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/

I would be happy being reassessed annually, as long as I was assessed by an epilepsy-specialised Neurologist.

If I am reassessed by someone who understands my disability, and its possible effects on my life, I feel that they would be best placed to decide whether I was capable of work or not.

And if the system didn't call for someone to be assessed as fit for work meaning FT work, if they were capable of even 1hr a week's work, which is nowhere near what is needed to be able to support yourself, then I wouldn't be so worried either.

I would say that I am incapable of working for more than 12-16 hours a week, in 4 hr maximum time blocks, on light duties, without my disability getting significantly worse.

However, that is no longer enough hours to even claim Tax Credits. And that is if you CAN find an employer willing to employ someone who by the very nature of their disability is going to need a LOT of time off sick, at short notice, sometimes having to go home or to hospital halfway through a shift, sometimes minutes before a shift having to call in sick.

Without the DLA, you also cannot get a bus pass to help you with your travel costs to work.

Without Tax Credits, I would be unable to survive and feed my children, on a 12-16 hr a week job.

Unfortunately, in assessing me as fit for work, ATOS have decided, in effect, that I am fit for FT work. Because once my youngest DC turns 5yo, I will no longer be able to claim Income Support, and will be transferred over to JSA.

The huge glaring issue with that is that the DWP themselves have informed me that as I don't meet the criteria for JSA, as I will be physically incapable of seeking FT employment, I will be unable to claim JSA.

But I will also be unable to claim ESA because I don't meet the criteria for that as I have been assessed as fit for work by ATOS.

So once my youngest DC turns 5yo, I will no longer be able to claim ANY benefits for myself.

How the fuck do you think I am going to survive with no income?

Couthy would you be willing to go to the press? Your issues sound like something one of the broadsheets might be interested in, as being too 'well' (for want of a better word) but too 'unwell' for JSA highlights how ridiculous and unworkable this situation is.

Have you got your MP involved? I'm sorry, I know how hard it is having to fight when you are just trying to get through the day.

Sorry too 'well' for ESA

Couthy I knew that catch-22 existed, but hadn't realised you were in it. Really sorry.

The system may have folded by then and something more sensible put in place. But I'm not holding my breath. And of course that doesn't help people in that situation right now.

And THAT is why genuinely disabled people are fearing reassessment. People being assessed as fit for work by ATOS, then dying the same day as their assessment of a heart attack.

ATOS buildings being up a flight of stairs, no lift, and wheelchair users told that if they can't get to the assessment, they will lose their benefits. Then losing them if they DO get there, because they're obviously not disabled...

People who are capable of less than an hours work a day, while laying flat in their own bed, being assessed as fit to work by ATOS, and losing their benefits.

People with MH issues being told that they are stupid because they are still alive after 3 suicide attempts.

People with such severe MH issues that they are having inpatient treatment, or are even Sectioned under the MH Act, losing their benefits because they didn't attend an appointment.

Or 'not complying' with the assessment because they are in a catatonic state. Losing their benefits.

When you see REAL LIFE PEOPLE pushed even further into poverty like this, you, quite rightly, take offence at people who say that "Genuinely disabled people have nothing to fear from reassessment".

Because under the current reassessment system, yes we do.

As NiceGuy keeps saying, we 'can't afford' to support the 3.1m people who have GENUINE DISABILITIES, so we have to decide who is more disabled and therefore more deserving.

Problem with that is, just because you're not getting the financial support from disability benefits anymore, it doesn't mean that your disability has improved AT ALL, so it's not that you can suddenly support yourself and make the extra costs that your disability incurs, because, well, none of us have a money tree at the bottom of the garden.

If even someone wealthy like David Cameron needed the extra financial support of DLA to cover the extra costs of looking after his son, how the hell is someone poorer meant to absorb that cost just because suddenly, their disability doesn't get classed as 'worthy of support' any more?

Where are those of us meant to find these mythical jobs where our employer is willing to make adjustments in respect of our disability, without getting funding towards those adaptations and adjustments because DLA/ESA is the key used to access all that funding?!

I am saving going to the papers for if all else fails. I have around 3 years to 'play' with and fight the system before it gets critical. Though I have been fighting this idiotic loophole since it first became apparent to me, in July 2010.

According to DWP management, I was the first customer in the country to query this loophole with them in writing.

Oh let me guess, "No one else has complained..."

