Over two months ago on 10 February (in my current depressive state it has taken me all of some of this time to put this post together) I had the unpleasure of the virtual company of the Minister for Employment, Chris Grayling MP, on the subject of welfare reform and how the Work Programme will support people to move off benefits and into employment. Along with other Rethink members and people with a shared interest in mental health I was invited to 'Grill Chris Grayling.' Oh, and remember to see the fnords.
First, a little background. The 'new' government's proposals for a new and improved Work Programme to get people off benefits and into work (not all of which are too dissimilar to the 'old' government's abject failure of a programme to get people off benefits and into work, at least for people with mental health problems, Pathways to Work) are a cause of much concern and anxiety among people who depend on the social security safety net to live and particularly so among those with disabilities and illnesses which make it difficult if not impossible for them to work for a living.
Seaneen Molloy, a mental health activist, blogger and someone with a mental illness herself, was with Chris Grayling in person as he read the questions and typed in his responses, no doubt salivating like a muzzled Pavlovian political attack dog at the prospect of doling out his prescribed answers to assuage the anger and the mistrust evident from me and other mentalists.
If you're interested in the Minister's responses to the huge range of questions on the intricacies and insecurities of returning to work while living with the effects of mental illness I strongly recommend visiting Rethink's question and answer session itself. I will highlight here, however, a few of what I consider to be his most significant statements.
'The most important thing to say is that those people with the most acute problems will not have to attend an assessment - if they provide written evidence of the seriousness of their condition, then we work to ensure that the most seriously ill are not asked to attend an assessment.'
Unfortunately, this doesn't appear to be current practice. Nor is it clear what, if any, criteria will be used and by whom in order to implement this hypocritical and discriminatory crusade to abandon to a lifetime on further whittled down 'what you need to live on' benefits those with the most severe illnesses and the greatest need for help. And it simply parrots the current failed policy.
Just to answer some questions about Atos. They have no financial incentives whatsoever to find people fit for work. They will not take the decision about whether to find someone fit for work. They will have a network of mental health champions so those doing the assessments have a reference point where there is a difficult judgement to make.
Atos may not have any direct financial incentive 'to find people fit for work'. How could they? As we are reminded, they are not the decision makers. Jobcentre Plus staff are the decision makers. What financial incentives, if any, do they have to meet government targets to move people off benefits and into work? Again, in practice, it does not seem to work like this. I can only speak about my own Atos medical assessment, but from the way I was treated and spoken to, it seemed that being declared fit for work was a formality I had to go through, such was the repetition by Atos staff of my 'right to appeal' the 'decision'. Indeed, historically, 'fifty per cent of IB [Incapacity Benefit, now rebranded as ESA] appeals against the refusal of claims found in favour of the claimant. In 80 per cent of these the problem was poor assessment of mental health problems.' Maybe I'll write more about that and Atos's cosy three-in-a-bed relationship with the DWP and the discredited, fraudulent US health insurance company Unum another time.
'What I'm not prepared to do is write off a particular group because everyone is different. There are no financial targets to hit to force people back into work, this is about doing the right thing for people.'
I will let Chris Grayling disabuse himself of his own delusion/disingenuity:
'A number of you are asking questions about the one year time limit on ESA contributory payments for those in the WRAG. As you will know, we have had to take some difficult decisions as a result of the major financial problems in the public finances. This is one of them.
And, just in case you have recently returned from an unplanned visit to one of the many other galaxies supporting human life, Gideon had this to say:
'The government is planning to reduce the annual welfare bill by a further £4bn, Chancellor George Osborne has told the BBC.'
Indeed this is all a wonderful opportunity for some people to make, in Chris Grayling's own words, 'shedloads' of money.
This is not a process designed to do you down. Every organisation I have ever worked with, and the people I have talked to with mental health problems, would like to be in work and living a normal life. It's not always easy, and it's not always possible. But surely we should try to get there. Sometimes it will involve giving people that extra push - I remember talking to one man a few years ago who had taken the jump into work himself and said he wished someone had given him a push years earlier. This is not about financial targets. It's not about forcing people off benefits. It is about trying to help people with mental health and other problems do more with their lives. But we won't know who can be helped if we don't do the reassessment.
No one is arguing that we shouldn't find a better way to help everyone who wants to work to find and keep work. What we disagree on is how it's done. (That's assuming that anyone actually cares how it's done, anymore.) It's reassuring to know that Chris's policy is based on sound research and not just some anecdote about a black man he met in Plymouth, though. And remember, when your benefits are cut because you didn't get better in time or you failed to jump through the Jobcentre's back-to-work hoops correctly, it's not about you doing your bit to live on less than you need to live on for the greater good, it's about giving you that extra little 'push' you need to motivate yourself to get out of bed with your severe depression and 'jump', you good-for-nothing lazy fucker. And 'we won't know who can be helped if we don't do the reassessment' does seem to indicate that everyone will be reassessed regardless of Grayling's assurances that 'people with the most acute problems will not have to attend an assessment' stated above. Nor is it 'an attempt to push the long term claimant onto a lower benefit, via a failed attempt at gaining or keeping work' thank you very much. End of fnords.
Now, I'm all for the health benefits of grilling over frying, but you can't beat a good fried egg (unless you want it scrambled) in the morning. So, I wanted to delve a little deeper into who this Chris Grayling person is and his qualifications for the job at hand.
According to Wikipedia, Chris is Cambridge-educated former social democrat and management consultant (rhyming slang?), now known as an untrustworthy, 'political buffoon', expenses fiddler, and self-styled homophobe.
Ming Campbell discusses Chris's form as the then Shadow Home Secretary:
Chris has the misfortune to mishear a question on a live news broadcast:
Chris has mean-testing explained to him by Andrew Neil:
Rather than getting the job of Minister for the Home Office and Equalities for which he'd trained for so long, he was demoted to the Department for Work and Pensions, where, presumably, it's still OK to discriminate against groups of people you hold prejudices against.
Still, he knows how to wind up Scousers.
So forgive me if I'm a touch cynical about his suitability for this or any government post.