Iain Duncan Smith Legacy

EDIT: On November 07th 2016 the UN found the UK guilty of grave and systemic violations of disabled people's rights.

This was a direct result of the cumulative impact of the policies listed below.

The following is a list of policies and damning court decisions and findings undertaken under the watch of Iain Duncan Smith (emphasis on those affecting disabled people):

• April 2011:  LHA (Local Housing Allowance) is reduced to 30th percentile of local housing market instead of 50th with immediate effect.  Affects 775,000 households.
• April 2011: Uprating of benefits is changed from RPI to CPI (a cut expected to save £6 billion).
• January 2012: LHA single room rate is extended to under 35s instead of under 25s. Disproportionately affects disabled people who cannot flat share due to disability but do not meet the stringent criteria for exemption (mid rate care DLA).
• April 2012: Contribution based ESA WRAG is time limited to 1 year (out of work benefit for those too sick/disabled to work), affecting 700,000 disabled people.
• April 2012: The "Youth Provision" is abolished. This allowed young disabled people to access contributory benefits. It results in loss of income for 80% of those benefiting from it and total loss of income for 12.5% of those.
• May 2012: LHA regulations are found to discriminate against disabled people for failing to allow an extra bedroom for overnight carers or children who cannot share due to disability.
• December 2012: New Sanctions rules are introduced, allowing sanctions to start sooner and for longer.
• 2012-2013: Remploy factories are closed down. Iain Duncan Smith infamously says workers sit around making cups of coffee. 3 years on less than half have found employment.
• January 2013: ESA regulations are amended, making it harder to qualify. Assessors may make a decision based on therapy or aids a claimant *could* have whether or not they do or whether it is in fact available, possible or (in the case of treatment) they have given consent. Physical impairments may no longer award points in the mental health and cognitive section and vice versa. Eg a physical injury causing cognitive impairment would have all such symptoms ignored.
• April 2013: Legal aid is abolished for welfare cases.
• April 2013: DLA is begun to be replaced with PIP to make 20% savings (benefit to cover extra costs of disability). 500,000 disabled people are expected to lose their benefit. By 2016 14,000 disabled people have had their motability car repossessed. This is just the start as most people have not yet been assessed due to errors and delays. EDIT (March 2018) This figure has now ballooned to 75,000, 43% of the 175,000 motability clients so far assessed.
• April 2013: The Social size criteria more commonly known as the Bedroom tax is introduced. This removes housing benefit for "spare" rooms for social housing tenants. 660,000 households are affected, two thirds of which include a disabled member. 
• April 2013: All benefits are capped to a 1% uprating until 2015, bar Carer's allowance, DLA/PIP and disability premiums. Ministers lie by claiming disabled benefits are unaffected, even though ESA is included (even the support group to some extent).
• April 2013:  Council tax benefit is abolished and replaced by council tax reduction scheme, administered locally. This leads to a postcode lottery with many disabled people, including those in the ESA support group, liable for up to 25% of their council tax.
• May 2013: UK Statistics Authority finds ministers from the DWP repeatedly used false disability statistics to justify benefits cuts.
• May 2013: In a legal court case the WCA is found to discriminate against claimants with mental health illnesses. As yet the recommendations to remedy this have not been implemented.
• October 2013: Non time limited unpaid mandatory reconsiderations are introduced as an extra step before being allowed to appeal benefit decisions.
• March 2014: The Work and Pensions Committee warns the DWP "to exercise care in the language used in accompanying press releases and ministerial comments in the media, to ensure it avoids the risk of feeding into negative public views about benefit recipients."
