I, Lyn Walker...?

It's hard to describe just how excited I am that a film about a bloke wrongly found fit for work and struggling with the bureaucratic demands of the DWP has won the Palme d'Or at Cannes this year.  Ken Loach kicking the arse - and conscience - of the Establishment, 50 years on from Cathy Come Home, really couldn't come soon enough.  I could be be sulky and say that there's probably nothing in "I, Daniel Blake" that I haven't been writing about for almost five years, but that's to miss the point.  Without a massive lucky break, as an unknown writer I was never going to do much more than preach to the converted and make a few people stop and think - Ken Loach's movie might just convert mass public opinion and change Government policy.


If it doesn't, things will continue to get harder for benefit claimants.  As if the current sanctions regime isn't cruel enough, under Universal Credit sanctions can become twice as punishing, with 'hardship payments' now loans and recoverable at the same rapid pace from regular monthly payments as overpayments due to fraud.  'In-work conditionality' extends the relentless pressure to search for work on pain of sanctions to our lowest- paid, part-time workers, recently cynically repackaged as an inducement to help them 'progress' in their careers.  The lower 'Benefit Cap' will mean that most jobless families with three or more children will receive too little housing benefit to cover their rent, even in areas where housing costs are cheapest.  And benefits for disabled people continue to be cut too, both by changes to the law and through what sometimes appear to be deliberately vindictive medical assessments.


Worst of all, the DWP management appears to learn nothing from human tragedies.  Having spent much of last week looking through the heavily redacted internal enquiries prompted by benefit change-related deaths, I didn't expect to find identical mistakes still being made in a recent set of appeal papers - but they are.  Decision-makers are still overlooking basic legislation, failing to consider medical evidence from previous claims, failing to request additional medical evidence where contractors' assessments are inadequate or contradictory.  It is only a matter of time before this claims more vulnerable victims.


I would love to leave my fictional characters where I left them at the end of 'Claimant Commitment' and concentrate on narrowboat thrillers for a while, and I shall, for now.  But, if they were real claimants, at some point quite soon they would have to grapple with PIP, Universal Credit and further WCAs, with a new contractor using the same staff and software as Atos. 


Perhaps someone could persuade Ken Loach to put his retirement plans on hold so we can make a mini-series?


Severe Discomfort is currently free to download for Kindle on the first and fifth Friday of every month and the rest of the 'Social Insecurity' series to a regular timetable.

Amicus Curiae (or 'Would the real Tom Appleby please stand up?')

I unexpectedly found myself wearing my 'tribunal suit' yesterday, appropriately (if accidentally) accessorised with a ladder up the left leg of my tights in proper Sally Archer style.  I don't rep for the CAB in my current role and it must be at least five years since I was last at our local venue; I was stepping into the breach as a favour for another organisation and, to be totally honest, grabbing an opportunity to see a PIP appeal in action. Confidentiality demands that I share no more details and anyway, I don't know the result, though I'm cautiously optimistic.

I had wondered whether there might be a Presenting Officer in attendance, since the rep who had asked me to help out with this case had encountered one at another recent PIP appeal.  This was unusual as POs tend only to appear for especially contentious cases, although there was a recent DWP announcement of  extra funding to provide them specifically for PIP appeals.  Understandably, reaction from the broader welfare rights lobby was hostile - this article from the excellent Dr Frances Ryan encapsulating the general sense of unfairness.

I'm inclined to share this concern although, if these new Presenting Officers adopted the ethos once prevalent in the role, they could be more of a help than a hindrance to unrepresented appellants, denied properly-trained advocates by cuts to Legal Aid and advice service budgets.  Although it suits my stories to (minor spoiler) cast PO Tom Appleby as one of the DWP 'good guys' it involved no great leap of the imagination for me to do so.  When I first started representing at appeals in the later 1980s, POs weren't simply the DWP's man (or woman) at the table.  Their role was to be a 'friend of the Tribunal' and they could - and often did - speak up for the appellant's case.


In response to a comment I made on Dr Ryan's article that POs could be a force for good but I feared the new intake might be cut from rather different cloth than their predecessors, I was pleased to see the following:


"I was a PO in the 80s and my training stressed that the role was one of amicus curiae. I would review the papers for every case and if I was confident the law had been applied incorrectly to the facts I would tell the tribunal so, referring them to the appropriate law, including case law if necessary. If there was time I would speak to the original decision maker and ask them to revise their decision to save time. That's what POs were supposed to do. I'd probably be sacked for it these days."


The writer's nom de plume xck33l gives no clue as to his/her home town or gender but I couldn't help imagining that it might be a softly-spoken Yorkshireman.  Or, alternatively, a well-spoken protocol droid.


If the new breed of POs are to bring consistency and fairness to PIP hearings, it is vital that they be allowed to exercise the freedom and integrity of the old guard of POs and not be fettered by targets for tribunal 'wins'.  On those terms, it would actually be rather a good job for some of the many benefits specialists thrown out of work by the loss of Legal Aid - as long as they could stay one step ahead of the Social Justice Ambassadors, of course!