Noted

According to the Telegraph, GP’s are writing sick notes for people that aren’t sick!

Now this is based on a survey of 4100 and roughly 80% of them said they had done this. They don’t mean sick notes of course; they mean the ‘fit’ notes that instead are meant to tell what a person can do. So for example a person that’s unable to walk could answer the telephone. But if he can’t get access to public transport (or he’s lost his motability car thanks to DLA changes) he’s got no chance of doing that job. In other words, it doesn’t represent the reality or the totality of a person’s experience. I for example could be helped to work from home, but that isn’t an option. Instead it is extrapolated that if I can work from home, I can work; period.

It’s not a huge survey and of course being reported in the popular press means it suffers from spin and an agenda. However I can understand the point being made. But what are doctors to do? If someone who has been sanctioned and left penniless turns up, what are they to do – wait till they need hospitalisation because they haven’t eaten in three months? Wait until they’ve ended up addicted to crack or are sleeping rough facing a life of crime through desperation? Doctors are issuing notes not because the world is as binary and simplistic as the Tories would have us believe, but because life is complex and expensive; this is the only option to help people.

I say I can understand this because this is the position the Work Programme, and thereby the DWP, has put me in. As a result of the sheer inflexibility of the WP and their lack of choice in being able to help (so they say) or recognise individual circumstances, I’ve had to ask my GP for a sick note. All along I have said that it isn’t that I can’t work at all, it’s that I have problems that make functioning in the system as it is extremely difficult. So what choice do I have but to ask? I know he isn’t happy about it; in fact because ATOS still have yet to get back in touch I’ve had to ask for a second and potentially a third (I don’t fancy my chances). Maybe they haven’t contacted me (and likely many others) because it’s keeps the results manageable. In reality it means being left in limbo: the Work Programme has failed me utterly and, as I’ve said many times, the help promised as an ESA claimant hasn’t materialised and that is why I claimed ESA!

Doctors are being used by this government to do its dirty work and unfortunately they don’t seem to realise this enough. Some think that it’s down to ATOS to sort out the malingerers and are happy to sign people off believing the problem is out of their hands. I’ve seen a GP with that attitude; I couldn’t really fault him for it that is what ATOS is supposed to do (actually what it’s really supposed to do is kick people off benefits according to DWP targets they don’t admit). Of course many doctors are probably Tory voters and so don’t really understand what’s going on. Others may be in favour of the current government and its policies, even on the NHS. Others still, like most of society, simply take the superficial view and regard us as lazy and weak willed. In all these cases the real problem is being ignored.

The article concludes with the following gems: 

"Overall, employee sick leave costs the UK economy £15 billion in lost output, the Government estimates.”

I’ve no idea what brand of tea leaves they divined this from but it looks like a massive guesstimate to me. How can they possibly know this? More importantly, if lost output – i.e. money – is so important then the government would surely be motivated to crack down on tax abuse? No? Quelle Surprise!

“An independent inquiry in 2011 concluded that many people with “manageable” conditions like stress or back pain are effectively being signed off work for long periods when they could actually do some sort of work.”

Who is to say what is or isn’t manageable? One person’s ache is another person’s agony. If you are suffering from pain in the workplace, even if it’s from something as ‘trivial’ as a bad back then you aren’t going to be very productive. Now maybe the employer can be convinced to equip his workplace with suitable furniture (if that’s enough), but more likely he’ll just employ someone that isn’t a ‘whinger’ or a ‘skiver’. That’s the reality, and that just means further marginalisation of the ‘weaker’ parts of society. It’s the law of the jungle that we ought to have transcended by now. I’ve already said I could work from home, but you try getting help with such things. Think the JC+ will help? The Work Programme? Hell no! 

“In 2011, David Cameron promised to change sick-note rules to strip GPs of the power to sign workers off sick, declaring “We need to end the something for nothing culture.”

