Job centres tricking claimants out of benefits

Glad to hear it. One of the reasons I comment on these threads is to use what I know of the rules to help people out when they meet the few members of JCP staff who are idiots!

Well obviously not. It is not hyperbole. It is happening. People with very bad conditions which leave them in a lot of pain from doing the simplest things are being found fit to work.

One common example is being asked for walk a little bit. It doesn't matter how much pain that person is in, if they can do it, then its a "yes" tick. No consideration for the condition, or the pain doing that small walk has caused.

You may not believe me. If you don't, then just use google.

The fact is that the people conducting the assesments are just "box tickets" and are ignoring the advice of real medical profesionals. There is no wonder why so many appeals against ATOS's decisions are being successful.

As for people pretending to be sick - you do realise the number of people, and amount of money wasted on that, is tiny compared to the genuine claiments?

You just don't get it.

That's unfortunate. But if you are on JSA, then I believe there's a great rail service from Rhondda to Cardiff and you will be expected to use that to commute to Cardiff and as such, apply for jobs there. First train will get you in before 7 am and last train back is after 10 pm. There are full time day jobs available in Cardiff.

If they are being assessed by someone who is not medically qualified, checking off a list with no allowances made, then yes, that needs looking at if they feel they have been unjustly assessed.

That's not the final story though, is it, if they fail the assessment, they can be assessed by a qualified medical practitioner in an appeal.

Well, that is irrelevant from next week.

If they can push themselves in a manual wheelchair they can mobilise sufficiently to work.

No. Civil servants are virtually never made compulsorily redundant.




If you are at a jobcentre, you are a civil servant paid a salary. In the case of the companies hired to place people, it will almost certainly depend on the incentives in the contract.



Who are we being fair to? It is fairer to the taxpayer if this reduces public spending on the unemployed.



I don't know the specifics. How serious was the fraud? Who committed it? How long ago was it? What other companies are in the market to do this work?



Why should charities be in a privileged position. Should we not let Tesco sell chocolate because Oxfam is willing to do so?



I accept that a politician is usually capable of messing up anything but your point is?



Because the disability analysts are trained (that may be an exaggeration-I have seen some of their work) in determining whether people meet the legally prescribed tests. Most psychiatrists wouldn't know what those tests are if you asked them.



Given the proportion of wrong decisions they make, this might be a good idea. Why don't you suggest it to to Ian Duncan Smith.




The independent advisor who reported last year was strongly in favour of this and his conclusion has been welcomed by disability groups.

I could carry on.

If they are being assessed by someone who is not medically qualified, checking off a list with no allowances made, then yes, that needs looking at if they feel they have been unjustly assessed.

That's not the final story though, is it, if they fail the assessment, they can be assessed by a qualified medical practitioner in an appeal.

If their work isnt needed anymore, someway or another they are going to end up out of a job.

The incentives in their contracts effectively turn the unemployed into things to be exploited for profit...not helped. It is doomed to fail.

It doesnt reduce public spending on the unemployed. I was once asked to do two weeks on unpaid work experience, went on google found out that the company was goig to get about double what my minimum wage would have been.

The fraud was that they were faking forms and claiming money they didnt deserve. (ironic) It was commited by a4e. They have a politician on their board of advisors.

Charities should be in a privaleged position because it is public money and they would be doing the work profit free so every penny would be used to help the unemployed. If you let private companies get contracts the taxpayer is just buying somebody a mansion.

My point about the politicin was that the company that was found guilty of fraud just happened to have him as a (payed?) advisor.

Surely the info that psychiatrists give is important information for them to make their assesment with?

I meant that they are given bonuses for finfing people fit for work.

Giving responsibility for decision making to somebody with no medical training is a plain stupid thing to do.

Nope. I do thank you very much. That reply was to you saying there are jobs if you look hard enough. Well the very fact that even if every single job was to be filled, we would still have around 2 million unemployed people, suggests that what you said is not the case.

I wasn't on JSA. I was just giving an example of when I was in sixth form, so getting a day job in Cardiff was not an option.

As for the general thing about jobs in Cardiff - what about the fact that many of them will be taken by people who actually live in Cardiff? I understand what you are trying to get at, however you seem to think it is a lot easier than what it actually is.

But why should they be forced to appeal to get a decent assessment?
Surely the whole thing should be done by people who are medically qualified and who know what they are looking for / doing?

It doesn't just apply to walking. It applies to typing, holding a pen, sitting down for extended periods of time, etc etc etc.

That slightly misrepresents the position.

Assessments are conducted by disability analysts, the vast majority of whom are doctors or nurses with a few physiotherapists.

Decisions are made by civil servants in the name of the Secretary of State. See my previous postings about "ownership" of this decision-making process.

Decisions are re-considered by more senior civil servants who sometimes call on the advice of more senior doctors at ATOS (who don't see the claimant).

If the claimant appeals, the appeal is heard by a tribunal with a lawyer and a doctor. No examination of the claimant is conducted. The tribunal decides on the evidence of the claimant, any other evidence e.g. medical reports, he puts forward and the original assessment and any supplementary medical advice given to the DWP.

There are further rights of appeal but only on points of law.

Welshbluebird does misrepresent the old test for walking. The test requires walking without severe discomfort. That doesn't mean the walking has to be pain free. A good rule of thumb is that someone who has no choice may walk whilst in severe discomfort but anyone with a choice won't.

