Who’s Really Getting Rich From the Benefits System?

Despite claims that welfare spending is ‘out of control’, the Government is handing out billions of pounds to a private sector actively involved in demolishing the welfare state.

One example: Atos, the global IT company, currently receives around £100m a year to carry out the Work Capability Assessment (WCA) on behalf of the Department for Work and Pensions. 

This crude computer-based assessment is used to determine eligibility for sickness benefits. The system has proved to be a brutal and expensive farce, with hundreds of thousands of sick and disabled people being denied benefits and forced into the Job Seeker’s Allowance regime, to face workfare and benefit sanctions.

People with life-threatening and even terminal conditions have been found ‘fit for work’ by the company based on a test which ignores the opinions of general practitioners in favour of a crude “tick box” approach. Only a tiny proportion are deemed genuinely unfit for work and placed in the ‘support group’ that entitles them to sickness benefits.  Most people who face the process either have their sickness benefits cut completely, or are placed in the Work Related Activity Group, which means that their sickness benefits are restricted to one per year.

An increasing number of suicides have been directly linked to the gruelling and relentless claims process. Even those found unable to work are often recalled for further assessments, and the British Medical Association recently voted to demand an immediate end to the WCA. The entire process is further discredited by the fact that 40% of appeals against WCA decisions are successful.

Despite the shambles, the government is planning to extend the same flawed model of assessment to everybody on Disability Living Allowance, which is to be replaced by the so-called Personal Independence Payment. The goal is to reduce disability benefits by 20% after the introduction of the new system. Atos have already been announced as a preferred bidder to carry out the assessments.

It’s not just Atos raking in staggering sums under the cover of welfare reform. The Government’s flagship Work Programme, aimed at cutting long-term unemployment, is set to cost a whopping £5 billion. 

The Work Programme is run by a host of Welfare to Work companies, including the fraud-ridden A4e (“Action for Employment”) and the national joke that is G4S, which just made headlines with a massive Olympics security blunder. 

These companies are paid a flat fee whenever anyone signs up to the programme and then receive another payment, which could be as high as £16,000, if someone takes a job.

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