DWP

You're so right, vampirequeen.
Your experience demonstrates what so many people don't want to believe - that the government does not have a sensible system of helping people into work and weeding out benefit cheats, but instead is simply harassing everyone who claims benefits and is causing immense misery.

And IDS gets £1000 for an hour's speech!
No justice, is there? Or very little.

It's good news for me but what would have happened if I hadn't had the wherewithal to fight them. I am well educated and have access to a computer and printer. Also I'm not put off by the first 'no' when I'm sure I'm right.

Then of course the major factor in survival was DH because he was there to keep me safe when I had the breakdown at the beginning and wanted to die. How many people aren't lucky enough to have someone who cares enough to keep them alive until the danger passes?

Win/win for the government in some cases. Either the claimant gives up or they die. Whichever way it goes the government pays out less benefits.

Great news at last, vq.

chelseababy,

I've come across some lovely people working for the DWP and I appreciated the help and support I received. It's a thankless job.

It seemed to me that there were internal administrative changes about five or six years ago, so that different benefits were handled by different regional centres. When I was unemployed, I didn't have to sign on every two weeks, because I live so far from the nearest Jobcentre. Therefore, everything was done by snail mail or phone contact. I had to send different forms to different addresses, so it was quite complicated, especially when bits of paper were lost.

Thank heavens for that, vampirequeen. Now you can get on with the rest of your life. Go and see some culture in Hull to celebrate! The way to think of £25 less a month is that it is less than £6 a week. Only one bottle of wine less.

I spent days on the HMRC website trying to put my tax info in, and it actually worked today. After all that time, at least ten hours, I ended up owing them £1.80.
At least I got the satisfaction of telling them I thought their website was rubbish.

So glad for you Vamps. I used to work at DWP and some of us did care and try our best to help.

Yay it's sorted!!!! Housing benefit reinstated albeit at £25 less a month. No idea why but I'm not going to argue with them. I can't go through that again.

They've sent me half the Amazon rain forest worth of paper covered in numbers that make no sense to me which is supposed to explain how my housing benefit it worked out. The only bit I think I understand is that it should never have stopped so hopefully they'll backdate the money to November in which case I can pay the bills I've 'forgotten' to pay whilst borrowing off Peter to pay Paul.

Well done, vampirequeen. I hope they get their act together soon.

"The system" is not operating what I would call social justice, while it messes people about, loses paperwork and makes them wait weeks or even months for money they are entitled to, and desperately need.

Sent the extra evidence showing no debits or credits on the accounts in the last 12 months. £2.59 in one account and 69p in the other. At first I was devastated and my mental health went to pieces but this has changed into incredulity now. I know we can survive...just..by borrowing off Peter to pay Paul. It's not easy but we can do it. Food is a bit of an issue but fortunately I'm a dab hand with cheap cuts and veg.

I objected to Vampire because someone was being unpleasant to me at the time and using it in an unpleasant way. I prefer vamps but if someone wants to use vampire that's OK as long as they're not being unpleasant.

As regards to the housing benefit I am lucky to have access to a computer and printer because they're constantly asking for evidence. Also once I got over the initial distress and my mental health settled, I have the capability to speak to them at their level (using my teacher voice lol). I don't mean that in a horrible way but you have to keep your wits about you and not get het up or angry or they can simply put the phone down on you. Imagine if you've no food for your kids and you've put your last £1 in a phone box to try to sort it out and they put you on hold. No wonder people kick off.

The latest letter arrived on Saturday. They now want more evidence about a savings account that has about £2 in it. I guess they think that I've withdrawn thousands out of it before I printed off the evidence for them lol.

Yes, you are right of course, FarNorth.

vampirequeen has made it clear that she is having huge difficulties in trying to sort out her situation, even with the support of her DH, and that part of the problem is unreasonable demands and apparent incompetence from the DWP.

vq is one of thousands who are struggling, and sometimes failing, with this.

Vampirequeen (I do remember that originally she objected to being addressed as Vampire, but no longer, apparently) is obviously able to sort her own situation out with the support of her OH.

I think that most people believe in social justice, whatever political party they support.

Don't you?

No. Are you?
Is Theresa May left-wing?
Does she believe in social justice?
Do you believe that Theresa May believes in social justice?

If she does, why is Vampire in the situation she is in?
That's not social justice.

Goodness, are you poised with your typing fingers on alert at all times, durhamjen?

Didn't say they were. Richard Murphy isn't. He just believes in social justice.
Theresa May says she does, and she's not left-wing.

Not all ageing hippies are left-wingers.

Social justice requires not filling in a 50+ page form to get what you are entitled to.
It also requires a fair benefit assessment system that does not sanction disabled people leaving them penniless for weeks on end and in danger of losing their homes.

www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2017/01/08/social-justice/

Apparently social justice requires getting rid of the Tories, and only ageing hippies can do it.

This must be how some people end up homeless, especially if they are on their own trying to wrestle with all this.

I hope you get it sorted out soon, vq.

Today the council offices reopened so I phoned to tell them that:

I could only give them printouts of statements as we only do internet banking.

I have no investments.

If I owned a property I'd be living in it and wouldn't need housing benefit.

They accepted the printouts so DH went to local office across the road and they faxed all 39 pages of financial evidence to the main office. 39 pages covered every single account with all monies in and out over the last 3 months. There were so many pages because I tried to cover everything they might possibly need.

They have promised it won't all go back into the waiting to be allocated basket for a fortnight but I'm not holding my breath.

So in the meantime claimants continue to suffer. What happens if the government refuse to implement the real life assessment?

A possible explanation of the sudden drop from the beginning of 2016 is here:

"Another explanation is that this is something to do with ‘Regulation 35’ (as Ken Butler of Disability Rights UK and Anita Bellows of DPAC argued in the Disability News Service report), in which people can be allocated to the Support Group because of a risk to their health, even if they do not have enough points from the functional descriptors assessment. (They can also be allocated to the WRAG due to the parallel ‘Regulation 29’). The DWP have changed the guidance around this in deliberate response to the massive expansion in the use of what was meant to be an ‘exceptional’ circumstance – by mid 2015, over 30% of all completed assessments resulted in someone being assigned to the Support Group on these grounds, noticeably greater than the 20% relying on the actual functional descriptors. The final Litchfield review made clear that this was regarded as something that had to change, so we have been expecting DWP to do something in this area."

It's interesting that the number of people placed in the Support Group increased dramatically from 2010 until the beginning of 2016.