Find out how to let us know if you're concerned about another member's safety.
Change to substantial risk rule
I'm aware 'these changes might never happen', but I'd like to know if we have legal grounds to challenge the change to this rule if the dwp do attempt to change/amend it?
Comments
-
Also, I forgot to add, I was curious when (or a rough date) that the 'SR rule' was proposed to be changed/amended?
-
Remina said:are the changes to the 'substantial risk rule' likely to go ahead?You already answered your own question here.
Anything can be challenged but things like this take time and it won't happen overnight. At the moment no one knows exactly what may happen and what the full changes will be, it's all a guessing game.Remina said:I'm aware 'these changes might never happen',It's not just the SR that may change, it's also the mobising descriptor for LCWRA/Support Group and this also applies to a lot of people.All i can say is that nothing has changed right now for anyone.I would appreciate it if members wouldn't tag me please. I have all notifcations turned off and wouldn't want a member thinking i'm being rude by not replying.If i see a question that i know the answer to i will try my best to help. -
This effects me as well. I was working and it caused me to go into active psychosis. I look an overdose of 60 Diazepam because of voices in my head telling me to take them all.
I am currently in Substantial Risk and not in active psychosis.
So in a way they are saying. Go to work because your not in active psychosis and then when you are in active psychosis we will consider work is a substantial risk.
Or perhaps they are just hoping I take enough pills the next time to kill myself. Then I won't be any kind of risk (especially to their finances).
Muppets -
This concerns me so much too @Remina. I believe they state they'll be releasing what evidence a claimant will need etc too and it sounds like the descriptor will be way too rigid rather than a safety net for the most vulnerable.
-
Isn't this a case of might/could compared to will?
I'm still on medication for CPTSD and whilst I have been stable for many years and able to live an almost normal life. I have never included that diagnosis on any of my sickness/disability claims as I don't consider that it now affects my life. There is the chance maybe sometime down the road that things may change but until it does then I'll look at it differently then. -
You are here: Home / Benefits and Poverty / Secret report finally reveals flaws in universal credit support for ‘vulnerable’ claimants
Secret report finally reveals flaws in universal credit support for ‘vulnerable’ claimants
By John Pring on 16th November 2023
-
You are here: Home / Benefits and Poverty / ELECTION 2015: Lib Dem president ‘astonished’ at manifesto’s disability benefits failure
ELECTION 2015: Lib Dem president ‘astonished’ at manifesto’s disability benefits failure
By John Pring on 24th April 2015 Category: Benefits and PovertyListenThe Liberal Democrats’ disabled president has told Disability News Service (DNS) she is “astonished” that her party’s planned cuts to social security spending would not exempt all recipients of disability benefits.The party confirmed to DNS last week that although its manifesto says disability benefits would be excluded from a planned one per cent cap on the annual rise in working-age benefits which will last until 2017-18 this protection would not include recipients of out-of-work disability benefits.Although the party would protect those claiming disability living allowance and personal independence payment (PIP), the protection would not extend to the main component of employment and support allowance (ESA), or the work-related activity top-up component of ESA, but only to the ESA support group top-up.Baroness [Sal] Brinton said she was shocked to learn that the policy would not protect all disability benefits, as her party’s manifesto had suggested.She said: “If [the party] have already said something to you [to confirm this] then I am astonished, because the philosophy that is in our mini-manifesto is that disabled people’s benefits would be protected.”
-
You are here: Home / Benefits and Poverty / IDS announces ‘fitness for work’ U-turn that was five years in the making
IDS announces ‘fitness for work’ U-turn that was five years in the making
By John Pring on 28th August 2015
Category: Benefits and Poverty
Work and pensions secretary Iain Duncan Smith appears set to scrap the “fitness for work” test championed by successive Labour, coalition and Conservative governments, but there are fears that its replacement could prove even more damaging to disabled people.
