Catching Up (part 2) - Call the Benefits Specialist!

Another snippet of news from some old friends enjoying a quiet Sunday evening. 
Not that Hilary would appreciate being called 'old', of course!

    'Oh bother!'

    'What's wrong, my love?'  Tom Appleby looked up from his book, anxious to know the cause of his wife's displeasure.

    She was reading the listings guide from the Observer.   'I forgot Call the Midwife finished last week,' she said sadly.  'It's the wretched Antiques Roadshow instead.'

    'I thought you liked that too?'

    'Not really.  I tried to watch the last couple of seasons because I thought it would help me understand Jessica's line of work a little better, before I realised she likes to chat to me about completely different things when we go out and not to talk shop at all.'

    'You enjoyed watching when greedy people clutching their trinkets and baubles were being told they were next-to worthless!'

    'I'm afraid that did rather bring out the mean-spirited side of my nature.'

    'That's not being mean-spirited, my love,' Tom assured her.  'That's your strong sense of social justice coming through!' 

    Tom, who was squeamish about medical matters and had assigned Sunday nights to bread-making, knew well what appealed to Hilary about her post-war drama - the combination of strong female characters, progressive storylines which challenged discrimination and disadvantage, and the steady march of social progress. 

    'They ought to make a modern-day version,' Hilary said.  'They would have to call it Fund the Midwife!'

    Tom gave a wry smile.  'It seems to me that, while the BBC is happy enough confronting poverty in the past, it's not so eager to shine a light on the real causes today.  They're leaving that to poor old Ken Loach.  Talking of which, did I tell you that Paula Walker's hired the Community Café for a free screening of I, Daniel Blake next Tuesday?  Father Cornelius has asked me if I wouldn't mind making up a big pot of curry and some snacks for the audience.'

    'Would you like me to help, Tom darling?'

    'If you don't mind watching it again.'

    'I don't mind at all,  It's a super film, though very sad.  Poor Daniel reminds me of Daphne's dad.'

    'You won't get upset again?'  Tom remembered frantically searching his pockets for a handkerchief when he and Hilary had been to see it in the cinema.

    'Only when that silly adviser says they're definitely going to win.  We would never...!'

    'I know, my love.'  None of the Solent Welfare Rights Project's workers took tribunal outcomes for granted, either for good or ill.  'Mind you, you've been on a winning streak with your PIP cases.'

    'That's because the quality of assessments and decision-making is so lamentably poor.  Mr Ellis didn't even call us into the hearing room for one last week - the panel simply approved what we had submitted was the correct award.  I was so relieved, after talking Mrs Forsyth into attending in person.  She was terrified of "going to court" but, in the event, she didn't have to say a word.'

    'I've half a mind to pitch an idea to the BBC,' Tom said thoughtfully.  'Rather than another medical drama to replace your nuns and nurses, since we've already got Casualty and Holby, they should commission a series set in a benefits advice centre.  They'd have all the right ingredients.' 

    'In what sense?' Hilary queried.  'We might have an eccentric old priest around the place these days, but there aren't any nuns!'

    'But there is a diverse cast of central characters, each with their own stories to explore throughout the series.  There's also a new central storyline for every week, following the trials and tribulations of a particular client - which could be your Mrs Forsyth appealing her PIP, or young Mike Delbridge being done for shop-lifting while he waited for his Universal Credit to come through, or Tracy Craven trying to balance the books on the lower Benefit Cap - and there's even a bigger picture narrative around so-called Welfare Reform, rather like the development of the NHS in Call the Midwife.'

    'Except for us, the story isn't how something wonderful was built.  It seems to be more about the dismantling of the Social Security system.  I'm afraid it would be more like a mini-series version of I, Daniel Blake, only without the dry humour and Geordie accents.  It might be really rather depressing.'

    'Isn't resistance to tyranny always worthy of a saga?'

