#department of work and pensions

[watercooler-raptors]

The mandatory reconsideration for my PIP came back as a resounding no, despite my best efforts, so now it's time to take this bitch to a tribunal...

[yestolerancepro]

Well done to Andrea perharps this win will help other carers in a simaler situation Perharps it will also persuade the Government that there needs to be a change in the law to stop overpayments like this from happening in the first place

[thestevensblog]

How the fucking hell are Vouchers going to help the Disabled?

I'm just curious about how can a Voucher pay for food, bills and medical expenses?

They just want us to die faster.

[try-and-try-and-try-again]

The government is demanding nearly £700 from me in benefits overpayments because I forgot to tell them I was hospital for 4 months in 2021 and for some reason the government thinks you don’t have any expenses at all when you’re hospital. I’m sorry I didn’t stop to think about you DWP whilst I was trapped in a terrifying hospital ward and too busy wishing to not survive it.

[ineffectualdemon]

Reminder if you need send back a reconsideration notice on your PIP or any paperwork to the DWP:

1. Send it so they have to sign for it so you get notified when they receive it

2. If you do not get notification that they have received the paperwork within 48 hours call them. They will backdate it to the day they received. So you need the delivery notification so you can say "you received it on [Date]"

[goodvibesatpeace]

[lilyliveredlittlerichboy]

i dont have a list of enemies or whatever but if i did then the dwp would absolutely be gunning for the top spot. how do they manage to fuck up so badly so often

[chriswhodrawsstuff]

Picking up the pieces again.

My life has been hell for the past couple of weeks. I have barely slept, barely eaten and each time I wake up I have to drag myself back up the day as a gibbering wreck whilst I take on the latest horrors drip fed through the media by my own government… again. No one chooses to be disabled and I wouldn’t wish this on my worst enemy…. I’m sorry, that’s a lie actually. I would wish it on the heads…

[listen-to-the-inner-walrus]

small update:

apparently, the reason that the DWP will no longer give vouchers/food slips for food banks is due to “inappropriate use of personal claimant data”.

this is because on these slips, there will be some personal details. this is a totally normal part of the referral process. food banks tend to give you a restricted amount of food and that amount will be different depending on your household. someone with three kids at home is gonna need more food.

obviously, it is up to the individual if they want to give that information over to the food bank because theyre the ones who hand over the voucher. this is the same no matter where your referral comes from.

the DWP, however, have decided that the act of giving that data - which the individual actively has to give themselves and is largely made up of information you could reasonably bring up as small talk- is now inappropriate.

it isnt inappropriate if the voucher comes from citizens advice or your GP or your housing association or your social worker, as a comparison.

i am actually able to cite my source this time and this info comes from Benefits and Work which is a benefits information provider, specifically the only one that draws no funding from the government, trusts, large companies or local authorities. this affords them more freedom as to what information they can publish. as such, i will end this with a quote from their article on this as it spells out exactly the motive of this move:

"The reality is that the DWP do not want food banks to be able to produce statistics showing that a huge number of claimants are being sent to them solely as a result of the benefits system forcing them into poverty."

okay so normally when i make informative posts about current news, i try to always link a source for it (i tend to rely on the guardian) or at least explain the source of it.

but i dont know if the government are planning to publicise this or quietly implement it so im hesitant to give details on where i got this info. im just gonna say it was from someone/s who works in the department of work and pensions, and hope that my prior post history speaks well enough of me for you to trust that this isnt misinformation.

i dont like doing this but i think this information is too important for me not to share it and said info is fucking disgusting.

starting in march, in the uk, if you ask at the job centre for a voucher for a local foodbank, you are going to be turned away.

under the current system, if you go to a job centre that has a food bank referral service, the staff will fill in a slip (theyre advised not to call it a voucher but tomayto tomarto you know?) and refer you to a local charity which will allocate you food according to the slip.

that ends on march 1st. after that, they will just hopefully signpost you to other services that can help you get an emergency food parcel. that will likely involve you having to travel somewhere, potentially on a public transport, costing you more money that you dont have. and that does not guarantee that you will get the food you need either that day or at all.

our government does not care about its citizens, but especially not about us who are poor. they see the working class, the impoverished and the homeless as subhumans. they see us as what new right sociologist and white nationalist libertarian charles murray coined the underclass.

