P.I.P. timescales...

jen0dorf

Hi

this is a video of the actual meeting which is a good read. The link above works for me just by clicking on it. Try right clicking and selecting open link

if it does not work let me know

Ian

jen0dorf

Just to be clear this came from the benefitsand works website , it's all thier work!

I've pasted the news letter below

[FONT=&quot]20% OFF ANNUAL MEMBERSHIP FOR CLAIMANTS AND FOR PROFESSIONALS - ENDS MIDNIGHT FRIDAY[/FONT][FONT=&quot]
If you’re not already a member, join the Benefits and Work community before midnight on Friday and you can get 20% off the cost of your annual subscription.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Just type the following code into the coupon box when you pay: 4452[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Claimants and carers get an annual subscription for £15.96, down from £19.95. Professionals get an annual subscription for £77.60, down from £97.00.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]You can read this newsletter online.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Support Group success
“Had a call this morning I am Support Group for 2 yrs. Such a relief. Thank you for all the information on this site. It's a god send.”[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]Dear Ian Edwards,[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]In perhaps the most famous Morecambe and Wise sketch ever, as Morecambe mangles Greig’s piano concerto, Andre Previn protests: “You’re playing all the wrong notes.”[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]But Morecambe grabs him by the lapels and snaps back: “I’m playing all the right notes . . . but not necessarily in the right order.”[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]It’s a forty year old sketch. But Benefits and Work can reveal that it was dusted off for use at a televised meeting of the Public Accounts Committee about Personal Independence Payment (PIP) last week. [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]First Lisa Coleman, senior vice president at Atos, looking opulent in pearls, repeatedly denied accusations that Atos had lied in their PIP tender document about how many assessment centres their partner organisations had made available. References in their bid document to contractual commitments couldn’t possibly be understood to mean that there were any sort of . . . well, contracts, she argued.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Then it was the turn of DWP permanent secretary Robert Devereux, looking dismissive in shirt sleeves, to try to justify the 6-7 month waiting times for medicals.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Devereux was adamant that the neither the DWP nor Atos had got it wrong.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Atos, he insisted, had all the right assessment centres and all the right assessors . . . but not necessarily for the right medicals.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]As MPs gaped in astonishment, Devereux explained that “The right number of people have been deployed . . . to do a test which is half as long.”[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]So, you see, officially it’s nobody’s fault that waiting times for PIP medicals are so enormous.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]It’s because no-one could possibly have realised that PIP medicals would take two hours to carry out and write up, instead of the one hour that had been allowed for.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]This is the sort of thing that could only be discovered once PIP had been rolled out nationally, not from running a proper pilot, Devereux appeared to argue.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Indeed, he seemed to expect gratitude from the committee because, when he realised that roll-out of PIP wasn’t going quite as smoothly as intended, he had scaled it back to only include every single new PIP claimant in the UK and a lot of others besides.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Like a well-practised double act, Devereux and Coleman were both steadfast in their refusal to admit fault, arguing that it’s early days yet and these utterly unforeseeable medical backlogs will soon be dealt with.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Coleman did reluctantly confess that 40% of Atos’ clients have to travel for more than an hour each way to a medical, rather than no-one at all having to do so, as they had guaranteed in their tender document. But this wasn’t because Atos had failed to provide most of the 740 promised assessment centres. Oh no, it was yet another of those completely unforeseeable things.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Because until PIP was up and running nobody could accurately predict where claimants would be travelling from. Such things are just not possible, apparently.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]It was as if Coleman imagined PIP claimants to be some strange hobbity type of creatures, living in underground warrens that are only now being discovered, rather than people on every street in every town.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]But there’s no denying that this twenty first century Morecambe and Wise put on a polished performance.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Certainly, anyone hoping for an admission of corporate guilt or a display of appropriate remorse for the misery being heaped on sick and dying people – something the committee heard about from other witnesses - will have been disappointed.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]But then one thing we should all have foreseen: for the DWP and for Atos, the disastrous roll-out of PIP doesn’t even qualify as a comedy of errors, let alone a tragedy.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]You can download the minutes of the meeting or you can watch the whole Committee meeting on Parliament TV. There’s no sound for the first minute until everyone is sitting comfortably. Atos are on at 10.30am and Devereux at 10.59am.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Or you can do yourself a favour and watch Morecambe and Wise’s original performance instead.[/FONT]


Ian

serendipity2706

jen0dorf wrote: »

Hi

if it does not work let me know

Ian

Sorry I was being dim! I needed to download silverlight

jen0dorf

Nag not dim being dim is expecting atos to be efficient!!!

serendipity2706

Thanks for posting the meeting. Certainly shows up Atos. Margaret Hodge for PM- she'd sort out the country (and I'm not even a Labour supporter)

jen0dorf

Hi

in case of any confusion I recommend that everyone watch the Parliament TV link I posted. As has been said Margaret Hodge is a joy to watch as to Atos words ( of the polite kind) fail me.

IAn

Animosity

How long did each of your assessments take? Mine took 25 minutes and I was told I would hear back within 3 weeks. I had it today.

I've taken the short assessment time as really bad news.
I'm claiming for severe mental illnesses.

lauriee

My assessment done via Capita on the 7th February at home took an hour exactly, I have not heard anything at all since that date though,but was told when the assessment finished she can't say when I would hear as there is a large backlog of claims being looked at. So I am currently waiting on my decision, original phone call was made on 15th October 2013.

serendipity2706

Animosity wrote: »

How long did each of your assessments take? Mine took 25 minutes and I was told I would hear back within 3 weeks. I had it today.

I've taken the short assessment time as really bad news.
I'm claiming for severe mental illnesses.

Not necessarily- mine was 90 minutes and I was told three weeks. There's no doubt I'll get the bottom care level and something for mobility, though not sure what for that.

princessdreamer

This is getting beyond madness looking at waits of up to nine month how the hell are people supposed to cope. I'm looking at getting to three lots of treatments each week costing £20 in bus fairs alone with only £15 a week to live on as it is. Guess I'm going to have gone under long before it even hits assesment stage, even then it'll probably be turned down.