    Hilary tilted her head proudly.  'I suppose it is,' she answered.  'It's the final part of that alternative history SS-GB drama tonight.  Perhaps you should pitch you script for that slot instead?'

    'Fair point, my love.  Young Martin's vocabulary isn't exactly family entertainment!'   Tom caught Hilary's eye and smiled.  'Mind you, if you fancy an early night, we might be distinctly post-watershed ourselves...?' 

    'Scoundrel!' she replied.

Catching up (part 1) - Age of Uncertainty

In case you've been wondering how the 'welfare rights lit' gang are getting on, here's the first of a few short stories looking at how they are now...

    'Here we go again, Lyn love.'

    Terry Walker slumped onto the settee next to his wife's armchair before handing her the day's one non-glossy piece of post.

    'It might just be the annual uprating letter, luvvie...'

    As soon as she unfolded the dull, greyish paper from the brown envelope, Lyn knew it wasn't.  She had been volunteering at the Solent Welfare Rights Project for over three years and, in the past year, had become very used to reading letters like this to other people.  She had known for a while that there would be one for her too and, one day, for Terry.  She was still upset.

    'Bugger!'

    She and Hilary had first run through the activities and the descriptors for Personal Independence Payment together, soon after Lyn started doing advice work.  Lyn paid close attention, especially when Hilary explained that one day almost everyone getting Disability Living Allowance - DLA - would have to make a claim for Personal Independence Payment, or PIP, instead.

    'Even if they've got their DLA for life?'

    'I'm afraid so, Lyn.  Unless you were sixty-five or over on 8th April 2013, you'll be invited to claim PIP.'

    During the difficult year of her appeal, against an unjustified accusation of benefit fraud, Lyn had learned a great deal about the assessment of her DLA.  Whereas once she had believed she got that because she had a permanent spinal injury, she had come to realise that it wasn't the nature of her disability that mattered, it was how it affected her ability to look after herself and to get around.  After no end of trouble, a tribunal had eventually decided that she reasonably required attention in connection with her bodily functions frequently, throughout the day, which entitled her to the middle rate for care.  At the time, she was told she had this indefinitely.  They had also declared her virtually unable to walk and so eligible for the higher rate for mobility.  That was an indefinite award too.  She and Terry had opted to use the latter for a Motability car; it was only a couple of months since their nice new Vauxhall Corsa had arrived.  She often teased Terry that he spent more time polishing it than driving it, but it enabled he and Lyn to do their shopping, socialising and volunteering.  Terry, who said he had no head for rules and regulations, spent a couple of mornings gently pottering about making up parcels for the customers of the Community Café's Food Bank while Lyn saw her clients.

    It was only when the team had been talking about pension changes and Hilary had remarked that she would have to work until she was sixty-six, that Lyn realised she wouldn't get her pension at sixty either.  That would mean six extra years of being assessed for Employment and Support Allowance, or whatever it was by then.  Everything kept changing.  It wasn't fair.

    Although Lyn hadn't asked directly about her entitlement, she soon knew enough about PIP to be able to make a rough self-assessment.  PIP used a points system to decide if you qualified and what you got.  Lyn was fairly confident she would score four points for needing assistance to cook a main meal, as she couldn't lift hot pans or dishes safely with one hand while holding a stick or the worktop for balance with the other.  She needed aids and appliances to manage her toilet needs and to shower, which would get her two points each - enough for the same rate of PIP for daily living as she got in DLA - although Toby had been saying something about an Upper Tribunal decision on bathing and showering which might give her extra points over that, because she couldn't use a bath.    She wasn't clear where the case law had got to on dressing and undressing, which she had to do sitting down; at one point, her bed would have counted as an aid for that but when Tom had been checking one of her advice letters, he had suggested she rephrase what she had written about this to make her client's two points for this activity less certain.  But she often needed Terry's help to put on her socks or tights, so perhaps there were still points due for that. 

