[nomadking]

[QUOTE=RichardCoulter;36024100]Oh yes, I well remember Thatchers 'Care in the community' idea. Despite all the spin about wanting to help those who had been institutionalised by closing down mental institutions, in practice it often meant shoving former residents into a bedsit on benefits. Then, when they couldn't cope and didn't complete forms, attend appointments etc it was left to the police, NHS staff, the DWP etc to sort out. These days, of course, the DWP respond by simply cutting off their income hence all these deaths from starvation or suicide.

---------- Post added at 18:19 ---------- Previous post was at 18:14 ----------



It doesn't have to be binary. The current DWP way of working is zero tolerance to any failure, with no allowances for flexibility or common sense or humanity. They just reduce, suspend or close a live claim.

Of course claimants have to participate in the requirements of the system if they are able to. If they don't engage the DWP simply compounds matters by cutting off their income instead of looking into why they have failed to respond etc.

---------- Post added at 18:27 ---------- Previous post was at 18:19 ----------

Originally Posted by nomadking

So before 2010, claimants were able to not attend assessments and still get benefits?
Would those visits have taken place before 2010? In other words it would've been more likely to have occurred under the rules before 2010.


So the DWP had nothing else to go on. What else were they expected to do?/QUOTE]

As previously explained, before Camerons 'Stricter benefits regime' mantra (and cuts to staffing levels), we used common sense and flexibility to look into why the claimant wasn't engaging with the department. Sometimes it's possible to bypass a mentally ill or disabled customer completely and obtain the information elsewhere without a claim form.

This is the true meaning of 'social security'.

These days a robotic approach is deployed, which you appear to endorse with your inhumane comments that are devoid of any form of empathy whatsoever.

As the National Lottery strapline says 'It could be YOU'.

As I pointed out, the safeguarding visits weren't there at all before Cameron. So what happened before then? Where were there supposed to get the info from? He hadn't seen his GP in years. Wouldn't have been the first case of somebody claiming something like agoraphobia, but mysteriously able to travel the world or whatever.

3 Examples
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New government figures provide further proof that disabled people are being unfairly denied out-of-work disability benefits because of a controversial new assessment, say campaigners.

Same article

The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) figures show the number of people found “fit for work” after taking the work capability assessment (WCA) between October 2008 and November 2009.
Of those who completed the assessment, two thirds (66 per cent) were found fit for work and ineligible for employment and support allowance – which replaced incapacity benefit (IB) for new claimants in October 2008.

The coroner last June said there were "missed opportunities" to help Mr Graham.
She wrote: "The safety net that should surround vulnerable people like Errol in our society had holes within it.
"Errol needed the GP to try harder to see him, certainly from 2015 onwards.

"If anyone had known he was struggling, help could have been provided. We do not know why he did not seek it."

So nobody knew anything.

Mr Graham's daughter-in-law told the Mirror: "He had always plodded along as long as he got the financial support needed.

He obviously was able to deal with everything and everyone to get the benefits in the first place, so how was this that different?


Why should non-compliance and absence of info be a passport for benefits?