** Note the story below refers to 'new proposals' not the existing process at time of posting. I can find nothing to support this but the story is interesting as it highlights the severe problem the DWP has with appeals currently **
Judged fit to work? You could lose your benefits if you appeal
The government could cut off incapacity payments if people challenge the ruling that they are fit to work.
Under new proposals, hundreds of thousands of people on incapacity benefits could be cut off from support if they challenge the ruling that they are fit to work.
In April, the government began a reassessment of the 1.6m people claiming sickness benefit, as part of a plan to reduce the annual £7bn incapacity bill.
The new Work Capability Assessment (WCA) has stricter criteria and finds many more people able to work. However, serious concerns have been raised about the reliability of the tests, run by French company Atos. Charities such as Mind, the MS Society, and Parkinson's UK have all raised concerns about a rigidity of questioning that does not take into account the range of problems that might prevent people from working.
As I reported in August last year, in Burnley, one of the areas where the WCA was piloted before being rolled out nationwide, a third of those declared fit for work appealed, and 40 per cent of them won.
This is a very high proportion, and indicates serious flaws with the WCA. Indeed, last year, the BBC reported on instances of people with serious illnesses such as Parkinson's being declared fit to work because of the inflexibility of the criteria.
Currently, those judged fit to work keep receiving their benefit while their appeal is being heard. However, under these new plans, claimants would lose these payments. If they are successful, they will be reimbursed in full. According to the Times (£), this is because ministers are concerned that continued payments are acting as an "incentive to appeal".
Judges have said in private that they could face 500,000 cases a year, with some taking more than nine months to resolve. The tribunal service has already had to double its staff. Ministers hope that this move could put some people off appealing and reduce this burden.
This action is seriously inhumane, and could mean that people with serious diseases or mental illness are left without any source of income for up to nine months while they challenge an unfair ruling.
The fact that so many people win on appeal shows that the WCA is simply not working. Malcolm Harrington, appointed to improve the work test, has warned that the standard of assessments is still inconsistent. Unfairly ruling people fit to work, only so they can win it back on appeal, is both cruel to the individual and costly for the government -- it is already costing £50m a year.
A far more sensible course of action would be to work hard on improving the WCA to broaden the criteria of the test and improve its accuracy, so it allows for the messy reality of human sickness while also ensuring that those fit to work cannot unfairly claim. Pressurising people to forgo their legal right to appeal cannot be the right course of action and essentially punishes them for the failings of the system.
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The National AIDS Trust (NAT) are members of the Disability Benefits Consortium (DBC).
DBC open letters to Chris Grayling
17 October 2011
FOR PUBLICATION
Open letter to the Rt Hon Chris Grayling MP, Minister for Employment
Dear Minister,
Re: Proposal to cut Employment and Support Allowance during appeals
The 57 charities and other organisations that make up the Disability Benefits Consortium are today united in our horror at the suggestion, reported in the New Statesman (“Judged fit to work? You could lose your benefits if you appeal “, 14 October ) and the Times (“Appeal and we’ll cut cash, claimants to be told “, 14 October), that Employment and Support Allowance (ESA) may be withdrawn from claimants as they appeal against decisions.
The rates of successful appeals and spiralling costs are indicative not of claimants taking advantage, nor of lenient tribunal judges, but of an assessment system that is not fit for purpose and that needs urgent reform. The Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) has already recognised this in accepting the recommendations of the Harrington report, but more must be done to make the necessary changes to the system.
It is completely unacceptable that thousands of ill and disabled people should be penalised for the DWP’s poor decision-making, and the inability to invest in a timely appeals system. Making disabled people wait on average six months for an appeal hearing is both stressful for claimants and a waste of Government resources in itself.
This proposal would be an extremely concerning attack on the right to appeal, which would not only stifle legitimate challenges to wrongful decisions, but would bury the evidence of problems with the system and hinder the urgent improvement of the Work Capability Assessment that is so clearly needed.
We appeal for your assurance that the DWP has no intention to take forward this grossly unfair suggestion, and would welcome a public statement from the DWP to this effect.
Yours sincerely,
Hayley Jordan, MS Society; Mark Baker, Action on Hearing Loss; Steve Winyard, RNIB; Simon Shaw, Sense
Co-Chairs of the Disability Benefits Consortium
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