Duncan Smith (pictured) – in comments not included in a written version of a speech reported by mainstream media – said that employment minister Priti Patel would lead a review of the out-of-work benefit, employment and support allowance (ESA).
And he also appeared to promise that the work capability assessment (WCA), the much-criticised eligibility test for ESA, would be scrapped.
He was speaking just three days before his department finally published complex new figures on the number of people who died after being found “fit for work” following a WCA.
Tory, Labour and coalition governments have repeatedly given their support to the ESA system, since it was launched under Labour in 2008.
But Duncan Smith said, in the speech delivered this week to the thinktank Reform, that there was a “fundamental flaw” at the heart of ESA.
He said: “It is a system that decides that you are either capable of work or you are not capable of work.
“Two absolutes equating to one perverse incentive – a person has to be incapable of all work or available for all work.”
He added: “Someone may be able to do some work for some hours, days or weeks, but not what they were doing previously, when they first became ill.”
Duncan Smith said that ESA – and particularly the WCA – was at odds with the government’s new simplified working-age benefit system, universal credit.
He said: “The more personalised approach under universal credit… sits alongside a work capability assessment which sets the wrong incentives.”
-
UK ‘is first country to face UN inquiry into disability rights violations’
By John Pring on 15th August 2014Category: Human Rights, News Archive
The UK government appears to have become the first country to face a high-level inquiry by a United Nations committee, as a result of “grave or systemic violations” of the rights of disabled people.The committee has the power to launch an inquiry if it receives “reliable information” that such violations have been committed by a country signed up to the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD) and its optional protocol.
These investigations are conducted “confidentially”, so the UN’s Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) – which is carrying out the inquiry – has refused to confirm or deny that the UK is being investigated
-
Tories deny plans to cut out-of-work disability benefits
By John Pring on 31st October 2014Category: Benefits and Poverty, News Archive
Both the Conservative party and the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) have denied that ministers are considering sharp cuts to the main out-of-work disability benefit.The BBC said it had seen documents that showed ministers were considering “drastically cutting” payments for new claimants of employment and support allowance (ESA).
The cuts would apply to those who had been placed in the ESA work-related activity group (WRAG) because they were considered capable in the future of returning to work.
The BBC claimed those in the WRAG would be given just 50p more per week than those on the mainstream out-of-work benefit, jobseeker’s allowance (JSA).
WRAG claimants currently receive up to £101.15 a week, nearly £70 more than those on JSA, who receive up to £72.40 a week.
A DWP spokesman insisted that the idea was “not government policy and is not happening”, but he was unable to provide any more information.
A Conservative party spokesman also confirmed that it was “not government policy and is not going to happen”
-
You are here: Home / Benefits and Poverty / DWP issued guidance that made suicides more likely, then ‘lied’ to cover its tracks
DWP issued guidance that made suicides more likely, then ‘lied’ to cover its tracks
By John Pring on 29th September 2016 Category: Benefits and Poverty
The government has secretly made major changes to guidance given to “fitness for work” benefits assessors that has put the lives of thousands of disabled claimants at risk… and then “lied” about what it had done.
The changes appear to show ministers made a calculation last year that it was worth risking the loss of some lives in order to cut benefits spending and force more disabled people into their discredited back-to-work programmes.
The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) could now face legal action over its decision to bring in the changes without seeking approval from parliament.
The changes were exposed after DWP released figures last month showing the proportion of claimants placed in the support group of employment and support allowance (ESA) – and therefore not forced to take part in work-related activity – plummeted by 42 per cent between November 2015 and February 2016.
DWP has claimed the drop was due to a falling backlog in dealing with new ESA claims through the work capability assessment (WCA) system.
But an archived copy of the version of DWP’s Work Capability Assessment Handbook that was published in February 2015 – which DWP now appears to have removed from its website – proves that key guidance has been significantly altered at some point in the last 18 months.
These changes mean that assessors are far less likely to place a claimant with a mental health condition in the ESA support group because of the risk to their health if forced into work-related activity.