• June 2014: The implementation of PIP is called a "fiasco" by the Public Accounts Committee after a "failure to implement a pilot scheme resulted in significant delays, a backlog of claims and unnecessary distress for claimants who have been unable to access the support they need to live, and in some cases work, independently."
• July 2014: A court case against the restriction of high rate mobility from 50m to 20m in PIP fails. However the DWP admits (para 80) "we were aware that the vast majority of recipients of DLA were individuals with genuine health conditions and disabilities and genuine need, and that removing or reducing that benefit may affect their daily lives".
• August 2014: Figures reveal a 580% increase in ESA sanctions.
• November 2014: The Government Work Programme is branded a failure by the Public Accounts Committee. 90% of ESA claimants have not been found jobs and providers are spending less than half than promised on these hard to place groups.
• March 2015: A new study by Cheshire Hunger shows that problems with benefits account for nearly half (47%) of all referrals to food banks, with sanctions accounting for 11% and ESA claimants 4%. A significant number remained dependent far longer than the initial crisis.
• April 2015: A second study published in the BMJ finds that the unprecedented rise in foodbanks (soaring from 29 Trussell Trust banks in 2009-2010 to 251 in 2013-2014) is linked to higher unemployment, sanctions and cuts in welfare spending.
• June 2015: The delays to PIP are ruled unlawful in the High Court.
• June 2015: The ILF is abolished. 17,000 people lose funding to pay for their personal care. Some funding is given to councils for the first 2 years and then agreed for a further 4 years, but it is not ringfenced. Most disabled people affected see huge cuts to their hours and loss of independence.
• August 2015: Following FOI requests, figures are released showing thousands of people died after being found "fit for work."  However the statistics released are confusing, omit key data and make it hard to draw accurate conclusions.
• August 2015: The DWP admits to using fake claimants in leaflets praising the use of sanctions.
• September 2015: Coroner rules that the death of disabled man Michael O'Sullivan in 2013 was a direct result of  his failed WCA.
• September 2015: The UN confirms it is investigating the UK for "grave and systematic violations of the human rights of disabled individuals", the first time such an investigation has taken place in a first world country.
• October 2015: A cap to Access to Work is introduced, limiting or eliminating entirely work options for those with higher support requirements.
• November 2015: Independent research is published in a BMJ Journal suggesting 590 suicides and 279,000 cases of reported mental health illness can be directly linked to controversial WCA. 
• December 2015:  Latest figures show that PIP appeals now account for 38% of all appeals and carry a 60% success rate. ESA and DLA success rates are 58% and 55% respectively. In contrast, appeal success rates for tax credits or income support run at between 25 to 40%.
• January 2016: The Bedroom tax is found unlawful and discriminatory at the court of appeal in the case of disabled children requiring overnight care and people requiring panic rooms.
• February 2016: Figures show half of those reassessed for PIP are losing their motability vehicle. There are 650,000 disabled people on the scheme and only 31,200 have been reassessed so far. Of these 14,000 have lost their car or wheelchair. EDIT (March 2018) This figure has now ballooned to 75,000, 43% of the 175,000 motability clients so far assessed.
• January 2016: Conservative Disability Group launches inquiry into abolition of ILF following widespread concern about its impact.
• March 2016: Evidence has emerged that a "prevention of deaths" letter was received by the DWP from a coroner in 2010, following the suicide of a disabled man who failed his WCA. Graying and Iain Duncan Smith failed to act or respond despite a legal obligation to do so, and the  WCA was rolled out with no change to millions of Incapacity Benefit claimants. The letter was also not shown to Professor Harrington, later in charge of reviewing the WCA to make it better and safer.

