Welfare Reform - out of control?

Come on..... this isn't a government that thinks. A previous Government formed of Conservatives targeted single mums as the root of all Britain's problems. Another tried to make out that moral decline was a big issue, until it emerged that they were guilty of some of the worst immorality.

I'm not being party political when I say this (I'm not fond of any politicians). But it is a singular characteristic of conservatives that they look to blame .... to find a scapegoat, to divert attention from their incompetent handling.

This attack on increased DLA claimants is just a scapegoating exercise. It is clear from paragraph 5 in the Equality Impact Assessment that they see DLA claimants as a potential scapegoat for the high numbers claiming benefit. And that explains the naive objective to cut claimants by a round number 500,000.

Whether consciously or unconciously, they do seem to have targeted autism this time. And they really are THAT short-sighted. I do jest about "public school boys" but this time around it is an apt allusion. This current Government is made up largely of immature public school boys.

Surely even the government can't be that short-sighted:

removing autistic people from DLA/PIP benefits will result in them feeling forced into taking employment they cannot manage, resulting in workplace problems such as going on stress leave, getting sacked/made redundant and putting the burden on mental health services instead.  Isn't that just robbing Peter to pay Paul?  Then of course there is the impact this has on employers.

Notwithstanding there may be other agendas like pensions here, the thing to worry about is the Government's attack on people claiming DLA, by setting out to achieve a 15% reduction under PIP (500,000 people).

If you go back to the link in my second posting on this thread, the Equality Impact Assessments, where I took from a list the one for DLA Reform. This gives an explanation of the Government's thinking.

On page 3 is their Rationale for Intervention. In just 9 years DLA claimants have risen from just under 2.5 million to 3.2 million, That's an increase of 700,000.

This data comes from a Work and Pensions Longitudinal Study in May 2011 "Disability Living Allowance: Growth in the number of claimants 2002/03 to 2010/11" Paragraph 5 of the Equality Impact Assessment states:

"Despite the fact that an individual can receive Disability Living Allowance both in and out of work, it is widely perceived to be an out of work benefit, and receiving Disability Allowance in itself, appears to reduce the likelihood of being in employment, even after allowing for the impact of health conditions or impairments".

Where did they get this profound insight? Why of course, one of THEIR reports: DWP Research Report 648 "Disability Living Allowance and work:exploratory research and evidence review" While I've not seen this I've seen other examples of DWP's "exploratory" thinking.

What they appear to be saying is that DLA is partly to blame for people avoiding work, and while some claimants may have a real disability, the way to get the unemployment benefit figures back down is to target DLA claimants.

Now just stop and think for the moment. Statistics in the States reckon autism diagnoses in children, depending on how you define it, increased 78 percent since 2007. Other statistics based on a sample population of 8 year olds estimated diagnosis to have increased from 0.066% to 0.113% from 2002 to 2008.

I couldn't find any indicative statistics on the NAS website. And there are figures around in UK Government circles claiming autism diagnosis is now levelling off. But the fact remains it does seem to have been increasing dramatically over the last ten years or so.

Depending on how you look at it, and what you include as "autism", for example in relation to milder end, there are between 500,000 and 700,000 people in Britain with autism.

Of course they haven't just "popped out of the woodwork" (a metaphorical allusion to woodworm I think) in the past 9 years to account for the 700,000 increase in DLA.

But consider the likely numbers of diagnosed children over the last 20 years, who are now of working age, and I reckon that a significant proportion of DLA claimants comes from autism.

So it is hardly surprising that autism figures prominently amongst those treated harshly in the DLA interviews, and making up a high proportion of those thrown off DLA and being obliged to find work.

Autism after all, its impacts being hard to define and very individual, is a difficult condition to find work with.  And no-one in Government is trying very hard to change workplace legislation to make it easier.

I think that, whether directly or indirectly, DWP in their various exploratory researches, have sussed that autism figures largely in the increase in DLA claimants in the last 9 years. And whether they spell it out, I think that there is little doubt that DWP are targetting people with autism as one of the main scapegoats for the 700,000 increase in claimants.

For that reason I would strongly advocate to parents, keep detailed records of what happened to your sons or daughters when they were reviewed for DLA.

