Ever since the days of Jo Moore who infamously emailed on the day of 9/11 that “today is a good day to bury bad news”, governments thereafter have tended to follow her advice. Hence on the day when Prince George’s arrival was announced to the world, the government cunningly buried the bad news (for them) that the work capability assessments were going badly wrong and would have to be re-thought.
Of course the government didn’t admit to making any mistakes themselves – it was all the fault of Atos! What a surprise! Atos staff, we’re told, had turned in some ‘unacceptably poor’ work standards and would have to be re-trained – ignoring the fact that it has taken them over 2 years to notice this. Continue reading
It’s taken long enough, like 6 months, to coax the Minister responsible for Atos under IDS, Mark Hoban, finally to come round to receiving a delegation from those with deep and lengthy experience of Atos/DWP procedures over WCA. But it look as though he is now prepared to see us soon after Parliament returns on 2 September.It has been a convoluted journey. First he tool exception to certain words used by Prof. Peter Beresford in his foreword to the People’s Review of WCA written by the Spartacus network, a report of more than 100 pages.
Research published in March by the think-tank Demos and by the disability charity Scope, which my hon. Friend 
Three cheers for the courts and mental health activists, none for the politicians and the Department of Work & Pensions. This week three judges ruled – as we all knew, but it required the courts to make it the law of the land – that the Government’s prescriptors, regulations and guidelines used to assess whether disabled people were eligible for Employment and Support Allowance (ESA) disadvantage people with mental health problems, learning disabilities and autism.