What more is there to say? When Cameron can actually articulate what this pernicious and loaded phrase ‘something for nothing culture’ means I might listen. Until then it remains another barrier to progress. People are told this phrase and all discussion is frozen with most people simply accepting that people on benefits are given what sounds like a blank cheque, never mind the hoops people have to jump through, never mind the callousness rampant in those operating the system on his behalf. Forcing people to apply for work, under the guise that stopping people writing sick notes is ‘getting Britain working’ is laughable: it doesn’t create work nor does it compel those that seek staff to employ anyone other than whomever they choose for whatever reason they choose. 

“In January, the Coalition announced the creation of a new independent “assessment and advisory service” that will provide occupational health assessments for small employers whose staff are signed off sick for long periods.”

This is the real danger – handing the entry point to ESA/sickness benefits over to ATOS. This is something hinted at – and not particularly subtly – by Grayling before he went to prison – sorry, I mean became minister of prisons! The government clearly doesn’t like anyone getting a sick note, or a fit note, and I’m sure they fully intend for ATOS to handle both ends of the system: the first point of claiming and the assessment. It’s bad enough that assessments are even needed – isn’t that what doctors and specialists are for, not profiteering target driven IT organisations? If our doctors aren’t annoyed about this, if only from a sense of professional respect, then they are lost to us.

Dysfunctional

Even archive footage of Marlon Brando on the radio in the early hours couldn’t help me get back to sleep last night. Instead I drift off at gone 4am and wake up a few hours later feeling absolutely awful.

I’ve made an appointment to see the GP (a different one given how poorly organised they are now). He, or someone, needs to understand that I cannot function in this society. Once again I’ve tried to find somewhere local that can undertake neuro diverse diagnoses. I should have attended the appointment last year, but I couldn’t deal with travelling to the venue. Now it seems there is somewhere more local – or so they tell me. I have to assume it’s true.

I cannot continue under this system; the friction is such that no claim can linger. Even people with lifelong conditions – including soldiers that have lost limbs – are being re-examined. The idea being that they might have ‘recovered’. Though my condition isn’t anywhere near as debilitating, I believe it to be life long; it is how I’m programmed and I need a system that can accept it and work with it according to my needs. If that cannot be found then god knows. The first step is to get something recognised and codified if possible.

The next step means having to see my regular doctor, and getting an appointment is hard enough given that he’s, inexplicably, only available one day a week! I only ended up with him because the previous GP was never there either. My current sick note expires in the middle of June. If he doesn’t want to write another note I’ll have to apply for JSA in time to allow how long it takes for the claim to go through. I can understand why he’d be reticent to do so, but I have yet to hear from ATOS so I’m in WCA limbo though ironically I’m not particularly keen to be sat in their waiting room for hours to undergo an assessment I have zero chance of passing because it’s not designed to recognise my needs. It is a hopelessly blunt instrument wielded by an equally blunt government.

The purpose of my ESA claim was firstly a response to the appalling way Salvation Army Employment Plus seems to operate, and it was to get into the Work Related Activity Group wherein I could – at least in theory – get the support necessary. Unfortunately for me what I need isn’t recognised by the system. I occupy a position between JSA and ESA which instead is taken to mean: I can work.

The Work Programme isn’t interested in offering specialist expertise or tailored support even though I’m obliged to attend. I was told that in order for them to recognise my particular needs I must claim ESA. Unfortunately that requires that I be sufficiently ill/disabled enough to pass the WCA. It’s a catch 22 I’ve already commented on.  Unfortunately also the Work Programme has decided that it can’t offer any of the help it hinted at when telling me to claim ESA.

The alternative is JSA which isn’t there to recognise issues. Its there to make sure you fulfil your jobsearch requirements and to be available. If you have sufficient issues that would warrant an ESA claim then you’d be ineligible for JSA. They are mutually exclusive and there is nothing in between nor any effort to work with people to that end. It’s either or, and a curious aspect of the welfare system that a benefit called Employment Support is nothing of the kind and only available to those so unable to work they are pushing up daisies.

