'Austerity' driving Conservative Government — and its Blairite predecessors — are and have been far more about finding fault with claimants so that they can cut our benefits and/or sanction us in the name of 'protecting the public purse'. Their savings are not really savings and their lack of monitoring service provision and recruitment and retention of Disability Employment Advisers have long demonstrated that they don't really care for claimant or staff wellbeing.(2)
Now, it emerges via a Freedom of Information (FoI) Request that the Department for Work & Pensions intend to further weaken the bargaining power of disability benefit claimants by calling interrogations toward sanctioning Employment & Support Allowance claimants 'Health & Work Conversations'.(3)
I am reminded of Theresa May's insistence that those made homeless by the Grenfell Tower blaze in a Conservative-led local authority should be rehoused with supreme urgency. Such supreme urgency can lead to people being offered places that are unsuitable at the best of times, and for the places to be offered long before the prospective rehousing fodder are in an emotional state fit to make any long-term commitments.
The result would be that under long-established legislation, after turning down three offers, the rehousing fodder could be deemed to have made themselves 'intentionally homeless'.
What will the Department for Work & Pensions do to restore the trust of economically vulnerable people after successive Governments have screwed up on Disability Equality and Disability Rights issues for many people's life times? 'Care in the community', anybody?
Note
http://kilburnunemployed.blogspot.co.uk/search?q=bargaining+powerhttp://kilburnunemployed.blogspot.co.uk/2015/03/private-legal-safeguarding-of.html
https://benefitsandwork.co.uk/news/3647-being-asked-about-your-values-could-lead-to-an-esa-sanction
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