Welfare benefits news, possible changes & constructive ‘discussion - an ongoing thread

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Okay the official document are published - please bear with me whilst I read through - I’ll post highlight screenshots as I go

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/autumn-statement-2023

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sorry about my bad highlighting

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Quick note: it sounds like a possible ‘full consultation response’ document may be published shown that may expand on things further

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From page 81 is all the the costs/savings the gov expects to make from policy changes and new policies

i won’t post the screens as it’s too much but may list them later today if there’s interest

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Okay - that the whole autumn statement document read through (in skim read mode)

I’ll write a summary of the major points that stood out a bit later (I need a bit of a break)

I will say that we are waiting on a publication of the results of the consultation or a similar topic’ed pdf to give further info as the autumn statement was still very slim on actually detail on how all this will be done and all the changes

Ralph

Thank you

apple85

Results from the wca constitution that ran sept-oct 2023 (thanks @Votadini for the link)
I’ll screenshot/summarise later

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/655dbd38544aea0019fb3218/work-capability-assessment-activities-and-descriptors-response.pdf

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after one read of the consultation result doc I’ve concluded I will probably need to read it several times (and chat to neurotypical family members) to fully understand it

i see a lot of comments jumping to conclusions but (and I like to think of myself as a smart person or at one with common sense reasoning skills) I’m not sure how anyone has fully digested and understood it and it’s implications fully in under an hour (I think disablity charities will take at least a day formatting their easy to understand summaries.

honestly I’m going to read it several times more before posting any of my own ‘breakdown summaries’ as I want to make sure I 100% understand what is being said

apple85

Hi all

I’ve had a few more reads and though there are bits I’m still not clear on I’ll try my best to break things down in a number of posts

Full disclosure (because on days like this everyone worries about how these things effect their own personal circumstances first and those circumstances will affect how we perceive any changes):
my personal circumstances is (ignoring my disabilities and health conditions) that I’m single & have no reliant’s depending on me (I know that’s an added pressure for many on here) and I am lucky enough to currently have a ‘support system’ that goes above and beyond for me…….I still get really stressed out and panic about being on benefits & the neverending weight that puts on the shoulders but I’d be in a much worse position if it wasn’t for them.
And perhaps it’s because of that that all of the announcements and documentation released today hasn’t (surprisingly) panicked me and I’m looking at all of this perhaps calmer and more positively than the majority of social media commentators I’ve read today 

(I know misery loves company but there are a lot of panicked on this forum but I think the panic is panicking others and I think a different perspective may be helpful for some)

First major points i want to make:

in reaction to those on here currently on esa or uc lcw/lcwra groups

> none of the long term sickness claimant government plans (the stuff on the consultation doc I posted earlier) kicks in until 2025 earliest (POST general election - meaning that the decisions made from the consultation may never happen if the tories don’t retain power)

> the other stuff mentioned in the autumn statement document (like the sanctions and all the new schemes) is on the most part referring to those on jsa or uc ‘fit for work’ group……………..I believe a good chunk on this forum from reading comments are on neither of these groups so aren’t affected by most of the autumn statement 

Honestly take a deep breathe and try and take a break from worrying and enjoy the holiday period

even if the worst possible option did apply to most of us then it would take sources of support like charities at least a couple to figure out the best way to tackle all this and wouldn’t have the answers to those on here answering the panicked questions and the repeat questions may be stressing out those members who will be invaluable in the coming months - but they need calmness and time to get their own heads round things

so id advise everyone here to take a step back from all the media and news till 2024 if you can - your mental health will thank you

apple85

Outcome to the wca consultation (in terms of esa50/uc50 form activities and descriptors:


Honestly I’m seeing this as a partial win as the dwp could of chosen to make things significantly harder

the current descriptors
https://www.disabilityrightsuk.org/resources/work-capability-assessment#:~:text=Each%20activity%20is%20divided%20into,task%20described%20reliably%20and%20repeatedly.

https://www.benefitsandwork.co.uk/employment-and-support-allowance/esa-glossary/work-related-activity-group-descriptors

https://www.advicenow.org.uk/know-hows/universal-credit-work-capability-assessment-descriptors-activities-and-substantial-risk


i think that the changes to the esa50/uc50 forms from 2025 will be:

