PIP claimants: All 1.6 million claims to be reviewed

Bl4ckGryph0n

It is nothing to do with individual human beings in and of themselves, but rather the environment, the targets and prioritisation they are set and the way they are rewarded or penalised.

We all have priorities and many of us have similar if not identical ones, but they vary in the weight and order we give to them.
In a commercial enterprise, the bottom line and therefore the greatest priority and weight will always end up being that of profitability.
If corners need to be cut and other targets deprioritised to maintain profitability, any business that wants to remain a float will do so.
The business doesn't care about fairness or customer satisfaction other than as a means to an end which if they can be deprioritised for greater profit they will be on a cost/benefit decision.

When you have essentially a monopoly for a guaranteed contract and they clients are reticent to apply any performance penalties for political reasons, it does not create the ideal environment to prioritise customer satisfaction and fairness.... in fact it encourages reducing as much fairness and satisfaction versus costs as possible.

Take for example what is happening to public transport and in particular the bus services.
Bus miles per year have come down dramatically in recent years, with many regions losing 40%.
This is down to two reasons.

1) a reduction in the budget for subsidised routes. The government has significantly reduced the amount it gives local councils to subsidise public transport and that has led to a vast reduction in bus services for rural and less popular routes as private companies will not run those services without subsidy.

2) a reduction in the willingness of private companies to invest and run services on subsidised routes. Even when local councils offer subsidies to cover the running of less popular routes, many bus companies are looking to capitalise on high value, high traffic routes with better returns.
Nationwide, there has been a significant drop in private company bus miles on subsidised routes while they have expanded and invested in areas like London and the SE.

When there is lots of choice and competition, private companies can be a good way of introducing efficient, value for money products and services.
When you have essential services that part of the infrastructure of the country and there is no real choice or competition, private companies are not usually a good way of providing reliable quality services.

Toko Black

Yes, you invented two scenarios with such glaring and obvious flaws, and pretended they were the only two possible outcomes.  You really need me to point this out?  Oh OK then.

A) tell the minister/government that it is impossible to save money, get more people into work AND punish the cheats

You actually think that it is impossible to reduce the benefits bill by helping get the disabled into work?  You try and tie this up with some crap about the expense of doing investigations?

I'm sure the government must have lost a load of money on having 600k more disabled people in work.

Bl4ckGryph0n

So my point was the rules are the same, yet to continue to say that it is different. Then surely it is down to those whose job it is to manage this that this isn’t the case.

Toko Black

The governments (this and previous including Labour) belief was that there are/were around 1 million more claimants of disability benefits than should/need to be.
That figure includes the 600k disabled people who moved into work, since that has been offset by an increase in claims which means that since the redesign and implementation of the new benefits system, the number of claimants is roughly still the same.
In other words, if actually do credit the government with helping 600k disabled people into work, all that has done is reduced the 'increase' in claims rather than reducing the actual total number of claims.

One could look at that and say well it's still positive news, but here comes the kicker. The system was budgeted and designed around that belief that there would be 1million less disability claimants.

When you add together the costs of all the assessment contracts, system changes, high levels of over turned decisions at tribunals, general implementation/management costs and the now expected to be several billion in reviews after the court cases it is already looking like and expensive white elephant.
However, when you also factor in the major impact of the fundamental costing and budgeting of the system being based on reducing the number of claimants by 1 million and that has failed to materialise, you get a clearer idea of how much of a fiscal disaster this whole thing is.

That belief in having 1 million more claimants than necessary was one of the prime factors in designing, implementing and managing the system and assessments.
When you believe there a 1 million additional people who don't need to be claiming a benefit and your budget depends upon it, yet find out that even after tough assessments you still haven't reduced the overal figure you are in trouble.

That's without including the human factors such as the amount of pain, suffering and hardship this has all caused to the most vulnerable people in society.

But hey, just stick your fingers in your ears and chant 600k disabled people working which is the Iain Duncan Smith method of getting to sleep every night without dwelling on the suffering and suicides he helped cause.

Bl4ckGryph0n

Well if the number of claimants have risen by about 35% over a 10 year period then something isn't right and a change is required.

Surely its a good think that people of working age of all abilities can participate in the workplace. I really don't see what is so bad about that.

tapzilla2k

They haven't.

It's grown by about 16% over 10 years.
Primarily this is down to the aging population problem - the government wanted to reduce the number of claimants in total by 1 million, not just working age claimants.
As the population increases to age, an ever increasing number of elderly people are requiring disability benefits. Not only that, but the percentage of working age claimants the government believed they could reduce was also significantly less than expected.
There has also been a backlash, legal rulings and issues down to the fact that a large number of people with disabilities have mental health problems and that was seriously underestimated, under invested in and badly assessed for, leading to high numbers of tribunals ruling against the DWP costing a small fortune and ever increasing costs of reviews.

I agree if that is what is best for all concerned. What I don't agree with is trying to hammer a square peg into a round hole just because that is what was believed to be the solution.
Encourage businesses to take on more disabled staff and provide more support to make it possible for those that are capable and want to work - as long as that doesn't end up:

1) costing businesses too much in efficiency and costs to the point of them having to shed jobs and/or go out of business.

2) forcing people who are in pain or suffering to work for the sake of working just to appease a political ideology.

For some reason, the government and public under estimated the seriousness and significance of mental illness - all too many people seemed to believe that there were large numbers of people that should just 'snap out of it' and 'stop feeling sorry for themselves' and restructuring the system to give those people a 'jolt' would 'do the trick'.
They got it seriously and dramatically wrong.

Bl4ckGryph0n

Well what do you want? Keep on increasing the group? Is there a limit ever? How will it be funded? And what if it is unaffordable?

But we agree it does come down to political ideology, do I want a society that you cannot afford to be ill and thus you aren't...Or do I want a society where you can take all the time in the world...The reality is in the middle. But that is not an easy place to establish.

IronGiant

That's a whole load of stuff, including the larger part I cut from the quote, which does nothing to prove your previous post with the only two possible scenarios being those you outlined.

600k more disabled people in work is good.  It is good for them.  It is good for society.  It is good for government finances.

But obviously, we can't possibly allow anything good that happens under the tories to go unchallenged.  After all, they are much more interested in blatantly demonising the sick and disabled.  Even when that blatant demonisation is implied or said by other people.

IronGiant

You have to ask what kind of jobs do the disabled have, what support employers have put in to enable them to do jobs and if it's had an impact on their physical and mental health. It might just be that a certain number of disabled people have had no choice but to find work due to the draconian benefits system. The Government finances probably won't be any better off, as I'm guessing given the state of the economy there will be a significant number of the 600k disabled in work earning under the threshold for taxation and some will likely be claiming universal credit/working tax credits to top up their wages.

Either we support the vulnerable members of society or we go back to the horrors of the old pre welfare state system.

Toko Black

Doesn't have to be either side of the spectrum and so extreme...