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Will a DWP £1 billion digital “transformation plan” for health assessments of disabled benefit claimants be a new disaster?

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The National Audit Office last week gave its verdict on plans by the Department for Work and Pensions to digitalise and transform all the health assessments of disabled people claiming benefit and Personal Independence Payments (PIP) by 2029 and raised serious concerns whether it would work..

This is not a minor matter for the disabled. Some 3.9 million working age people claim these benefits and those claiming both PIP and the Employment and Support Allowance have to pass two health assessments. By 2025-6 the number of claimants is estimated to rise to 5.8 million. Every year private contractors assess nearly two million people. There also has been a rise in people claiming ESA as a result of the pension age for women going up from 60 to 66 and for men from 65 to 66.

As usual this report appears to have had little coverage in the national media -despite the millions of people that will be affected.

High risk of delay, cost overruns without achieving benefits

Gareth Davies, the head of the NAO, said:

“While the Programme is ambitious and has the potential to make savings and improve the experience of those being assessed, the scale and complexity of the transformation leaves it at high risk of delay, cost overruns, and of not achieving the intended benefits.”

He called for the department to revise its business plan for the £1 billion scheme and for more transparency so that perhaps even MPs can understand its implications.

At present disabled people have to provide multiple documents and fill in long forms to claim and the system is unpopular. The new system will digitalise the process, cut out duplication but will still depend on private contractors assessing whether people are unfit enough to claim.

Therese Coffey, former DWP secretary of State

Appeals over claiming PIP are unnecessarily high with decisions by the private firms being overturned and there have been cases where people turned down for disabled benefits have died and the DWP under Therese Coffey covered up reports about this. See this report in the Disability News Service.

The transformation is going to take place alongside new five year contracts for three private companies, Capita. US company Maximus, and Australian firm Ingeus worth over £1.6 billion with an IT contract to Atos to provide the computer back up. Nearly all the companies (except Ingeus) have been linked to claimants deaths as an article in Disability News Service reveals.

Limited testing of system using state appointed medical advisers

At the same time there is going to be a limited state provided service in London and Birmingham where the DWP will employ medical assessors directly. The aim according to the NAO report is to ” test and learn ” the new system and pass on the information to the contractors.

The NAO is sceptical whether this twin approach will work in time for the national 2029 launch as the contracts awarded to these firms will not be flexible enough to make changes without no doubt further expensive negotiations.

One of the main aims of the scheme is to save public money through digitalisation and the DWP estimates a £2.6 billion saving up to 2035. One wonders though whether all the disabled people will be able to use computers to apply on line ( all PIP applications will be on line) eventually. Can they download apps etc and do they all possess smart phones?

Once again I am going to be sceptical about this – particularly after the NAO’s report on Making Tax Digital which it revealed has been subject to long delays and huge increases in costs. Given other areas I have covered in the DWP I have little confidence they can get things right.

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Revealed: the damning figures that show the NHS can’t cope with patient demand

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St George’s University Foundation Trust’s A & E department Pic credit: health trust

If you thought the NHS was at breaking point and want to know why – the National Audit Office have today provided a handy fact and figures guide to the decline of the country’s most cherished service.

A new report from Parliament’s financial watchdog charts the scale of both the failure of the NHS to respond to emergencies fast enough and the unprecedented demand from the public to use its facilities in the 13 years the NHS has been run by the Tories and the coalition government.

These are the startling figures:

711,881 A&E patients waiting over four hours from arrival to be admitted, transferred or discharged in December 2022, an all-time high. Since fallen to just over 550,000 in March this year.

90,998 ambulance handovers to A&E taking longer than 30 minutes in March 2023, equivalent to 25.9% of all ambulance handovers

32.0m reported number of appointments in general practice provided in October 2022, an all-time high, compared with 27.1 million reported in October 2018

92.3% general and acute hospital beds occupied during Q4 2022-23,representing record levels

88 seconds mean time to answer 999 calls related to health issues in December 2022, an all-time high

July 2015 the last time the NHS met its target for 95% of A&E patients to be admitted, transferred, or discharged within four hours of their arrival

8.4 million 111 calls answered within 60 seconds in 2021-22, compared with 11.2 million to 13.3 million between 2014-15 and 2020-21

1.27 million full-time equivalent NHS staff in February 2023, compared with the most recent low of 0.96 million in June 2013

£21.5 billion estimated annual cost in 2020-21 of providing the services reviewed in this report

Big variations in different regions in England

Delving deeper into the figures there are big variations in different regions of the UK. For example those being admitted, treated and discharged from A&E within four hours varied between 67.9 per cent in the East of England to 75.9 percent in the South East – both noticeably lower than the standard 95 per cent treated in that time just after the Tories got into power in 2011.