In February 2015, the handbook included six indicators of “substantial risk”, which were marked “D” for “definitive” – including someone who was currently sectioned, who had active thoughts of suicide, or had had a documented episode of self-harm requiring medical attention in the last 12 months – to show that that person should be placed in the support group.
But the latest edition of the guidance says only that such indicators “might” give rise to a substantial risk in “exceptional circumstances”.
Although the latest version of the handbook was only produced in draft form in February this year, and its final version published in July, a former assessor has confirmed to Disability News Service (DNS) that assessors receive regular updates to guidance from DWP, so the new guidance on “substantial risk” could have been sent out at any time from early 2015 onwards.
The latest edition of the handbook also tells assessors that they should consider factors that might “mitigate” the chance that someone could harm themselves or others, including “the benefits of employment weighed against any potential risk”.
Because the changes were carried out through updated guidance – rather than changes to legislation or regulations – DWP did not seek the approval of parliament for the alterations.
The guidance in the WCA handbook explains to assessors how they should translate ESA regulations 29 and 35, which concern whether decisions to find someone fit for work or able to carry out work-related activity would cause a substantial risk of harm.
In April, DNS obtained a DWP document through a freedom of information request which suggested amending or removing regulations 29 and 35, and said that such a move would provide substantial savings.
But the memo – drawn up before the 2015 election, and to be used if the Conservatives triumphed at the polls – warned that previous attempts to remove the regulations had been defeated in the courts, and that any changes in this area “carry a significant handling and delivery risk” because they would be “perceived as restricting application of the safeguards and may be considered discriminatory”.
DWP’s press office said in April that these “speculative policy formulations” were drafted by staff before the last election and “have not been raised, do not represent government policy and have never been sent to ministers”.
But comparing the latest handbook with the version issued before the 2015 election shows the regulations have been amended, although by changing the guidance rather than the rules themselves.
John McArdle, co-founder of the grassroots campaign network Black Triangle, which has played a significant role in raising awareness of regulations 29 and 35 in order to protect thousands of disabled people whose lives would otherwise be at risk, said: “We are currently consulting with lawyers to look at the legality of the guidance.
“It would appear to us that the guidance they have issued is in breach of the legislation.”
He said DWP’s actions showed its “blatant dishonesty” and that it “lied” when it said it had not amended regulations 29 and 35.
Rick Burgess, of Manchester Disabled People Against Cuts, said the changes made to the guidance would “mean more suicides being completed by disabled people placed under unendurable stress by the assessment regime”.
He said: “The message to us from the DWP is, ‘We want you dead. If you say you are suicidal we will only believe you once you have killed yourself.’
“This is democide (the deliberate causing of harm or death to citizens by their government).
“Iain Duncan Smith was an extreme persecutor of disabled people. If Damian Green [the current work and pensions secretary] continues these measures, he will inherit that title.”
He added: “[Disabled actor and activist] Liz Carr was right to invoke Nazi comparisons recently.
“This is now the most concerted attack on disabled people in western Europe since Germany’s Chancellor Hitler signed the executive order Aktion T4 in 1939 to murder disabled people the state judged ‘unworthy of life’.”
A DWP spokeswoman said the new guidance had been developed in conjunction with Maximus, the discredited US outsourcing giant that took over provision of WCAs in March 2015.
She refused to confirm that the guidance had now made it harder for claimants to be placed in the ESA support group, but said: “The guidance has consistently made clear that if there is a substantial risk to a claimant’s mental health by being placed in the work-related activity group, they should be placed in the support group.”
Asked if the changes to guidance were made to put into effect the policy proposal laid out in the document released through the freedom of information request, she said: “The freedom of information response showed speculative policy formulations [that] were drafted by staff before the last election in case they were requested by a new government.
“They have not been raised, do not represent government policy and have never been sent to ministers.”
Asked if DWP believed that the changes to the guidance would mean more claimants would suffer harm, including death, and if DWP believed this was a price worth paying for finding more people fit for work and fewer people eligible to be placed in the ESA support group, she said: “No.”