I do not want to have to deal with the Jobcentre again. They are not going to accept the presence of any mitigating circumstances beyond what JSA, while it lasts, allows, which is to say not much at all. I could ask to see (and likely will) the Work Psychologist again, but she turned out to be not much help at all. I think it’s fair to say she was somewhat sympathetic (how’s that for unequivocal praise), but in the end she told me that, knowing I’d end up on the Work Programme, she couldn’t influence the process. Even though that is technically accurate, I felt that was a cop out. Putting something on record, which she initially offered to do, would be better than nothing.

This whole process is not designed to help. There is nothing available to me and there is no space that I can occupy that allows me to function. If I go back onto JSA there is a good chance my Work Programme adviser will tell me she has no choice but to enforce ‘conditionality’ on me. This means they demand my CV, under threats of sanction, to forcibly apply for jobs without my permission or even knowledge, and without them having the first clue as to whether it’s suitable. They will assume I can work, because I won’t be on ESA and this supposedly compassionate charity will operate in a hopelessly rough and uselessly binary function – at my expense.

Easy Mistakes Made Easier With Universal Credit

This morning I went for a walk before stopping off at the post office; the last best hope locally for cash as we can’t have nice things like cash points in villages without the likes of Tesco. I had checked my bank balance over the last couple of days since doing my shopping on Wednesday to see if the debit card payment had cleared. Even though I’m not particularly stupid I find keeping track of card payments a pain given how each interaction can take its own sweet time to clear, regardless of venue. It seemed I had about £24 more than I thought – quids in! I had even considered going to town (not cheap on the bus at all). I treated myself to a baguette and a caramel slice yesterday from my good fortune!

After about five minutes I suddenly realised why I had that extra money – that was next week’s shopping budget. Had I gone out today, on top of yesterday’s culinary extravagance, I would have spent a few quid I would likely have irreversibly spent money better off saved.

This is how easy it is to make a mistake accounting on benefits. Fortunately for me I have relatively few expenses and can make a few quid last a bit longer even if it means foregoing expensive bakery luxuries. Had I spent money today it would have come from my rainy day amount which, if I ever really needed it, would soon disappear.

A simple oversight based on a fortnight’s money like this could be a lot more catastrophic for someone with more expenses, perhaps from dependents or caring responsibilities. This can only be made much worse when Universal Credit comes in; fortnightly payments will be made monthly. This is something that people like Iain Duncan Smith and his attack dogs will never understand.

Social Security

Looking through the Universal Jobmatch site, as I do every day, I saw a cleaning job for 14 hours at the minimum wage: £86 a week. Is this my future? It’s not a job is it; 14 hours that won’t change (cleaning the local Tesco Express of all things) in a job that isn’t a career. I still can’t face doing it though, but who will accept that? It makes me sound like a baby thumbing his nose at a spoonful of mushy carrots – urgh!

That’s the nature of neuro diverse psychology; it was the same when I last worked, which was in a garden centre. I just couldn’t handle it, though it was full time. Funny how people are hounded into applying for work, no matter the cost, but nobody cares how little you get paid. There’s no negotiation on this: here are the jobs Universal Jobmatch says is available, times are tight (who’s fault’s that then?), so you have to get your brush down to Tesco and sweep the floor for a tiny sum of money you can’t possibly live on.

This is social security: people simply have to have a minimum, whether from welfare or wages, otherwise they can’t live. They need to meet the cost of living. Claiming benefits isn’t just about getting a sum of money every fortnight, it’s about getting your NI paid so you can have money when you reach retirement age otherwise you’re going to be in the gutter in your dotage. Is that a solution to anything? On £86 a week you are in the worst of all worlds: you don’t qualify for tax credits (soon to be Universal Credit), but if you are still able to sign on just to get the stamp paid you will still have to meet the requirements for JSA just as if you were looking for work. It’s a ridiculous situation.