Similarly among ambulance response times there were wide variations. In 2021-22, the mean Category 1 (life threatening incidents like strokes and heart attacks) incident response time for the London ambulance service was 6 minutes 51 seconds compared with 10 minutes 20 seconds for the South-West ambulance service.,

In the same year the mean Category 2 incident response time for the ambulance service in the Isle of Wight was 26 minutes 20 seconds, compared with 1 hour 1 minute 57 seconds for the South-West ambulance service.

Some other points emerge why this is happening. The growing elderly population and general population increase in the UK is increasing demands on the NHS and effects of the Covid pandemic has left its mark.

More staff recruited but more off sick from stress

The government can claim it has recruited more NHS staff, including GPs and ambulance drivers. But this has been offset by more staff going off sick and more staff leaving the NHS because they can’t cope with the workload. I should not think the government’s attitude to keeping down pay rises in the middle of a cost of living crisis has helped either.

The government is promising a great £2.5 billion recovery programme and has allocated the extra money. But the NAO report says:

“More people than ever before are receiving unplanned and urgent NHS care every day. To support these services, the NHS is spending increasing amounts of public money and employing record numbers of people. Nevertheless, patients’ satisfaction and access to services have been worsening, suggesting there is no single, straightforward solution to improving what is a complex and interdependent
system.”

The real test will come next winter -since the government is promising much better services by March 2024. If it fails it will just add to the multiple problems facing this government and increase the distrust between the public and politicians.

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Yet another pension scandal .. Tory government cheats 4000 scientists out of their pensions by giving misleading advice when their company was privatised

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Their misleading advice has cost retired workers dear

The Commons Public Accounts Committee this week published a damning report on a long running pension scandal which has seen retired pensioners lose hundreds of thousands of pounds from their pension pots because of misleading official advice given to them 27 years ago.

The pensioners were all employees of the AEA Technology – the state owned commercial arm of the UK Atomic Energy Authority – which was privatised in 1996 by Sir John Major’s Tory government.

This sorry tale took place almost at the same time as the government had implemented the 1995 Pensions Act which raised the retirement pension for 1950s women from 60 to 65 and the DWP has been found guilty of partial maladministration by Rob Behrens, the Parliamentary Ombudsman.

The Tory government gave AEAT employees just one month to exit their contributory Whitehall pension scheme for a new one with the company taking over AEA. 90 per cent of the staff did.

Crucial to this rushed decision was an independent report by the Government Actuary’s Department which told all staff that the scheme was as good as remaining in the state scheme and might even be better.

What it failed to tell people was that if the company went bust or the pension scheme failed all the staff would lose their guaranteed protection of their pension savings that is provided by the government. It would be transferred to the Pension Protection Fund, lose all their inflation protection up to 1997, and they would live for the rest of their lives with only a 2.5 pc annual increase in their pension.

Government Actuary’s report was secretly changed by UKAEA lobbying

According to the written evidence from an ex employee David Roberts, a freedom of information request has revealed that this ” independent” report was tampered with by AEAT and the UKAEA behind the scenes. They got it rewritten because it was not persuasive enough to get people to quit the government scheme .

He wrote:” The sections which have caused the complaints were significantly changed as the result of a telephone conversation between UKAEA and GAD on 5/11/1996. “

GAD also failed to undertake a risk assessment about the switch.

In 2012 AEAT which had already cut funding to the pension scheme went into administration. The company was bought by Ricardo, an American firm, who immediately divested all its nuclear work .Its headquarters of a new firm are now in California.

One would have thought they sacked employees could get redress but for the last 11 years they have got nowhere.

They are barred from complaining to either the Parliamentary Ombudsman or the Pensions Ombudsman.

Current legislation bars the Parliamentary Ombudsman from looking into case involving private pensions – and the government has just told the Commons Public Administration Committee there is no priority to change the law.

The case could come under the Pensions Ombudsman but there is a 15 year cut off point from when the event happened which blocks him from awarding any compensation.

