We need to stop rewarding people for staying in bed - Osborne, 2013. Sunak ripping up "sick note culture" - 2024

on the proposed changes to disability benefits

A friend who used to work at DWP (The Department of Work and Pensions) told me a story, that at first; I didn’t believe.

They told me that DWP offices often turn off the lift power on purpose, so that people attending for a PIP assessment can be judged by assessors, on how “ill” they are.

(PIP - Personal Independence Payment, a means-tested benefit, and also like many benefits these days, a payment often on top of a working wage. Not because we don’t pay enough in this country wage-wise, but because a lot of working class people are greedy, and one salary package is not enough for them.)

They also told me when people turned up to the office for a PIP assessment, then that would also be at times, a mark against your eligibility. Because, after all, you got out of bed, you can’t be that sick.

Such is the inherited waffle of Mr Osborne at al (remember him, the guy judged to be too punitive against the working poor by… Iain Duncan Smith), it is this state of affairs we have now. DWP operates these days more like some kind of pilot study conducted at the Grand Academy of Lagado, then a government department in 21st Century Britain.

I think what the left-leaning liberal intelligentsia forget though, is that human beings are quite logical and reliable creatures, and actually forms and numbers-driven assessments are the best way to realise their potential.

And when I write potential, I mean in the neoliberal Tory sense (so actually, not Tory at all but that might be a post for another time). I mean it in the IDS sense, as he wrote in the Telegraph this week. We must not give the working poor, or disabled people, or those who are unwell, too much money! Because then they may not reach their potential!!!!

Spending on disability benefits has been rising fast. The exact opposite of what Osborne intended. It’s almost as if he’s a terrible economist as well as politician.

So 14 years after Osborne declared war on the working poor, his successors are at it again. I understand the working poor were to blame for the last financial crisis and global recession - but I’m not convinced I’ve seen evidence to blame them for current levels of welfare spending.

I mean it’s almost as if punitive cuts to welfare have inverse consequences. And it’s almost as if the Conservatives are relying on the public forgetting that successively preceding previous governments, were led by honourable members sat on their side of the chamber (or often not so much sat in chamber, as gone to work for hedge funds).

How did “getting the public finances in order” go?

According to the government, spending on PIP is expected to grow by 52% from 2023-24, to £32.8bn by 2027-28, driven in part by a rise in claimants with mental-health conditions.

Again, I’m not sure why the working poor are once again being blamed but I will give this government the benefit of the doubt and see.

I fully understand why the government are talking about people that don’t want to work. It’s after all a sure fire vote winner for dishi Rishi. Apparently 6% of adults and 9% of Tory voters (does this survey include the shy ones?) believe that disabled people receive “too much support”.

I recall one of my former CLIENTS¹ saying;

“When you get PIP, it’s a bit like passing probation at work. You work so hard to get PIP and then when you get it, you then get worried one day you’ll rock up at DWP and be told you are “well enough” to work. Then you’re fucked. My rent won’t be paid, I’d be homeless again.

“The irony is, I think I probably would be working now, if I hadn’t had to spend so many months begging DWP to say that I was not fit for work.

“It’s a funny one cos what it means is that people convince themselves somehow that to stay ill - that means they’d be better off. You won’t starve cos on the system, you’re ill. You get PIP. So why engage in any mental health treatments anyway if “getting better” means you’ll potentially be poorer, and that safety net is gone?

“Before my assessment, my support worker gave me two clear bits of advice. One - don’t shower for a few days before the assessment, don’t make out that you can look after yourself, at all. Two - get yourself in the frame of mind of you on your very worst day. And I mean the worst day. The day you wanted to end it all.”

But yeah, this government cares about our menty h, sure!

These deficit systems are the utter reverse of what the welfare state, the so-called safety net, is about. Because you’re judged by how bad everything is, rather than anything positive about yourself, we’re teaching our citizens that the only option they have is to stay ill. Otherwise, you risk having everything stripped away.

Whatever you do, don’t take initiative!

The great Stevie Wise, posted recently about the way the system works against those who want to get ahead in avoiding debt/crisis.

As Stevie put it,

…when I started running out of my remaining money and became worried about paying my bills, I contacted @eon_next to ask for help. They don’t help unless you’re already in debt, so even if you want to be sensible and get ahead before that happens, you literally can’t.

I’ve written before about my former CLIENT (nb, for the sake of confusion, I’m not talking about Stevie, haha lol) who got into a mess with EON Next. A few months on and I’m amazed at the amount of times a member of EON Next staff has emailed/called me to see if we are ready to “resolve the complaint”. Don’t get me wrong this member of staff was relatively helpful - but they still spent more time focusing on the closure of the complaint than on actual resolutions.

And as Stevie alluded, even when you contact EON Next in advance of accruing a debt, they don’t engage with you. Suffice to say, EON seems to be a “non engager” as regards their clients and debts.

Perhaps these weird company practices are another effect of how systems measure success. (I can only imagine EON have been spending time getting tips from our wonderful public services).

Perhaps this practice is the very effective way that EON measures the outputs of its workforce. It is deemed a waste of staff resource for them to spend their time warning its customers in advance of accruing debt (a reminder again, my CLIENT’s debt built up to £2000, and she never got one phone call in advance - though she got a visit from a “third party”- but she couldn’t answer the door as she was in a mental health institution).

So it seems EON won’t contact you successively to avoid a debt - but EON will spend their time, more or less harassing you, in a bid to get you ticked off their complaints caseload.

I’m sure organisations like Step Change (who EON refers people to - but only once things have gone to shit, and certainly not before) have a clear target of outcomes too. Besides, if EON Next work to stop the debts accruing before it gets serious, than whatever would all the warm and fuzzy philanthropists funding the Charis’s Let’s Talk Energy Fund do with their lives?

But no, the Third Sector is no industry.

Deficit systems / deficit relationships

When did it become so fashionable to wait for things to go wrong before you deal with solutions.

It’s like someone I know, working with a CLIENT, who’s an “at risk” person in an institution. There have been multiple meetings of multiple agencies (MDTs) to ensure this person’s safety. To which the “best way forward” (bar a few “shouty” staff members, who dare to disagree with the authorities) has been deemed to be to sit around and wait for another “crisis”, so the police can be involved and the buck can once again be passed to another part of the system. Because we’re not talking about human beings here.

There is a certain irony at the heart of public service discourse.

Someone I was working with was telling me about when her mental health problems started, leading her to be out of work for ten years (she had always worked before).

“It was the benefits speech, do you remember. I think 2013, where he talked of people who were rewarded for staying in bed. I suddenly realised as a single parent, my government were going to take away my safety net. I spiralled. From that day I’ve been poorer, I’ve been more unwell. I fainted after that speech. It really terrified me.”

1. I capitalise CLIENT for ironic reasons which will soon become public knowledge. Stay tuned!