Benefits and Work

[Guest guest]

From: Benefits and Work

[mailto:campaign@...]

Sent: 16 February 2011 21:13

sheilaturner@...

Subject: Guide dog users. Deaf claimants. Wheelchair users. Just some of

the new cuts targets.

ESA

– from zero to 36 points on appeal

I

won my appeal today with my fibromyalgia

I went from 0 points to 36 points

I was soooo shocked that I don't know what happens next

ps thanks for this site its full of useful information

kamikazi

More feedback from the Benefits and Work forums at the end of this newsletter

Guide dog users. Deaf

claimants. Wheelchair users. Just some of the new cuts targets.

You can also read this

newsletter online at www.benefitsandwork.co.uk/news/latest-news/1315-16-february-news

Dear Subscriber,

Devastating changes to the test of who is eligible for employment and support

allowance (ESA) come into force on 28 March.

Amongst the losers are:

blind claimants who can safely use a guide dog and have no other problems;

deaf claimants who can read and write and have no other problems;

claimants in manual wheelchairs who can propel themselves over fifty metres and

have no other problems.

These are just some of the groups of disabled people who will be found capable

of work and have to try to claim the lower paying jobseekers allowance (JSA).

Details of how other

claimants may be affected by, for example, a big reduction in the number of scoring

descriptors for mental health, are in an article we wrote over a year ago, when

NewLabour drew up the new test (members

only) but got voted out before they could implement it.

You can try

the new test online right now and, if you’re a Benefits and Work member,

there’s also Help notes equivalent to nine pages of A4 to help you make the

most accurate self-assessment you can.

The new test will apply to ESA claimants when they are next assessed and to the

1.5 million incapacity benefit claimants as they are ‘migrated’. The

government claim that pilots

show that almost one third of IB claimants would already be refused ESA

under the current, less harsh test.

And the misery doesn’t end there.

If you haven’t found a job after a year on JSA, the government proposes to cut

your housing benefit by 10% as a punishment for still being unemployed - a

measure so extraordinarily harsh that even

Labour objects to it.

And, of course, your chances of finding a job when there are 2.5 million other

people looking for one are slim.

But the government has chosen to make them even slimmer.

Because, if you had remained a long-term claimant who was incapable of work,

private companies running the new Work Programme could have pocketed up to

£14,000 for finding you a job. As a JSA claimant you’re worth mere

hundreds to them – your chances of being ‘parked’ and forgotten whilst they

concentrate on the big money opportunities are very high.

And, in a few years time, you’ll also have the axing of DLA and its replacement

with PIP to cope with. We don’t yet know who’s going to lose out under

that process, but we do know that the government wants one in five current DLA

claimants to end up with nothing. Wheelchair

users have already been flagged up as possible targets (members

only), as we pointed out back in December.

Meanwhile, the bankers who ruined the economy have cut their bonuses by a

fraction but raised their wages by a heap. And the politicians whose

failed regulation allowed the bankers to wreck the economy in the first place –

people like Blair and Mandelson – have taken extremely well paid directorships

on the boards of . . . banks.

So, when Cameron says that “We’re all in this together” he may be telling the

truth.

But what he doesn’t mention is that he’s going to make very sure that disabled

claimants are “in it” right up to their necks, whilst the people to blame

scarcely get a mark on the heels of their patent-leather boots.

OTHER NEWS

Harrington

timeline for year two irrelevant

DWP

to hold welfare reform events

GOOD NEWS FROM THE BENEFITS AND WORK FORUMS

From

0 points to winning ESA appeal before the hearing

Successful

IB renewal

DLA

high rate mobility and low care on first application

ESA

appeal won before the hearing

From

DLA low rate care and mobility to middle rate care and low mobility on renewal

From

6 points to support group on ESA appeal

From

0 points to 24 on appeal

Placed

in ESA work-related activity group before the appeal hearing

DLA

high rate care and mobility indefinitely

High

mobility and middle care in 5 days on renewal

Support

group following medical

Good luck,

Steve Donnison

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© 2011 Steve Donnison

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