DLA and AA Petition Needs Your Help

If you are not already aware of the governments plans to scrap DLA & AA can you sign this petition please:

http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/AttendanceA/

I received this in my email today from benefitsandwork:

CHARITIES ADMIT DEFEAT

We have received a copy of an email which a campaigner says came from the charity ASBAH (Association for Spina Bifida and Hydrocephalus) in response to his concerns about the care green paper. The email appears to admit defeat in the fight to save DLA and AA:

“. . .ASBAH, in line with many other larger bodies is of the view that these proposals have already gathered too much momentum to be reversed and that major changes are inevitable. . . it is vital within any alternative system that people retain elements within their budgets where they can exercise choice in how they spend that money. Although we have not adopted a position where we are fighting to save DLA and AA we would fight to see this element of choice protected and would resist any attempt to convert all support to 'in kind'.”

We have emailed ASBAH to ask for confirmation that the email is genuine and to ask which other ‘larger bodies’ – presumably disability charities - have also given up the fight to save DLA and AA.

We have yet to receive a response.

MINISTER’ STATEMENT: IS DLA REALLY SAVED?

One week on and there has been absolutely no corroboration of Care Services minister Phil Hope’s off-the-cuff statement that DLA is not being considered for the axe.

As we pointed out last week, Hope’s ‘don’t worry, be happy’ exhortation contradicts previous statements made by the DWP. So, the continued failure by either the DWP or the Department of Health to make any official statement confirming that they have changed their position and that DLA is now safe can only be a cause for deep suspicion and grave concern.

In addition, no reassuring words whatsoever have been offered in relation to AA.

So, at Benefits and Work, our message continues to be ‘It’s not over yet: carry on campaigning’.

NO 10 PETITION STRUGGLING

The petition about DLA and AA seems to be grinding to a halt again, at under 12,000 signatures. As we said last week, if any agency starts a petition it’s vital that they give it maximum publicity or it ends up damaging, rather than promoting, their cause.

Do you have time to check the website of any disability charity that you have a connection with and, if there isn’t an obvious link to the No 10 petition, email them and politely ask them to publish one.

You could point out that the petition was started by the Disability Charities Consortium and that it’s important that disability charities now work together effectively to promote it. If they can’t act together on so simple a thing as getting signatures on a petition, then what exactly can they act together on and how can they claim to be representing their members’ interests?

The petition can be found at:

http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/AttendanceA/

GREEN PAPER WEBSITE AMAZED

The Big Care Debate website have answered our queries about missing responses by replying that “we have received an amazing response from the public in regards to the Green Paper, on both the website and via email. We are doing our best to work our way through them, and have them online and ready to view as soon as we can.”

We know that in the past, such consultations have struggled to get responses numbering in the hundreds, let alone the thousands. So, we can certainly believe that the ‘amazing’ response by Benefits and Work campaigners has taken the Department of Health by surprise. But we do wonder how hard it can be to read and publish a few thousand posts over several months. Is the sheer volume of communications really the only problem? Rather than, say, the fact that most responses are overwhelmingly hostile to the green paper?

If you haven’t yet sent a response to the green paper, please do so by visiting this link:

http://careandsupport.direct.gov.uk/greenpaper/execsum/

Or emailing: careandsupport@dh.gsi.gov.uk

We’re concerned that there doesn’t appear to be any complaints procedure for the green paper consultation and we’re looking into this. But at the very least, if they don’t publish your response it will give more grounds for challenging the validity of the whole green paper consultation, which is after all a statutory process.

POST YOUR NEWS

Finally, remember that you can post your news in the Benefits and Work forum, if you’re a member, at:

http://www.benefitsandwork.co.uk/forum?func=showcat&catid=13

and/or in the free welfare watch forums at:

http://welfarewatch.myfineforum.org/index.php

You can also keep up with news about opposition to the green paper at the Carer Watch campaign blog:

http://carerwatch.com/cuts/

Unfortunately, we’re getting so many emails on this subject that we are unlikely to be able to respond individually. But we do appreciate hearing your news and views and we do encourage you to publish them for others to read on the forums detailed above.

Good luck,

Please feel free to forward or publish this email.

Benefits and Work Publishing Ltd

www.benefitsandwork.co.uk

Company registration No. 5962666

(c) 2009 Steve Donnison. All rights reserved.

Nothing New Then, Move Along

Hi,

I have been reading all this week that David Cameron's first priority as a Tory Prime Minister [if he wins of course] is to reduce the amount of people on Incapacity benefit. I would have thought his first priority would be to encourage companies in this country to start creating real, well paid jobs, what's the point of getting people to be work ready when there is no real work to go to. The only people who will be getting anything out of this is is companies like A4e, Working Links. I can imagine Emma Harrison rubbing her hands together already.

