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.

Vital Disabled Student Support to be Cut. Save DSA!

Spread the word. Tell your MP. Write blogs. Let people know what is happening. We must try to stop this.

You can write to your MP online here.
Please also sign the e-petition here.

Share and Retweet this #ProtectDSA.

For further information please see this blog for a summary of the changes and a follow up post with suggestions on what to do about it.

__________________________

After becoming disabled as a teenager, I went to university, obtained a first class degree, then completed a PhD.  While I worked extremely hard, none of this would have been possible without the support of Disabled Student Allowance (DSA), which covers the extra costs for equipment and assistance disabled students may require in order to study at university.

This is why I was aghast to learn that the government has just announced plans to cut DSA.
Couched under the language of "modernisation", "targeting funds at those who need it most", "fairness", is hidden the reality of an estimated 60 to 70% cut in funding.
At a time when Higher Education funding is at its lowest, the cost is being shunted onto universities, ill equipped and unprepared to deal with this.  This is a bit like suddenly asking employers to take over the funding and admin for Access to Work.

The government plans to make several key changes of which I will highlight just three:

1) DSA will no longer pay for "basic" computers and peripherals (even though required due to disability). This is justified by saying that "96% of students already own a laptop or netbook".
Bizarrely this assumption is based entirely on a marketing survey conducted by the NUS for the company Endsleigh in 2013. This was conducted by email and only reached 1704 students, just 1% of the UK student population. The proportion of disabled students who responded is not stated.
Given the repercussions of this decision one would have hoped that the government would undertake a full and proper analysis of the computer equipment privately available to disabled students entering university.

When I was doing my undergraduate degree, I was often too ill to leave my room. I was therefore unable to take advantage of the numerous public computers available onsite, often a mere 200 yards away.  A private computer was indispensable, due to my illness and disability and I would not have completed my degree without it.
DSA funded a private PC for me. BUT, it wasn't anything fancy and so under these proposals would no longer be granted.

I am certainly not unique.  The National Association of Disability Practitioners submitted a report to the BIS call for evidence in summer 2013 which explained in detail why disabled students may not be able to use the IT facilities provided on campus and justifying the provision of such equipment to disabled individuals where needed.

I very much doubt every single new disabled student arriving at university in 2015 will own a computer. What will happen to those disabled students similar to me? Will they fail where I did not simply due to a change in funding policy?

2) The government will only fund the most specialist support workers.
When digging a bit deeper this turns out to be bands 3 and 4 of the non medical help services.
This means that the following help will NOT be funded:

• practical Support assistant
• library Support assistant
• reader
• Scribe
• Workshop/laboratory assistant
• Sighted Guide
• proof reader
• Study assistant 
• examination Support Workers
• Manual Notetakers 

The government says it is encouraging disabled students to be more "independent learners". I feel they are completely missing the point of non medical helpers. They do not do the learning for the student. As much as is possible they enable the student to do the learning independently on the same level as any other student. 

While teaching staff should strive to make their teaching materials accessible, this does not remove the need for these support workers.

Likewise technology cannot always fully remove the need for all of these support staff. Try getting voice recognition software for advanced mathematics. Heck, we even use a special specific word processing program!

3) Students with Specific Learning Difficulties (SpLD) (eg dyslexia & dyspraxia) look set to be hit hard as they will only receive support "where their support needs are considered to be more complex". This by definition means that those with slightly less complex needs will lose all support altogether. This will have a hugely detrimental effect. 

One final comment: DSA was the first time I ever underwent an assessment of my disability needs. This was when I discovered that there were ways round some of the difficulties I was encountering. 

For instance I was having huge trouble using a normal mouse. I was given a trackball. Something so simple, yet it revolutionised my academic work and relieved a great deal of frustration!

The DSA assessment process in itself is hugely important and can help disabled students discover what would be useful to them during their time at university, be it physical aids, computer aids, software, support workers or proper supportive seating. It is a mistake to assume that disabled students simply know this. It is vital that this continue.

___________________

DSA is a hugely successful scheme. It has been praised by the National Audit office for recruiting and retaining disabled students. It is also effective. The Equality Challenge Unit (2013) statistical report shows a higher proportion of DSAs claimants attained a First/2:1 than those who did not receive DSAs.

These cuts seem set to undo all this and steal away the opportunities we enjoyed from all future disabled students.

The National  Association for Disabled Practitioners is calling to protect the support and the NUS has condemned the decision.

For further information please see this blog for a summary of the changes and a follow up post with suggestions on what to do about it.

Spread the word. Tell your MP. Write blogs. Let people know what is happening. We must try to stop this.

You can write to your MP online here.
Please also sign the e-petition here.
Share and Retweet this and use #ProtectDSA

Social Services Cuts on the Ground:

I feel very ill today. Not a day I would normally write. But what I heard yesterday was so shocking that I can't settle until I've written it down!

