THE benefits system is a “Kafkaesque” machine that uses lies and misinformation to deprive people of their benefits, disabled people have told MSPs.
• Private contractor Atos ‘twist assessments’ of the disabled in order to cut their benefits, MSPs told
• Department of Work and Pensions and Atos also accused of conducting ‘witch-hunts’
• ‘Atos question you in such as way and twist it round so they make you out to be an athlete’
The Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) and its private contractor Atos Healthcare were painted as cost-cutting witchfinders, bullies and liars who work disabled people to death and say they “are only acting on instructions”.
Members of Holyrood’s Welfare Reform Committee, who heard the criticism, were told that social norms such as cleanliness and good manners were used against disabled people to prove that they are fit for work.
Disabled people stand to lose their homes and relationships and could take revenge against society with disorder and criminality, it was claimed.
Henry Sherlock, 32, who is blind with chronic heart disease, diabetes and depression, told the committee: “I fear for the introduction of the PiP, which means personal independence payment even though none of the consultation papers show the application to be personal or based on independence.
“The questions and the weightings are all in favour of removing support rather than providing financial support. This is backed up by the fact that the main objective of this benefit is to reduce the welfare bill by at least 20 per cent.
“I fear that I will have to go through another witch-hunt in order to apply for this benefit.”
Janice Scott, whose 62-year-old husband was disabled by an accident and a stroke, said there seems to be an Atos “ethos” of twisting assessments to cut benefits.
“I can honestly say that there are lies that go into that assessment. I do shorthand and I took down word for word my husband’s whole assessment and what actually came back was practically the opposite of everything he said. I’ve heard that from many other people as well,” she said.
“Atos question you in such as way and twist it round so they make you out to be practically an athlete by the time they have finished with you.
“I don’t know where that comes from, whether that’s their ethos or something that they have set up with the DWP, but it certainly traumatises and upsets a lot of people who feel that they have been made out to be liars.
“I read yesterday about someone who (Atos) said should go out and get a job who died within four months while awaiting their decision. That’s not the first time that’s happened.
“This is supposed to save the country money but Atos is actually costing this country money because they don’t get fined when they get things wrong. Nothing happens. There’s more people going to tribunal now in the past four years than there has been in the last 10 years and one tribunal costs a lot of money.
“The vast majority of assessments that Atos do now go to tribunal and if they’re doing their job right, that shouldn’t happen.”