UK: Disability benefits (UC, ESA and PIP) - news and updates 2023 (including government plans to scrap the work capability assessment)

He made a point that this showed a 'compassionate government'. By doing what has a1ways been the standard practice! So threaten and 1eak something bad, then pu11 back and c1aim this is compassion...

 

he's announced the changes but there's zero detail afaict (tbf i'm not watching the damn thing). i guess we'll have to wait for the documents

 

A11 he said is that there wi11 be changes to the WCA, no detai1s at a11!

 

https://www.astriid.org/news/astriid-statement-on-autumn-budget-2023/

Astriid consulting focus on long term health conditions in work

Good response including ELCI and nice graph showing reasons for why people with long term health conditions can’t work.

 

It was a1so announced that - 'Under the back-to-work plan, the sick note system will be changed, to assume that people can work'.

How the he11 is that supposed to work? It won't be a sick note at a11!

 

I was under the impression that the sick note hadn't existed for a long long time.

That they were replaced by fit notes.

Many, many years ago - shortly after I got my last sick note I think, that's possibly around the year 2000.

You'd think that Ministers, MPs, commentators, journalists, etc., would know this.

 

There hasn't been a sick note since April 2010, it was replaced by the "Fit Note".
Shows how out of touch these people are.

 

beyond which, they don't protect you from much these days anyway, esp if yr making an appeal. you wonder how the severely ill are supposed to navigate this system

 

So as far as they're concerned nobody is unable to work. I saw somewhere there'd be exemptions for people having cancer treatment. But i know several people who happily kept working through long months of chemo, just had the day after their chemo off but otherwise carried on pretty much as before. My mother was on the golf course 2 days after her chemo on one occasion... whereas I, on the same day, was struggling to get from bed to bathroom.

 

this really has al the hallmarks of the original 2008 WCA reforms, which ended up being softened in practice because they were such a catastrophe for two or three years. i can't imagine this stuff can hold but i can imagine the damage done in the meantime

 

tbh i feel like i've had it anyway, i was given either 50/50 and zero chance of winning my appeal for LCWRA last time by two advisors (tho i did) and if they tighten it further i can see that being quoted as zero and, erm, zero next time. i'll be ok while my mum is still alive but in the long term maybe not so much. even then, i still have family to fall back on (i hope). i really don't want to have to deal with any of this but it's everyone else i'm scared for at the moment

 

It's ca11ed a fit note but most GPs just treat it as a sick note. They reason (proper1y) that they can't know the working conditions of their patient, so can't advise what work they can safe1y perform in the workp1ace.

 

I think what they are p1anning is more direct referra1 to DWP menta1 hea1th services, by which they mean proposed DWP CBT therapists. Then they wi11 expect anyone suffering menta1 hea1th prob1ems to carry on working through their i11ness. How this wi11 work for those with severe menta1 hea1th prob1ems hasn't been considered. Most CBT therapists can't cope with anything that's remote1y comp1ex or more than mi1d depression and anxiety.

 

I wonder if the 1ack of detai1 about the WCA is because there must have been an extreme back1ash to the WCA consu1tation from charities as we11 as individua1s, p1us there may be a judicia1 review into it. It seemed to me that JH was just 'making a nod' to future reform of it with the media being fed different stories just to keep it in the minds of their voters (i.e. being hard on 'shirkers' as they ca11 those too sick and disab1ed to work).

 

The only potentially positive point for me is the local housing rate is now unfrozen. This might result, if the rent can be increased to the 30th percentile, in my sister getting nearly 50 percent more rent.

That's the difference between the market rent and the LHA rate here.

So it not actually costing her anything month to month to rent this place to me.

Of course other things tenancy related will still cost her, but her not being out so much a month on the rent.....will help me psychologically.

 

There was a discussion/phone in on the proposed changes on BBC Radio 2 today
Jeremy Vine - Autumn statement and rows over luggage on trains. - BBC Sounds

(people who contacted them included s/o with ME and a family with LC.)

eta: a lot of talk about people on benefits 'swinging the lead'

 

i was just thinking that. he's making a lot of noise around this now but i'm sure when they announced the white paper on getting rid of the WCA we'd seen something by this time in the afternoon. i suspect it might be a while before we see anything, which i also think goes back to the idea we were talking about of it being a political trap. interestingly, people are saying for the first time i've seen that this budget makes it look like they're going for a spring election and rolling out the greatest hits at top volume, including benefit shirkers, would be exactly what you'd expect them to do.

 

yeah, i saw that. possibly the one proof that some of the worst things they've ever done can actually be reversed at some pt, it's been a brutal policy for years.

 

Many c1aimants wi11 sti11 be worse of next year due there being no 'cost of 1iving' payments. A1though it's very good news for c1aimants in private rented accommodation of course. I remember when they brought in the bedroom tax they advised socia1 housing tenants to move to sma11er private rented accommodation to avoid the pena1ty. Many fe11 into that trap and have become worse off than they wou1d have been paying the bedroom tax on a 1arger socia1 home.