I received a call from Social Services yesterday, asking to come and visit me that afternoon regarding my care plan.
I was very pleased as I had been hassling them for the past three months to come and see me and update my financial assessment to work out my contributions towards my care.

It soon became clear that this visit was nothing to do with this, but was my annual report "to check how my care plan was working out and that everything was ok".
I mentioned my issues with finance and the social services chap duly made a note to contact the finances department upon his return.

The chap was lovely: very friendly and understanding. He had a long sheath of notes from the last time I had gone through this rigmarole so he said we didn't have to go through all the questions yet again. He asked how I managed my carers/Personal Assistants (PAs), what work they did for me, how I managed and if I was happy with what I had. He checked on my safety, particularly asking after the number of falls I have, my alarm button, and my arrangements in case of particularly bad seizure clusters or coming out of hospital.

So far, everything fine and dandy. As we finished up he laughed about the situation with Finance commenting that normally they would chase up any "change of income" like a flash, seeing an opportunity to get more money out of the client.

He then added: (pretty much exact wording as far as I can remember while it is fresh in my mind)

"I mean, at the moment, I'm going round and our clients have to justify the care packages they've already been given. We're told, go out there and do everything you can to save money. If you can find any reason, any small excuse to reduce hours, do it. I have to save a certain amount every week. 

I mean you're ok. I'm going to go back and say "this is great, good value for money, whatever you do, DON'T touch it." But because I haven't saved money with you, this means I'm going to have to cut money from other people I see.

It shouldn't be too bad at the moment because I managed to save £750 from a care package last week, which is great. So they're really pleased with me at the moment... well... I suppose it isn't great for the poor sod who lost his care package, but I mean, I did find them alternatives so I don't feel too bad about it.

You can usually find ways to save money. And I do find people who receive care who shouldn't be. I'm usually really pleased to take away their care. But I mean, they're usually the people playing the system and who should be working but aren't."

I don't know where to start with this statement.

a) I was sent someone here on false pretences. They were not here on my behalf to to "check how my care plan was working out and that everything was ok". They were here on behalf of the council to see if they could cut my hours at the slightest excuse.

b) Targets are being set per council worker, ie per case load. This means that it doesn't matter how much in total need that case load is, a certain amount MUST be saved, regardless of the needs of the individuals concerned.

c) The attitude being fostered is obviously poisonous. This was on the surface a genuinely nice sympathetic guy. Yet he had been suckered into a system where he thought it was right to go round taking care hours away and judging people.

And before you tell me that he is a professional who would know who is playing the system, I would add that he had never heard of lupus, a relatively common and in some cases debilitating autoimmune illness which renders 50% of patients unable to work. Yet on the surface most people "look well". How many of the people he has judged "capable of working" and "undeserving of care" have similar diagnoses of which he is ignorant?

There are a lot of people dismissing claims of problems and cuts in social care as scaremongering. Yesterday's experience is to me direct personal proof of the effects on the ground.

P.S.  I'm spending today feeling guilty at the thought of those unknown unsuspecting fellow disabled people in that chap's caseload who ARE going to lose hours from their care package this week, simply because I did not...

When "the vulnerable" have everything to fear.

Many disabled people are currently living in fear since the welfare reform bill became law. Some benefits are due to be replaced with stringent new criteria which mean that many disabled people will no longer qualify for support. With social services cutbacks many will be left with no help whatsoever.

I am not quite in that position. I am among what the government likes to call "the most vulnerable" (a term I personally hate and would never use). Currently in receipt of the highest levels of disability benefits and having easily passed the new dreaded draconian Work Capability Assessment I am in the support group of what is called ESA and am not expected to be able to work again. Having seen the criteria for the new benefits it is clear that even being as harsh as possible, I should easily qualify for the highest rates of these too.

With the government having promised that the reforms will see more support diverted to the "most vulnerable in our society", you would therefore think I have nothing to fear.

You couldn't be more wrong.

I currently live independently.
As I live alone I receive an extra payment called SDP (severe disability payment) which helps cover the extra costs of care and disability.
However a large portion of this and my other benefits goes to social services and in return I receive direct payments, money with which I employ carers to help me with every day tasks such as getting dressed, washed, eating, shopping, etc.
My LHA (Local Housing Allowance) is upgraded to a 2 bedroom rate so that carers or family can stay when my illness is so bad that someone needs to stay overnight.
My flat was adapted 8 years ago so that it is wheelchair friendly.

When the changes start coming in next year, all this will go.

a) SDP is being abolished completely.
b) The 2 bedroom allowance is no longer guaranteed.
c) I will continue to have to pay most of my benefits towards my care. I cannot manage without it.

I calculate that I will be around £80 per week worse off (around half from SDP and half from LHA).
At first I might be ok. Apparently there will be a transitional protection as far as SDP goes, which means I will only be £40 worse off and might be able to get that together somehow. As time goes on however, that will be eroded by inflation and benefit freezes.

