Earlier this month, the House of Commons voted to proceed with a hefty cut to employment and support allowance (ESA) (the name for incapacity benefit and income support) since 2008).
To remain on ESA after the initial assessment, a claimant must score 15 points from these descriptors. Since 2008, anyone scoring 0, 6, or 9 points is moved onto jobseeker's allowance and is 'fit for work'. Qualifying for ESA is getting past a high bar.
The legislation passed abolishes the 'work-related activity component (WRAC)' (which replaced the disability premium in income support for people unable to work). The 'support component' remains, which also replaces the disability premium but for a slightly different subset of ESA claimants. (The difference is small and arbitrary, and is essentially whether the claimant scores all 15 points from one activity.)
The naming is Orwellian and does not describe the subject matter in a way easily understood. The thinking appears to be that by generously adding the words 'work' and 'employment', ill people unable to work would be persuaded into employment anyway.
Since most claimants are in the work-related group rather than the support group, the removal of the WRAC leaves the level of ESA the same as jobseeker's allowance for most claimants.
This week, I was appalled to see that the new Secretary of State put out a grossly misleading and false statement, claiming that people on ESA with a work-related activity component have been found to be fit for work.
I then noticed that my local MP, Andrew Turner, has put out a suspiciously similar statement.
Further investigation uncovered no less than 13 MPs who has all repeated almost the exact same statement, often ironically decrying the 'misunderstanding' that the cut affected people who are ill.
It seems clear that MPs were lobbied on a factually incorrect basis and were misled into voting for the cut under false pretences. Even Conservative MPs had threatened to vote down the budget over proposed PIP criteria changes so cannot be taken to fully behind all benefit cuts. But on almost any analysis, the ESA cut is harsher than the proposed PIP changes and may affect much more vulnerable and ill people.
Thursday, 17 November 2016
Wednesday, 16 November 2016
Email to Andrew Turner MP
Dear Mr Turner
I am writing concerning the vote tomorrow (Thursday 17th Nov) proposing to reverse the abolition of the work-related component of Employment and Support Allowance.
Although I am not a supporter of your party, I consider that you are an honourable man who have voted and spoken with your conscience in the past.
The previous vote to cut the ESA component was, I contend, tainted by a dishonest briefing of MPs by the government at the time as to what the proposal was, assisted by the deliberately confusing terminology. Many MPs, including I believe you, were told that the cut affected only those found fit for work. This was a lie as it affected only those found unable to do any work as defined under the stringent ESA criteria.
It was said that the money cut would be reinvested into supporting claimants to work. It has not been explained how this is possible when the people the money is to be taken from have been found unable to work.
It was said that the cut brought ESA into line with jobseekers Allowance. This was not true, as a disability premium is available to disabled JSA claimants. The ESA component is the equivalent of this for people too ill to claim JSA. The cut therefore makes ESA less than JSA for the same claimant.
I feel strongly that a vote by Parliament tomorrow to keep the cut would be an endorsement of the government lying to MPs and as such, the only proper course is for Parliament to overturn the cut pending a full and honest reassessment of it.
I trust you will do what is clearly right.
Yours faithfully
Tom Evans
I am writing concerning the vote tomorrow (Thursday 17th Nov) proposing to reverse the abolition of the work-related component of Employment and Support Allowance.
Although I am not a supporter of your party, I consider that you are an honourable man who have voted and spoken with your conscience in the past.
The previous vote to cut the ESA component was, I contend, tainted by a dishonest briefing of MPs by the government at the time as to what the proposal was, assisted by the deliberately confusing terminology. Many MPs, including I believe you, were told that the cut affected only those found fit for work. This was a lie as it affected only those found unable to do any work as defined under the stringent ESA criteria.
It was said that the money cut would be reinvested into supporting claimants to work. It has not been explained how this is possible when the people the money is to be taken from have been found unable to work.
It was said that the cut brought ESA into line with jobseekers Allowance. This was not true, as a disability premium is available to disabled JSA claimants. The ESA component is the equivalent of this for people too ill to claim JSA. The cut therefore makes ESA less than JSA for the same claimant.
I feel strongly that a vote by Parliament tomorrow to keep the cut would be an endorsement of the government lying to MPs and as such, the only proper course is for Parliament to overturn the cut pending a full and honest reassessment of it.
I trust you will do what is clearly right.
Yours faithfully
Tom Evans
Monday, 21 March 2016
My response to the PIP consultation to reduce the points for aids and appliances
Iain Duncan Smith resigned this week, ostensibly over the plans announced by George Osborne to reduce the score for claimants who need to use some aids and appliances in Personal Independence Payment.
IDS implied that this was a new policy that had taken him by surprise.
This is odd because his department had announced such a policy in December 2015, and had made it clear that the initial plan was for a larger reduction than was ultimately agreed following the public consultation. In fact, the final proposal he apparently considered unconscionable was more generous than any of the five options offered in December.
This was my response to the consultation in December:-
IDS implied that this was a new policy that had taken him by surprise.
This is odd because his department had announced such a policy in December 2015, and had made it clear that the initial plan was for a larger reduction than was ultimately agreed following the public consultation. In fact, the final proposal he apparently considered unconscionable was more generous than any of the five options offered in December.
