Disability benefit tests have doubled in cost, says NAO

[Northerner]

Disability benefit assessments have doubled in cost to £579m a year but targets are still being missed, the National Audit Office has said.

The spending watchdog found the quality of the tests was also not improving despite more being done face-to-face.

Labour MP Meg Hillier, who chairs the public accounts committee, said the cost was "staggering" and sick and disabled people needed "a better deal".

The Department for Work and Pensions said it would look into the findings.

Health assessments for Employment and Support Allowance are carried out to assess people's capability for work.

They were brought in to reduce the number of claimants but the department has constantly struggled with delays and controversy with disability campaigners claiming they have led to rising suicide and depression rates.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-35256386

IDS ranks alongside JH for incompetance

 

[Lynn Davies]

One thing that has come to my attention over the last couple of years is people with amputations (not D related) who have their benefits stopped because they have not seen their GP. One young lad (aged 16) who had a lower limb amputated at the age of 2 (meningitis related) had his benefit stopped for just that reason. He sees the specialist at the hospital but the report based their decision on his GP attendance!

First person was a double amputee who rang up and swore at them a bit - something along the lines of 'Do you think my F'ing legs have grown back!' He went to DIAL who filled all the claim forms in for him and - guess what - he got his mobility and attendance allowance re-instated!

Seems they pick on the easy targets sometimes.

 

[Northerner]

I think they're all easy targets If you wish to conduct an exercise like this then you should first ensure you have the capability to actually do the job properly - and it shouldn't treat everyone as presumed 'guilty', as it clearly does What also gets me is the hypocrisy in the suggestion that they are 'helping people back into work' - nonsense, very little if anything is being done to actually support people into work, they proved that by shutting down Remploy.

 

[AlisonM]

The numbers of people successfully appealing decisions doesn't seem to have changed much either. Doesn't that tell them something is very wrong? From my point of view, nothing has changed, it's as stressful and humiliating a process as ever.