Thought Id start this one going because its rather dead on this board at the moment and I suppose all my usual muckers are either at the Stella tennis event watching Dim Tim (lose again) or at Henly Regatta eating cucumber sandwiches (they wish,...NOT).

Anyway please feel free to just talk to yourself blast away and let it go on any company or subject you wish. Just wish Id thought of this one before.

cheers GF.

Well VOX POLITICAL say they have proof and I trust them.

They said back in January for example that the welfare reforms were coming off the tracks they said they had proof that IDS had stopped all follow up reviews of existing ESA claimants and that ATOS had gotten into such a bad mess with the assessments of claimants that only new cases would be reviewed and it was costing the tax payer millions of pounds per day.

Well they were right although IDS lied through his teeth and deneyed it all even in the commons and what happens ATOS come out this weekend and say they dont want the WCA contract any more and try to blame it on death threats but the truth is below.

JUST HAVE A LOOK AT THIS WHICH TELLS THE TRUTH>>>>>>>

All repeat WCA medicals to be stopped
Created on Monday, 24 February 2014 14:14
Category: Latest news

In an urgent memo obtained by Benefits and Work, the DWP have told staff that due to a growing backlog at Atos all current employment and support allowance (ESA) claimants will be left on the benefit, without further medical checks, until another company can be found to do repeat work capability assessments (WCAs). The memo, dated 20 January, goes on to say that this will reduce the number of claimants moving off ESA, but that there are no plans to inform claimants or MPs about the change.

Benefits and Work obtained the memo from the DWP via a Freedom of Information request. It is headed: ‘FOR URGENT CASCADE. Control of the Referral of Repeat work Capability Assessments’.

The memo explains that back in July a ministerial statement announced that:

“in the drive to continually improve the Work Capability Assessment process and bring down waiting times for claimants, DWP had decided to seek additional capacity to deliver Work Capability Assessments.

“We are working towards having new provision in place – it will of course take some time for that to become fully operational.”

However, the memo goes on to explain that:

“The number of cases currently with Atos Healthcare has grown. A decision has therefore been taken to control the referral of repeat work capability assessments. Therefore, with effect from 20 January 2014, further routine repeat assessments referrals to Atos will be deferred until further notice.

“Controlling the volume of repeat Work Capability Assessments should help us to reduce delays for new claimants and those that have already been referred.”

The memo goes on to say that staff must still refer claimants for reassessment where there has been a reported change in condition, giving the example of a claimant placed in the Work Related Activity Group whose condition worsens and who might be expected to move into the Support Group.

Aside from this, however, reassessment of existing claimants is to end until further notice, with no new cases being referred to Atos from 20th January.

The memo is keen to point out that the decision to stop repeat assessments by Atos is not ‘linked to the quality issues outlined in July 2013’ which the DWP ‘has been working closely with Atos to resolve’. It also reassures readers that the change will have no impact on Atos’ ability to carry out personal independence payment assessments.

It does, however, admit that the result of the change is that the number of people coming off ESA each month will reduce because:

“the Work Capability Assessment is the main trigger for off-flows from the Employment and Support Allowance load. We will continue to assess the potential for alternative interventions on those whose repeat Work Capability Assessments are deferred to seek to manage this consequence.”

No details of what those ‘alternative interventions’ might be is given.

It is clear, however, that the DWP is not keen for people to be aware of the ever more disastrous state of medical assessments for benefits by Atos. The memo explains that claimants who enquire about when their next WCA will be, should only be told that:

“Although the Department will periodically review a person’s Limited Capability for Work, there is no set date for this to happen.

“The timing of this review is at the discretion of the Decision Maker acting on behalf of the Secretary of State and is influenced by the evidence available to them, which can mean on occasion longer periods between face to face assessments. “

In addition, the memo explains that as this is simply an ‘operational decision’ and not a ‘policy change’ there are no plans to notify ‘external stakeholders such as claimants, claimant representative groups, Members of Parliament, etc.’

It is hard to imagine that IDS and his fellow DWP ministers believed that they could keep this further Atos-related failure secret for long: you can’t stop reassessing thousands of claimants a week without anyone noticing. If, however, they could have kept it secret at least until they found a new company to take on the repeat assessments, it would have been easier to explain away and not added to the ever mounting pressure for a complete overhaul of the WCA.

“Yes, there was briefly a problem” IDS could have said “But we now have a new provider and it is no longer an issue.”

As it is, this news is simply further proof that the WCA is not fit for purpose, because as soon as the DWP attempts to impose proper quality controls a massive backlog results. It is, we hope, another nail in the coffin of a completely discredited system.

And, for all those claimants with static or degenerative conditions who continue to be forced to undergo repeat assessments, often followed by repeat appeals, on an annual basis, the news will come as a welcome respite.

