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2380 ESA claimants and 270 incapacity benefit and severe disablement allowance claimants died within one year of being found fit for work by the Department for Work and Pensions.

Don't forget that all these people are under 65 years old.

Furthermore, Iain Duncan Smith has stated that he intends to get more of these claimants back to work.

The Government has been trying not to release these figures but were forced to.

SOURCE


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Mis-quote : ATOS found him fit for work, not the DWP. DWP released the figures today.

ATOS, another International outfit, that has withdrawn their £500m contract.

Absolutely appalling figures.

Last edited by granny; 27th Aug 2015 4:39pm.

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Wrong!

ATOS do not make decisions, the DWP do the decisions.


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Atos Healthcare was part of a serious controversy in the UK over Work Capability Assessment introduced in 2008 to determine who should receive employment and support allowance. Decisions were taken by officials at the DWP using evidence from the assessments carried out by Atos Healthcare


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Yes, ATOS were little more than a management company, they employed the assessment staff, provided the locations and support staff.

The actual Work Capability Assessments were strictly in line with the DWP's specifications.

The DWP was under severe criticism for both the Work Capability assessments and the excessive delays due to shortage of staff. The DWP's solution was to sub-contract the assessment and engineer it so that ATOS took the blame - in reality ATOS did nothing wrong at all but were well pissed off with all the bad publicity they received.

The Work Capability Assessment is wholly DWP driven, they specify the tests, they make the decisions on the results of the tests. Any appeal was made against the DWP staff's judgement, comments and decision, the person that performed the assessment was un-answerable as they only recorded actual events.


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Is that why DWP wanted and managed to negotiate an early end to the ATOS contract, due to concerns about the quality of the work ?

These companies are far too big and too involved in so many other areas, they concentrate on business and charts, not the real purpose they have been engaged for. ATOS health was taken over by Maximus ,an American company I think.

Weren't the calculations done on a points system ?

Last edited by granny; 27th Aug 2015 5:33pm.

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ATOS wanted out, DWP was still very slow in making decisions due to shortage of staff and so were still being heavily criticised.

Further criticism was that more than half of appeals were being successful so demonstrating that the whole Work Capability Assessment decision process was not working correctly.

So the DWP wanted to change the system.


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It's been a mess from beginning to end. There was even a committee headed by Margaret Hodge that scrutinized the goings on. Not sure if it made any difference.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Work_Capability_Assessment

"On 22 July 2013, the barrage of criticism appeared to be vindicated when the DWP announced that it had directed Atos to put in place a 'quality improvement plan' and would be bringing in a new firm to carry out the assessments, at this point supposedly in addition to Atos. The move ostensibly followed an audit of reports produced in the six months to April 2013 (when Atos furnished more than 300,000 recommendations on fitness for work) in which the DWP claimed that it had found 164 that were unsatisfactory - yet the DWP went on to suggest that these "unsatisfactory" reports had nonetheless come up with the correct recommendation on fitness to work (some observers have speculated that it was actually Atos that came up with the plan, with the DWP then trying to gain the upper hand in terms of public perception).[79]

The 'quality improvement plan' amounted, almost entirely, to the retraining of Atos's WCA assessors; it began in June (the DWP held back the announcement for a month) and went on until the autumn of 2013. The immediate impact was an increase in the average time taken to carry out a face-to-face assessment, from around 50 minutes to about 80 minutes, and an increase in the attrition rate of Atos assessors. In the second half of 2013, a long-term trend emerged: the number of people on ESA began to rise, as did the proportion of claimants going into the Support Group.

At the same time, the Coalition's attitude towards the WCA underwent a sea-change. PricewaterhouseCoopers were called in to audit 'quality issues'[80] and in the autumn reshuffle the Prime Minister ordered the incumbent of the ministerial post with responsibility for the WCA to return to the backbenches.[81] In December, in a statement to the Work and Pensions Committee, the new Disabilities Minister criticised the test and blamed the Labour government which introduced it, describing the assessment process as a "mess" that the Coalition had been obliged to pick up when it came to power.[82]

Meanwhile, Atos called in its own firm of auditors and began to secretly negotiate an early exit from its £500m WCA contract with the DWP in Great Britain (but not in Northern Ireland, where the contract with the devolved Department for Social Development remained intact).[83][84] In February 2014 the French firm went public, citing death threats to its staff, criticism from Labour MPs and its own opinion that the WCA was "not working" as the reasons why it wanted to quit.[85] At the same time, the company removed the 'Atos Healthcare' branding from its occupational health division and rebadged it as 'OH Assist'


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Think that says it all, ATOS was achieving a 0.05% failure rate and DWP were using that to shift blame.

Any normal organisation would be ecstatic to achieve 0.05% it is a phenomenally high success rate (99.95%).

ATOS's only failing was not to sue the DWP for defamation.

IDS blaming everyone else for the failings of his own greed.


