Campaigners target Atos with coffin display as anger rages over disability benefits

Published by 24publishing for 24dash.com in Housing and also in Central Government, Communities, Local Government

Disabilities minister Maria Miller has come under fire over welfare reforms after the private firm carrying out the Government’s work capability assessments, Atos, was targeted by protesters on the eve of the Paralympic Games.

Miller was quizzed on the BBC’s Newsnight over the number of successful appeals to Employment Support Allowance (ESA) decisions and changes to Disability Living Allowance (DLA) which will see claimants reassessed for the new Personal Independence Payment (PIP) from next year.

Campaigners presented Atos - one of the main sponsors of the Paralympic Games - with a coffin outside its UK headquarters which they say represents the people that have died after the firm assessed them as ‘fit for work’.

They argue the tests are degrading, inaccurate and not fit for purpose.

In one case highlighted by the BBC’s Panorama a man died 39 days after being assessed as ‘fit for work’ by Atos. In another case, an emphysema sufferer, who at one stage was given two days to live by his doctor, was passed fit for work but later successfully appealed the decision.

Atos is in charge of the medical assessments, which are used by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) to help determine ESA eligibility. In response, Atos said it doesn’t make decisions on benefit entitlement or welfare policy but “provided a service as highly professional and compassionate as it can be”.

Miller told Newsnight the Government was now working with the courts to understand why nearly 40 per cent of appeals against Employment Support Allowance (ESA) benefit decisions are found in favour of the customer.

She also defended changes to Disability Living Allowance (DLA) – which helps support disabled people in their daily lives.

Changes to the DLA – which will become the Personal Independence Payment (PIP) from next April – will see the most disabled people lose their automatic right to the benefit. This means those suffering from severe mental impairments and even double amputee victims will not necessarily automatically qualify for the PIP.

Miller said: “I don’t think there is anybody advocating a benefit that focuses in on an individual’s impairment. What most disability organisations want, and indeed most disabled people want, is a disability support system that focuses on their everyday needs not whether or not they’ve got this condition or that condition.”

She said the department was working with more than 60 different disability organisations to put together the new PIP. “That’s the approach they’ve asked us to take and that’s the approach we’ve taken,” she said.

Campaigners have also hit out at the DWP’s plans to shave 20% off the expenditure on the benefit by 2015.

Miller said: “At the moment more than £600m a year is going out on overpayments to those who no longer qualify for the level of support they’re getting. At the moment there is no way of reassessing people which is important to do.”

She added it was particularly important now, at a time when the country has the Paralympics in London, that “we have a benefit system that is there to support people and not potentially leave them trapped in benefit dependency”.

Francesca Martinez, comedienne and actress, who was also on Newsnight said it was “highly ironic” that Atos was a top sponsor of the Games. “I find that highly hypocritical and I know a lot of disabled people all round the country are very sickened by that.”