You're actually the perfect person to go to the media, Couthy - smart, articulate, very well-informed, and with a cast-iron condition with pretty MRI pics to show on the telly. People with MH conditions or more invisible conditions don't make the poster-girl threshold...

Sorry to be so crudely cynical. But I'm also sure you're be ahead of me on that one...

niceguy can you explain how any of the Work Programme schemes help the economy and the taxpayer?

It would be nice if you could further explain how you would expand the economy

Well personally I don't think the work programme's are good value for money. Their sole purpose seems to be as a stick to ensure people are looking for work. So can I explain that one to you? Possibly not. Do I think they should be scrapped? Not sure because some people do need a stick. Most just need the right opportunities. The stick seems to be used quite arbitrarily at the moment and I think the JC staff should be allowed to use their common sense more as to whom would benefit.

But what I'd do to expand the economy is to lower corporation tax, remove bureaucracy such as excessive health & safety requirements. Bring schemes which would encourage investment in high tech manufacturing. 100% tax relief for small firms during the first two years of trading. Basically you make UK a great place to do business, encourage big firms to come to the UK and small firms to flourish. They in turn employ people and since we only get a minority of our taxes from corporate taxes anyway, the idea is more people employed = more income taxes, more VAT (when they spend), more petrol duty (when they travel to work) etc.

Oh and scrap many of these ridiculous GCSE equivalent courses and degrees which do very actually prepare young people for a world of work.

I've often said, these things don't happen overnight and one of the main differences I see between this country and some of the far eastern companies who are kicking our arses economically. Is that they have a long term 10+ year plan. Our government seems to look about 1 week ahead and will change its tune depending on the headline of the week. That helps noone.

But we're digressing way off topic but hope this answers the question.

how odd that someone who is so supportive of the cuts to DLA has no reply to the RL stories posted here.

Oh yes, I have no doubt that I would make an ideal 'poster girl' WHEN I speak out, but I have concerns (very real, given Riven's experiences) about the effects on my children, so I am keeping that as a last resort.

However, when it comes to the point that I will be unable to financially support a home for my DC's due to being caught up in this idiotic loophole, keeping a roof over their head will have to come before their emotional stability.

Because when I am caught in that loophole (which is actually set to worsen under Universal Credit), I will no longer be able to claim for support with my housing costs if I am no longer in receipt of any of the qualifying benefits.

It is a huge worry for me, and I am hoping that I can solve it without having to resort to going 'public' in the newspapers, for the sake of my DC's, but I know that it is there as a last resort.

If Health & Safety was scrapped, in one of my previous jobs, I would have been forced to use a waste impactor. If I had had a seizure while using it, and injured myself, I would not have been covered by my employers insurance because there is too great a risk of injury.

A waste impactor classes as heavy machinery, and the medication I take advises me not to use any heavy machinery. Also you are advised not to use heavy machinery on diagnosis of epilepsy. Thanks to H&S regulations, I managed to force my employer to accept that I was unable to use the waste impactor. Without those regs in place, I would have either been forced to use the impactor to keep my job, or to lose my job on the basis of refusal to use heavy machinery due to my disability and my medications side effects.

So, NiceGuy, is the lifting of H&S regulations such a good idea? It would leave people like me at risk of being put in dangerous situations by our employers, with no recourse in the event of injuries being caused by this.

IMO, most of the H&S regs are there to protect employees, disabled and able bodied, from being put in dangerous situations by their employers. Because not all employers care about the safety of their employees, unless they are forced to via the regulations.

niceguy I agree with a lot of what you say except for relaxing health and safety legislation.

Employers have a duty to ensure staff and visitors are safe on their premises and to use your words, if you remove the stick of prosecution, many of them will ignore it.

I don't think most people want to seriously harm or kill their employees, they just don't want to spend extra money when they can ask staff to be careful.

That's how people used to get killed and maimed on building sites in vast numbers and why the construction industry now has some of the toughest H&S rules and severest penalties for transgression. Some employers are unscrupulous; some employees are stupid.

It cuts both ways; if an employee turns up for work drunk or ignore other H&S rules employers are well within their rights to sack them. Other places of work can be dangerous. People do stupid and careless things and sadly, rules are the only way to make them think about it.

I'm kind of with you about some qualifications but where I differ is that young people go onto these courses because many employers insist on a piece of paper because their HR departments are too lazy to find out what the job requires and what kind of skills are needed and how someone could acquire them.

