Pizza, a show and doctors

31 July 2012

Did you by any chance see Panorama or Despatches last night?  If not I would encourage you to do so on catch-up TV!  Both programmes were about the Work Assessment Test being run by a French company called Atos for the DWP.  The idea is to get as many people off benefits, in this case Incapacity Benefit and into work.  Anyone who is scamming the system has to be found and action taken against them. 

However, the testers are marking many people who are clearly not fit to work as fit to work.  Like the man waiting for major heart surgery; or the mentally ill man who was sectioned under the Mental Health Act, admitted to hospital and was then marked as being fit for work while he was still catatonic in hospital; or the man with prostate cancer who was marked as fit for work even though the assessor had real doubts about doing so.  The rules and the tight criteria meant that she was unable to do anything other than do as she did.  Even one of the trainers of doctors for the doing the scheme said it was a "... toxic test ...". 

Government figures state that 30% of all appeals against the decisions are over turned.  Even so claimants are being called back for assessment two or three weeks after the appeal, and winning yet again.  These appeals are costing £45 million to run.  Yet the government still will not admit the assessment system is floured.  I can't blame for the Tories for this entirely seeing that the whole thing was started by the last Labour government.  But I can blame the Tories for not seeing the unfairness of the system.   

Oh yes, it's costing UK Tax payers £100 million to run the scheme, and that is on top of the £45 million for the appeals!

Dorktown News this morning is a bit thin on content today so I wonder if that is why they ran the same story twice.  It helped fill the pages I suppose.   

Sometime ago we were told in the News that Poundland was in discussions over taking on the old Woollies building on Queens Road.  There was a big outcry over that idea so they are now looking at taking on the old Marks & Sparks building.  At least they have submitted a planning application to change the sign on the front of the store.  There's no word as to what will happen to their current site though, nor as to what will happen to the old Woollies site.  Maybe the indoor market might come back then, or perhaps a supermarket even.

I'm travelling to the Wirral for today's photo ... 

We had a drive over there one Sunday while we were living in Atherton and to be honest, we rather liked it there in New Brighton.  There was the Wirral show on that day and the crowds were quite large.  We still had a good day there though.

A short funny today ...

Two teenagers are arrested. The police sergeant tells them they are entitled to one phone call. Sometime later a man enters the station and asks for them.
"I suppose you're their solicitor," says the sergeant.
"Nope," the man replies. "I'm here to deliver the pizza."