View Single Post
Old 13-08-2019, 19:39   #2220
RichardCoulter
cf.mega poster
 
Join Date: Jan 2008
Posts: 9,997
RichardCoulter has disabled reputation
Re: The state benefits system mega-thread.

Sanctions did indeed exist before 2010 and are sometimes necessary to ensure compliance of the rules. However, not to this ridiculous extent. Extremely petty and ridiculous reasons are now being used to sanction people to get staff stats up. The DWP denied that staff were under pressure to do this, but this was found not to be true.

After losing a child and her partner, it's no wonder that her head was all over the place. The DWP used to be there to help people, now it's a culture of believing that everyone is a fraudulant liar until proved otherwise (and even then, like in this case, the sanction wasn't lifted).

It's one of the reasons i'm glad I no longer work for them, I simply couldn't treat people like this. A lot of experienced staff have either left or took refundancy, with the rest just biding their time until retirement. New and inexperienced staff are coming out with the most absurd comments and their decisions would be laughable if they weren't so damaging to those in need.

Further examples of ridiculous sanctions are an army veteran being found dead in his flat after starving to death, a man being sanctioned for 'failing to complete a medical examination' after having a heart attack during the examination, a lone parent being sanctioned because her toddler needed to use the toilet, someone was sanctioned for failing to look for work on Christmas day and another for failing to look for work, even though at the time they were on a Government course to help people find work etc etc. Thousands of people have either died after being spuriously found fit for work or committed suicide because of this.

One bright spark decided to suspend my DLA, when I rang for a written statement of reasons and the regulations used to be quoted, she said "we don't need to tell you that"! I told her to to stop being silly and get a manager on the line. The manager apologised and immediately desuspended the claim, but how many people who aren't as au fait with the regulations as me would have just accepted this nonsense because they know no different?

It's true that people can appeal against the DWP and many are successful, but after they've been through the Mandatory Reconsideration stage, there are backlogs of over a year for appeals to be heard. How are they supposed to live until then?

I think that the loss of experienced staff is why so many mistakes are being made, though it doesn't help when the Government itself doesn't seem to know what it's doing. They introduced the Bedroom Tax, but didn't specify exactly what a bedroom was, leading to many people having an exemption granted. Another example is their attempts to abolish the Severe Disability Premium with the introduction of Universal Credit. They made a mess of that and have decided to award back pay of £120 a week, but some people lost £180 a week so another legal challenge is to be made.

Last edited by RichardCoulter; 13-08-2019 at 19:45.
RichardCoulter is offline   Reply With Quote