and you know this because of how the current system will be working from now until the end of february because if youre gonna stab someone while theyre bleeding to death, you might as well double tap it, ay?

from now until february 29th, you now must have an interview so that they can be "sure" that you need that food.

bear in mind that this does not cost the government anything. they are not losing money because of this service, if you want to call it that.

and that interview? that could take up to 3 days; its whenever they have a timeslot within 3 days of your asking. you could go in and say "i have no money and i have no food, i havent eaten for days, please help," and they could tell you to come back in three days, and then not even give you that slip of paper anyway.

this could kill someone. yes, it takes longer than three days to starve to death, but if someone is struggling that much to need help acquiring food, theyre gonna have more problems going on. people might choose food over heating and freeze to death; they might decide to eat food thats gone off and end up dying from it because they couldnt call 999 because they didnt have electricity; they might decide to try and injure themselves so bad that they have an extended stay in hospital as a way to get food and die in the process; they might not have eaten in weeks and starve to death.

but hey, if you do pass the interview process, youll get the referral you needed up to three days ago and a discussion about how better to manage your finances, because hey, youve already stabbed the stabbed person two more times, why not twist the fucking knife?

[cassolotl]

UK government planning to scrap a major disability benefit

I'm only just scraping by and the government are proposing to take away PIP (a disability benefit), which would be HALF of my income wiped out.

"Reforms to personal independence payments (PIP) could include stopping regular cash payments, and instead offering claimants one-off grants for things like home adaptations." -- "Disabled people face end to monthly benefits cash", BBC News, 29 April 2024

And:

"The plans, which will be consulted on over the coming months, also include proposals to “move away from a fixed cash benefit system”, meaning people with some conditions will no longer receive regular payments, but instead access to treatment if their condition does not involve extra costs." -- "People with depression or anxiety could lose sickness benefits, says UK minister", Guardian, 29 April 2024

That's what the NHS is supposed to be doing...

Genuinely absolutely terrifying.

Can anyone living in the UK join in with an (hopefully!) overwhelming cascade of unique emails to their MP opposing this? WriteToThem.com makes it very quick and easy.

They're proposing to replace it with one-off grants that the individual can apply for, which is absurd and horrifying, so feel free to point out how that won't work as well!

Here's what I'm writing, and do not just copy-paste my letter/email, because that makes it less legit. Do your own thing, even just one sentence telling your MP that you're opposed is enough if that's all you can manage. Whatever you want to say is what your MP needs to hear.

Dear [MP's name], Today I learned that the government plan to scrap PIP, and maybe replace it with something like a one-off grant application process, before the next election. ("Disabled people face end to monthly benefits cash", BBC News, 29 April 2024: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cn0ry09d50wo) PIP is about half of my income (about 44%). I don't spend it on occasional large purchases, I spend it on countless things that are more expensive for me than they are for other people. PIP is in place to acknowledge, as it says in the above article, that disabled people's lives are more expensive than non-disabled people's lives by hundreds of pounds per week. ("Previous research from Scope suggests households with at least one disabled adult or child face an estimated average extra cost of £975 a month to have the same standard of living as non-disabled households." That's £225 per week, and the maximum amount of PIP you can get is £184.) So firstly, it could be argued that PIP doesn't even cover the additional expenses of the average disabled household. And next, the cost of implementing an alternative system would be worse for disabled people, totally unsuited to its purpose, and more expensive to run. Worse for disabled people: Currently PIP acknowledges that being disabled takes a lot more work to maintain a comparable standard of living, and as it's an amount of work that the claimant cannot sustainably do, they are given money so that they can pay someone else to do it. These costs are distributed across all living expenses, in addition to occasional one-off purchases of e.g. mobility aids. Having to apply for one-off payments for expenses would be more work on top of that, so if the disabled person isn't able to do it (which is very likely) they will either have to work less in their day jobs in order to spend more time applying for one-off grants, or they will have to also apply for one-off payments to pay someone to apply for more one-off payments. This is self-evidently a waste of energy and time, and totally impractical, as well as being counter to the entire point of disability benefits. It would also be extremely undignified for the disabled people, and arguably against human rights (right to private life and dignity), to have to justify each purchase to the government. Totally unsuited to its purpose: One off-grants are not suited to ongoing higher expenses such as having to buy more prepared food (e.g. carrot batons are more expensive than raw carrots and go off much more quickly). Does this policy assume that disabled people's PIP is only for things like wheelchairs and walking sticks? More expensive to run: The system for PIP applications is already fairly backlogged, in that my last application took over 6 months to complete. I was awarded PIP for 10 years. If every application for a one-off grant had to be accompanied by an application of a similar scale that wouldn't be workable, so presumably an initial PIP application like the current system's would still be required to qualify for the system in the first place, and then following that, numerous smaller applications for money (e.g. for taxis, pre-chopped veg, painkillers, specialist clothing, etc.) would be carried out per person per month. The disability benefits system would have to be scaled up significantly, and it would be much more expensive. It is far cheaper to give people a set amount of money based on their needs; it's the same money that you would be giving them in grants anyway, but without having to process each purchase/one-off application. I implore you to oppose this proposal. It is blatantly unworkable to the level of absurdity, but more importantly it is inhumane. I look forward to your reply detailing your stance. Many thanks in advance. Yours sincerely, [My name]