About to be introduced:

• 2016-2018: £22 million is to be spent on the DWP to recruit presenting officers to support the department in PIP and ESA tribunals. (Recall that in contrast, claimants do not have recourse to legal aid, axed in April 2013).
• April 2016: All benefits will be frozen for the next 4 years bar DLA/PIP and disability premiums. Ministers lie again about disability benefits being unaffected as once more ESA is included, including the Support Group to some extent.
• April 2016: Disability benefits, premiums and carers allowance are frozen for 1 year due to a negative CPI in September 2015.
• April 2016, Universal credit: Recent cuts to tax credits which were dropped due to fierce opposition will be included as part and parcel of this benefit
• Universal credit (law passed in 2012):  There will be no equivalent to the disabled working tax credit. Help will only be available to those who have "limited capability for work or work related activity". This will affect up to 116,000 working disabled people at around £40 per week (however the timetable for this is unclear, as the UC system can currently only cope with simple cases).
• September 2016: DSA (Disabled Student Allowance) will be cut. Government is withdrawing funding entirely for some types of support and hoping universities will pick up the cost. This will affect 70,000 disabled students.
• 2017: ESA WRAG rate is to be cut by a third by £30 per week to align it with JSA. This will affect new claimants and those with a 12 week break in their claim.
• April 2018: Social housing rents are to be capped at LHA rates. This will see large numbers of evictions of single people under the age of 35 suddenly only eligible for shared rate (see above). It will also devastate the supported housing sector whose rents are naturally higher, affecting disabled people, elderly people, women's refuges and more.
• April 2018: Support for Mortgage Interest (SMI) for people on very low incomes to be changed from a 'benefit' to a loan from 2018. Waiting time from application also changed from 13 to 39 weeks.
• By 2020: Social care is facing a £3 billion funding gap

• Universal Credit (law passed in 2012): Disabled people face the abolition of the Severe Disability Premium (SDP) at a cost of £62 per week. This will affect new claimants and those with a "change of circumstances". 230,000 disabled people currently receive this premium and will see their benefit frozen and/or eventually cut.
• Universal Credit (law passed in 2012): The disabled child premium is to be halved, affecting an estimated 100,000 disabled children.
• Universal Credit: Disabled people will have to attend a mandatory "health and work conversation" (work focused interview) BEFORE their WCA. This puts the onus on a medically untrained DWP jobcentre work coach to decide what the claimant is capable of doing prior to any medical assessment. Disabled people will be sanctioned if they do not attend.

March 2016: The budget sees further extensive proposed cuts to PIP: Iain Duncan Smith finds his conscience and resigns...??!

Important comment: Other than the major *direct* impacts on disability I have made a conscious decision not to include the fiasco which is universal credit in this timeline. This is because an account of the various stages of Universal Credit, the controversial inquiries, statements, court cases amd statistical rebukes concerning it would require a blog post all to itself.

NB: Please feel free to let me know anything I have forgotten.

No rubberstamping? ATOS decides

The assessment process for Employment and Support Allowance (ESA), has been the subject of severe controversy and debate for a number of years.
The WCA (Work Capability Assessment) forms an integral part of the decision process and is administered by ATOS.
The WCA itself has come under attack with even the BMA calling for its suspension as far back as 2012.
It has been found in court to discriminate against people claiming on the grounds of mental health and despite some improvement since its initial implementation is said to continue to cause harm to many claimants.
Although ATOS is responsible for administering the test, the DWP has set its conditions and parameters. The DWP and ATOS have always denied that there are "targets" to meet as to how many claimants should pass the test. However it has become clear that "norms" have caused the same effect.

After administering the WCA ATOS staff issue a recommendation to the DWP as to whether the claimant should be assessed as Fit For Work, or put in the WRAG or Support Group.
The final decision rests with the DWP decision maker who we are told also has access to "further information".

Throughout the past few years the government has strenuously denied that ATOS decides who gets ESA. For example on July 22nd 2013 Lord Freud addressed the House of Commons and said:

"Assessment reports, such as those provided by Atos, form only one part of the WCA process, which has a number of checks and balances built in to ensure the right decision is reached for claimants. After the Atos assessment DWP Decision Makers make the final decision on claimants’ benefit entitlement based on all evidence provided during the claim."

It was therefore interesting to read this FOI request which gives the number of final DWP decisions compared to the number of provisional ATOS decisions.

A few short calculations reveal that the DWP follows the ATOS recommendations in 91% of cases.