IDS should RESIGN or be SACKED.

Hays youve gone very quiet you were a big fan of these assessments. Said the minister was doing a fine job.

GF

Agreed with sacking of IDS and half or more of the present cabinet.


---------

I cannot see any good reason for not utilising Medical Data once collected as long as it is effectively anonymised.

Opting out, or in, might make the pooled gathered information biased, or slanted. Also, as per usual, some like Cynic would want to have access to the benefits from the information from the system which is gathered from the backs of others.

=----=


Medical and Social Epidemiology has probably advanced medicine and social Well-being more than any other branch of medicine. The uses of the information gather often led to earlier diagnosis, treatment and prevention, which society as a whole benefit from.
------

If you want to benefit from a society and you are able to, put something into it.

========

(The information should be anonymous (unless state otherwise) but still sufficient to recognise clusters. Have a look at the benefits of epidemiology in the Jewish population the 70s in NY.

----------

The information gathered and analysed should be costed and the majority freely dispersed in anonymous form.

Can't understand why Wee Alex wants to escape from the Tories?

Perhaps it is something to do with Osborne's and Cameron's valiant sacrifice of the hard working people and the brilliant future they personally have.



United Kingdom national debt

20 years of national debt
The United Kingdom National Debt is the total quantity of money borrowed by the Government of the United Kingdom at any one time through the issue of securities by the British Treasury and other government agencies.

As of Q1 2013 UK government debt amounted to £1,377 billion, or 88.1% of total GDP, at which time the annual cost of servicing the public debt amounted to around £43bn, or roughly 3% of GDP. This is roughly the same size as the British defence budget. It was forecast to rise to 96% of total GDP in 2013, further rising to 99% of GDP in 2014. At the end of December 2013, public sector net debt (see government debt) in the UK was £1,254.3 billion or 75.7% of GDP.[1]

Due to the Government's significant budget deficit, the national debt is increasing by approximately £121 billion per annum, or around £2.3 billion each week.

On 23 February 2013 Moody's downgraded UK credit rating from AAA to Aa1.

fossy - do try reading what i actually wrote (#37100), and if then reporting on it, i'ld be obliged if you would do so accurately instead of "adjusting" it to suit

Don't forget that Labour signed the contract with ATOS in March 2005 It costs £100m to administrate.

Cynic,

DYOH,

But start with;

"cynic Send an email to cynic View cynic's profile - 25 Feb 2014 10:58 - 37096 of 37107

fossy/sticky - hence my post 37091 ...... in fact, all my family + m-in-l have specifically opted OUT, but in my opinion, dissemination of medical records should be by opting IN only"


------------

Haze,

The intelligentsia of the Torrid Party signed the contracts with ATOS again in 2010

Seemingly without "due care and diligence".

Nice try Hays Labour indeed did sign ATOS up but the coalition ignored labours report that they were not fit for purpose and RENEWED the contract under IDS stewardship.

In fact the coalition are continuing to award ATOS more contracts for PIP etc. etc.

Beggars belief given their historical track record. How many more suicides do they want.

Ahhh Anne Begg MP just mentioning the above fact on radio.

Atos ‘death threats’ claim – ‘outrageous’ insult to those its regime has killed
23
Sunday
Feb 2014
Posted by Mike Sivier in Benefits


Watching the stories stack up in the wake of the national day of protest against Atos last Wednesday has been very interesting.

The immediate response was that Atos has approached the government, seeking an early end to its contract. This deal, under which Atos administers the hated Work Capability Assessments to people on incapacity or disability benefits, would have been worth more than £1 billion to the company over a 10-year period.

Allegedly, company employees have been receiving death threats, both during and after the protests. We’ll come back to those shortly.

The Conservative-led Coalition took this development in the way we have come to expect – spitefully. A DWP spokesperson said that the company’s service had declined to an unacceptable level, and that the government was already seeking tenders from other firms for the contract.

This is what happens when bullies squabble.

Atos is the big bully that has just had a shock because the other kids in the playground stood up to it and made it clear they weren’t going to stand for its nonsense any more. We’re told that all bullies are cowards and it appears to be true in this case – Atos went running to the bigger bully (the government) and said it was scared. The government then did what bigger bullies do; it said Atos was rubbish anyway and set about finding someone else to do its dirty work.

Here’s the sticking-point, though – as the BBC identified in its article: “The government was furious with Atos for leaking information it believes to be commercially confidential… If Atos wants to pull out early, some other companies may pay less to take those contracts on than they otherwise would.”

I should clarify that companies don’t actually pay for contracts; they offer to carry out the work at the lowest prices they think are viable, in competition with other firms. The government chooses the company it feels is best-suited to the work. In this situation, it seems likely that the possibility of death threats may put some firms off even applying.