The vacancies found on UJM are fraught at best: I doubt any of these will exist a year from now. Indeed many are explicitly temporary. How does this help build a career or a future? But it remains the only game in town: the precariat has to fight over the crumbs at the bottom while kept unaware these crumbs are so lightweight that any turbulence from the pervasive and ceaseless winds of economic depression could blow them away in a second. Consequently those employed will be back searching on UJM in short order.

Naturally people will read this as mere excuse making on my part. If that’s what they want to think then let them think it. I’m not going to devote paragraphs to disabusing these people of their brainwashing. That’s what it is, sorry. If you are one such person then you have indeed been brainwashed; thirty plus years of neoliberal freemarketeer lead capitalism has brought us to this point while the pictures printed of feckless psychopaths and xbox owning idlers have convinced you that people need to be made to work no matter what the cost or the outcome because they must be saved from themselves.

But these aren’t all Mick Philpott. We are people that live lives and have skills and talents that are being deliberately wasted by a government who’d rather I wound up in a job, no matter how unsuitable or how unable to cope I would be (even at 2 hours a day – and I’ve done cleaning jobs before a plenty, so don’t think me squeamish or a snob).

Why is there no discussion? I think we need to force the issue. If we believe in concepts of responsibility then surely it is necessary for us to fight for what we believe for the best of society, now more than ever. This of course is high minded rhetoric, but we cannot continue as we are. It’s that simple in my view. To that end we need at the very least a general strike.

People need not to participate in society, paying government more money to squander at the commons bar, on expenses, or corporate feel good events, but instead to withdraw. That would force the issue. At the moment I cannot interact with the system so I can only ever be seen as feckless and lazy. The only game in town is to either apply for the part time cleaning job (even though I’m on pre-assessment ESA) or be sanctioned. If that is the best we can manage then god help us; we don’t’ deserve to be called a society.

We have Jobcentres, we have work psychologists, we have talented people marginalised and disenfranchised and the best we can do is to apply for precariat work? Why is there no negotiation with this system? Why can’t I work with the likes of a work psychologist to move forward? Why can’t such people (as is my experience) have real influence to diagnose and help people? Instead we just take a look at someone and, because they can walk and talk clearly(ish), assume they are fully capable of holding down a job and doing what we want?

Meanwhile I look on this ridiculous site daily. It’s a massive headache because they can’t even get it right. Everything is stacked against the unemployed when even the help that is offered is so feeble and itself so prejudicial. I say don’t apply for this kind of work. Instead we should introduce the citizen’s wage, and then we could do away with the likes of the Jobcentre. I could for example top up that wage with an £86 cleaning job. I could pay £6 out of that as tax (on top of VAT, and my spending in the economy thus paying for itself). Everyone gets the same so no need for division. We could have proper career building/finding services to help people find work that is useful, and, because people are no longer so income dependent, meaningless exploitative work is relegated into history.

Won’t happen though; it’s not in the Tories’ interests.

More Problems With The Welfare Card Idea

I was thinking, on my way up to the Post Office, about the welfare cash card idea that flared up, like a pustulent sore, recently. I’m sure it will return.

Is the idea to put all the claimant’s money onto the card? How else would it work? How would the money get onto the card if it’s paid, as it is currently, into the person’s bank? Wouldn’t the bank have something to say about this; after all don’t they make money from their own transactions.

If I want to pay for something from my local shop, or any small retailer (i.e. not a supermarket), there is always a minimum spend requirement for debit cards. This is about £7. I’m told this is to cover bank charges. Wouldn’t this apply for payments made using a welfare card? That money has to come off the card/from the claimant to the business, no doubt at a cost. This means that claimants will be forced to spend more than they’d like just to get what they need, even if the money is frontloaded onto the card.