Nobody in government takes responsibility

As the PAC report says:

“Nobody in government has taken overall responsibility for the case. There has been no independent review because the relevant ombudsman services have said they cannot investigate the information given to members in 1996, clearly highlighting that there are gaps in the routes of appeal people have for complaints about their pensions.”

The response from government since 2012 has been appalling. The DWP not only did not help but confused the issue. The report says: “In July 2013, DWP produced a factsheet summarising the complaints government had received and a response to each on behalf of the government. In February 2014, it then sent scheme members a further letter explaining that it was not responsible for the case.”

But it didn’t tell them who was and it turned out to be the Cabinet Office.

Sir Steve Webb- declined to help as pensions minister

Ministers were no better. Sir Steve Webb, then the Liberal Democrat pensions minister, would not intervene to change any rules to help the pensioners -saying if AEA Technology rules were changed it would affect other government services that had been privatised citing the BT pension scheme. He was actually wrong in this case, it is protected should BT go bust.

Two MPs tried to use private members bills to rectify the situation by changing the Ombudsman’s powers – but they were blocked by the Conservative government.

The government has escaped responsibility by never setting up an independent review of what happened and the Government Actuary’s Department has tried to avoid censure by saying their report was not the main reason why people switched their pension. This is contradicted by the employees who gave written evidence to the PAC.

people abandoned by an uncaring state

The whole saga is simply part and parcel of a government that cares little for the welfare of the ordinary citizen and tries to evade responsibility for its errors. Meanwhile people – who contributed to their pension and even put extra contributions to increase it – are just abandoned by an uncaring state. One person lost 40 per cent of their pension and all are affected by the cost of living crisis since they are not protected by the huge rise in annual inflation by the Pension Protection Fund.

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HMRC’s digital tax disaster – overspent, behind schedule and a huge hidden bill for taxpayers

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Making Tax Digital |Government logo pic Credit: gov.uk

Rishi Sunak promised the UK will be a Science and Technology Superpower with world class digital technology attracting high skilled people from all over the world to come and work here.

Last October Chris Philp, then Minister for Tech and the Digital Economy,.at the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, also promised a bright future for the digital economy outlining the UK’s digital future with a host of government initiatives.

Rishi Sunak Pic Credit; Wikipedia

Back down to the real world the National Audit Office today published a report on one of the government’s initiatives – Making Tax Digital -and what a sorry story it is. For those familiar with Whitehall failures – it was the same story – the cost of the scheme had sky rocketed, its planned introduction had been delayed again and again – and worse, those businesses planning to go digital to pay their VAT, there was a huge additional cost, which somehow HMRC forgot to inform the Treasury.

The huge cost of switching the tax system to digital was supposed to cost £226 million when it was planned in 2016. This covered all VAT payments, businesses who pay via self assessment schemes and corporation tax. Instead it will now cost a staggering £1.3 billion – some five times the original estimate.

And it won’t be on time.

Scheme repeatedly delayed

The original programme was repeatedly delayed. Originally HMRC planned the entire changeover in 2020.

As the report says: “The timeframes for MTD[ Making Tax Digital] were agreed before HMRC had fully explored the range of options.” As a result large parts of the programme had to be rescheduled .And then came Brexit and the Covid pandemic which the hit the programme. Only VAT for larger firms was introduced before 2020 -in 2019 – and VAT for smaller companies waited until 2022 and the whole exercise cost £70m more than planned.

But it is the plan to switch over to digital tax for the self assessment businesses has been hit the most. The report said: In December 2022, the government pushed back the timetable for Self Assessment for the fourth time, delaying benefits and increasing costs further. On the advice of HMRC the government announced it would delay the start date for MTD for Self Assessment and take a phased approach to introducing it.
It won’t be implemented until 2026 or 2027 and even then not fully – as the original plan envisaged. It will apply to annual income above £50,000 in 2026 and above £30,000 in 2027. No date has been given for income below £30,000 which is still ” under review”.

HMRC left out cost to people of paying their VAT

On top of this HMRC in its business case forgot to tell the Treasury that it also landed business and taxpayers a bill for £1.45 billion. This is because for the digital system to work businesses and the self employed have to submit returns over three months and need to buy or lease expensive software to do it. So the government has put the cost on businesses avoiding the cost themselves. In my small way it hit me over VAT. Since my income was below the threshold I decided the simplest way was to deregister for VAT so the government now get nothing. Previously it was a simple form to fill in your quarterly VAT return supplied by HMRC.