So let’s come back to those threats. A spokesperson for the organisers of Wednesday’s demonstration tells us that pickets took place outside 93 Atos centres, across the UK. Most of these were very small – averaging 30 people or less (I can confirm that in Newtown, Powys, a maximum of 15 people attended at any one time). Brighton and London were bigger, but 12 demos had only one person present.

“That is really funny because, as you have seen, Atos are saying they had to close down all their centres for the day – up and down the country – because of huge hoards of scary, threatening disabled people issuing death threats,” the spokesperson said.

“All demos were peaceful and no trouble or arrests were reported.”

In the spokesperson’s opinion: “Atos have been planning to step down for a long time because they weren’t making enough profit and just used our tiny little demos as an excuse.”

Disabled People Against Cuts (DPAC) and sister group Black Triangle issued a joint statement: “The bizarre exit strategy Atos have developed in identifying apparent physical threats on Facebook despite the growing lists of real deaths caused by the WCA regime is an outrageous insult to all those who have died and all those who have lost family members through this regime.

“It is an insult to those left without their homes, without money and needing to go to food banks.

“It is an insult to every person who has suffered worsening physical and mental health through this inhuman regime.”

The statement also poured water on any government claim that other companies had been put off bidding for the contract:”The alphabet corporations – G4S, A4E, SERCO, CAPITA – are already lining up to take over the multi-million profits and the mantle of the new Grim Reapers. The misery imposed by this Government and the DWP will continue as long as its heinous policies continue.”

I would strongly urge all readers to put their support behind the remainder of the statement, which asserted: “The Work Capability Assessment must also end.

“The reign of terror by this unelected Coalition Government which has awarded itself pay rises and cut taxes for those earning more than £150,000 while piling punishment, poverty, misery and premature death on everyone else in its policies of rich against poor must end.

“Make no mistake – we will continue to demonstrate against ATOS, now delivering the complete failure of PIP in which claims are being delayed by up to a year.

“We will demonstrate against any other company that takes over the WCA contract.

“We will continue to demand the immediate removal of the WCA, and the removal of this Government.”

Hear, hear.

UNBELIEVABLE.........

TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 25, 2014

Richard Benyon's Housing Benefit hypocrisy


If you ever needed another example of the vile hypocrisy of the Tories, you should check out some of the stuff that Richard Benyon, the Tory MP for Newbury, has said about benefits and the welfare system.

He repeatedly uses the term "something for nothing" to slam benefits recipients, yet he himself is a much bigger benefit recipient than any unemployed person, or member of the ever increasing demographic working poor.

What he fails to mention every time he rants about the size of the welfare state, is that he is one of the very biggest beneficiaries of the welfare system, as his company (Englefield Estate Trust Corporation Limited) raked in £625,964 in housing benefit from West Berkshire council last year. It is likely that his company receives much more from other councils too, given that it holds land and property all over the United Kingdom.

What people fail to realise about housing benefit is that when it is paid out to help poor families cover the cost of private rents, the idle rentier class (like Richard Benyon) are the beneficiaries, not the tenants themselves. The DWP themselves admit that it costs well over £1,000 extra per year in housing benefit for every tenant that is housed in private accomodation, rather than social housing.

Since the Tories came to power and launched their economically illiterate austerity experiment, the size of the already bloated housing benefit bill has grown dramatically to £24 billion in 2013, as hundreds of thousands of families (mainly the working poor) have been driven into such poverty that they have become entitled to help with the cost of their rent. The number of working poor families reliant upon housing benefit has soared 104% between 2009 and 2013. The beneficiaries of this soaring housing benefit bill are not the tenants themselves, but private landlords like Richard Benyon.

Here's a direct quote from Richard Benyon's website:
"The Government is reforming Labour’s ‘something for nothing’ welfare culture, by capping the amount one household can get in benefits"
Given that his company rakes in hundreds of thousands per year in housing benefit, this simply isn't right, because the amount of cash his household receives in housing benefit hasn't been capped at all.

Yes, the government has capped the amount that "the lower orders" can claim in welfare, but there is absolutely no limit on the amount that the aristocracy and the idle rentier class can siphon out of government coffers through housing benefit.

Here's a response from Eileen Short, of Defend Council Housing:
“How dare Richard Benyon lecture us about ‘something for nothing’ when he is living off the poorest and milking taxpayers all the way to the bank?"
And here's a quote from David Orr, chief executive of the National Housing Federation, on the subject of housing benefits:
"We hear a lot about 'making work pay', but a decent job won't even cover the cost of a home in England. Billions of pounds of taxpayers' money is wasted, lining the pockets of private landlords, when it could be better spent building more homes people can afford"
If the government were serious about cutting the benefit bill, here's what they would do:
1. Cap private rents. So that private landlords can only charge the same as social housing rates. This would save £billions every year.

