More room for rich foreigners as government cuts Disabled Students Allowance

Some readers may find the above headline a bit strong, but please be assured – this is what it means.

Vox Political became aware of this story in two contrasting ways, as follows.

Firstly, from The Guardian: “From September 2015 [the government] will only pay for support for students with specific learning difficulties, such as dyslexia, if their needs are ‘complex’, although the definition of this, and who decides it, remains unclear.

“It will no longer pay for standard computers for disabled students, or for much of the higher specification IT it now subsidises.

“And it will no longer fund non-specialist help, likely to include note-takers and learning mentors. The costs of specialist accommodation will be met only in exceptional circumstances.”

Paddy Turner, of the National Association of Disability Practitioners (NADP) is quoted: “This is going to have a disastrous effect on students with specific learning difficulties because it looks very clear that [universities minister David Willetts] is trying to remove them from the DSA. It looks like a knee-jerk reaction to recent reports that specific learning difficulties and dyslexia aren’t really disabilities at all.”

Thanks to Vox Political

I wonder if UKIP’s policies or even the 3rd Reichs policies will/would differ?

Freedom of speech?

A couple of days ago, blogger Michael Abberton  got a visit from the police. As reported in the Guardian:

“He was told he had not committed any crimes and no action was taken against him, but he was asked to delete some of his tweets, particularly a tongue-in-cheek one on 10 reasons to vote for Ukip, such as scrapping paid maternity leave and raising income tax for the poorest 88% of Britons.”

Michael described his experience in his own blog here. As he put it:

“…they said this was in relation to a complaint that had been made by a certain political party in relation to tweets I had published about them and one tweet in particular which talked about ten reasons to vote for them. The PC wanted to know if I had made that poster.”

from Paul Bernal’s blog

M.E. awareness month

The month of May is “ME Awareness Month”, with May 12th being the particular day, and I have also seen the week starting May 11th designated as ME awareness week.

ME is classified by the World Health Organisation as a neurologically-based disease. It is of unknown cause, although there are several theories including viral and environmental agents. There is no known cure.

Unfortunately, in the UK the NHS seems to have ignored the WHO’s classification of ME as a specifically neurological illness, and has lumped ME together with any and all unexplained tiredness and fatigue, which can in fact be caused by a number of things, including Lyme Disease, Lupus, vitamin B12 deficiency and Pernicious Anaemia, Thyroid and adrenal problems, Sjögren’s, PCOS and other endocrine diseases, MS, fibromyalgia, depression and more, and has called the whole collection CFS, MEcfs or cfsME.

Within the umbrella of CFS there is obviously a vast spectrum of symptoms which range in severity, from those who are experiencing a mild loss of ‘get up and go’ to those who are in constant pain and utterly bedbound and unable to care for themselves, and since it is an umbrella term, treatments that may be helpful for mild types of CFS, such as GET – graded exercise and CBT – cognitive behavioural therapy, are wholly inappropriate and can be harmful for those who actually have ME.

CBT can be useful for people not coping well with any long term chronic illness but should not be touted as a main treatment for ME in the way that it is, based on the faulty assumption that CFS is inevitably linked to caused by psychological factors, and GET is harmful to PWME who have the key symptom of Post exertional malaise.

This situation has been exacerbated by the psychiatric establishment which has greedily claimed all ‘CFS’ patients as their own, baselessly alleging that all CFS must be related to mental and emotional factors.

Thus the tendency is to treat all CFS patients as though they are all suffering from an unexplained, probably psychologically-based, rather than neurologically-based illness, regardless of the severity, and further to fail to investigate thoroughly or adequately in order to rule out any other cause (such as those listed above).

There is no definitive test for ME yet (largely because genuine research has been so scarce), and so ME should never be diagnosed until every other possible cause has been eliminated.

The classification of ME together with any unexplained CFS is a nonsense which means that people who actually have curable and treatable diseases aren’t getting the help they could and should be able to expect, while those with ME are simply treated with disdain instead of receiving the palliative care they need.

This is a wholly unacceptable situation for everybody involved, which helps no-one, except those few outspoken psychiatrists who like to gain notoriety by making the psychological case and denying the reality of the suffering.

A friend has also pointed out that MS, asthma, duodenal ulcers and other illnesses were all considered psychiatric problems before biomedical caught up.

Thanks to “life for beginners” for the reminder and the post.

Freepost!

All freepost mail is paid for by UKIP.

What political “ism” is this?

A shocking proposal from a so-called expert at the Department of Health has suggested that people in work should be given priority for treatment in the NHS.

In a move which could hit pensioners, disabled people, lone parents and unemployed people, government advisor Dame Carol Black has said: “I personally think we should perhaps be more honest and debate more fully if we would prioritise such patients if it was a question of getting them back to work.” 

In other words if you are currently without a job, for any reason, then forget about accessing healthcare as you are pushed down to the bottom of NHS waiting lists.  Black’s comments even seem to suggest that the sicker you are, and the less likely to be able to go back to work, then the longer you might have to wait for NHS treatment.

