Seven medals but now they want my benefits.

[carernotasaint]

blacktrianglecampaign.org/2012/08/28/seven-medals-but-now-the-tories-want-my-benefits-british-paralympic-gold-medalist-tara-flood-speaks-out/

Bugger:

CAB advisers helped with more than 97,000 ESA problems in the three months January to March 2012 - up 71 per cent compared with the same quarter last year, making ESA the fastest growing advice issue seen in bureaux.

In the same three month period, bureaux recorded an 82 per cent increase in advice about appeals against ESA decisions. Over a quarter of all advice given by bureaux about ESA concerns appeals. Latest official DWP figures say 32 per cent of appeals against an ESA decision are successful and CAB advisers estimate the success rate at appeal where someone receives specialist CAB advice and is represented is around 80 per cent.

Again, roughly nearing the 40% without representation and 70% with representation success rate that I posted.

32% of appeals is of the number of appeals not the total number of assessments. Fewer than a third of recipients appeal and of that third, fewer than one third are independently found to be successful less than a third is actually around the 6 % which is the independently checked figure.

The CAB figure is that 70% of the appeals carried out by the CAB and that figure is of the people whom the CAB look at the case and then decide yay or na to help with an appeal then actually win the appeal. The CAB does not say how many they turn down as an appeal not being worth their time to continue as they only proceed if they are in a good mind they have a case.

Outraged - people who make use of free Internet at libraries tend to do so because they can't afford it at home. Some of those people need it to actually look for a job or to find out about other services or access to training and education. Libraries, like surestart (ours has a jobcentre vacancy list board, since the nearest jobcentre is a £6.50 return bus ride away), can be a first point of contact for many people when it comes to advice or even just plain human interaction (which makes a huge difference to the health and well being of people living isolated lives for whatever reason). Cutting these things is forgetting the role they play in communities and for individuals.

Novack you are mixing up your figures and confusing total number of assessments and appeals. If you look at what I have written I have always made it clear I am talking about the % of appeals that have been found to be in error. Of course not everyone is going to be able to go to appeal.

this article gives some idea of the sorts of errors being made

And if you really object to the Guardian then some figures courtesy of the Torygraph

Today. "A (DWP) spokesman said 15% of "fit for work" decisions were overturned on appeal".

And as noted above, that's without including decisions like both of mine which were overturned without appeal. And without taking account of the huge wave of people waiting between decision and appeal, caused by the start of the mass retesting.

From the Torygraph

Since October 2008, 209,700 appeals have been heard with 32 per cent of the original decisions overturned. Ministry of Justice statistics show that in 2010-11 there was a 56 per cent rise in the number of ESA appeal cases while there were 74,000 sitting days for social security tribunals. So far 162 part-time judges ? who sit with health or disability experts in two- or three-person panels ? have been hired to wade through the hundreds of thousands of cases being brought by people set to lose their state support. Now the Judicial Appointments Commission is advertising for a further 145 judges to sit on the hearings in order to cope with the demand. They will be paid £436 a day for a minimum 15 days a year, costing at least £948,300, but are likely to sit far more regularly. In 2009-10 the cost of salaries for judges sitting on social security tribunals was £32m but for 2011-12 it was £48.2m.

It's not looking the most successful of money saving strategies Note the 32% figure again.

The percentage of appeals to be found to be in error is tiny in comparison to the total number of assessments. Really you are not following the independent figures at all which is why you all cry outrage at an alarmist tabloid headline and stick you heads in the sand when you are corrected you derail every thread with ad hominem.

No Novack you are wrong. This statement: ONLY 6% of appeals are found to be in error. is wrong.

Why are you so frightened of the real figures? Or have you misunderstood the links you posted?

It's 40 per cent according to reputable links on this thread, isn't it? Rising to 70 per cent when people manage to get advice from the CAB or legal aid. Which is soon to be ended.

Wonder why that is?

Novack is confusing appeals with total number of assessments. The total number of assessments figure isn't going to be accurate anyway as appeals will be ongoing (and the Torygraph article mentions a considerable backlog) and for the other reasons mentioned in his/her own link. And of course they'll get some assessments correct, even if only by accident.

Fewer than a third of recipients appeal

Most people don't bother to reply to you novack

Doesn't mean you're talking sense.

NovackNGood I am presuming by your posts that you have been assessed by ATOS or have a family member who has been or will be soon, did it all go well?

Well surely if the figures you want to believe, for successful appeals, are higher than the actual fullfact independently checked and verified from a left leanign organisation figures then your whole argument that folks are not getting a fair crack of the whip is just a nonsense moot point. Clearly they are getting a fair crack at the whip and the appeals process is working in the recipients favour.

Novack I am quoting from your link, using your figures. You have misunderstood them.

RIP Cecelia Burns.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-19433535

Sorry, I nodded off there novack

You were saying...

Read the thread and read the facts from her local paper that are already on here. This lady was assessed last February and was passed fit then started chemo in May. So 3 months after her assessment, Do you expect ATOS to tell the future now too. Some folks out of 2 million will deteriorate nobody is denying it but your inability to accept that some may improve too is what beggars belief. You just want to leave people stuck on benefits.

To correct Novack (again). From the Belfast Telegraph 23 March 2012

Following a lumpectomy, she was told the cancer had spread to 15 lymph nodes. She has since undergone 18 weeks of chemotherapy and six weeks of radiotherapy at the City Hospital in Belfast. Mrs Burns has also had to endure several rounds of testing and will be on the cancer treatment drug, Herceptin, until December.

As I have already mentioned the only type of cancer treatment that is accepted by Atos is IV chemo. Oral chemotherapy and hormone treatments do not count. So if you have the usual breast or prostate cancer treatments you will be found fit for work. It doesn't matter how bad your cancer is, just depends on the way in which it is treated.

No, still sorry Novvakkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkk

I have already linked to this article which explains why someone with breast cancer will receive zero in the assessment

In the film, the trainer highlights to new trainees the way that the new system has been altered so it offers less support to certain categories of claimants..... For employment support allowance.... "I've recently had somebody with prostate cancer, but of course that's not traditionally treated with chemotherapy so I gave him no points. And I couldn't do anything else?. Same with breast cancer: the hormonal treatments don't count. So he was given no points, I felt very uncomfortable doing it and I didn't like doing it, but I had no way of scoring him.

Then why fail to point out that her payments were reinstated last month after assesment last month.

Apology accepted lmitedperiod

You think that's the system working? Seriously? Someone spending 5 months of the last six months of their life having to battle Atos.

There's another breast cancer case here Also overturned on appeal. Bizarrely you seem to think appeals being found against Atos are a sign the system is working. Sheesh.