> removal of activity 1 (mobilising)
> removal of descriptors b, c and d for activity 15 (getting about)


the consultation response doc (https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/655dbd38544aea0019fb3218/work-capability-assessment-activities-and-descriptors-response.pdf)
explains the dwp’s reasonings for these removals but I think my personal interpretation of those aren’t required

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‘Substantial risk’ element:

if you read the ‘govs response to the wca’ document it is visibly obvious the dwp wanted to ditch the ‘substantial risk’ element altogether (they’ve tried twice in the past - the 1st time they succeeded but 6 years later an upper tribunal claimant case triggered the judges to reverse this, the second time they tried they had to drop it due to the backlash)
Yes this amendment is a major tightening of the substantial risk element however those who replied to the consultation achieved a major concession from the dwp on this and that is a victory.

There was another thing I noticed when reading the ‘gov response to wca doc’:

I looked up both the definitions of both substantial risk and ‘active psychotic illness’ (aka, forms of psychosis - if I’ve understood correctly) 

https://askcpag.org.uk/content/207488/substantial-risk-and-the-wca

https://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/publications/understanding-psychosis

now the major difference that popped out at me was that substantial risk is to do with mental and physical health but psychosis is solely a mental health issue


and then it dawned on me that the dwp are using a single argument for the changes in the wca assessments (uc50/esa50 forms) - and it’s an argument that has been torn apart by disability commentator for the past week…………

this all comes down to the dwp ‘one size fits all’ solution of ‘work from home’ wfh jobs providing all their solutions in one - the logic being that if you work from home you don’t need to travel to a potentially unsuitable workplace or talk face to face with colleagues so ‘issue of mobility must 100% disappear’ when WFH is put in play - going on simplistic dwp logic.

those on this forum and charities know it’s a more complex issue than that

the dwp argument also falls massively apart when you consider that there is next to no true WFH job vacancies available (by that I mean solely from home, no office days………..a single day in the office would null and void the dwp mobility theories on this subject) - the only way to get around this is self employment and I will discuss this in another thread

point I’m making is the policy changes based on this particular dwp logic can be easily contested


the other thing I noted from the govs doc is the following:



This means psychosis may not be the only mental health condition that is covered in this new substantial risk definition
 (or psychosis being a symptom or side effect of another disability - when reading the definition of psychosis I think there’s an argument that some of us with disabilities, esp mental health based ones, may already experience some form of psychosis when we are under major stress……..like pressure from the dwp/job centre to find work/threats of losing benefits and trying to survive)

also tribunal judges may use liberties to decide their own definition of the criteria as they are independent of the dwp and in theory overrule them

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Dwp stepping up benefit fraud measures by monthly bank account checks rumours:

the autumn statement screenshots on this:

Firstly is it clearly suggests that legislation will be need via a:

> new parliamentary bill which will most likely take 3-12+ months to get royal assent and be made law

> an amendment to an existing act which can probably be completed within 3 months

the existing ‘social security fraud act’ has nothing like this in it and adding that we haven’t had a new bill on that in years my guesstimate is more than a simple amendment will be needed on this


There’s only one way the dwp can view 5-10 million claimants bank accounts and that via the use of ai
that would be controversial, especially considering the amount of data security breaches the dwp has had the past few years (the dwp would need something like a password key to view our bank statements - if god forbid the dwp got hacked and statement details were leaked that would be a massive lawsuit against the dwp, banks or both (another guesstimate on my part) - it’s basically trouble waiting to happen)

https://www.hayesconnor.co.uk/data-breach-claims/government-data-breach-claims/dwp-data-breach-claims/


this is also a right for privacy issue which makes up parts of human rights and conflicts with the ‘rule of law’ - and there’s already evidence that the House of Lords would push back on this

if it did go ahead (which I question the likelihood as it will be controversial) this article is an interesting read on current things the dwp look out for on bank statements)

https://civilservice.blog.gov.uk/2014/11/24/im-a-civil-servant-and-i-investigate-fraud/