You have seen it on Benefit Busters already where people are placed in temporary work or in low paid employment. Imagine the career prospects and the stimulation for my brain working at the 99p shop?. I have experienced this already by going on a six week placement and there was no real job at the end of it only to go full circle and be back where I started again.

Its just the same old tosh to try and win voters before an election by saying that he will be attacking the people on benefits. Nothing new then, move along!.

ta ta

Brain Blogger

Benefit Busters Ep3

How do?

Well what can I say about benefits busters that hasn't been said already. Shaw Trust were doing just the same as A4E were doing in the previous programme in trying to meet targets and to get the £300 monthly bonus. It would not be so bad as if they could treat people with some empathy not just objects to meet targets. It did not show anything that Shaw Trust actually did for the clients than the initial interviews, what did they do in the time spent while at Shaw Trust?. Were they making models in cardboard in team building exercises?.

Sherrie was asking if anyone was interested in being canvassers or car salesman, to me it all seemed a bit unrealistic, for example, here we have 2 applicants for a job as a car sales, one a car salesman who has say 5 years recent experience and a person who has been on IB for 5-10 years has little or no experience. The IB claimants application would go straight in the shredder.

It was also disgraceful the way Sherrie was saying about the guy who did the painting and decorating and saying she would support him but you could see that she was probably thinking that he did not really have a cat in hells chance of getting a job at 57. I thought she was being ageist and she had virtually made her mind up before she ahd even started. The thing is she should of realised that older people have knowledge and life experience, he also had a history of running his own business and this could be transferred into something else instead of just giving him false hope.

I felt the better advisor was the one helping Mandy who had PTSD/alchohol/depression problems. She seemed to be more on the ball. I think Mandy had the right idea in that she wanted to do something but most employers probably wouldn't touch her with a barge pole so doing some voluntary work is probably the best route to start off with building up her self-esteem. The advisor was also right saying that she needed some counselling and to sort herself out which might take a year.

To get people back into the workplace after a long time out isn't like selling a car, people have lots of problems that need addressing before they are even ready to try and get back in the workplace. It is not as simple as shoving them on a course and doing job search and trying to get your £300 bonus at the same time. The thing is in this country these things are not in place as yet.

I can't say I have a lot of sympathy for Kieron as he had no problems walking and he could walk so he was mobile, he could pick up a bucket full of water and mop the floor. How did the bucket get in the sink to start off with? Picking up the bucket with a bad back is difficult. If he is worried about ending up in a wheelchair I wouldn't have thought picking up a bucket of water was a good idea. I also thought at one point when he dropped the piece of paper he was going to pick it up again and I thought he was reaching forward for the ball in the garden. Kieron has done nothing to change the minds of any watching daily mail readers.

I thought the job Sherrie asked him to apply for as an office administrator was totally unrealistic as he was not experienced and then the other guy was talking him out of it and suggesting going to college to do basic maths and literacy. Oh I forgot Sherrie wants her £300 bonus. I think Kerion could do something but you have got to start somewhere.

Looking at the medical he went to I thought from the questions being asked that he was going to fail and he did. Was the examiner who asked him to bend over at the assessment actually qualified to make a judgement because apparently these disability analysts are not doctors and have only been on a three week course?.

I didn't think much of Sherries use of the phrase having to spoon-fed her clients who she felt were too lazy. I think if she knew about people who are sick/disabled then she should have said that they were not motivated and would have used her skills to address this. If a person wants to buy a car they already have the motivation to do it, that's the difference between selling cars and people with illnesses and disabilities, they are more complicated.

I think the governments plans to kick people off IB onto JSA isn't going to do much for motivating people and it would send people into depression.

From what I have read in the last year the sick and disabled feel that the government are punishing them for being sick and disabled. I just think the government have just gone the wrong way about it and all they are worried is saving there money. When they thought up these reforms did they actually think of asking sick and disabled people who have got back into work what motivated them and then asking current IB claimants what would motivate them.

If I can see all these things in this programme the question is why haven't I got a job for Shaw Trust/A4e earning £2000 a month?. I would definitely make a better job of it than Sherrie. I didn't think much to Hayley Taylor's approach but you can guess by now I am definitely not a fan of Sherrie Jepson. This to me just shows all the things that are bad about pathways to work.

This programme did very little to show the actual problems that lot's of sick and disabled people have trying to find work. Neither did it show anything about employers discrimination against the sick and disabled. I felt it seemed to spend a lot of its time focusing on Kieron and his negative attitude.

If you are a person on IB and after watching a programme like this would you want to go on one of these programmes offered by A4e/Shaw Trust/Working Links when you know there are people like Sherrie who are out there who are target & bonus driven working in the pathways to work system?.

