However, evidence before us now and in our inquiry procedure as published in our 2016 report reveals that social cut policies have led to a human catastrophe in your country, totally neglecting the vulnerable

Source: UK cuts ‘have created a human catastrophe for disabled people’ | DisabledGo News and Blog

Universal credit flaws pushing claimants towards debt and eviction : Guardian.

When launching a new or revision of benefit it is usual practice to do this, initially, via a pilot where any problems can be noticed and sorted before an enlarged rollout. It is my understanding that such a pilot was under took for Universal Credit and with the degree of current problems should not been subject to the larger rollout until the problems had been sorted. To reduce the intendant rollout should never have been considered, let alone allowed to occur. To many if not all of the claimants the benefits they receive are their only sources of income and they should not be expected to exist on no income for any period of time, let alone 6 weeks.

This is gross incompetence on behalf DWP and to say they are working with local authorities to provide extra support at a time when the Government is drastically cutting local authority funding is adding insult to injury. DWP have for some many years proved they and their processes are ‘not fit for purpose’.

I am Daniel Blake – and there are millions more like me : Guardian.

Serious illness or a disability can happen to anyone, Tory voters take note…it can happen to you too.

Call for submissions – inquiry launched into employment support for disabled people

Politics and Insights

Disability Employment Gap 2015. Source: UK Parliament.

Inquiry background

The Work and Pensions Committee has launched an inquiry into the Government’s commitment to halve the “disability employment gap.” According to the most recent data, 46.7% of disabled people were in work at the end of 2015 compared to 80.3% of non-disabled people. In order to close this gap, the Committee says an extra 1.2 million disabled people would need to be supported into work.

The Committee’s welfare to workreport, published in October 2015, raised concerns about the lack of success of existing employment programmes in supporting disabled people into sustained employment.

The Government has since announced:

• A new Work and Health Programme to replace the current generalist Work Programme and specialist disability Work Choice programmes
• A real terms increase in spending on the Access to Work Programme, which provides practical support for disabled people, beyond the “reasonable adjustments”…

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Labour conference: ‘We will rebuild social security solidarity’

Original post from Disabled Go News

‘………………

Senior Labour figures have sent strong signals that the party will now be more willing to stand up for benefit claimants and attack the government welfare reforms that have damaged the lives of disabled people.

The most high-profile example during this week’s party conference in Brighton was from the party’s new shadow chancellor, John McDonnell, who began his speech by talking about the death of Michael O’Sullivan.

O’Sullivan, from north London, killed himself as a result of being found “fit for work”, a scandal that was uncovered last month by Disability News Service.

McDonnell told Labour delegates: “The coroner concluded his death was a direct result of the decision in his case. I don’t believe Michael’s case stands alone.”

McDonnell, the most prominent parliamentary supporter of the disabled people’s anti-cuts movement over the last five years, told delegates that a Labour government would “end this brutal treatment of disabled people”.

But there was also strong support from the new shadow work and pensions secretary, Owen Smith, who said Labour would rebuild the solidarity “shaken” by “divisive Tory talk of ‘strivers versus scroungers’”.

He said there was a need to “change the debate on social security in Britain”, and said: “We can’t let their divisive rhetoric of shirkers and workers stop us making the case for fair-minded reform of the system, with controls on costs, but compassion for all who need it.”

He said there were “no votes to be won” by “aping Tory language” and he pledged not to do so himself.

He added: “Britain’s social security system, like our NHS, should be something we are proud of, a national asset that is there for all of us if ever we need it.”

Smith accused the government of “calling themselves compassionate while driving disabled people to the brink”, and promised that he would be “up and after” work and pensions secretary Iain Duncan Smith on issues such as the “scandalous impact of the work capability assessment”.

He said Duncan Smith “deserves to be hounded for the way he has treated so many disabled people in our communities, with his demeaning fit for work tests, his cuts to mobility allowances – lifelines for so many – and his desperate, awful bedroom tax”.

Smith won a standing ovation from delegates when he ended his speech by promising to oppose the government’s new welfare reform and work bill “line by cruel line”.

His message was mirrored by Debbie Abrahams, the new shadow minister for disabled people, who criticised the “absolutely appalling” language used by the government around welfare reform.

She told a fringe meeting that Labour would be “actively campaigning” on the issue, “taking it out to the country, describing why it is so important that we have a welfare system that enables and empowers people and the legislation that supports that”.

News provided by John Pring at www.disabilitynewsservice.com

Aden

Hi I’m Aden, I work at DisabledGo as the Digital Marketing Manager and I manage the blog and all social media channels.

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He cannot talk, read or write, but Government want severely disabled Stuart Chester to fill in 20-page form to keep benefits

JSUK News

A SEVERELY disabled young man who is unable to talk, read or write and needs round-the-clock care from his mother is the latest target in Iain Duncan Smith’s welfare reforms.

Stuart Chester, who has Down’s syndrome, epilepsy and autism and is unable to feed or wash himself, is being told by officers in the Tory minister’s Department for Work and Pensions to prove he is unfit for work.

The 25-year-old has been sent a controversial 20-page work capability assessment form to fill in that will investigate his fitness for work and whether he deserves his Disability Living Allowance (DLA) and Employment and Support Allowance (ESA) benefits.

Stuart has been given a deadline of September 18 to complete the complicated and detailed document and return it to the DWP.

His mother Deborah McKenzie, 51, said receiving the form had caused her “undue stress” and said Duncan Smith’s plan to deliberately target…

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“How *Dare* ISIL Kill British Citizens! That’s *Our* Job!”

TheCritique Archives

by Martin Odoni

NOTE: I nearly wrote this article back in June, but in the end I decided to wait until evidence was in the public domain of post-Work-Assessment-Test deaths.

Seifeddine Rezgui is the name of a killer. On the 26th June 2015, armed with a Kalashnikov, he attacked a hotel in Port El Kantaoui, on the north-east coast of Tunisia. His frenzied attack, committed on behalf of the extremist terror group, Islamic State of Iraq and Levant (ISIL), left thirty-eight people dead. Thirty of them were British citizens, whose memory was lovingly saluted three days later, when the House of Commons observed a minute’s silence. The Prime Minister, David Cameron, then ordered that a national minute of silence would be held on the 3rd July, exactly one week after the attacks.

Iain Duncan-Smith is the name of a killer. Since becoming Secretary of State for Work & Pensions in…

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