Coming Up To 65 Weeks!

If I wanted to mess with peoples heads, then releasing a story that I'm going to report claimants for fraud will have far more effect than actually reporting individual claimants.

Whilst Gordon's advice is somewhat reassuring , I am still concerned after receiving today's Newsletter where Steve Donnison does indeed appear to take this seriously, and says B&W will be investigating it further to see whether there was any truth in the supposed whistleblower's story.

What causes me the most worries is the quote: “As all ESA claimants approach the target deadline of 65 weeks on benefits – advisers are told to report them all to the fraud department for maximum pressure.”

Would there be any recourse to legal challenges if it were found that the fraud investiagations wre found to be discrimantory? I refer here to a thread from Rightsnet on this: Rightsnet

I understand where you're coming from Gordon but as the whistleblower seems to have stuck his/her neck out and appears to be that rare commodity, a JC+ manager with a social conscience it seems unlikely he/she would then drop something in to play mind games with claimants nationwide, that said DWP is becoming so Machiavellian these days nothing surprises me

I think I might have been misreading this.

Surely if there is any truth to this sixty five week event it would be timed from
the start of a persons original claim, not from the start of each individual claim
or reassessment. It is only this year that the backlogs and delays have got out of
hand, so in this situation why would they create extra work for themselves when
they are by their own admission completely stretched. It would not be effective use
of their resources too, people five or fifteen years in or after multiple reassessments
are not the "low hanging fruit" they can easily remove from benefit.

DWP were forced to admit 84,000 people still have not been migrated from IB and they
are passing them to ATOS at 5,000 a month which will take 16/17 months. If they thought
these could be forced off benefit they would be devoting their resources to these people. As
Gordon points out it is a Multi level process and most do not removed from benefit.

Glad Mr Donnison is checking into this. Very bad if there is any truth to this.