2. Bring the private rental sector up to the same standards as the social housing sector. This would prevent slumlords cashing in on housing benefits by renting disgracefully poor housing stock to the poor.

3. Build more social housing. This wouldn't actually cost money in the long run, because the construction of social housing is one of the strongest fiscal multipliers going.

4. Establish a national house buying scheme. Lots of idle slumlords will see their profit margins disappear if they are forced to rent their properties at reasonable rates, and keep them decently maintained too. The government should offer to buy up their property assets and convert them to social housing.
A Tory led government would never do any of these things because it would harm the financial interests of Tory MPs like Richard Benyon, as well as the interests of countless Tory party donors that also cash in on the housing benefits gravy train as they slam their own tenants as "something for nothing" scroungers.

The Tories have absolutely no intention of cutting the vast flow of welfare payments that find their way into the bank accounts of the wealthy rentier class, so all of their so-called "welfare reforms" are aimed at cutting the amount that goes to the people the welfare system was actually designed to help (the unemployed, the disabled, the working poor and pensioners).

In conclusion, The Tories are quite happy to allow the idle rentier class to keep pillaging the welfare system, and Richard Benyon is a grotesque hypocrite, who bitterly criticises the welfare state over and again, yet he sucks out far more cash from the welfare budget than any benefit claimant could ever dream of getting.

He is not benefitting from benefits. He is just getting rent. Why would he care where the rent comes from?

i know sticky has squelched me, as if one cares one iota, but you're right hays
why should any mp or anyone else not benefit from rents paid by the taxpayer?
i do and i'm pretty sure sticky does too, though it would be inconvenient for him to admit it

that this chap receives a large slab through the benefit system could even be argued that he is acting in a socially responsible and beneficial way, for he is prepared to let out his properties to those on benefits, whereas a great many landlords refuse point blank .... imagine the outcry if he was one such!

it is true that the tories could have built more low end housing, and i am puzzled to scandalised that boris seems to have badly underspent on this sector ..... however, how much emphasis did labour ever put on building such accommodation or better still, rejuvenating existing properties?

Hays hes getting it from the same welfare system that he loves to take a swipe at.

If their was no welfare system would he have the same demand for his property, very unlikely given that welfare is subsidising stingy employers who pay the minimum wage or less.

The welfare system is in fact under housing benefit helping to push up private rents. Let to buy lenders know their is a safety net. Their is a shortage of social housing dating back to Thatchers right to buy. 2/3rd of council houses sold under that now in the hands of private landlords. 'they saw her coming'.

I have a few houses I rent which use housing benefit as part payment but unlike this chap I dont go around calling my tenants scroungers.

Wheres all this morality fat Dave talked of last week.

welfare is subsidising stingy employers who pay the minimum wage or less.
what a preposterous and stupid statement that i'm afraid sticky trots out on a regular basis

gf's comments have some logic, although he wouldn't like the conclusions drawn from them.

Yes, it is possible that benefits may help keep rents up. It is also true that this government is attempting to do something about the problem by having a benefit cap. This should stop people on benefits getting the rent to expensive property paid for them.

i thought it was already capped for "normal" couples or single parent at about £700 pm

Manuel,

"cynic Send an email to cynic View cynic's profile - 25 Feb 2014 14:41 - 37115 of 37117

welfare is subsidising stingy employers who pay the minimum wage or less.
what a preposterous and stupid statement that i'm afraid sticky trots out on a regular basis"


Engage your brain before rushing to print. You will find it behind the eyes and between the ears, if it hasn’t already deteriorated too far.

Take the "stingy" out of the statement and examine the "statement" again.

---------------

What I have never understood is how palming out a state run service to a "private company" is successful.

I can see the "efficiency" and cost effectiveness of contracting out to a "technical development company" or similar small highly "intellectual" units while introducing new “machinery”, or even evolutionary techniques.

No problem.

But, if such are ongoing innovations then surely it is better to incorporate these “areas” into the main “business”.

Then the “savings” go into the original business and the cost of running the “new innovations” are kept in house and “profits of improved, or efficient services” go back into the original “business” to improve it further, rather than into the share holders’ pockets of the advising company.

To say a large public organisation can run an efficient cleansing agency within its own management is daft.

Losing money paying a smaller company to do so, and having no direct control over it is madness.

(I am in a hurry.)

fossy - like you, the statement is still a load of shit ..... you obviously didn't listen to Leahy this morning, as otherwise you might have learnt something

whether or not the minimum wage should be higher, or perhaps weighted according to region, is another matter, but even that may easily cause its own problems ...... but then of course you didn't watch and listen did you

therefore, engage your brain, eyes and ears before rushing to print

Manuel,

"i know sticky has squelched me, as if one cares one iota, "

Why mention it?