But, again, if you can't manage anything long or complicated like that, your best is good enough. Even if they're not all perfectly written and detailed, we want to bowl them over with sheer quantity of emails.

[yestolerancepro]

How silly and norrow minded is this ?

[hot-on-my-watch]

Well guess who just emailed their GP surgery asking for a sick note for THE PAST FOUR YEARS? 😆😆😆

Phonecall 1:

The DWP: I can't see your old claim properly on the computer but we didn't give you money and also you only had 13 months to ask for mandatory reconsideration for being put in the wrong "group" anyway. Sad to be you I guess.

Me: I don't think my case was assessed properly though because of the 2020 covid chaos. Also I'm really ill and no one ever told me about the groups. But I definitely WAS given the money.

DWP: Well you only had 13 months after the decision to question the assessment. It would've been on the phone because of the pandemic.

Me: I never had a phone assessment. I just got letters and money.

DWP: Well they wouldn't have made a decision without an assessment so you must have.

Me: I definitely didn't. It was all chaos! 2020! Covid! Chaos!

DWP: Well I'll ask someone to help me get into the file but it's too late and I'm off for the rest of the week and next week I'm being retrained onto UC and I have to come in every day of the week instead of only two and also I'm retiring in nine months and this is very annoying. My name's Lynn by the way.

Me: Ok, good luck Lynn!

Phonecall 2:

Lynn: Ok so we looked at the file and you did get the money but you didn't have an assessment.

Me: I know.

Lynn: So actually you were never put into either group. Because 2020 was REALLY CHAOTIC because of COVID and I DON'T EVEN KNOW HOW WE COPED! CHAOS!!

Me: Yes.

Lynn: And you were on credit-based only because you hadn't been assessed yet, and to have kept your claim open you needed to keep sending sick* notes after that.

Me: OK but I stopped sending fit notes because I received letters telling me that my claim was being closed because my credits had run out. I didn't know about the assessment or the groups.

Lynn: Ok, so the only way to continue the claim would be to provide sick notes from that time. And I don't know if you can get them or if they'd be accepted.

Me: Well I could've easily got them AT THE TIME. I'll try.

Email to GP Surgery:

Me: I know this is highly irregular and I can hear you laughing from here but... can I please have a sick note for the last four years? And btw my GP left last year. Please please please bye.

Seriously the surgery, which I have never been to due to the severity of my condition, is about 300 metres from my house and I don't have superpowers but I swear I feel like I can see the look on the face of the receptionship that I have never met from here. 😅😅😅😅😅

* I will never call it a 'fit note' when its purpose is specifically to say that you are NOT fit for work and the government can't make me.

[princessanneftw]

Interesting 👀

[leselemens]

dont know what im doing with my life don't know what i want to do as a career don't know how to change careers dont know how to get over my crippling anxiety about making changes in my life aaaaaaaaaaaaaaagh

[voidpunkpal]

dwp: tells me my benefits assessment call will be at 9am

dwp yesterday: tells me actually it'll be at 11am, the assessor has something come up

dwp today, at 11:40am: calls me to tell me they're just reading my notes now, and to expect the actual call in ~20 more minutes

dwp calls at 12. it lasts two hours. midway through she had to stop quickly to tell her manager the next persons appointment has to be pushed back.

two. bloody. hours. and thats after she saw the backlog of letters and forms and other assessments ive done before

dont you just love being disabled sometimes 🙂🙃