The second big issue is : I cannot manage without a second bedroom.
Even if I could, there are no wheelchair friendly 1 bedroom flats available for rent privately (I've been looking). As far as social housing goes there is little wheelchair accessible housing available and in any case I am not allowed a bungalow until I am 50, ie in 17 years time!

So I either have to go into non wheelchair accessible accommodation without provision for my carer or go bankrupt!

The only other solution is for me to go into a care home at the ripe old age of 35. Ironically this will cost far more than if I were to stay put and continued to be paid benefits.

Before the election David Cameron said "If you are sick, disabled, frail, vulnerable, or the poorest in society you have nothing to fear" 


Sir, please look me in the eye and say that now.

EDIT: On April 20th the following article was published explaining that cuts in Worcestershire are to change social serices policy and would henceforth push disabled people into care homes. I rest my case.

I'll say I'm sorry... but that man still should have been working you know...

This week saw the Labour conference completely ignore any disability linked issues by deleting them from the agenda.

Luckily the leaders were not going to quite get off scott free and Kaliya Franklin and Sue Marsh were there to try to get the opposition to, well, oppose some of the harshest cuts and changes to hit disabled people in recent history.

Kaliya finally got a chance to question Ed Miliband 

"Evidence is overwhelmingly pointed to sick and disabled people being the hardest hit by the cuts, but this issue has been airbrushed almost entirely from conference. Are you reluctant to use the word disabled because the public has been so effectively convinced that we’re all scroungers and that the Labour party are not willing to challenge that stereotype on our behalf?"

She did manage to get an "almost apology" out of him:

"I take your point that I didn’t say in the speech yesterday, and I should have said it, fair point, that you’ve got to defend people who are with disability, ill health, and say that they shouldn’t be under attack"

However he still shows himself to lack understanding and show the same prejudice which permeates the whole system we currently have.

A few months back Ed Miliband made a speech which started off by saying he'd met a man on incapacity benefit and thought he could work even though his disability was genuine.

When Kaliya challenged him on this, rather than see how much harm this could cause disabled people, he defended himself as follows:

"my impression which is that he was somebody who had lost his job, I think ten years ago, right (...) the system didn’t sort of demand that he go back to work, the system sort of wrote him off"

"And the problem is, I met his next door neighbours, and they, genuinely, this is a story, I met his next door neighbours and they didn’t actually refer to him but they said ‘look, our problem is we’re working incredibly hard and we’re worried for we’re paying for people who can’t work"

In other words, with no medical information, no background, nothing except his own impression the the man "looked ok" and had been on benefits for a long time, Ed decided that he should be working. 

In particular he was encouraged by the fact that this disabled man had neighbours who resented the fact that he wasn't working.

This disabled man could have had any number of illnesses. Not everything is visible to the naked eye. Many serious and debilitating conditions do not show on the surface: lupus, MS, severe epilepsy, various neurological conditions, not to mention mental health illnesses.

His neighbours might not necessarily be aware of this man's medical conditions. They could simply have been jumping to conclusions and jealous. At worse they could have been disablist.

But Ed did not consider any of these things. The man looked ok and had been on benefits for 10 years. His neighbours were "hard working" and didn't want to pay for people who didn't work. Their word trumped his. They were believed and listened to. The disabled man was not. It was assumed he could and should be working as he had been on benefits for so long.

This in particular is something that people don't seem to understand. Some illnesses and disabilities are long term. That is what treatable but incurable means. You won't die, but you won't get better either. You will be just as sick 10 years on as you were the first year. And you will be just as incapable of work and just as much in need of benefits.

Sadly though it is this way of thinking that has brought us to where we are today.

If you look ok, then you probably are ok.

If you look ok and are on benefits then you are either lazy or are fraudulent. Tougher tests will help this.

Some people have been on benefits for a long time. This is because they have been "abandoned" on them but with help they would work. 

To stop this the new system will demand that they work and benefits will be time limited. 

People will have to work for their benefits, undertaking certain tasks, even those deemed as unfit for work, or face sanctions (removal of benefits for a time).

All of this completely ignores the reality of illness and disability. The people this will hit are not the very small number of fraudsters (0.5% of claims) who will be able to jump through any hoops thrown at them. Quite the opposite they will hit and harm the very disabled people these benefits are there to look after.

New assessments are rigid and very much like Ed do not take into account medical history but just look at a claimant on a certain day and see if they look ok and can do a few easy tasks which bear no resemblance to what is required to do a job week in week out. The system has been found unfit for purpose by every single inquiry into it.

By time limiting disability benefits very disabled people will suddenly lose their benefits through no fault of their own apart from being sick or disabled for "too long".

Sick and disabled people will find themselves sanctioned and lose their benefits when they are unable to do the tasks set for them by non disabled people unaware and completely out of touch with the realities of living with disability. Already people have lost their benefits for not attending an appointment with their Jobcentre advisor when they were too ill to attend. Remember that these are sick people classed as unfit to work.

Ed, sometimes what you see is not what you get. You offered to meet Kaliya and discuss this further. Please do. And please listen. Disabled people are getting desperate.