HMRC said. “A project of this scale naturally comes with challenges, but MTD will deliver a strong return on investment for the taxpayer. We have always been wholly transparent about costs for business. We remain committed to ensuring that free software will be available for those with the simplest tax affairs.”

Gareth Davies ,Head of the NAO, said: ““The repeated delays and rephrasing of Making Tax Digital have undermined the programme’s credibility and increased its costs. They put at risk the support of taxpayers and delivery partners, including those who are essential to the programme succeeding.  

“Our audit identified the omission of significant costs from some business cases. It is obviously important that business cases for major programmes such as this contain all the relevant information to support decision-making.”

My view is a bit broader than that. I am getting very fed up with rhetoric from leading politicians telling the public that every project is world class when clearly it isn’t. This report from the NAO shows what is happening in the real world, not in the complacent fantasy world of the present Tory politicians who govern us.

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Revealed: The great public ignorance about your state pension

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State pension banner when the new pension came into force in 2016

One of the key complaints made by the 3.6 million 50s born women is that they didn’t know about the six year delay in the rise of the pension age for women from 60 to 66 until it was too late. This along with direct discrimination against women caused by the absence of a level playing field with men for that generation of women to pay national insurance contributions is behind this long battle with the government.

Now a report published today and sent to me reveals that these 3.6 million women are by no means alone. It implies that the majority of people in the UK today have little knowledge or understanding of how the state pension system works. A research report from the Policy Institute of Kings College, London commissioned for Phoenix Insights, a think tank for a large savings company, reveals that many people have misconceptions about the system. When these are pointed out they are unhappy about the current level of the pension and are concerned about how vulnerable people can live.

The research is not based on mass questionnaires but by taking 100 people in London and Birmingham and giving them detailed information at workshops after receiving a talk from former Liberal Democrat pensions minister Steve Webb. This enabled them to put forward policy changes they would like the government to enact.

Steve Webb gave a presentation to the group

The biggest misconception comes from how people think they have built up their pension. Some, believe it or not, think they just get an automatic full pension, when they reach retirement age provided by the state. One said: ““I thought when you retire everyone is entitled to the pensions. I don’t know why…I thought this is what happens.”
 But the majority believe by paying national insurance contributions all their working lives they have built up their own personal pension pot which they are entitled to get when they retire. This is a complete lie. Their money is instead used to pay people already retired to get a pension.

People are not stupid about state pensions – just misled

People are not stupid in believing this because the way the scheme works makes it look like that. Your level of pension depends on your national insurance contributions and you don’t get anything until you have made ten years contributions and only a full pension after 35 years. Anybody who contributed to a private pension scheme. would think that because that is the way they work..

Rather worryingly nearly half the people thought they had a a basic knowledge of how the pension system works and were embarrassed when they realised they didn’t.

When all this had been explained to them, the report reveals people thought the present system did not deliver an adequate pension for everybody.

As the report says: “The study identified five main knowledge gaps covering most of the core elements of how the state pension system works: the number of years of National Insurance contributions needed to qualify for the full state pension, eligibility criteria, the value of payments, what the “triple lock” is, and how the state pension differs from workplace savings.”
 The people’s conclusion was that the state pension was inadequate for anybody to live on without being able to top it up with a workplace pension, a private pension or property assets. Some retirees among the 100 people said unsurprisingly that the cost of living crisis had made a big impact.

People also thought that vulnerable people needed more help -particularly those with health issues who could not work – and either the level of benefit should be higher or they should be able to draw a pension earlier than the official retirement age.

People had bought into the government’s argument that the retirement age should rise because people are living longer – even though at the moment longevity has stalled and started to fall in poorer areas.

Phoenix Insights said: ” When we talk about longevity, we are looking at a long term view of life expectancy in the context of comparing to previous generations. Long-term life expectancy improvements mean that the pensioner population is projected to increase by over 5 million, rising from over 12 million today to over 17 million by 2070 (DWP, 2023).”

I thought this report is rather damning of the failure of successive government to explain how the state pension works or so many people would not be so ignorant. And it might suit governments that this remains so – or it would create a groundswell for much higher pensions.

