Disabled mum who killed herself failed by benefits agency (UK) - Polidicks

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-tees-47332954?ns_campaign=bbcnews&ocid=socialflow_twitter&ns_mchannel=social&ns_source=twitter Wasn't sure where to post this, but I believe the reasons the DWP do this are political at the root.

And they think a measly £10,000 is going to help? No amount would really help but £10,000 for someone taking their life? That's fucking insulting.

I had my ESA assessment regarding my disability yesterday. I was DREADING it. It actually went okay and the doctor was lovely, but the system itself is cruel and unfeeling. I unfortunately can totally understand why it stressed her out so much.

The DWP is fundamentally broken, intentionally so. They literally get dragged through the courts every day because they declare dead people and majorly disabled people fit to work. They don't give a shit, their cruelty is intentional and they'll never change, they know exactly what they're doing and only make exception when forced to. Remember a few years ago "benefits cheats" where the boogiemen destroying the country, so they gutted the benefits system which has contributed to the massive rise in food bank use, homelessness and general misery for the poor and disabled. Whoo Tories!

Like seriously, what cunt looks at this and think's it's fine. She was suffering from pneumonia when she missed her assessment but was then ruled fit to work and had her Employment and Support Allowance halted. How the fuck do they even make decisions like this so quickly and without properly looking into shit, they're so eager to kick people off even if they have a legitimately perfect reason for being unable to attend an assessment, "We don't care if you're ill and are unable to leave your home, you didn't attend so we're cutting you off." Yeah, fuck people for being unable to prevent such obviously easily preventable health issues.

I have also developed agoraphobia due to my ailments. Much love to you and your sister. <3

This has to stop. We live in supposedly one of the richest countries in the world and yet good honest people are being driven to suicide by a cold, uncaring system that is designed to see them fail just because a very very very very VERY small percentage of people MIGHT abuse said system. Ah I remember those days. Funny how "benefit cheats" mysteriously vanished when news stories of corporations avoiding millions upon billions of tax started cropping up :thinking:

I post this in pretty much every thread but I worked for the DWP in ESA and Universal Credit and they don't give a shit about you. The system doesn't care and there is a inbred culture against the poor and vulnerable in British society. There is so much shit I wish I was allowed to talk about publicly about what went on. I was also in a very junior position so the rabbit hole can only go so much deeper.

The thing is... being disabled is surprisingly not paradise. Being productive in work made me happier, but fuck me, right?

Wait, you said “worked” so I’m assuming you don’t work there anymore. Do they have you on some sort of NDA after leaving or something which prevents people from disclosing or talking about how broken the system is? If so, that’s fucked.

As standard practice all Civil Servants of any grade are bound by the Official Secrets Act. This is all UK government departments and most other countries have similar rules. I saw so much mishandling of cases that I cannot share due to it being deemed sensitive material.

How long is a person bound by the Official Secrets Act? There is no specified duration under which a person is bound by the Official Secrets Act. However, the length of time between an unauthorised disclosure and the event or situation it relates to may be a factor in the Attorney General's decision to prosecute someone under the Official Secrets Act 1989. Source While I understand the law in terms of things like intelligence services and such, I feel that's a bit ridiculous for more domestic departments like the Department of Work and Pensions. As your stories attest, it basically gives the department blanket protection to abuse their position without fear of anyone saying anything about it, lest they decide to become a whistleblower and flirt with violating the OSA. That's kinda really sketch to me, in cases like this.

I'm sure there are ways to disclose that sort of information anonymously. Just need to make sure to only share information known by enough people within the department that the whistle-blower can't be specifically pinpointed. The whole "secrets act" sounds like bullshit in the first place. It should be void as soon as it involves denouncing illegal behavior. Even if it involves disclosing it privately to a third-party judge first.

https://youtu.be/-1uSSRcn7UE

Make new FP account, use VPN, and share the sacred knowledge

To quote Sir Humphrey from Yes, Minister "The Official Secrets Act is not there to protect Secrets, it is there to protect Officials."

You are all correct, it's all complete bullshit and the Official Secrets Act is used as leverage to try and hush stuff up more than anything else. The OSA is signed by a huge amount of UK public servants and it's a piece of legislation so vague that it can be used to apply to almost anything, and in this case the DWP uses it to try and stop their own whistleblowers. The problem is that DWP whistleblowers are not necessarily punished, it is that nothing is done until claimants die regardless of anything a whistleblower does. The OSA is used to try and scare off some of the meeker DWP employees but even if a DWP employee goes ahead nothing gets done. Some stuff I can't say because it's part of an ongoing legal case which, although I am not involved with, I cannot comment on. In short, however, the government knows the DWP is broken and are purposefully not fixing it. The treatment of disabled people by the DWP is awful; even it's own disabled employees let alone ESA and UC claimants face massive internal issues. Here's a fun thing you might not know; if you are disabled and homeless you cannot claim the vast majority of DWP benefits. What is the reason for this? There is not one. You might make the argument that people receiving benefits need to be able to have an address for correspondence but the fact is homeless people used to be able to use a JobCenter as an address of correspondence but this was taken away from them for no reason whatsoever and so they now receive less benefits because the government hates poor people.

People really don't understand that various disabilities really have a major impact on quality of life. They also fail to realize that the cost associated with various disabilities can be staggering. Benefits only soften the financial burden and are suppose to ensure that people with disabilities can have their needs fulfilled. It isn't exactly a ticket to paradise and a life of luxury.

Exactly. There's a disconnect between reality and expectation.

Oh no, they absolutely understand that many of these people legitimately can't work. Its not the DWP does this out of ignorance. They knowingly do this to people, they overhauled the whole benefits system with a new system so awful and poorly implemented you can't be blamed for thinking the governments actual policy is to kill the poor and disabled.

My mother had an aneurysm a few years back and had to have brain surgery to reduce the pressure on her brain. She came out relatively unscathed considering, but now has pretty severe vertigo, mood swings and stamina issues on top of her pre-existing asthma and arthritis. She got reassessed for ESA and they took the lot off her because in her visit report "she didn't seem unwell enough to qualify for any payments". We appealed obviously, but we basically got back a "nope, sorry". I don't blame the woman who came to assess her, just this government for moving the goalposts on who qualifies for benefits and who doesn't. Fuck this country, fuck Theresa May, and fuck everyone else involved in this absolute farce, it's a crock of shit