Asked how DWP justified the changes, she said: “The department keeps its guidance to both healthcare professionals and departmental decision-makers under regular review.
“We introduced new guidance for healthcare professionals on the use of regulation 35 which explains the support the department gives to claimants placed in the work-related activity group.”
-
please note -
A DWP spokesman insisted that the idea was “not government policy and is not happening”, but he was unable to provide any more information.
A Conservative party spokesman also confirmed that it was “not government policy and is not going to happen”
but it did
-
DWP ‘hides impact of changes to ESA guidance that risked lives of thousands’
By John Pring on 15th March 2018 Category: Benefits and Poverty
The government appears to be trying to hide information that could show the impact of major changes to “fitness for work” guidance that risked the lives of thousands of disabled benefit claimants.
It is the second time this month that the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) has breached the Freedom of Information Act in an apparent attempt to hide the impact of its welfare reforms on disabled people.
Last week, Disability News Service (DNS) reported how DWP had refused to explain how its new universal credit system of working-age benefits would financially affect disabled people with high support needs.
But DWP has also been refusing to release any written documents that describe the impact of significant changes that were made to employment and support allowance (ESA) guidance in December 2015.
The changes, which did not need parliamentary approval, were made to the guidance that is given to benefits assessors.
The guidance in the work capability assessment handbook explains to assessors how they should translate ESA regulations 29 and 35, which concern whether decisions to find someone fit for work or able to carry out work-related activity would cause a substantial risk of harm.
The guidance was designed to prevent people self-harming and taking their own lives.
The changes introduced in December 2015 mean that DWP is now far less likely to place a claimant with a mental health condition in the ESA support group because of the risk to their health if forced into work-related activity.
Previously, the handbook had included six indicators of “substantial risk”, which were marked “D” for “definitive” – including someone who was currently sectioned, who had active thoughts of suicide, or had had a documented episode of self-harm requiring medical attention in the last 12 months – to show that that person should be placed in the support group.
But the December 2015 edition of the guidance said only that such indicators “might” give rise to a substantial risk in “exceptional circumstances”.
The month after the new guidance was sent out, the proportion of claimants placed in the support group of ESA began to fall sharply, and it has since remained at a far lower level*.
The changes appeared to show that ministers had made a calculation that it was worth risking the loss of some lives so that they could cut benefits spending and force more disabled people into their discredited back-to-work programmes
-
The consultation is done and the plans are its from 2025 onwards.So not sure why people are saying it might not, no one knows etc. The document is clear enough when I read it.But of course if there is a change of government they might decide to abandon or tweak the plan.The changes as I understand it are to revert it to how "Labour" originally designed the the rule.
The original plan before Suella got sacked was to ditch regulation 35 completely. So then substantial risk would put you in LCW.
Brightness
Categories
- All Categories
- 13.1K Start here and say hello!
- 6.7K Coffee lounge
- 72 Games lounge
- 386 Cost of living
- 4.3K Disability rights and campaigning
- 1.9K Research and opportunities
- 199 Community updates
- 9.3K Talk about your situation
- 2.1K Children, parents, and families
- 1.6K Work and employment
- 770 Education
- 1.7K Housing and independent living
- 1.4K Aids, adaptations, and equipment
- 589 Dating, sex, and relationships
- 363 Exercise and accessible facilities
- 738 Transport and travel
- 31.7K Talk about money
- 4.4K Benefits and financial support
- 5.2K Employment and Support Allowance (ESA)
- 17.2K PIP, DLA, and AA
- 5K Universal Credit (UC)
- 6.2K Talk about your impairment
- 1.8K Cerebral palsy
- 870 Chronic pain and pain management
- 180 Physical and neurological impairments
- 1.1K Autism and neurodiversity
- 1.2K Mental health and wellbeing
- 317 Sensory impairments
- 819 Rare, invisible, and undiagnosed conditions