But it is also a damning indictment of the minority of people who try and blame the 50swomen for not realising about the pension changes that have left so many people in poverty. They may well be the very people -unless they are pension experts – who are ignorant themselves and get a shock when pension day dawns.

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Promises, Promises! Suella Braverman’s half baked response to the Independent Inquiry into Child Sex Abuse report

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Suella Braverman Pic credit: BBC

While the Parliamentary Lobby were excited about Suella Braverman’s latest escapade trying to fix a private driving awareness course for herself to avoid penalty points on her licence, yesterday she took the opportunity to issue a very important statement on how the Government will tackle child sex abuse.

Whether the timing was aimed as the latest diversionary tactic to avoid further embarrassment , the result was a half thought out and half baked response to a very detailed and important piece of work on a scandal which shames our nation.

Alexis Jay, who headed the inquiry, spent seven years investigating what was seen as as ” a national epidemic ” of child sexual abuse which affected virtually every single religious order, schools, the internet, and grooming gangs across the country. Her report exposed heinous cases of child sexual abuse from teachers to bishops and appalling attempts to cover up what had happened. While by no means perfect, it also did provide some outlet for the survivors to speak out about what had happened to them.

Government hyperbole

Yesterday with I am afraid the typical hyperbole the government uses at almost every occasion now Suella Braverman claimed that the reforms proposed were “on a level not seen before” and would “mark a step change in our approach to child sexual abuse”.

She told MPs: “This Government have risen to the inquiry’s challenge. We are accepting the need to act on 19 of the inquiry’s 20 final recommendations. She promised MPs “fundamental cultural change, societal change, professional change and institutional change.”

But when you examine closely what the government proposes to do it is nothing of the sort. Many of accepted recommendations are surrounded by caveats for further reviews and debates and none are going to be implemented immediately.

Alexis Jay, chair of the independent child sex abuse inquiry

And I am not the only person saying this. The chair of the inquiry, Alexis Jay, told the Independent today:

“We are deeply disappointed that the government has not accepted the full package of recommendations made in the final report,” she added.

“In some instances, the government has stated that a number of them will be subject to consultations, despite the extensive research and evidence-taking which the Inquiry carried out over seven years.

“”The package announced by the government will not provide the protection from sexual abuse that our children deserve.”

Similar doubts were expressed by the NSPCC, the children’s charity.

If you study the detailed response from the government – you can find it here – you will see it is riddled with caveats and rejects more than one finding as the minister claimed.

The headline change – setting up a compensation scheme for the survivors – is a promise but subject to much more consultation before it is to be implemented. A more competent government would have laid the bare bones of the scheme, how much money will be provided and then asked people, including survivors, to comment yesterday.

Similarly with mandatory reporting of child sex abuse by professionals – which was thoroughly debated by the inquiry before recommending it – it won’t happen immediately. Instead it is put out for more consultation. Do we need any more?

Other accepted recommendations are a con. The recommendation for a children’s minister at Cabinet level is glossed over by saying we already have one – the education secretary. Yet provision for children is more than just education. And Rishi Sunak could do with someone present at the Cabinet to fight children’s issues.

And the creation of new child protection authority does not look likely to happen any time soon.

And there is one extraordinary proposal. Braverman rejects – the inquiry’s recommendation to outlaw inflicting pain on residents of young offenders institutions and secure units – claiming that there are ways of safely inflicting pain on young people. Is she some sort of a sadist who enjoys bringing pain and misery to the young or just plain stupid? Pain is pain full stop. If anyone knows how this might be done I would like to hear from them.

The government is also relying on its on line safety bill to outlaw child pornography but it seems the paedophiles are already one step ahead of her. Sajid Javid, ex minister and Tory MP for Bromsgrove intervened in her announcement to say they are already using artificial intelligence to produce child sexual images. How is this to be traced?

Frankly this was a disappointing statement dressed up as the government taking action. Ministers and civil servants have had seven months to respond and could have laid the groundwork for real change rather an promising more consultations. But given Suela Braverman’s track record why should we be surprised.

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50s women pensions: Will rival attempts to speed up compensation for the 3.6 million work?

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Royal Courts of Justice

While I have been away there have been significant developments in the long battle to get justice for the 50swomen who lost tens of thousands of pounds through maladministration, discrimination and lack of communication over the six year rise in their pension age.