If the payments are to be put directly onto the card then where does that leave banks? Who then will issue these cards and how long will it take to get one to a new claimant. How will they get their card filled up; can this be done only at banks or job centres? How will people get to these places? Will all banks have access to the DWP ‘central account’ for the purpose of topping up a card?

Surely this will leave people absolutely vulnerable; if my debit card gets stolen it has no intrinsic worth assuming the thief cannot access my account. If a welfare card gets stolen it has money directly onto it (even if the thief can only buy certain things – he’ll likely sell it on the black market). This could well be a lot of money, depending on the benefits involved. A single parent is likely to have JSA/ESA along with tax credits and potentially Housing Benefit, all under Universal Credit as the latter is no longer paid direct to the landlord. What about two parent families: who gets the card, whose card has the child/family benefits?

There are so many unanswered questions. In my opinion, though, this is simply about getting the credit card company to make money out of the welfare system. It isn’t about limiting spending or controlling behaviour; as I’ve demonstrated the practicalities involved ask too much of any single card system as to be utterly regressive and self defeating. This is a no mark Tory wannabe cosying up to big business trying to make a name for himself. I’ve no doubt he’ll return with more on this nonsense.

Fear and Scrounging

I’ve mentioned this before, but I’ve never actually watched it before (and with good reason), but having my breakfast I just accidentally caught five minutes of BBC’s Saints and Scroungers. My god, I just had to put finger to key and mash!

In about half an hour I have to catch a bus to town to do my shopping; how do I know there won’t be some DWP private dick hiding in a car watching me. How do I know he won’t be filing a report saying “well, he can walk and carry shopping, clearly he can work!” That’s the point: who else is the target audience but the daytime unemployed. The people the media criticise for consuming daytime media. Be afraid.

In the space of the five minutes I exposed myself to, I have gone from calm to shit scared. This is what this awful propagandist populist (you can tell, it’s hosted by Matt Allwright) rubbish has done to me. This is what black and white Third Man style stock ‘reconstruction’ footage of investigators with long lenses or sat in cars with clipboards has achieved. This is the aim: to create a sense of fear. This wouldn’t be out of place in a Philip K Dick novel: it’s almost pre-crime.

It’s easy then to imply that there are 100% of scroungers in the system because 100% of the ‘scroungers’ on the show are guilty. That’s what you are expected to think and to take away from this. You are meant to infer the same conditions in the real world: that 100% of claimants are scroungers.

Most of it seems to be pointless ‘reconstruction’ shots: the investigative montage, the closeup of a pen ticking a box the representation of the correct procedure of reporting things to the DWP. There’s even a DWP man on hand to recount the tale, in a tedious clipped monotone, of one particular scrounger who dared to claim while cleaning windows. Now to be fair, I had to switch off at this point because I couldn’t tolerate anymore of this fascist nonsense. It may be that the ‘scrounger’ was secretly trafficking children through his vast underground network of murderous window cleaners while claiming JSA as a front.

Or it may be that he just wanted to get on with his life and have a decent bit of money in his pocket. Compared to the likes of Eon, Amazon, Starbucks, Vodafone, and the countless array of corporate filth and rich scum that avoid and evade millions I can’t really find it within me to castigate this evil doer.

Yet the programme has served its purpose; make me scared. Frighten people from claiming what they might well be due, never mind breaking the law. Compare and contrast; that’s the point. Here’s a young lad that’s struggling to look for work (though they choose to show footage of him playing xbox with his cousin) who, no doubt, succeeded in the end (again I switched off). Then here’s another scrounger. The saints look all the more divine and the scroungers look all the more greedy and heinous. That’s the idea – and all it takes is a bit of elbow grease (though not cleaning windows) determination and diligence and you’ll succeed at finding a job. Though the real message is there’s now one less job in the economy thanks to that kid getting a job.

