The Women and Equalities Select Committee at the House of Commons is investigating (lack of) Equality Act enforcement.  We're suggesting that the social security tribunal is given the power to consider Equality Act claims like the employment tribunal and special educational needs tribunal already can.  We're also pushing for the courts service to make reasonable adjustments for disabled people.  See the full submission here.

Interesting that the DWP has just revealed in correspondence that it appears to have a policy not to stop ESA claimants' payments if they're known to have mental health problems and are unable to complete and return a questionnaire,

"...in accordance with DWP policy, if someone with a mental health condition does not return their ESA50 questionnaire within the usual four week period their benefit does not end, as it would for other claims".

This comes hot on the heals of it being revealed that the DWP also does not stop payments when claimants' with cervical myelopathy cannot return questionnaires.

Will be interesting to see if any cases come through that have "slipped through the net"!

Here is a link to the Women and Equality Select Committee's inquiry into enforcing the Equality Act.  Anyone can make a submission.

The obvious thing would be to have a free Equalities Tribunal where people could bring cases in a similarly risk-free way to a benefits tribunal.  However, the current ludicrous situation is that benefits tribunals are expressly forbidden from considering whether the DWP has breached the Equality Act.  That forces claimants to have to run two sets of proceedings - a social security tribunal and a County Court claim.  The difficulites of doing this have allowed the DWP to routinely discriminate against disabled people when dealing with ESA and PIP claims knowing that in the vast majority of cases disabled people will not be able to enforce their rights.

Shocking figures released by the DWP reveal that only a tiny fraction of the appalling reports written by contractors carrying out assessments are ever challenged by Officials. 

And in a response from Officials to me it was stated,

“When a PIP award is changed by an independent tribunal, this is not because they decide the DWP decision is erroneous or unreasonable, rather they just reach a different opinion”.  The letter also stated, “As our case managers are not medically trained, we need to rely on the assessment reports we receive from the health professionals.  We are able to (and often do) challenge inconsistencies.  However, we are obliged to accept the health professional’s ultimate opinion is final”

So it's official: Atos and Capita are in fact controlling the outcome of PIP claims.  They profit from the assessments and make decisions that result in lots of pointless assessments of claimants with chronic and deteriorating conditions.

It's not only Universal Credit that is subject to lying by the Government.  Try this regarding Personal Independence Payments from 2012.

In, “Government’s response to the consultation on DLA reform and Personal Independence Payment – completing the detailed design” dated 13 December 2012, it was stated,

 “Our intention is that the claim process will include procedures to help identify individuals who may need additional support with their claim and the information requirements, whether from DWP or an independent adviser”.

 And, “we will ensure that the 4 week period to return the claim includes Secretary of State discretion to extend this period where reasonable in exceptional circumstances”.

I have yet to see a single case where the DWP delivered on these commitments and I've been doing PIP cases continually since 2013.

Or this December 2017 Government response to the Second Independent Review of PIP where it stated it was accepting the recommendation,

“To re-emphasise and ensure that employment will not disadvantage claimants when they seek to claim PIP and explore ways in which PIP may be an enabler in improving employment retention”.

Yet time and again the DWP and its agents use the fact that a claimant is in work to argue they are not disabled enough to get PIP.

The Post Truth agenda is at home in the DWP.

The Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, Esther McVey, has told a few more lies about Universal Credit (UC) and is being encouraged to resign.

This is the latest in a long series of lies ever since the scheme was launched by one of her predecessors, Ian Duncan Smith.

The most blatant of these, and one that was pushed on the basis that if you keep repeating something people will believe it, is that UC is "simpler".  In fact UC is the most complicated system of means-testing and conditionality in the history of the UK social security system.

The real purpose of UC is to advance the cause of an end to rights-based social security provision entrenched in the decades following the Second World War.  The basic premise of UC is that claimants must prove to Officials that they are worthy of payments to get anything.  This is typically done using a mixture of questionnaires and, crucially, interviews, that fundamentally take us back towards the days when poor people had to sit in front of "Boards of Guardians" and the like to get "poor relief". 

Thank goodness for the Equality Act, which obliges the DWP to prove that UC doesn't discriminate against disabled people if disabled claimants bring claims.  Fortunately, one action has already succeeded.  And there will surely be more to come!