I had planned something light-hearted for this post, but events have overtaken 'Plan A' so apologies in advance if this comes across as something of a ranty one - more Martin Connolly than Toby Novak, for those of you familiar with my characters. It's all Atos's fault - naturally. Or perhaps it's the Daily Mirror's fault - yep, that is Mirror not Mail, this time. See what you think.
What's got me riled is a story doing the rounds of various social media disability rights and anti cuts groups (several of which I support) which has recently been published in the Mirror. Headlined "Humiliated blind woman asked by ATOS benefits assessor: 'How many fingers am I holding up?' " it describes a fairly typical Work Capability Assessment - typical in that the probably under-trained and inappropriately qualified assessor stuck to a standard script rather than tailoring the assessment to the obvious impairment of the claimant. Discourteous, humiliating and arguably in breach of the Disability Discrimination Act. Maddening - but that's not what's making me seethe.
My problem is with the alleged quote from the subject of the story. According to the Mirror:
'Natasha said: "There are so many people receiving benefits that they don't really deserve, people who don't want to work. And yet people like me who have genuine disabilities, many much worse than mine, are being forced to do humiliating tests like this. Benefits Street is being filmed a couple of miles away in Stockton and programmes like that give people the impression benefits are being handed out to everyone. I listened to the first series and there was someone on there with 11 kids who didn't seem to want to work. And yet I'm told I have to find a job based on tests I am still struggling to understand."'
Natasha may very well have said just that. People naturally lash out when they're angry. My former clients often did - so often, that there were times I could have hurled someone's appeal papers at them for being so damned self-righteous. It's what we're all told: it's what Benefits Street exists to tell us. But the Daily Mirror proports to be a left-wing, or at least a Labour, newspaper. I don't expect the same old, same old. I expect proper analysis and truth. If this is a journalistic licence version of what she said, shame on them. Even if it is what was said verbatim, I fail to see how it helps the story to incite ill-feeling towards other benefit claimants who are already frequent victims of hate crime.
Proper analysis of this story wouldn't be asking readers to vote on whether Natasha should be reassessed either. You could reassess Natasha a dozen times and, if you followed the regulations, you'd get the same result. Seriously. 'Atos' are not the problem here. Yes, their assessor was clumsy, insensitive and sceptical, but a paragon of good practice would also have to give 9 points because, since April 2011, that is the law. I know this, because I wrote a minor character with an identical degree of visual impairment and mobility into Limited Capabilty to make that very point (Linda Jenkins - ebook Episode 2). She got 9 points from one of the 'good' assessors at my fictional assessment centre; there were no solid grounds for her to appeal.
Unless the actual Work Capability Assessment is changed - or scrapped - the real Natasha's and Linda's will keep being found fit for work. Arguably, they are - the DWP itself had a blind Secretary of State in 2005! But they are also quite obviously of 'limited capability for work' in any meaningful sense of the phrase since many roles and professions would be precluded by their disability and many others by the unsuitability of too many workplaces and inflexibility of too many employers. Benefit entitlement should surely reflect this.
Finally, I'm not at all sure where the Mirror got their numbers from, but I sincerely hope they haven't gone away without telling Natasha about PIP (if she isn't already getting DLA - high rate mobility, low rate care?) and that in fact her JSA wouldn't be a basic £72.40 at all, but should include a disability premium of over £30 a week.
Sorry - does that count as a spoiler?
I am trying not to be cynical about the way the Parliamentary Labour Party is patting itself on the back for supporting a motion by a Libdem back-bencher to water down the 'Bedroom Tax', and thus manage a rare defeat of the Government, but it's hard. Great though it always is to see the Tories defeated and the Coalition coming apart at the seams, Labour's fixation with the 'Bedroom Tax' as the big evil of Welfare Reform, from which they will deliver us all when they come to power, strikes me as either deeply naïve or horribly disingenuous.
I often wonder if Labour would have been so willing to stand up against this policy if they weren't under pressure from northern Labour councils, who still have large amounts of their own housing stock and are feeling the financial pinch as their tenants struggle to pay the shortfall. In short, is it concern for councils, rather than compassion for claimants, that drives this policy at all?
The 'under-occupation penalty' or 'removal of the spare room subsidy' - as the Tories spectacularly failed to christen it - is set apart from the other Coalition benefit horrors by one key thing; a catchy, derogatory nickname. Coining the phrase 'Bedroom Tax' has helped to make the policy unpopular and catch the critical public eye in a way other 'reforms' have failed to. To be fair, the Bedroom Tax is also relatively easy to explain and to debunk as policy. To the Government's claim that it stops 'hard-working families' and 'tax payers' subsidising 'spare rooms' in workshy council tenants' homes, there is the response that many of these rooms aren't really 'spare' at all, but necessary to meet the special needs of disabled adults or children. And that there is nowhere for the 'under-occupier' - workshy or otherwise - to downsize to.
But other 'Welfare Reforms' are at least as easy to knock down if you care to try. Private tenants are treated at least as unjustly, since the Local Housing Allowance was cut to give benefit claimants access to only the cheapest 30% of properties. A steep rise in non-dependent deductions amounts to a 'tax' on those grown up children stuck at home with mum and/or dad, unable to afford a place of their own. The 'benefit cap' is demonstrably unfair if you show the benefit entitlement of a family on the average wage (see previous post).
What about terminating Contribution-based ESA for those in the work-related activity group rate after 12 months, when both ESA and the Incapacity Benefit which pre-dated it were payable for the duration of the claimant's illness - until the Coalition came to power? Contribution-based benefits are earned through paying NI contributions and are most useful to those with 'hard-working' spouses whose wages take the couple's joint income over the miserly means-tested benefit rates, or who have saved for a rainy day. A canny Labour politician could surely sell repealing this mean-spirited measure to the most ardent of Daily Mail readers.
Then there's turning Council Tax Support into the ultimate 'postcode lottery', with a mess of different schemes and only the vulture flocks of the bailiffs gaining anything from the charges. The cruel chaos of PIP's bungled implementation. The morass of local Social Fund schemes - and the fact that, having landed councils with responsibility for administering these, the Government is ceasing to fund them next year.
The Opposition has fought shy of taking on these issues from a claimant-focused angle until now, believing the public to have swallowed whole the 'strivers and skivers' tales they also once told. But perhaps there are important lessons to be learned from the Scottish Independence debate. North of the border, an awful lot of people haven't bought that story. They aren't fooled by the 'ending the something for nothing culture' and 'making work pay' mantra trotted out in the face of every reported injustice by increasingly desperate DWP ministers and nameless spokespeople. They have seen the stories about suicide and starvation in their local papers, on social media and even - occasionally - the national press. They know this is wrong. More than that, they're prepared to register to vote, sometimes after decades (post Poll Tax) of not doing so, and to risk a great deal on the chance of a genuinely fairer society. Women and younger voters in particular like this vision.
With Labour's conference almost upon us, I'll be curious to see whether they'll grasp this last chance before the election to change the debate from one about cutting the cost of 'welfare' to saving Social Security.
