Lots of us about - politicians take note

Yay go for it. Make his life a misery. Make him earn his keep.

My MP was very sympathetic to my problems but was totally unable to help...it was with the DWP who are a law unto themselves but I know from other people that he is one of the few who actually put themselves out to help. He's old school though. Came up through the ranks. Did a proper job before he went into the cushioned world of Westminster. Unfortunately there is talk that he will retire at the next election then we'll get one of the modern professional politicians who wouldn't recognise a real job if it came up and hit them in the face. I don't think you can go from school to university to researcher in Westminster to MP and have any real understanding of the lives of ordinary people.

vampire are you saying the DWP are not doing their job properly? On another thread it seems that the public sector are good and the private bad! OK, I'm over simplifying but that is how it feels when I try to put a different point of view.

No Alison, I don't think people are saying that. Of course, there is lots of good in the private sector, plenty of hard-working, ethical companies around. The problem is that we have had two years of battering of the public sector from the government and the press. The private sector seemed to have been spared that, indeed has been held up as a model for the public sector. Now we have scandal after scandal in banking and the latest G4S debacle. I don't think you can blame people for pointing out that the private sector is not as wonderful as some newspapers would have us believe.

I'm not saying the DWP isn't do it's job properly but their goalposts have been moved. They can't look at someone's application complete with medical reports by experts and accept that person is ill as they have in the past because they've been told to reduce the number of people of sickness and disabilty benefit. So they make it more difficult to succeed in a claim. They try to put you off by turning you down and then, when you appeal, giving you the lowest level of support. A lot of people will have given up but if you appeal again you stand a good chance of getting what they should have given you in the first place. Sick and disabled people should not have to fight for something they are entitled to. I would not have been able to fight them alone but fortunately had support from my husband and a disability rights group.

The DWP are hitting their targets of reducing the number of people receiving sickness and disability benefits at the expense of those least able to fight back.

Vampire I thought this had been outsourced?

Mamie I suspect that the reason we have heard so much about the private sector and their 'battering' is because they have been so reluctant to accept changes to their pensions, redundancies and a pay freeze. A great many people in the private sector have been in the same situation for rather longer than 2 years, taking pay cuts, working short time and having their pension schemes changed to much worse conditions. It is therefore understandable that such people would feel strongly that the public sector should not be protected from the pain. I was made redundant in 2004 when my job was outsourced to Poland and prior to that my pension scheme reduced the benefits and increased the contributions. I know many in similar situations.

The DWP haven't been outsourced. Only the HEALTH CARE PROFFESSIONALS aka ATOS!

I agree that unions allow public sector workers to have their voice heard Alison, but I don't see people being protected from pain. My former team has been cut from thirty to eleven and people have taken cuts in pay and pensions. This is typical of the picture right across local authorities.
I am afraid I am a bit more cynical about the reasons for the government and the press attacking the public sector.

Yes, jeni that is what I thought vampire was talking about. I didn't say the DWP had been outsourced!

Just wait for the change-over from DLA to Personal Independence Payment (aka PIP). Our area is one of the pilots and I am not looking forward to the queues at our CAB when this happens.

I'm dreading it. I have to reapply for DLA in November and the whole sorry sage will start again.

@AlisonMA

I was surprised to read recently that 'elderly' is used to describe people of 50 or over! At 75 I wonder what they call me? Decrepit?

Oh feetlebaum you've reached the 'dear' stage. As in 'Are you all right dear,' and 'Do you need me to cut that up for you dear.'

Drives my mam mad