At considerable cost to the Tax-payer.

I am so happy.

Saturday was a good news day for me.

After several weeks of waiting, I finally received the two brown envelopes through the letterbox which told me how I’d done with my enforced PIP (Personal Independence Payment) application and my ESA (Employment Support Allowance) reassessment and I was successful for both Benefits.

And, further to that, a very good family friend also received her brown envelope for PIP on Sarurday as well and she’s been successful as too. Virtual High Fives all over our social media pages let me tell you – we were delerious. We both got to sleep properly for the first time in quite a while that night and we can now both breathe freely once more because we know that our finances are guaranteed for at least the next few years at any rate.

Brilliant!

But, there is something we both want to know. Why is it that the maximum award we could receive was for ten years and then we will both need to go through the full assessment procedure once again.

Why?

Why just ten years?

I have MS. I am unable to walk, work or care for myself at all, I am a wheelchair user, I cannot dress myself, wash or bathe myself, prepare my own meals or feed myself without help. I have a catheter and I spend the majority of my time stuck in bed, and I am not going to get any better. I can only ever stay the same or, as is more likely, get worse. My friend has a visual impairment. She cannot see to look after herself or her child. She also needs help with so many things on a day-to-day basis. And, guess what, she will never recover either. Just like me she will stay the same or get worse for the rest of her life. There is no magic bullet that can cure either of us. And, for both of us, this is for always. This is for ever. Our impairments are degenerative and incurable. And, thanks to our impairments, neither of us are to ever be able to work and support ourselves, however much the Government would like us too.

But, here’s the thing. Both of us have been transferred to PIP from the old Benefit, Disability Living Allowance (DLA), where we both had life-time awards. Now we are in receipt of PIP, we don’t. The old Benefit understood that neither of us would improve – ever – so we were given awards that recognised this fact. Under DLA we both recieved awards that meant we would not be pestered, made to fill in intrusive and invasive forms the size of a small novel, questioned, examined, prodded, poked and assessed as if we were making it up and were lying about the difficulties we had in our everyday lives because of our impairments. Thanks to the transfer to PIP, we will now have to go through this all over again in ten years time. And, if we survive that, ten years further on from there too. And we’re not the only people to experience this. Other people with incurable, lifelong conditions are getting the same result. Ten years is the max.

Do the boffins at the DWP know something we don’t know? Is there a cure for MS, for blindness, for so many other impairments just round the corner?  

All this ten year thing will do is cause worry, stress and countless sleepless nights for disabled people and their families and cost the Tax-payer millions. People with incurable impairments will need to be sent forms to complete that have to be printed and posted at a considerable cost to the State. People with incurable impairments will need to undergo unnecessary assessments, undertaken by paid assessors at home or at disability testing centres at a considerable cost to the State. People with incurable impairments will need to be sent letters and copies of their assessment reports telling them they have been re-awarded their Benefits that have to be printed and posted, at a considerable cost to the State.  It does not make sense.

What’s wrong with having a Life-time Award for disabled people with incurable life-long, degenerative impairments? An award that recognises that there are some disabled people who will never get better and will always need help. If people are already getting the maximum award they can get and can’t improve, what’s the point in checking to make sure that they still can’t do the things they couldn’t do ten years earlier? If there is no more money available, if the award cannot go up, if things can’t change what’s the point? People who are not going to get better don’t need to be reminded of this fact every ten years.

Once someone has been assessed, if they have been awarded the maximum available and there is no chance of anything changing apart from things getting worse then just leave it alone. Stop the endless form-filling, stop the endless prodding, poking and assessing, stop the printing and posting, stop the endless stream of brown envelopes, stop the stress, stop the worry. It benefits no-one, it saves nothing and it’s all  done at considerable cost to the Taxpayer.

Leave people in WRAG alone.

So. Today the House of Commons are discussing the Welfare Reform and Work Bill. This is the Bill that will cut the Employment Support Allowance payments received by disabled people in the Work Related Activity Group (WRAG) by thirty pounds every week to the same level as non-disabled people receiving Job Seekers Allowance. And the justification the Government for this move? Apparently, cutting disabled people’s benefits will ’incentivise’ them to go out and get a job.

Great plan.

What is is about sickness and disability that this Government just isn’t getting?

According to the Government, and the Department of Work and Pensions, sick and disabled people can be put to one of two categories for welfare benefits purposes. There are those people who are so sick and disabled they will never be able to work and then there are those people who may be able to work one day if they are given the right support to get to that point. And it’s that second group which will be affected by this Bill.

In my opinion, it’s pretty simple really. Someone who is sick or disabled has a medical condition which limits the work they may, or may not be able to do. Either that or they need support in applying for and securing employment and support in keeping that employment once they have obtained  it. That’s what the WRAG group is all about. The Government has decided that people in WRAG should receive the same amount of money as people who are receiving Job Seekers Allowance but that they will get extra help with finding and securing a job. Now that’s a great idea, as long as it works. Many, many disabled people would love to work, just a long as they get some support to enable them to do so. The problem is, as far as I can see, that the Government also wants to withdraw that support too, namely, the Access to Work Scheme. The Government seems to want sick and disabled people to go into workplaces without any additional help whatsoever. Wonderful plan but it just will not work. Disabled people are perfectly capable of working, just as long as they get the help and support that WRAG and Access to Work provides, such as personal support, aids and adaptations. Without that personal support, without those aids and adaptations, sick and disabled people cannot go out to work. WRAG was devised as a way of supporting sick and disabled people into work. It was devised as a way of recognising the additional costs someone who is sick or disabled may encounter in trying to do exactly what the Government wants in working their way out of poverty. Cutting it to the same level as Jobseekers Allowance takes away the very amount claimants receive for additional disability costs. ESA WRAG and Job Seekers Allowance become the same thing. No difference between them. What is the point.

Actually, thinking about what is being proposed, is this how the Government is going to reduce the cost of sick and disabled people to the National Health Service? Is this how the Government are planning on reducing the NHS Bill? Have they found some kind of magic bullet for so many medical conditions? Reduce the amount of money sick and disabled people have for the necessities of life such as shelter, heating and sustenance and they will all get better and be able to go out to work. Is the Government, and largely, the Conservative Party, trying to tell us that a reduction in the welfare payments a sick or disabled claimant in WRAG receives will magically cure them of whatever it that ails them because that is what it sounds like. Somehow, I don’t think that’s how healthcare works. If it was as simple as that, surely someone would have spotted it sooner than this.

Leave people in WRAG alone and try chasing after the people and companies who are evading tax altogether to make up the fiscal deficit. Leave people in WRAG alone and try going for the people like the bankers who caused the problems we are having. Leave people in WRAG alone and try stop trying to punish the people at the bottom just for being at the bottom. Welfare Benefit reductions are a quick fix, not a long term solution. Leave people in WRAG alone, look to your own and try something else instead.