This hardly seems to back up the claim that the ATOS process only forms a small part of the assessment process with plenty of "checks and balance". Instead it seems a rubber stamping exercise.

The fact is, for all intents and purposes, ATOS decide who is eligible for ESA at the WCA stage, with all the flaws mentioned above.

Notwithstanding this, there are some further troubling questions raised by the data.
Further scrutiny of the figures reveals that 98% of overturned decisions are in the claimant's favour, raising questions on whether ATOS are being too harsh in their assessments.

Furthermore, FFW recommendations are far more likely to be upgraded (16%) than a WRAG recommendation (4%). While this could partially be due to the structure of ESA itself, it also raises the possibility that DWP decision makers are concentrating more on FFW recommendations than WRAG.
Given that WRAG is time limited to one year for contribution based ESA, not to mention the requirements imposed on people in the WRAG including the threat of sanctions, this is a serious issue.

All of these issues: the potential over harshness of ATOS recommendations, the possible lack of investigation on the part of DWP decision makers and the possible concentration on FFW recommendations at the expense of the WRAG, should be investigated at the earliest opportunity.

Crossing the line into organised propaganda

EDIT: May 30th
The posting of this blog led to stories in both the New Statesman and Liberal Conspiracy. The issue had been strongly followed up by Sheila Gilmore MP among others and prompted a petition by disabled activists Jayne Linney and Debbie Sayers demanding an inquiry into Iain Duncan Smith which attracted no less than 98,000 signatures.  All of this has had an astounding resolution.

1. May 9th Iain Duncan Smith was officially rebuked by the UK Statistics Authority
2. May 17th The Work and Pensions Select Committee announced it will conduct an inquiry into Iain Duncan Smith's use of statistics as part of its annual assessment of the DWP Annual Report and Accounts (ARA). In preparation the committee plans to hold a session with the UK Statistics Authority to see how the department should correctly be using their statistics.
3. May 30th Grant Shapps was also officially rebuked by the UK Statistics Authority

____________________________

This month saw sweeping changes to the welfare system which impacted on disabled people. In particular Disability Living Allowance was replaced by Personal Independence Payments and the Bedroom Tax came into play, which disproportionately affects households with a disabled member.
Elsewhere Employment and Support Allowance (ESA), the benefit paid to those too ill or disabled to work continues to provoke controversy, with a discredited assessment (WCA) and a backlogged appeals process.

It was maybe not surprising then that, perhaps fearing a reversal of public opinion, ministers from the Department of Work and Pensions decided to act by releasing a number of press releases to support their actions.

This would not be a problem IF they were accurate. It would have still have been acceptable albeit  slightly upsetting if, as is often the case, the statistics were "spun" in their favour. However what actually happened was in my opinion unprecedented and unforgiveable. We saw a string of stories which were completely untrue and highly damaging. I put that a line was crossed into organised propaganda.

It seems others may agree. The former chief economist of the DWP finally spoke out talking of "a consistent pattern of ministers trying to manipulate statistics to their own political ends". MPs have also called for an official inquiry into the manipulation of official statistics by the Committee of Work and Pensions.

In Order these are the Stories.

Over the Easter Weekend on March 30th, two damaging stories came out, one surrounding DLA and the other ESA.

• 1)  Grant Shapps said 900,000 people had abandoned their claim for ESA RATHER than take the assessment.

This was proved to be totally misleading.  This is the sum total of people who had abandoned their claim over a 4 year period since the beginning of ESA and is simply the usual amount of those people with shorter term conditions who rapidly move on and off the benefit. This is confirmed by the government's OWN analysis which says

“Current data does not allow anything conclusive to be said about the destinations of closed and in progress cases, nor to infer what would have been or would be the outcome of assessment."

“An important reason why ESA claims in this sample were withdrawn or closed before they were fully assessed was because the person recovered and either returned to work, or claimed a benefit more appropriate to their situation” 

Unfortunately truth is irrelevant. The 900,000 figure has now entered benefit folklore and is brought up by the general public whenever disability benefits are mentioned as proof that many people are abusing the system and will abandon their claims if challenged.