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Perhaps it meant to say "Fit to provide work for undertakers"

Interview on Radio Merseyside Wednesday about cuts to disability payments. One disabled caller came on to [censored] off all the "disabled" claimers who whilst havng some disability just see it as a free meal ticket when many could do some form of work but choose not too.

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DPAC triggers UN inquiry into grave and systematic violations of disabled people’s rights
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Aug
31
2015

Press Release

For Immediate Release

DPAC triggers UN inquiry into grave and systematic violations of disabled people’s rights

The UN Inquiry and UN visit to UK to examine the grave and systematic violations of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD) was initiated by DPAC.

This inquiry is the first of its kind-it has great historic importance. It means the UN will examine the vicious and punitive attacks on disabled people’s independent living as well as the cuts which have seen so many placed in inhuman circumstances and has led to unnecessary deaths.

In May 2013, after 3 years of onslaught against disabled people by the Condem government, DPAC made a formal submission under the CRPD Optional Protocol which establishes an individual complaints mechanism for the Convention.

There was less information and statistics than now on the impact of the Welfare Reform and loss of a right to independent living on disabled people. However the evidence DPAC presented to the CRPD Committee was extremely strong

DPAC’s evidence presented the regression of disabled people’s convention rights and the grave and systematic violations of disabled people’s rights under the UNCRPD. It was accepted by the UNCRPD Committee.

After an initial response from the government responding point by point to the DPAC submission, DPAC made a second submission, supported by further evidence of the disproportionate impact of all cuts on disabled people.

This submission, as the first one, included,

the failings of the Work Capability Assessment,

the bedroom tax,

the closure of the Independent Living Fund

the unwillingness of the government to make an assessment of the cumulative impact of the Welfare Reform on disabled people

its reluctance to monitor what was happening to disabled people who were found fit for work after an assessment and who lost their only means of support (see complete list)i,.

This submission was partly based on firmly sourced statistical and other factual evidence, and also on the hundreds of personal testimonies that DPAC has received from individuals who have been affected adversely by the governments’ welfare reforms.

The UK government sent a second response to the UN about DPAC’s submission but by then the CRPD Committee had decided that there was enough evidence to open an inquiry into the violations of disabled people’s rights by the UK government.

The Committee also told DPAC that the inquiry was totally confidential and could be jeopardised and called off if any news of an UN inquiry was leaked.

It was the indiscretion of an ex-member of the CRPD Committee which brought the inquiry into the open, but DPAC kept its side of the non-disclosure agreement. The further leak in newspapers on Sunday 30th August convinced us that disabled people needed to know the full extent of the process

This inquiry is an unprecedented move and unchartered territory for the UNCRPD Committee.

It is also another route of hope for disabled people who have been abused by the UK government, ignored by most of the opposition and betrayed by the big Disability Charities.

ENDS

Editors Notes:

About Disabled People against Cuts (DPAC)

DPAC is a grass roots campaign body. It was formed by a group of disabled people after the first mass protest against the austerity cuts and their impact on disabled people held on the 3rd October in Birmingham 2010, England. It was led by disabled people under the name of The Disabled Peoples’ Protest. DPAC has over 20,000 members & supporters and an outreach of over 45,000 disabled people. DPAC works with many anti-cuts groups, Universities, Disabled Peoples’ Organizations, and Unions www.dpac.uk.net twitter: @Dis_PPL_Protest

contacts: [email protected]

Notes:

1) the UNCRPD Optional Protocol

2) the full list of issues sent to the UNCRPD Committee as part of the complaint by DPAC:

Scrapping of Incapacity Benefit

1% cap on benefit rises

Time limitation of WRAG

Bedroom tax

Freezing child benefit

Overall benefit Cap:

Introduction of Personal Independent Payment

Universal Credit

Abolition of Independent living Fund

Change to Local Housing Allowance

Uprating and cuts to Tax Credits

Localisation and 10% cut for Council Tax Benefit

1% cap on various benefits and tax credits

Work programme and disabled people

Benefit cap

Benefit cap in London

Spare room surplus

Other changes to Housing Benefits

Discretionary Housing Payments

Abolition of Council Tax Benefit

Universal Credit

Sanctions and workfare

Hardship Payments, Budgeting

Hardship Payments, Budgeting Loans and Short Term advances

Change from Disability Living Allowance

Benefit Delay

Employment Support Allowance

Tribunal support for appeals for ESA , DLA and PIP

Loss of right to appeal and Mandatory Re-considerations

Legal Aid Cuts

Social care crisis

Abuse in care

Mental health

Food Banks

Workfare and benefit sanctions

National Rail Services

Crossrail

Buses and coaches

Tube network

University disability access

Changes to Special Educational Needs (SEN) services

i



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If there is a God,any justice or just plain and simple karmic repercussions of the greatest kind , then the government will pay for an eternity in the recesses of hell for the cruel tactics and slave driving philosophies , all so they can bask in their glorious luxury with the money made from their corruption , greed , pollution causing and warmongery profit profit profit type of life they lead !!!! GRRRRRRRR


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