The broken WCA test - a Government Solution

Richie-from-the-Boro

7:30AM GMT 28 Nov 2011

- the backlog in appeals
- the fact that the savings made forcing people off benefit into jobs that do not exist via ATOS are squandered in the cost of appeals
- the upcoming predicted rise in the volume of appeals as a result of a flawed ATOS / LiMA assessment

And what is the Governments 'fix' ?, are they going to make adjustments to the descriptors and LiMA programme ? - No they are going to hire more Judges to speed up the appeals, which begs the question :

.Q. If the current savings made by taking benefits away from the disabled are swallowed by the current cost of appeals, how does recruiting an extra 84 Judges at a pro-rata salary of £101,000 per year make economic .. .. let alone social justice sense .. .. madness :eek:

Richie-from-the-Boro

115 views and no comments eh !

- if they got the soddin' ESA decision right in the first place there would be no need for the whole exercise in cutting back appeal rights
- but that would show the truth of the real political intention which is of course to arbitrarily reduce the ESA numbers
- mind you 87 new posts at £100k pa is a nice boost to the ex Oxford & Cambridge [STRIKE]school chums[/STRIKE] friends of the top echelon of Government

rogerblack

This needed to be done in any case.
Current appeals are hitting close to a year in some cases.
This does nobody any good.
Claimants have problems remembering what their condition was at the time of the original decision, and tribunals have a hopeless task working it out.
More rapid feedback might let more decisionmakers make better decisions in addition.

Brassedoff

Just wondering and if anyone has tried the test. Does the current year breach the European Human Rights Charter?

Article 3: "degrading treatment"
Article 7 - retrospectivity ; ESA and changing the rules retrospectively that included taking benefit from claimants "retrospectivly" if when you win your appeal, but have been on it for 9 months?
Article 8 - privacy? Using a credit reference agency to see what you have credit.
Article 14 - discrimination; are all the changes and re-catigorising the disabled discriminorty?

Now, I am sure there is grounds somewhere with the unessesary "mental anguish that flthe waiting times are causing.

rogerblack

Brassedoff wrote: »

Article 7 - retrospectivity ; ESA and changing the rules retrospectively that included taking benefit from claimants "retrospectivly" if when you win your appeal, but have been on it for 9 months?

The appeal re-determines the original decision, re-making it as if it had been made at the original time.
It does not (usually) redetermine the later period.
How is this reterospective?
It's an appeal against a decision.
Yes, the process is delayed, but this doesn't make it not an appeal.