Like everything in this long tortured tale the developments have not been straight forward.

Basically two separate initiatives have been launched. WASPI after first going along the route of seeking justice for 50swomen through Rob Behrens the Parliamentary Ombudsman, suddenly turned on him threatening him with a judicial review and launching a crowdfunder to fight him which raised nearly £150,000.

Alternative Disputes Resolution

Backto60, as the only organisation that campaigns for full restitution for the women, launched a plan to call for an Alternative Disputes Resolution, to negotiate a settlement with Mel Stride, the secretary of state for works and pensions, to end this long running dispute which has angered so many women who feel cheated by the DWP. This is backed by 54 MPs, petitions that have attracted 87,000 signatures and a Parliamentary motion.

Both the initiatives I suspect followed the leaking of the Ombudsman’s first and second stage reports on the issue on this blog. Without them becoming public the 3.6 million women affected would not have known the full and frankly paltry proposals by the Ombudsman to solve this dispute. And I have not forgotten senior people from Waspi pressing me to remove the posts so the reports would remain part of a private discussion between them, the Ombudsman and selected MPs rather than allowing the 3.6 million victims the opportunity to read them. And the second one is still not published.

The reason that I suspect WASPI turned is that it was becoming clear that the compensation would be meagre and limited – the DWP could decide ( as they have following other Ombudsman’s reports) that only the six complainants would automatically get compensation of £1000 and some 600 will have to fight for it .It looked a far cry from the promise by Waspi’s chief spokesman, Angela Madden at last year’s Labour conference of between £10,000 and £20,000 for everybody. That is still a lot less for many people owed up to £50,000.

Angela Madden WASPI

Now developments have moved fast on this proposal. It is clear that WASPI, the Ombudsman and teams of lawyers from Bindman’s and Blackstone Chambers have come to a compromise which ended up in the high court last week. Reading the order from Judge Kirsty Brimelow it is clear that parts of the Ombudsman’s second stage report are quashed. These deal with the latter part of the report which rejected any financial compensation for women whose well being and life choices were affected by the delay and did not acknowledge the impact of the DWP pausing sending out letters to women.

The section was admitted by the Ombudsman to have been legally flawed by not taking everything into account.

Crowdfunder page

Since then WASPI have issued on their Crowdfunder page a series of ten conditions which ,it says, the Ombudsman should fulfill.

“WASPI will not be passively waiting for its outcome. At each stage we will be pressing the Ombudsman not only to complete his investigation in a way that is as rapid as possible but also thorough and fair. We will also be raising concerns about this with MPs, particularly those who sit on the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee (PACAC) which oversees the Ombudsman’s work. And we will turn to our lawyers for their expert input when responding to the Ombudsman’s draft reports and if we have concerns his investigation may be derailed again.”

The Ombudsman has been more cautious. He has agreed that he will show Waspi and the complainants his proposed changes and accept comments before finally presenting his report to Parliament.

A spokesperson committed them to looking at the report again adding” We don’t currently have a timeline, but we want to resolve the investigation as swiftly as possible, so any mechanism for remedy can be implemented for those affected.”

Now while this is happening Back to 60 pursued a different tack. The key issue for them has been the People’s Tribunal which looked into the plight of the 50swomen under the UN Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) Tribunal held last year and the judgement given by Judge Jocelynne Scutt which ruled that the women had suffered both maladministration and discrimination.

Jocelynne Scutt

Some critics have tried to say the tribunal and the report are irrelevant because they have no standing. Given that the deputy chair of CEDAW in Geneva gave evidence to it and the judge was one of Australia’s first discrimination commissioners, such criticism seems rather ridiculous. to put it mildly.

The judge took a strong view that Parliament had a moral duty to this. “Government and Parliament have a responsibility to face up to and acknowledge the grave wrong done. There is no room for obfuscation or quibbling. Historic discrimination requires relief. There is a moral imperative to right this wrong. The law is on the side of 1950s women.”

Sir George Howarth

Sir George Howarth, Labour MP for Knowsley, who chairs the Alternative Disputes Resolution project has already written to Mel Stride, asking to come to a meeting. The organisers have also invited Waspi who have not replied.

What is missing is what the DWP will do. It has registered as an interested party to the proceedings over the ombudsman’s report but did not send lawyers to the hearing last week.

Any question to ministers on these developments is met with the answer that it is ” neutral” and would not comment because of the legal proceedings.

