Tag: 2010

08 the same company

Posted on
She was thrilled when she got work
at a council children’s centre
but a routine health check
by a company contracted by the council
and the Department
found
she was not fit for work.
She was recovering from a five-year battle
with anorexia.
‘It would be inappropriate
to be offered employment
in this role.’
Strapped for cash
she applied for support
only to be judged
fit for work.
‘You do not have
any limited capacity
for work.
It has been decided
we cannot pay you’
The same company
carried out both assessments.

[Daily Mirror, 16/04/2010, Too unfit to work… too fit for benefits]

10 uncontrolled, uncontrollable or life threatening

Posted on
He quit his job in 2007
after becoming severely ill:
depression
anxiety.
He rarely left his home, refused
to talk to friends and relatives
or answer the door or phone
often spent days
in the same room.
He lived off his savings for two years
until his money ran out.
In early 2009
he finally began talking again
to his father and step-mother.
They persuaded him to apply for support.
He was assessed by a doctor employed
by a government contractor.
The doctor concluded
there was ‘no evidence
to suggest that the client’s health condition
due to their depression
is uncontrolled,
uncontrollable or life
threatening.’
He asked the Department to reconsider
as this disagreed wildly
with the opinion of his doctor
his psychiatric nurse
and his psychiatrist.
He found out
in January 2010
the Department agreed
with its earlier decision.
Although he began
the next stage of the process –
an independent appeal –
a few days later
his body was found.

[Disability News Service, 02/12/2019, DWP: The Case for the Prosecution]

12 the next day she took her five-month-old son in her arms

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Six months after having her income cut off and housing benefit withdrawn
she was sharing her sister’s one-bedroom flat
destitute
with a baby to care for.
32 years old,
a Frenchwoman
living in Britain
since 1997.
In 2008 she graduated
with a degree in philosophy.
She found she was pregnant.
She looked for work.
The Department told her
the fact that she was within 11 weeks of giving birth
disqualified her;
she was not in a fit condition to work.
She was told to apply for income support.
But she had an eight-month period in 2003
when she had been working in a cafe,
and had no records to prove it;
her claim was turned down.
Appealed;
turned down.
She applied for child benefit;
rejected.
Hackney council demanded she repay
200 pounds in housing benefit
she had been given
just as her Jobseeker’s allowance
was being taken away.
She applied to take the Department to tribunal
but repeatedly failed to be given a date
for the hearing.
She was desperate.
Her last attempt to get a date from the tribunal service
took place on 12 June.
The next day she took her five-month-old son in her arms
and jumped from the flat’s sixth-floor balcony.

[The Guardian, 08/01/2010, Comment: Christelle and her baby died at the hands of a callous state]

19 explosion in the Sangin region

Posted on
She received income support
after suffering an accident at work in 2003.
In 2009 her son was killed in Afghanistan;
explosion in the Sangin region.
She received a death in service payment:
66,000.
She found a letter from the Department
telling her the money
made her ineligible to claim support
after she returned from a remembrance service.

[Ledbury Reporter, 19/11/2010, Soldier’s mother in suspense over benefits claim]

28 every 18 months

Posted on
He was celebrating getting a new job at a warehouse;
outside the nightclub
he was approached by five men.
One of them
struck him with a wheel brace
on the head.
Spinal damage
he cannot walk farther than a few yards.
Asthma, depression, panic attacks;
he spends most of his time in bed.
Every 18 months
he has to undergo an assessment
by the Department.
Last month,
he was told
he was no longer entitled
to any support,
after two doctors
asked him to stand up
and walk around his living room.

[The Sentinel, 21/04/2010, Dad left for dead in attack has benefits cut after 14 years]

48 Dirge 2: declare war

Posted on
In the years of plenty
it was easier to placate
and complicate
than simplify.
The argument for welfare reform
is not just one of affordability.
In too many cases
welfare has entrenched poverty.
Get a job tomorrow
earning between ten
and thirty thousand a year,
you’ll only take home
thirty pence out of every extra pound
after the first ten thousand.
Twenty pence
will go in income tax
eleven pence
in national insurance
thirty nine
in lost tax credits.
Our poverty trap is deep.
A strange legacy
for a government
that wanted to
make
work
pay.
The fear
of not being able to scramble
back on to the lifeboat
if you fall off
is a huge disincentive
to change your circumstances.
One in seven
working age households
is dependent on benefits
for more than half its income.
More than half
of lone parents
depend on the State
for at least half their income.
The safety net
has become a trap.
It has also created
a glut
of unemployed
unwanted
unmarriageable men.
Men who can find
neither work
nor a wife.
These men were overlooked
during a decade of prosperity
that did nothing to change their lives.
They stayed put.
In the Welsh Valleys
in Liverpool
in Glasgow
in Birmingham
Strathclyde
and Newcastle
they stayed put. While
Eastern Europeans
travelled a thousand miles
to pick up work
on construction sites in London.
Immigration
reduced the opportunities
available to
white
British
men
men
whose poor education
made them less attractive
overlooked by society,
irrelevant to employers,
unwanted by women.
The man
who has no work
or a series of short-term jobs
is a problem.
Without steady work
he will struggle
to acquire
a family.
Without a stable relationship
he is less likely to grow
into a good
family man
less likely
to raise
good
sons.
The government
must start to question
the feminisation
of education
and the workplace.
It is no solution
to say that women
don’t need men
or that men
should become
more female.
Nor is it any good
waiting for growth
to dig them
out of poverty.
These men need a chance
not a benefits system
that undermines them.
One in four mothers
is single,
more than half
live on welfare.
A lot of these women,
who can raise families on benefits
without their help,
describe
the real
fathers of their children
as ‘useless’
or worse.
The State
has helped to create
a class of jobless
serial boyfriends
who prey on single mothers
on benefits.
The men have no role.
The taxpayer has become
the father.
Poverty
and benefits;
if the Government
is going to make inroads
it will have to declare war
on both.

[The Times, 28/05/2010, Editorial: Useless, jobless men – the social blight of our age]