Dame Carol Black made the comments – which were first reported on the Work, Savings and Benefits website – at the recent Health and Wellbeing 2014 conference.  She was joined at the conference by DWP chief medical adviser Dr Bill Gunnyeon who according to the website agreed that there is: “an issue about what priority we give to health related interventions for people of working age

reblogged from “the void”

Bedroom Tax Loophole

The Department for Work and Pensions will close the bedroom tax loophole in March, Lord David Freud has announced.

The minister for welfare reform, responding to an urgent question in the House of Lords today, said: ‘The housing benefit regulations will be amended in March 2014 to ensure that all working-age social sector tenants who underoccupy their homes are subject to a reduction in their eligible rent, regardless of the length of their tenancy, unless they fall within one of the limited exceptions.’

The DWP admitted last week that an error in existing regulations means the bedroom tax should not have been charged to tenants who have lived in their properties since before 1 January 1996 who have been continuously claiming housing benefit. The DWP issued a circular last week saying councils should consider whether they are ‘reasonably able to identify potentially affected claimants’ and that exempted tenants should be refunded all the money deducted under the policy since 1 April.

Labour peer Lord William McKenzie, said: ‘I would like to ask the minister how the government are going to rectify matters for individuals who are denied their full benefit entitlement to date, whose rent arrears may have affected their credit rating, who have moved house in response to the tax and given up their security of tenure, or who have fallen into the clutches of private sector landlords who are now intent on evicting tenants claiming housing benefit? Is not this mess a further reason to scrap this wretched tax?’

In response, Lord Freud said:  ‘The numbers involved in this anomaly are small and the amounts are modest.’

The amended regulations would be unlikely to prevent tenants retrospectively claiming money deducted for the period while the loophole was open.

A DWP spokesperson said the precise date of the amendment to legislation would depend on the parliamentary timetable.

Cameron or Hitler?

from: consciousshift2012

Fair’s Fair?

PIP / DLA News

Being found entirely innocent of fraud will no longer be a defence against the loss of your DLA. Instead, the DWP has chosen to make anonymous hate campaigns against disabled neighbours and work colleagues potentially much more damaging.

The DWP have ruled that from next Monday, if you are investigated because of an allegation that you are fraudulently claiming DLA, you will automatically lose your DLA award and be assessed for PIP instead, regardless of the outcome of the investigation. The change in policy does not appear to be lawful, but that’s not a consideration that seems to trouble the DWP or the government these days.

It means that claimants with indefinite awards of DLA, who may not have been due to be assessed for PIP until 2017, could find themselves forced onto the much harder to claim PIP years early.

This could be especially awful for claimants with mobility awards, given the DWP’s confirmation this week that it is to entirely ignore the results of its hasty PIP consultation and stick with a 20 metre limit for the enhanced rate of the PIP mobility component.

By the DWP’s own estimates, over 400,000 claimants are likely to lose out as a result of the changes to the mobility component and the new disability minister, Mike Penning, has already confirmed that he expects spending on DLA and PIP to begin falling as early as next year.

However, plans to assess all DLA claimants for PIP by 2017 may already be in trouble. The Disability News Service has revealed that crisis meetings have taken place across the country because Atos has a serious shortage of doctors able to carry out disability benefits assessments.

During Prime Minister’s Question Time last week Labour’s Dennis Skinner called on the prime minister to “abolish this cruel heartless monster called Atos“.

from: http://www.benefitsandwork.co.uk

Couldn’t resist this

 