This is not surprising , the DWP can’t commit to implementing the Ombudsman’s findings if it doesn’t know what they are. The proper procedure will be after the final report is published.

Will these initiatives work?

The stumbling block for Waspi is that the Ombudsman cannot compel the DWP to accept his findings – even if he does everything Waspi wants. This is one reason why legislation needs updating to strengthen his power which the government is reluctant to do.

The disputes procedure cannot get off the ground without the DWP agreeing to come either.

We could be left with a stalemate with the DWP playing one side against the other and sadly it will still mean women will not get the compensation they badly need. Difficult and confusing times lie ahead.

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National Audit Office investigation: The hidden scandal of rip off landlords cheating the vulnerable and the state

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National Audit Office foyer Pic Credit: David Pearson

An investigation by Parliament’s financial watchdog, the National Audit Office, this week has cast light on a hidden scandal of how private and social landlords are making huge profits from providing costly sub standard housing to the elderly, disabled, homeless, recovering drug addicts and domestic abuse survivors.

Officially called Supported Housing this covers providers of homes from short term hostels to specialised homes for the disabled who need a high level of care and sheltered housing for the elderly.

Extraordinarily the provision is not regulated and often not directly supervised by local authorities and the government does not know how many supported homes there are in Britain- the latest figure of 651,000 is eight years out of date. Spending on provision was £3.5 billion in 2016.

The NAO decided to investigate provision in 10 councils and uncovered some startling facts. The councils are

  • Birmingham City Council
  • Lambeth Council
  • Bristol City Council
  • Blackpool Council
  • Hull City Council
  • West Devon Borough Council
  • Bradford Council
  • Nottingham City Council
  • Sunderland City Council
  • Charnwood Borough Council (in Leicestershire)

In Hull for example some conditions were so bad that 323 out of 345 homes inspected needed immediate attention to protect their residents on health and safety grounds. And 62 per cent of homes in the city failed to meet the decent homes standard.

They also discovered the landlords were using the housing benefit system by putting in large claims for rent – which mostly went unchallenged by councils because the landlords would take them to court if they queried the sum.

Levelling Up department does know how many supported homes exist in the UK

The Department for Work and Pensions which often pursues individuals over benefit fraud actually has no record of how many claims there are for supported housing. But when Birmingham Council launched a team to investigate they recovered £3.5 million from fraudulent claims in just one city.

The report says : “Authorities like Birmingham, have seen increasing numbers of landlords who circumvent the regulations enabling them to profit by providing costly sub-standard housing with little or no support, supervision or care.”

“West Devon reported to MPs on the Commons Committee for Levelling up, Housing & Communities ( who also investigated this) that a number of new schemes have entered the market over recent years, claiming to provide exempt accommodation. These schemes involve an investment fund owning the property and a small housing association, registered with the Regulator of Social Housing, acting as the landlord. The local authority considers that these types of schemes are mainly designed to maximise the amount of Housing Benefit that can be claimed.”

Recovering drug addicted were housed with drug dealers

The report added: ” the Committee reported hearing “of people with a history of substance misuse being housed with drug dealers, and of survivors of domestic abuse being housed with perpetrators of such abuse.”

.So what is being done about this? The NAO report that the government has finally commissioned research to find out what exactly is going on..

The report says: “The research intends to focus on the size and composition of the sector, costs, current and
future supply and demand, the interaction between commissioners and housing providers, and how to improve monitoring.”

It is also aware that the supervision of the sector is split between three ministries – levelling up, work and pensions and health and social care so it has set up a supervisory board. And it has pump primed some £5.4 million to five local authorities, Birmingham, Blackburn with Darwen, Bristol, Hull and Blackpool to test monitoring of supported housing.

Blackburn and Darwen told the NAO that without this money they would never have inspected the homes in their area because they hadn’t the resources. And it has asked 26 authorities to bid for extra cash over the next three years.

Bob Blackman MP

The biggest change may come from a private members bill by Bob Blackman, the Tory MP for Harrow East, now being scrutinised in the Lords, which lays out a proper framework for the sector. This still has shortcomings as it does not deal with housing benefit fraud which must be quite high in this sector.

All this is better late than never . But it says something that the government until now has not bothered about protecting vulnerable and elderly people from the landlord sharks who prey on them. It paints a pretty poor picture of modern administration in the UK which must lag behind other Western countries in looking after its vulnerable people.