This was my response to the consultation in December:-
Response to
Consultation — Aids and Appliances in Personal Independence Payment
From the Welfare Rights Department of --------
Issue one – the number
of claimants scoring solely through aids and appliances
1.
We note that one of the concerns raised by the
consultation is the number of claimants scoring all of their points through a
need for aids and appliances. Our experience of PIP assessment reports suggests
that this figure may be misleading because of a trend for assessors to favour
the aids and appliances descriptors over descriptors indicating a need for help
from another person, where both descriptors are met.
2.
At present the difference is frequently not
material to the outcome, and where this is the case, goes unchallenged. Should
the qualifying criteria be changed in any of the ways suggested, we would
anticipate that a significant proportion of those presently being scored as
needing only aids or appliances would have grounds to challenge the selection of
the aids or appliance descriptor. An example would be a client of ours who
could not cook and prepare food for himself safely (due to blackouts) being
scored as needing an aid or appliance. Because he was happy with the overall
award level, there was no need for him to challenge this descriptor.
3.
We would also note that Paul Gray’s Independent
Review does not specifically raise this as an area of concern in the sense
implied. The Review raised a concern that claimants might be awarded a scoring
descriptor where they had chosen to
use an aid or appliance but did not need to use one. This is a valid
operational concern, as the PIP criteria already do not support an award in
those circumstances. We do not consider that the Review was recommending any
change to the qualifying criteria.
Issue two — the claimed broadening of the
meaning of aids
4.
The consultation raises particular concern that
the meaning of ‘aids and appliances’ has been broadened by upper tribunal
decisions. We do not agree that this has occurred.
5.
The PIP2 form has acknowledged from the
beginning that a perching stool is an aid or appliance, as did the 2012
consultation on the criteria, so it is clear that seats and chairs were
intended to be included in the definition. Lighter pans are also mentioned
specifically. The important question is whether the claimant needs to use the aid to achieve the
relevant, fairly undemanding, daily activity and not whether they possess or
have paid for one.
6.
We would also note that it was clear to the
drafters of the regulations that ‘spectacles or contact lenses’ would come
within the meaning of aids or appliances if not specifically excluded from
Activity 8. The decision not to exclude chairs, perching stools, and other
everyday devices was therefore a deliberate policy choice.
7.
In conclusion, we do not agree that this premise
of the consultation is factually accurate.
Issue three — the assessment of extra costs
8.
One of the solutions raised by the consultation
is to replace the daily living component with a lump sum payment to purchase
aids and appliances. We consider that this reveals a misunderstanding of the
concept of extra costs, which was perhaps prompted by a single sentence in Paul
Gray’s Review.
9.
It is made clear in the 2012 consultation that
the criteria for PIP are considered to be a proxy assessment of a
representative cross section of the claimant’s functions:
38 The activities have been carefully selected to act as a proxy for participation, levels of need and likely extra cost. We have not sought to assess each and every activity an individual might perform on a daily basis but rather we have selected a range of activities which cumulatively act as a good proxy. For example, individuals who have difficulties dressing and undressing are likely to have difficulties in other areas that involve bending and reaching, while individuals who have difficulty preparing food are likely to have difficulties carrying out other activities that require manual dexterity.
10.
The intention appears to be that a claimant who
has some difficulty bending and reaching, for example, should score under
dressing to reflect this limitation in bending across daily life.
11.
The extra costs may come in an almost open-ended
number of ways such as needing to have purchases delivered, to shop locally at
higher cost, to pay for domestic help, gardeners, simple home maintenance, heating,
extra living space, taxis et cetera;
combined with probable reduced earnings and reduced opportunities for work. The
PIP assessment is the proxy for qualification but is not an assessment of the
amount of the costs.
12.
The Review (somewhat by the way) mentioned the
low cost of purchasing some aids and appliances, and this appears to be have
been taken up by this consultation in its claimed Illustrative Examples.
However, PIP is not intended literally to reflect the cost of purchasing aids
and appliances, but to reflect extra costs in general via a proxy assessment of
functional difficulties. In the examples given, needing to sit to prepare a
simple meal, breathlessness dressing, and needing to use a sink for support
just to get off the toilet are indications of significant disability rather
than direct financial costs. To suggest otherwise is to misuse the nature of
the assessment within its own stated terms.
Issue four — the
options
13.
In light of the above, we consider that options
one to three are flawed as they are founded on mistaken premises that the rate
of PIP is related to direct financial need arising from activities 1-12. (There
would presumably be no equivalent mechanism under these options for people who
can demonstrate that their direct financial costs from these activities are in
excess of £139.75 per week to claim for these costs through PIP.)
14.
Options four and five are logically valid if the
aim is simply to restrict the number of people who qualify by raising the bar.
Provided this is openly acknowledged to be the aim, this may be a legitimate
policy but will cause hardship. We would suggest that two of the stated changes
in PIP: face to face assessments and regular reviews, have found more people to
qualify than was assumed would be the case and that this should also be openly
acknowledged for any changes to have a legitimate foundation.
15.
We would however urge for proper consideration
to be given to an option of making no changes to the criteria, along with an
acknowledgment that the original assumption that face to face assessments
alongside regular reviews would lead to a large reduction in awards appears now
to have been incorrect.
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