I rather anticipate that in ten years time, we may be seeking compensation in the European courts for the harm done to people with autism by this shabby government. And I hope if that proves to be the case we can also bring to trial the Ministers of Government and senior civil servants responsible for such atrocity.

I would also urge NAS to pursue vigorously any evidence they can find that autism is being used as a scapegoat to get the figures down.

Even if we cannot do anything to alleviate the situation in the short term, I think parents need an assurance that they will have the opportunity to find remedy later.

The Minister also directed me to the Fulfilling Potential Framework odi.dwp.gov.uk/.../index.php

OK a lot of this is around genuine disability initiatives, and is based around the Office for Disability Issues and its public arm Disability Action Alliance disabilityactionalliance.org.uk/.../ where there are good stories.

But this Fulfilling Potential scheme, like Disability Confident, contains a lot of measures hastily put together with the supposition that it compensates disabled people who lose out on PIP. And it really is too little too late.

It also has too many pictures and stories of paraplegic olympiads - ready press material, but little other disability awareness - one blind man and his dog, and a judge with bipolar.

The theme is reforming welfare, and allowing disabled people to become more independent through work. Great idea....but have they any real clue how it is to be done?

Also, in contrast to the accountancy driven interview process to reduce disabled claimants by 500,000 they do give figures in section 5 - only 46% of working age disabled people are in employment compared to 76% non-disabled. And different disabilities have different percentages, mental health given as 15% (no mention of autism though).

Also disabled young people fare particularly poorly in the labour market.

But what you really have to read is the plan - how this is to be achieved - a separate document.

This is full of great ideas, some underway, some still only on paper. I'm just not convinced that they understand the difficulties of implementation. They are all talk - no action.

On education they say they are going to introduce new standards and improve SEN.

On employment they claim to have a specific evidence base around disability employment to inform the stategy. Where did they get this "evidence base"?

On Income they give the usual guff about Universal Credit as a liberator. Health and Wellbeing promises massive reforms as to how disabled people are treated, but on autism there is only a tiny paragraph 4.14 mentioning the Autism act.

Section 5 on choice and control is in cloud cuckoo land. Section 6 is a whole load of everything else - transport, community volunteers, bullying, the criminal justice system (illustrated by learning disability but no mention of autism) everything bar the kitchen sink. Oh that might be there as well, I wasn't wide awake by that point.

Disability Charities should be reading this and challenging it. And parents do need to look at the intended prospects for young people compared to what is actually happening.

But I wasn't greatly cheered this morning by the reports on the news about the Government's boasted reductions in claimants, to which disability groups seem only to whimper that the interview system is ridiculously harsh.

The Minister also drew my attention yet again to the very documents I'm complaining about - the Equality Impact Assessments www.gov.uk/.../welfare-reform-act-2012-equality-impact-assessments

Does the Minister really believe these are equality impact assessments?  They are signed off by the Minister at the time, mostly not the current one.

According to the Minister these are provided routinely and are regularly updated - well the one for Disabled Living Allowance is 20 months old now - regularly updated!!!!

The only impact in the documernt is the boast that the change from DLA to PIP will remove 500,000 claimants (15%).

These disabled are described simply as "mobility" or "daily living" claimants in three categories "enhanced" "standard" or "not".

So who are the 500,000 losers? - a bunch of workshy scroungers? Do they know? Do they care?

This from the Government that canniot tackle companies evading tax, huge compensation payouts when sacked from top jobs for incompetence, automatic fat bonuses however rubbish the work performance of various high paid, and huge massively bigger than inflation pay rises for the high paid.

I know all politicians are hypocrites, but currently we have some of the biggest hypocrites of all time governing us.

It will be anarchy...

Hi Longman.  If they were genuinely trying to get the "work shy" back into jobs then I cd understand it more.  But they are targetting anyone on benefits who doesn't have a job, unless you have cancer or some other really really serious condition.  There is a political ideology at work here which does not differentiate between different kinds of claimant.  The aim is to reduce welfare payments dramatically, altho most of these payments are in the form of the state pension, not other benefits.  Pensioners are exempt from certain welfare changes, inc the bedroom tax.  We are witnessing a very serious attack on anyone or thing that is state funded : people, nhs, local government etc.  I have great fears about how far this will go, believing we are in danger of losing services we need the most.