Never mind a flatlined economy. Never mind austerity. Never mind divide and rule. Never mind that the labour market is nothing but short term morsels and not careers and vocations. Just keep on applying. Do some workfare, we’ll call it work experience. That way people can see how committed you are. It’s the race to the bottom live on your screen.

Legacy

The Tories say: “it’s tough times; you must accept what’s available. The world doesn’t owe you a living.”

That last part always offends me. Of course the world owes you a living – you were born into and onto this earth, how can you not be entitled to a stake and a share? Who are they to tell us otherwise? Why do we let these born to rule – people who have been owed everything and continually feel the most entitled among us – elites treat us this way?

If one must accept what’s available then surely that is a failure of government? The Tories protest that the state is a burden and must be reduced (i.e. sold off), but they are the state: that’s what government is. They by and large come from the state: that’s what the aristocracy is. The ruling elite who have all the advantages in life handed to them on a plate. So therefore their argument must be seen as either an admission of failure bordering on ineptitude perhaps even negligence, or an abrogation of responsibility. If the state cannot provide decent opportunities for the people, then something is drastically amiss.

So why must I accept what’s available – particularly when what’s available is no use to society at all. Dodgy and non-jobs on Universal Jobmatch, or pointless sales/admin nonsense from agencies (work that I do not feel remotely suited to, as I abhor all the shit): that’s the choice. 

Why can’t I negotiate for and find something more useful. Why are we not structuring society around what needs to be done from a communal perspective, thereby building and integrating those communities. People working together in compassionate environments that value creativity and intellect; not a world dominated by ruthless ambition, profit, and selfishness. The Tories won’t even consider such a negotiation.

This is Thatcher’s legacy: save yourself, put walls between yourself and others and harden yourself to become callous and powerful. That is the world all around us and you don’t have to have been born during her reign to see it. As Owen Jones points out, you don’t need to have been born during the Blitz to know what life was like.

Thatcher was in many ways lucky – as well as ideologically motivated. The north sea oil revenue came online as she came into power. That money was the greatest opportunity for the government to put money aside for the proverbial rainy day tjhat has become all our tomorrows; 450 billion or so. She squandered it to buy votes through the sale of council property that was never replaced. The standard of living before she came to power was greater than it is now, never mind the oil shocks of the seventies that were, as the sub prime shocks of today, not the fault of Labour, even if New Labour were and still are a Thatcherite phenomenon.

People on the radio today moaning about the possibility of raising the age which people can enlist lament our ‘soft’ society. These are the people that would have no doubt lined the funeral march last week, doffing their caps to the woman that destroyed those ‘hard’ industries, replacing them with the service and financial industry of today.

If it is true that society is full of weedy wet liberal pinkos then it must have been Thatcher that made it so. Or would they argue that life down the pit was no tougher than life at the information seam in a call centre. Perhaps it was no tougher in the sense that the latter is soul destroying. Places where team leaders compete with each other for the favour of their masters by encouraging their members to work harder by tossing crème eggs at them like fish for performing seals.

That was a reference to a documentary inside a call centre where one particularly loathsome team leader used chocolate to ‘inspire’ his staff, rewarding them with an egg in return for saying an innocuous phrase during a call. What a waste of time and money; the bland erosion of the human soul.

And yet, as a rotten flower, the notion of ‘welfare dependency’ has blossomed from this muck. This is the laughable idea people are somehow made dependent by the state, even though people in and out of work need the same thing in a capitalist society: money –spending power, more accurately. A convenient excuse that allows the Tories to privatise the benefits system, which is surely their ultimate goal, already started with the Work Programme.

Among the ruins of our society laid low by the hammer fist of Thatcherite morality, people are left with nothing. They are forced to fight like hungry dogs for scraps thrown either carelessly or malevolently from the table of the masters and then chastised for having grown dependent. Animals will eat anything if they have to, so let’s call them animals. That way it becomes easier to separate the strivers from the shirkers. If you can’t find the wings to fly, then you deserve to fail – and don’t you dare to be dependent or different.