    She managed her own medication, still took responsibility for most of the bills and, since starting her voluntary work, had gained enough confidence that engaging with other people, even strangers, now came as second nature to her.  Overall, she should be no worse off on the personal care side.  She might even gain a little.  She wasn't confident enough of that to initiate a new claim without waiting to be invited to do so and anyway, on the mobility side, things were a lot less certain.  Certainly, none of the planning and following a journey descriptors applied to her.  Physically, when it came to stand and move, some days were better than others.  Using her crutches, she estimated she would still have been up to walking round to Susan's, if Susan still lived in her old house.  She could park right outside the Community Café but the building was quite big inside and, by the time she reached her desk, opposite Deepak and next to Jenny, she would probably have walked over twenty metres.  It was a little further still if she went straight to the ladies, and she didn't actually stop to rest on the way, though whether she could do that repeatedly was open to question.  That was likely to be the crux of the case.  Just as she and her colleagues advised their clients, she would have to test herself over the next couple of weeks, before the form was due back, and make a judgement based on that.

    'I'll make a start on that tonight, if there's nothing good on TV,' she told her husband.  'I don't expect there is.'

    Terry picked up the paper and thumbed through to the entertainment pages.

    'Britain on the Fiddle,' he said.  'Richard Bilton joins the investigators chasing Britain's benefit cheats.'

    'More poverty porn!' snapped Lyn.  'Bastards!'

    'You're starting to sound like young Martin!' laughed Terry. 

    'Now I do his kind of work, I can see why he swears,' Lyn replied.  'It's programmes like that which allow the Government to get away with all this!'  She brandished her form at him before stuffing it in the plastic bag on the handle of her chair where the important papers for her attention went.

    'You'll help me with mine when it comes, won't you?' Terry asked.

    'Of course I will, luvvie.'

    Lyn already knew that Terry would get nothing when he was reassessed.  She had run the sums for him even before she had considered her own likely score.  She hadn't the heart to tell him.

Where's Daphne?

After the last little diversion on here, pondering how my Geordie-exile-in-the-Potteries Daphne Randall might have cast her ballot in the recent by-election, it's time for me to get back to where I left her in my latest draft novel.  Without giving too much away, she's on a late spring cruise downstream towards Shardlow but, this being Daphne, her plans have been derailed by a suspicious death. 

I've been making quite good progress so far with what is essentially an old-fashioned whodunit (not that I've decided for sure yet who did) with a few threads from the previous stories woven in.  The action takes place along a stretch of waterway I know well and enjoy cruising, plus I've invented some new characters who are great fun to work with.  All that would be marvellous material if I didn't have my social conscience nagging me that I should actually be working with my other cast of characters on another benefits-focussed story, as there have been so many further cuts to entitlement since we left the Solent Welfare Rights Project on the final page of Claimant Commitment.

I've tried the riding-two-horses approach to writing before, when I took a long break during the second draft of Limited Capability to write Grand Union - and it didn't work well.  While GU probably benefited from the National Novel Writing Month discipline of a tight deadline, I lost the thread of the longer, slower story and took a long time to get back into it, hence I'm disinclined to try that approach again.

Instead, I might do a few short stories on this blog to fill in the gaps between where we left the Hampshire-based characters in 2013 and were we might rejoin them in 2017.  Alternatively. I could just get on with Daphne's latest adventure, finish that off quite briskly and then get back to the serious social security stuff.  With one of the real-life counterparts of the SWRP gang giving evidence on PIP to the Work and Pensions Select Committee tomorrow, who knows whereabouts in the corridors of power Hilary, Toby or one of their colleagues might find themselves? 

Meanwhile, if you spot a bloke called Gary wandering around Westminster in his best suit tomorrow, rest assured that he is one of the good guys, despite supporting Portsmouth!
http://www.parliamentlive.tv/Event/Index/7b123d6e-0555-4b2d-ba6a-d2fdb799c871