So all you get is a load of candidates with a 2:1 or above in a respectable subject from an acceptable place of study and you're back to square one because people thought asking for a degree would circumvent the need for them to think about what they're looking for.

You don't need a degree to do my job, which isn't the same as saying you shouldn't have one.

But there's no way a young person could get a foot in the door these days without one. I think that's the case with most professions. It doesn't mean they'd be any good once they'd landed the job...

x post with couthy.

My friend broke her arm at work falling over because some stupid lazy fucker used to pull those nylon strips off bundles of newspapers whole and chuck them on the floor instead of finding the scissors and chucking the strips in the bin.

He used to laugh when people tripped until the day he was disciplined.

Someone who worked with my mum years ago lost two fingers because he'd removed the guard from a food mixing machine and cba to replace it. It could have been any other worker but it just happened to be him.

He was sacked too which seemed harsh until I realised my mum could have lost her fingers and the company would have been fined heavily because he was a twat.

Another tale from my mum's job which was a shop assistant, not a lion tamer.

Someone with epilepsy fell though a glass counter. She was too afraid or ashamed to admit her condition and the firm weren't obliged to use safety glass as they would these days.

My father used to supervise the unloading of ships. He dreaded the days the marble came in because it was never secured properly and someone would always get hurt or killed.

Without GCSE equivalent courses, my DD with SEN would leave school with no qualifications at 'C' grade or above, and would be unable to even access a practical-based college course.

So IMO, there IS a place in the educational system for GCSE equivalent qualifications.

Doing Textiles, Catering and Health and Social Care GCSE equivalent qualifications gives my DD a choice of college courses leading to a number of different employment opportunities. Without that, she would be unemployable.

Why consign a large portion of 14yo's to being unemployable just because you personally can't see the point in GCSE equivalent qualifications, NiceGuy?

I agree couthy. I wasn't thinking about it.

People want Pass or Fail and ask what's the point of a D.

It because a D or an E shows a level of achievement and can show a commitment to sustained effort which is surely what's required in most jobs.

how odd that someone who is so supportive of the cuts to DLA has no reply to the RL stories posted here.

I assume it's a swipe at me?

If so then firstly i don't think it's appropriate to debate a policy based upon an individual situation. Does the government set income tax based upon the needs of a single individual? No.

Secondly I could equally say that isn't it odd that those who are so adamant that we do not make cuts to DLA have not made a single realistic reply to where we get the money from to pay for this. At best we get the usual "tax the rich" mantra's which clearly can't and won't work.

As for the H&S debate which has gone off at a tangent, I never meant scrap every line of H&S. I just mean simplify it and promote a return to common sense. In a world where kids must play conkers in goggles and teachers must complete a 100 page risk assessment for a trip to a museum, there seems in my opinion plenty of scope for that.

Why consign a large portion of 14yo's to being unemployable just because you personally can't see the point in GCSE equivalent qualifications, NiceGuy

Wow, it's all go today isn't it? I did start a long reply on this one but we're going way off tangent. If you want to, either PM me or start another topic off and I will reply the best I can.

How about dealing with this sort of thing first, before hounding some of the most vulnerable in society?

Article from the New Statesman although written by a self confessed Tory.

Point being, there are other ways to claw back money rather than distastefully going after vulnerable groups (and demonising them in the process).

I just mean simplify it and promote a return to common sense. In a world where kids must play conkers in goggles and teachers must complete a 100 page risk assessment for a trip to a museum, there seems in my opinion plenty of scope for that

You do realise none of that is a H&S requirement niceguy?

Unfortunately some people use H&S when they should say: I don't have time for a trip to A+E to get a bit of conker out of someone's eye and no one wants to supervise the school trip.

That's not the fault of H&S, that's the fault of people not being brave enough to be honest.

Govt signals tax avoidance clampdown

Another link

Already being progressed Saintly.

@limited, then let's take those excuses away from them.

Niceguy, all these rl stories add together to make the real picture, each story might be about one person, but they won't be the only one in that situation or a very similar one.
there are lots of ways to make cuts . one instance if the winter fuel allowance.
my dh saw on the bbc this morning that they are going to (or are thinking off) giving it to people who have moved over seas.....to warm countries!!!
so that is one thing they could stop.
the government is giving grants to councils as part of the queen of shops tv show!!
there you are 2 small savings.
no one will die
I am sure there are 100's of other
like cutting the money we send to rich countries in aid