As Meg Hillier MP, Chair of the Committee of Public Accounts says
“Vulnerable people deserve to live in housing that meets their needs.
But gaps in regulation mean a concerning number live in sub-standard accommodation, at great expense to the taxpayer.
Government must now capitalise on the work of its Supported Housing Programme Board and provide local authorities with the support they need, starting with meaningful data on the scale of the problem.

Please donate to Westminster Confidential to allow me to continue my investigations and reporting on serious social problems and backing whistleblowers

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Namibia: Dunes,Moonscape, Prehistoric Plants and Chinese uranium

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A visit to Namibia’s extensive desert reveals an extraordinary unique environment probably not repeated anywhere else on earth.

Huge sand dunes near the coast compete with an enormous desert plain dotted with prehistoric plants and an unparalleled moonscape next to mountains full of uranium.

First the sand dunes. Just outside the port of Walvis Bay lie large sand dunes favoured by quad bike fraternity. We visited this first and saw how popular they were.

Sand dune outside a quad bike centre
Quad bikes

Next we passed the resort of Swakopmund A German colonist resort which still contains many of its original buildings.From here there is a huge desert plain where you find prehistoric plants.

One of the German style hotels in Swakopmund

The star of the plants is the Welwitschia mirabilis a prehistoric plant that can live for 3000 years and grows just two large leaves that often split into pieces in the arid desert. Extremely slow growing there are male and female plants which attract desert living insects and beetles .They live only inland in the Namib desert and in the wilder parts of southern Angola.

Female prehistoric plant which has red green cones observed by tourists on our trip
Male prehistoric plant

Life can exist in the desert because a fog moves from the coast during the night creating enough moisture for animals like the springbok and jackals to find moisture from plants including the dollar plant a succulent that stored water in its leaves.There are also sidewinder snakes and scorpions but fortunately are all asleep in their burrows during the day.

The most dramatic area is the rocky moonscape where nothing appears to live but in fact hides an oasis in a dried river bed that has existed since 1849.

the arid desert
Moonscape of Namibia
the oasis bar restaurant and camping site

In the distance are mountains where Namibia’s huge reserves of uranium can be mined.Now all the main mines are owned by the Chinese according to our guide.The uranium is exported to China for its civil nuclear programme. Curiously another big Namibian export is marble to Italy so perhaps not all Italian marble is home mined.

An emu at a small zoo in the oasis

Durban’s amazing hidden Zulu art and history gallery

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The day began very badly.We aimed to get a taxi to the City Hall which has both an African art gallery and museum.But when we arrived the city hall staff were on strike because of the cost of living crisis and it was closed.

The taxi driver recommended another art gallery in suburbs and we left just as a number of police squad cars arrived as there were reports of fighting in the building. We got to the second gallery only to find it was closed on Mondays.

About to despair the driver recommended a third gallery which specialised in Zulu art and artefacts.This was open though I later found you were supposed to book in advance.He had taken us to a gem of a place and we got a personal tour and Margaret got help to go round the place – an old Victorian building – in a wheelchair with strong Zulu men lifting it over stairs.

What we had discovered was a place called the African Art Centre or Phansi Gallery a non profit making company which encourages and preserves Zulu artefacts and supports black artists.The gallery houses a huge private collection by Paul Mikula who has amassed over year.

Part of the gallery included a Nelson Mandela concert poster.

Now I know nothing about Zulu culture beyond the populist view of them as warriors. What we were shown have us an insight into their lives and traditions and the everyday utensils they use. One of the most striking exhibits were the fertility dolls given to a young women on reaching puberty. They are given the doll at a special celebration and keep it to give to a man they agree to marry.

A fertility doll It has no face

There were also ordinary utensils from spoons – there are male and female ones – and they keep them for life as they have communal eating,bowls for beer and special pots for making yoghurt.

A collection of spoons- male spoons have a pointed end females ones are flat
a yoghurt pot shaped like a pear

There were also wedding dresses which are put together by relatives and friends each adding a strip of fabric with the symbols of the clans of each partner.

Our guide shows Margaret one of the artefacts a decorative beer bowl

Without the series of unfortunate incidents earlier we would never have found out about this museum which also plays a big role in the community and helps local artists

snake sculpture in the grounds of the museum