The flowers are irrelevant but thought they’d brighten up the site.
Now I know that I have been foolish in the extreme, but boredom with The Telegraph, forced me to peruse the Guardian. Yes, I know, I should have known better, but I did discover this article here.
Since the reform of the Sickness Benefit system, whereby the medical profession were not deemed suitable to assess the fitness or otherwise of claimants, this has now been computerised with a points system in place.
Searching questions are asked: do you clean your teeth regularly? If you answer yes, you are in danger of being assessed as having the necessary self disciple and manual dexterity for work! One unfortunate who was registered blind was told that he just missed out; had he been deaf too, he would have accrued the necessary points!
More than half the applicants who are refused benefit are appealing the decisions and the tribunals are backed up for months and it’s costing millions. Meanwhile, they have precisely nothing on which to live. Now I am sure that the system was abused by a percentage of these people, but this sounds like complete chaos.
Boadicea's Chariot 
Agreed.
Even more to the point why is a FRENCH company doing the testing?
Why not employ some of those who can do a bit of work, the set a thief to catch a thief principle.
I’ve been here with the boy when it came to his disability years ago. It can all become very depressing until I went on the warpath and hired lawyers etc. on his behalf. Trouble is too many people just cave in.
I cannot imagine why the European claimants are not put on the first train home with no re admittance tattooed on their foreheads. We should not be paying for them at all.
Not that I can offer any solution, generally elsewhere relatives end up taking in people in this state as they obviously cannot afford to maintain homes. Trouble is with silly little houses in the UK and no history left of intergenerational living etc there is no longer the obligation to take in relatives abandoned by the welfare state.
Not good.
Pssst! You need to know the secret password, “I am a Somali illegal immigrant and my whole extened family is behind me” in order to access the full range of UK ‘benefits’, benefits to which I am denied despite having paid tax and NI for more than thirty years. I think I’ll just queue up with the aliens.
OZ
Arrers, I share your suspicion of any computer-controlled system. However there is another aspect which deserves attention. Allowing human beings to assess people’s condition without compulsory check-lists opens up endless opportunities for abuse/favourtism/special pleading, etc. The solution as ever lies somewhere in-between.
Ara – the flowers are magnificent, glorious and the picture indeed brightens the site. (More please!) i was reading the article and stopped half way through as I was getting so angry; so many genuine and decent people being caught in this clearly punitive system. Clearly the questions are specifically designed to limit payments. What was the briefing to the Company that framed the questions? No doubt there is a target for reducing payments but surely Human Rights here a being breached. Such arrogance by the government is beyond belief. How is it, I ask, that such measures are put into practice? Is is by law or what? NO wonder ordinary and decent people just give up, whilst the scum from Europe etc probably pass the tests as they choose to display mental incapacity on any questioning.My blood is boiling!
PS More flowers please! .
Morning Tina.
Well yes, why indeed outsource this system, which appears to be a total shambles, to the French? I agree that some of the responsibility should be with the family, and I know this happens in the case of children and young adults,but if parents are unable to work through disability or injury, there should be provision for them with out them jumping through unreasonable hoops.
Hello OZ.
No doubt there are example of this, but I do wonder how widespread it is. In any event, I can’t imagine a computerised system would help to accurately determine who is eligible and who isn’t.
Hello, Janus.
Yes, I agree, more regular assessment and a bit of common sense. There are some who are most unlikely to be able to work again, for example, and some who may recover.
Hello PapaG.
Pleased you liked my flowers! Send by my daughters on Mother’s Day.
I was getting increasingly angry and disbelieving. I couldn’t believe the hoops through which these people were made to jump. I know there are some who are always going to attempt to take advantage of any system, but this treatment which fails genuine applicants at the first hurdle seem especially iniquitous.
I don’t know how much money it will save in the end, with more than half appealing.
Its a piggin’ disgrace Minty MBE.
And now we have blindly gifted the boy Cameron his chance to privatise the NHS and get the whole ‘millstone’ off the books of the gubmint whose actual job it is to run it, there is going to be an awful lot more of the same.
By the time he has ditched the health service, transport, national grid, welfare and education systems onto the profiteering foreign investment companies, I wonder what all those MPs will do with their time and our taxes?
Hi Furry.
Yep, that it the way it’s going, all right. The idea being, I suppose that it is more efficient and less expensive to hand all these services over to the private sector, but I’m not entirely sure that it true, but it does add distance for the government when it all goes horribly wrong; it’s not their fault, innit?
But also why outsource these services to foreign companies?
Radio 4’s program ‘In Touch’ has been looking at the anomalies and how it is affecting the blind
I think this is the episode I heard here, which in particular looked at this
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01cw5nv
Thank you, Nym.
I’ll have a listen.