From: oopster74

It would be funny but … …

A Selection of Especially Stupid Benefit Sanctions

Cruel, arbitrary and ridiculous reasons why people have their benefits stopped

•  Your gran dies during the night. The next morning your partner calls the job centre and asks if you can come in the following day instead. The centre agrees, and you sign in the next day. Then you get a letter stating that you failed to sign in and would be sanctioned if you don’t reply within seven days. You reply, explaining the situation. The job centre gives you a six-week sanction for not replying. Source: Mari-claire M at Netmums
• You get a job interview. It’s at the same time as your job centre appointment, so you reschedule the job centre. You attend your rearranged appointment and then get a letter saying your benefits will be stopped because going to a job interview isn’t a good enough reason to miss an appointment. Source: Daily Mail
• You’ve signed in on time, been to interviews and applied for work. Your job centre advisor suggests you make a two-line change to your CV, which you do, but fail to give the updated CV to the job centre (you weren’t told you had to). You are sanctioned for four weeks. Source: nciaw36 at MoneySavingExpert
• You work for 20 years and then miss a job centre appointment because you haven’t had the process clearly explained. You are sanctioned for 3 weeks. Source: Councillor John O’Shea
• You get a job that starts in two weeks time. You don’t look for work while you are waiting for the job to start. You’re sanctioned. Source: The Guardian
• You are forced to retire due to a heart condition, and you claim Employment and Support Allowance. During your assessment you have a heart attack. You are sanctioned for not completing your assessment. Source: Debbie Abrahams MP
•  It’s Christmas Day and you don’t fill in your job search evidence form to show that you’ve looked for all the new jobs that are advertised on Christmas Day. You are sanctioned. Merry Christmas.  Source: Poverty Alliance
• You are given a training appointment that clashes with your job centre appointment. The job centre is unwilling to rearrange its appointment and tells you to get a letter from the training organisation. The training organisation says it doesn’t provide letters. Source: Russell Brown MP
• You apply for three jobs one week and three jobs the following Sunday and Monday. Because the job centre week starts on a Tuesday it treats this as applying for six jobs in one week and none the following week. You are sanctioned for 13 weeks for failing to apply for three jobs each week. Source: Pontefract and Castleford Express (via Benefit Tales)
• You miss your job centre appointment due to the funeral of a close family relative. You are sanctioned. Source: Derek Twigg MP
• You’ve been unemployed for seven months and are forced onto a workfare scheme in a shop miles away, but can’t afford to travel. You offer to work in a nearer branch but are refused and get sanctioned for not attending your placement. Source: Caroline Lucas MP
• You miss your job centre appointment as it clashes with your work programme interview. You get sanctioned. Source: Citizens Advice Bureau

from : http://stupidsanctions.tumblr.com/

If you don’t like the question … ,

“The DWP has quietly decided to ditch statistics it used to collect on the number of deaths of recipients of incapacity benefits (now ESA) and its predecessors Incapacity Benefit (IB) and Severe Disablement Allowance (SDA),” according to Liberal Conspiracy.

The story, by Sunny Hundal, claims: “It is thought the numbers of deaths has sharply increased since the Coalition government’s severe cuts to social security benefits.

“But to ensure that deaths aren’t cited as evidence of failure of the changes, the DWP won’t be collecting and updating its statistics.”

No supporting information is provided and nobody from the Department for Work and Pensions is quoted. Does this change the chances of success for my Freedom of Information request, in which I asked for statistics in ESA/IB claimants who have died?

No. Not at all.

I requested statistics for 2012, which we all know already that the DWP has collected. They are there; they should be available.

The fact that they aren’t open for inspection is already incriminating, if you ask me!

My FoI request will be granted in the near future – even if the DWP finds another reason for refusal, the Information Commissioner’s office will overrule it. I’ve been through the rules. In this instance, it is Iain Duncan Smith who doesn’t have a leg to stand on.

If the DWP then claims that it has destroyed the figures – as seems to be claimed by the Liberal Conspiracy story – then we’ll be looking at a criminal investigation, I think.

There can only be one reason for hiding the figures – they must have risen and have not dropped. For the DWP to actually delete them, rather than allow them to be released, they must have risen sharply.

This would not only indicate the failure of Iain Duncan Smith’s policy – after everything he and his ministers have said, time and time again, about the fairness of the assessment regime, and how it is carried out in a humane way, this would prove that it is neither fair nor humane – and that, given the opportunity to stop the deaths from accelerating, these Conservative politicians allowed them to continue.

If a person knows that their actions are causing people to die, and does nothing about it, then an observer may rightly conclude that this person wants those deaths to take place. There’s a word for people who cause others to die – with the intention of causing them to die.

That word is “murderer”.

Or in this case, “mass murderer”.

The net is closing, Iain Duncan Smith.

Nobody will think it is a coincidence, if the DWP really has binned its statistics on claimant deaths at a time when public interest is focused on the issue.

And to any DWP interlopers, reading this site because it is on a ‘watch list’:This is a very dangerous time to be working for that organisation. People who help others to commit murder are accessories to the crime and may also be convicted for the offence.

Tick tock, Tories …

reblogged from voxpolitical

Still under threat …

Women fleeing abusive relationships could be faced with the stark choice of sleeping on the streets or returning to a violent partner due to the benefit cap a leading charity has warned.

Meanwhile Lord Fraud’s dithering means that many women’s refuges and homelessness hostels may be forced to close when the benefit cap is introduced in July.  The cap on benefits, set at £500 a week for families, or £350 for single people, includes housing benefits which in some cases meet the cost of supported accommodation.

Last year  Women’s Aid issued a stark warning that this change could potentially close every single one of their refuge’s for those fleeing domestic violence.  Homelessness hostels are also under threat.  Hostels and refuges charge high rents to pay for the cost of support staff, with most supported housing having 24 hour staffing cover and specialist support workers

Astonishingly neither bungling Lord Fraud or Iain Duncan Smith appeared to know this.  In a panicky response the Government hastily u-turned, saying that the benefit cap would not apply to “supported exempt accommodation”.  Ministers also claimed that when Universal Credit is introduced, the system of Housing Benefits, administered by local authorities, would remain in place for this type of housing. 

From : http://johnnyvoid.wordpress.com

How big a hammer?

reblogged from http://chelseaannsaxby.wordpress.com