Are they thinking about your best interests and your aspirations or about meeting the target and the £300 bonus?.

Ta ta for now

Mark Pilkington, I Feel Your Pain [Benefit Busters Episode 2]

Having watched Benefits Busters last night I really felt for Mark Pilkington who got the job with the landscape contractors. Did they give him the job because the cameras were there?. It was so disheartening when he got the letter saying that his hours were being reduced. I really felt his pain. He wanted to work, you could see when he had been in the job a short while what a difference it was making to his life and the relationship with his Wife, he made the effort and now he his back to square one again.

The programme said A4e were paid for Mark being referred by the jobcentre and then I would imagine a4e would probably be paid again when he got the job at the contractors. Now Mark is back to square one again will he get referred back to a4e again? easy money if you ask me, no wonder Emma has that smug grin when she was being interviewed for benefit busters and i would have that smug grin after getting a multi-million contract from the DWP. I mean Emma's alright, arsehole to everyone else, show me the money! Does Emma care about someone like Mark?

Even when she was being interviewed she didn't even let the interviewer finish his question and kept saying, yes, yes, yes, yes and grinning.

Can someone tell me what was all the making of models with cardboard and sellotape got to do with looking for a job?. How demoralising. I mean my kids come back from school with models like that and this company is being paid to do this.

Lets see what happens next week with the sick and disabled.

ta ta

Brain blogger

How Can You Prove That You Have Epilepsy?

I went away on a holiday this week but I forgot to take my medication with me, shit like this happens I forget things. I sat on the train going to London and I suddenly realised I had forgot my medication. I phoned my GP surgery as soon as I could and they said that I should temporarily register with another surgery which is the normal procedure. So I walked into the nearest surgery and I could not believe it when the receptionist said to me "I don't think we can help you very much unless you can prove you have epilepsy".

I mean how can you do that then? If I don't have any tablets for a while I could give you a ringside ticket when I do have a fit. I mean should I wear a t-shirt saying "I have epilepsy and I have been on the medication for almost 18 years". I did see a doctor eventually after waiting for over an hour and told him my predicament, gave him the number of my GP of which he phoned and he then gave me a prescription.

I have been thinking about having a t-shirt printed soon because my head injury is invisible and it affects me every day but it doesn't mean though that I am lazy or don't want to work. Any ideas?

Its Not My Fault Theres Not Enough Tanks In Afghanistan

I love this comment I got in my comments box the other day, its just typical of the mindset that people think that blaming the long term unemployed and people on IB for the governments incompetence and the bankers greed:

kbo1964 said: jesus wept! i pay a fortune in stopages to support thieving scumbags!

why isn't the csa chaseing absent fathers
is this why the mod can't send vehicles to afganistan

james smith

James, I sympathise with you for paying a fortune in stoppages and the MOD not having enough vehicles and the absent fathers. I think you need to be knocking on Gordon Brown's door about this and asking the bankers these questions.

I would love to get a job but with a hidden disabilty and no work history for 10 years it doesn't really make me attractive to future employers. I do voluntary work to build up a work history and a track record and I have a good record of voluntary work and I am still trying to build myself up. Lots of people do voluntary work trying to build up there history and to try and get fit enough to get back to work but they are not recognized. As far as the government are concerned all they are doing is just sitting at home watching Jeremy Kyle and drinking lager in the morning.

I want a job as much as anyone else, it would do wonders for my mental wellbeing and I would stop worrying about the nasty brown envelopes. I go to the jobcentre hoping that I can get somewhere but I afterwards I feel more depressed than before I went. I am so disillusioned. All they want me to do is apply for low paid jobs that are unrealistic and have no real prospects.

All the government and the Tories according to this article in the Times want to do is kick as many people off IB and onto JSA so they can save money. Will the jobcentre be able to cope?. Kick the 2.7m off IB onto JSA and you get 5m unemployed and then you will still be paying for me probably in higher taxes to pay for JSA.

see ya

DLA & Benefit Busters

The possible threat of the withdrawal of DLA is worrying as I am a recipient of DLA myself. it looks like it is just another way of this damn governments no more benefits campaign and make sick and disabled peoples lives more difficult and back to the 1800's Poor Law.

It just seems to me just lately to be an all out attack on the vulnerable/the unemployed and people who don't have a voice to support them. I have already added my name to the Benefits and Work DLA & AA campaign which can be found here

I must say I really can't wait to watch on Channel 4 Benefit Busters , no doubt another program aimed to put benefit claimants in a bad light. No doubt the sick and disabled will feature in the series somewhere. We shall wait and see. I am appalled that such programs are put on our screens for so-called entertainment. I saw that it features A4e which you can read about on the newdealscandal blog

ta ta

brain blogger