Nevertheless, every single job isnt filled. So the obvious conclusion, as supported by available full time jobs on the jobcentre website, and actual vacancies handed to JSA claimants seems to me to lean very much in the direction that these jobs are in fact available.

Again, every job in [example] Cardiff isn't filled. At the risk of repeating myself, my previous response in this post applies here.

I must confess I wasn't 100% up to speed on the way disablement benefits are assessed, and was taking your word for it, but now from another poster it appears you have misrepresented your position and they are assessed by people with at least some degree of medical training?

True. But as I said, over 2 million unemployed into half a million vacancies (not all of which are full time) just does not go.

Again correct. But when you have a set of people in cardiff trying to find work, and a set of people in the Rhondda trying to find work, logic suggests that the people in Cardiff will go for the jobs in Cardiff. Now, that does not mean they will get them, but it does mean more competition for everyone involved meaning that getting a job is very difficult in a lot of circumstances.

I am just going on what I have heard / been told. While obviously that may mean I mis-represent what actually is going on, there some very very worrying examples of behaviour that would not (or should not) be found from medical professionals (changing their mind, not writing down the truth on the form etc etc).
That, and the very fact that so many appeals seem to be won (again, 70% in some parts of the country) does suggest something is wrong with the initial assessment.

The whole idea of 'clamping down' on benefits at a time when you're putting 300,000 people out of work and with unemployment steadily rising is lunacy.

The labour government had the chance to clamp down on benefits cheats but they didn't do it, but that boat has sailed now, it's too late. There's just far too many people to process for a 'clamp down' to be fairly enforced. When people slip through the net and get their benefits cut unfairly it is not 'unfortunate', these people's lives are put at risk.

And anyone who says that we need to clamp down on benefits because of the deficit is an idiot, taking a few hundred pounds off the most vulnerable people in society won't make the blindest bit of difference.

Well obviously not. It is not hyperbole. It is happening. People with very bad conditions which leave them in a lot of pain from doing the simplest things are being found fit to work.

One common example is being asked for walk a little bit. It doesn't matter how much pain that person is in, if they can do it, then its a "yes" tick. No consideration for the condition, or the pain doing that small walk has caused.

You may not believe me. If you don't, then just use google.

The fact is that the people conducting the assesments are just "box tickets" and are ignoring the advice of real medical profesionals. There is no wonder why so many appeals against ATOS's decisions are being successful.

As for people pretending to be sick - you do realise the number of people, and amount of money wasted on that, is tiny compared to the genuine claiments?

As I said - it says a lot that in some areas 70% of the appeals are won. A figure that high does suggest some problem with the initial assessment system.

As for walking:
1 - What classes as "severe discomfort"? To me, constant pain when walking would probably class as that.

2 - Again, it isn't just about walking. It is about everything else that they test also.

That is exactly what happened to my dad if you read a few posts up when I said he had to appeal and during the appeal they said if he wanted money he had to sign on but if he signed on he couldnt appeal as to sign on you agree you are fit to work! madness!

They were 2 hours behind schedule and my dad was last medical of the day and my dad found out they just ticked boxes to say he was fit for work and basically every answer was one that said he was fit for work etc.

You really think that the welfare bill isn't a significant part of expenditure?? They're not trying to stop any genuine claimants, they're just making it harder for the people to abuse the system, do you not feel equally as disgusted as most working people at the level of abuse of benefits we have witnessed over the last decade?? You only get the 6-month ban if you mess up, you'll have food from charities and a roof over your head and while of course I would like to see everyone rich and happy and minimise peoples suffering I think that you need to have a bloody tough system to get people back on work.

For 2009/10, it is estimated that 2.2 per cent, or £3.3bn, of total benefit expenditure was overpaid due to fraud and error. In value terms overpayments have risen from £2.9bn (revised) to £3.3bn, due to the increase in benefit expenditure.

The number of households in which no adult has ever worked has almost doubled between 1997 and 2010.
In some of these households, all adults are aged between 16 to 24 and in full-time education, known as ‘student’ households. Excluding these leaves 269,000 households that have never worked.

In relation to all households in the UK, the percentage who have never worked is around 1.7 per cent in 2010, up from 1.0 per cent in 1997.

Around 552,000 adults live in the households that have never worked, with a third of these in student households, not wanting to work because of their study.

Of the remaining 374,000 adults:

* 68 per cent are not seeking a job and would not like to work

* 16 per cent are not seeking a job and would like to work

* 13 per cent are unemployed, therefore looking for and available to work

From my experience that does not sound like the sort of comment that a tribunal chairman would make.

Furthermore, it is expressly provided in Regulations that claiming JSA pending an ESA appeal does not prejudice that appeal although it is rarely necessary to do that because except in the case of repeat ESA claimants, ESA continues to be paid pending the outcome of the appeal.

This wasnt the tribunal, it was the social that said this to him, this was about 14 months ago though so before the changes.



Perhaps that was because he was in fit to work.

EDIT I see that in fact he won his appeal

Well, I think people would like to see some figures now, so let me see.

http://statistics.dwp.gov.uk/asd/asd2/index.php?page=fraud_error

Yeah as they never did an actual medical, they ticked boxes when he wasnt present and my dad answered no questions, they got fined as they were making medicals up to get paid.

Run that passed me again. You are saying he never actually attended the medical assessment but the medical assessment was nevertheless carried out?