HindleA wrote:"The new figures, uncovered as part of Labour’s Zero-Based Review of government spending, show that ministers are set to spend over £8 billion more than planned on Employment and Support Allowance (ESA) in this parliament (2010-2015)"
"Uncovered" as in being able to read.Politicians do make me laugh.
This is just so stupid.
IDS, against all advice (including that of the experts he appointed) deliberately made the WCA tougher in the hope that he would cut the number of people claiming ESA and/or IB.
IDS inherited a caseload of 2.6 Million people (or should I say a "stockpile) claiming sickness benefits. He still has the same number of people claiming sickness benefits.
He assumed, wrongly, that sick people who "failed" the WCA would - go away and die; get a job however ill they are; claim JSA instead.
The ones who didn't die didn't get jobs - they appealed in huge numbers and many of them won.
They couldn't claim JSA because they were ill - and now they can't appeal either because the new system of mandatory reconsideration prevents them or because they are in a queue of 750,000 people who haven't had an assessment or a decision to appeal against.
He is already saving millions by - making people wait for assessments at the lowest rate of ESA; removing the right to immediate appeal; and making it impossible for anyone with any illness to claim JSA by imposing conditions for it that an ill person could not meet.
What he made no allowances for is this - people are getting sick at exactly the same rate as they always did and probably always will; and he can expect the claimant numbers to increase because he is preventing them from retiring.
Before the rules changed, I was due to retire and claim my OAP in February 2016. Now I can't do that until 2022 - and as my health is not likely to improve to the point I can work again, he can count me in for ESA for 6 years more than originally expected.
Despite all his viciousness, the numbers stay the same. The alleged "overspend" on ESA presumably includes the outrageous amounts of money spent on appeals by DWP, and the millions wasted on repeated and unnecessary assessments.
Labour needs to look long and hard at this - it's high time that politicians accepted that there is a significant cohort of people, about 2.5 million or so, who are too ill to work. This represents less than 9% of the working age population, and some of the claimants in that figure have jobs but are just temporarily unable to do them.
If the £8 Billion "overspend" is over 5 years, it's about £1.75BN a year - I made a mistake in my last post by assuming this referred to an annual figure, so apologies - but by calling this expenditure an "overspend" it assumes that some of the benefit paid was not due because the claimants concerned should have been working. This is nonsense.
No new ESA claimant has had a WCA at 12 weeks into the claim for more than a year now - which means they keep on supplying "fit notes" to DWP which is the evidence required to claim Assessment Phase ESA. In other words, the million or so new claimants are ill according to their doctors, who keep giving them certification while they wait for assessment.
Although I completely miscalculated in my last post, the facts are that, allowing for the annual rises, the above-inflation rise for Support Group claimants, the increase in SG claimants as the ex-IB long-term claimants convert to ESA, and the massive backlog in claims not being assessed at all and thus not coming off benefit, the "overspend" isn't that much really.
I am so fed up of Labour confusing "disabled" people with ESA claimants. There are people with disabilities, like the 7,000 ex-Remploy workers and others who are wanting work and are being let down, certainly - but ESA claimants are of a different stripe entirely and many of them are simply not capable of work at all. That's why their doctors sign them off, FFS.
Green and Reeves can drone on about money and work and toughness and fairness yadda yadda yadda as long as they like - I am still not hearing what they will actually DO to support people who are seriously ill or permanently unable to work (sometimes for years before they retire) beyond "Oh we'll make sure they are treated with dignity".....
Bring back IB while the systems still work. Bring back Permitted Work. Sort it out, Labour.
Aspirin or Ibuprofen would definitely help but I can't take anything like that now because of my ulcerated insides. 
but at the time Mr Ohso's wages were around £12 week. 