October 7th - diary date

couple of thoughts:

• I don’t know where on earth ministers have gotten that the ‘problems of yesterday’ and ‘problems of today’ are these hugely different things……………..any disabled person will tell you it’s the same pressure and problems year after year, and the dwp have been recycling the same ‘plans’ year after year after year to tackle ‘problems’ (which only succeed in adding more misery) and all labour seem to be offering is more of the same
• Low pay can only be tackled if employers across the board increase pay……….so unless the jobcentre is going to offer an easier and cheaper way to study/train (from home for many - and not the job+study combo………..done it before and it’s a killer & piling on for too much onto the average disabled person) but promotion and/or qualifications are the only other ways to get better pay (disclose your disability and employers may use that as an excuse to pay you less than your abled counterparts, even if you do the job better than them……had some experience of that also back in the day
• Some work coaches really try hard to help……….but I’ve met a few that are borderline sadistic
• I just don’t get why politicians and dwp can’t see what the rest of us have - the uk gov response to the pandemic was poor in comparison to many other countries and left many with their mental health wrecked and long covid in high levels (and because our nhs is in such a mess there was not the resources to provide ppl with a health mot and treatment/help in general at the end of the lockdowns - battered and broken items don’t function properly unless throughly repair and that’s true with ppl too) and the uk cost of living may explain why other g7 nations are doing better than us. Labour still don’t understand this problem, the cause of it nor understand that many other things need to looked at and addressed before even tackling the economic activity issue (you can’t decorate a house for sale unless you build it first and that takes time with many stages)

if labour want to make progress on this goal of theirs to get more disabled in work (and save themselves time and money) they need to start talking to disabled people (via focus group, further dwp consultations actually asking disabled for ideas, opportunities to talk to a dwp minister via video chat or something…………..sure you guys can come up with better ideas than me)

Ignoring talking to disabled and rehashing the same tired Tory ideas is not a recipe for success - labour need to think outside the box and I question their ability (and disabled are often quite good problem solvers due to personal circumstances imo)

my bet would be about a fortnight after budget (mid to late November)

There’s enough happening on autumn budget day……..don’t think I could handle the white paper the same day…….the info overload would be cruel!

Update regarding Universal Credit Migration

https://www.benefitsandwork.co.uk/news/dwp-confirms-%E2%80%9Csmall-numbers%E2%80%9D-of-esa-managed-migrations-from-september