Please see my previous blog post for more details.

• 2)  Esther McVey, Minister for the Disabled appeared in an article for the Daily Mail. In this she gave a strong impression that many were claiming unnecessarily and even fraudulently. She also said there had been a rush on claims in the run up to PIP to avoid assessment.

It was reported that she would "go after bogus disabled... some of them DO get better!"
She "says many who get DLA and are officially assessed "disabled" are no such thing: Only three per cent of people are born with a disability, the rest acquire it through accident or illness, but people come out of it. Thanks to medical advances, bodies heal."

This was just short of accusing DLA claimants of fraud and/or mindbogglingly ignorant. People who acquire disabilities later in life are just as disabled as those who are disabled from birth. Many such illnesses and disabilities are incurable and life long despite current medical science: for instance Parkinsons, MS, lupus, amputations, paralysis, blindness, schizophrenia, autism but to mention a few off the top of my head.
Furthermore she is being deliberately misleading as under the current system those who have more short term conditions will be given shorter DLA awards of 1 or 3 years.

She then went on to say:
The decision to introduce new tests has produced an extraordinary ‘closing-down sale’ effect, with rocketing claims as people rush to get their hands on unchecked ‘welfare for life’ before McVey’s axe falls on April 8.

Again, this has turned out to be untrue. While the total number of DLA claims has indeed increased, the number of DLA claims among working age people (ie those affected by the changeover to PIP) FELL. So this is in fact the direct opposite behaviour to that claimed by the minister.

• 3)  Iain Duncan Smith repeated the claim on April 8th in all the major newspapers, including The Telegraph, the Guardian, the Daily Mail, the Express, Sky News, the Huffington Post and others, despite this having been pointed out to the ministers by the Disability News Service by April 4th.

Making one untrue statement using misleading figures to back it up is bad. Doing it twice having had it pointed out is completely unforgivable.

• 4)  On April 24th, Iain Duncan Smith gave a press release claiming that "one million who are fit to work have lived on benefits for 3 of the past 4 years".

This is the front page of the Telegraph and news in the Daily Mail and the Express.

Once again the headlines are untrue. The claimants are not "fit for work" nor even "capable of trying to find a job". Upon reading the articles it becomes clear that the figures include people who are in the Work Related Activity Group (WRAG) of ESA. 

By the DWP own figures on ESA "fit for work" decisions, these people have been found unfit for work. Unlike people in the support group though, it is felt that they will eventually recover at some time in the future. Right now though, they cannot work. 

When the WRAG was first conceived of, it was felt that it would take 2-5 years for people placed in it to return to work. It is therefore perfectly feasible that WRAG claimants have been claiming ESA for 3 of the past 4 years without being "stuck" or fraudulent.

Once again figures are being used to stigmatise disability benefit claimants.

In 4 weeks, 4 misleading news articles.

In 2011 the Work and Pensions Select Committee severely criticised  the way the government was releasing official statistics. It reported this was leading to negative views of long term disability benefit claimants not only in the tabloid press but the mainstream press as well. It noted that many newspapers had subsequently had to publish corrections.

At the time the minister replied "the government could not control the editorial approach of tabloids" and was often "bemused" by the stories which ran.

I would put that this excuse no longer washes.

Current ministers are releasing untrue statistics and making false statements. The proposed investigation must go ahead at the earliest opportunity and the practise stopped. A whole section of the population is being demonised for political gain. It must not continue.

Your help

A petition has been started by disability campaigners Jayne Linney and Debbie Sayers to the Work and Pensions Committee asking them to commit to hold Iain Duncan Smith to account for his (mis)use of statistics.
It has had a huge response with 38,000 signatures at the last count.
You can read an article about it's success in the Guardian here (when it still only had 16,000 signatures).
To add your signature please go here. Thank you.