dont believe it
yet i post in my local online paper blogg yet there are those who really cant believe whots going on with this government really blind to the fact that the tories are culling the stock through benefits denial i shudder they blind cant see but all they have to do is really look around stand outside their local jcp see the people who look bewildered or even crying coming out of these hell holes then we have the local foodhalls just see the look of people who are proud but now look beaten down to go through this process yes that all one has to do is look around see those homeless dont say they brought it upon themselves has theres that bloody tax of their bedrooms have pushed many onto the streets yet on it goes are they ostriches that cannot see whot this lot of greedie people who flitch more off the peasants daily only to give back to their companies they support ready with their hands outstretched to recieve their back handers yet one cannot see this oh dear
Posted by jeffrey davies on 05 May 2017
==============================
jeffs post
Readers might be somewhat put off by a silly, perhaps frivolous, attempt to portray the Labour and Tory leaders as characters from a movie, but the truth is that we’ve gone a very long way beyond that, so please bear with me.
For over a week now I have had a growing ache in my body, a wrenching ache that has steadily increased. I have felt the need to rest more, to sleep it off, but it is relentless and the very simple fact is that I am living on the edge of tears that will, at some point, release, but the problem remains.
Pic
I am outraged at the farce this election has already become, the power games Theresa May is playing, the lies and deceit and the vile twisted spectacle of it all.
My response has been mixed, from sharing some of the stories going the rounds which I felt needed sharing, to mocking and satirising the whole damned ludicrous ‘thing’, to sharing the policies that should be the real story but which are being smothered to the point of banality by ‘spectacle’.
The facts are that we’ve lived through seven years of Tory hell and thousands of people have died. They are stealing our NHS right from under our noses and if they get in again it’ll be all over for our most treasured institution and our greatest national achievement. They have turned the national safety net, our system of social security, into a secret penal system driving people into despair and death and attacking the weakest and most vulnerable people in the UK. Since 2010 food banks and food bank usage have gone through the roof as has poverty. And those are but a very few issues that we face which will, of a certainty, get very much worse if the Tories get back in.
I am getting on in years, I live on ‘my’ state pension, I have terminal cancer and I struggle with mental ill health and the brutal callousness of the Tories has had a dramatic affect on my life. I have little hope that my remaining years under a Tory government will be in any way peaceable and the reality is I do not expect to survive another five years of Tory misrule and their callous brutality. I do not require anyone’s pity, but I do require of myself that I face reality. I will fight these bastards to the bitter end but I have no plans to lose my sense of humour, my love of life and nor do I have any intention of giving up fighting for justice, but it hurts and it hurts badly.
Posted by jeffrey davies on 05 May 2017
=============================
jeffs post
oh dear these devils aint or wont go but on its goes for the poor souls who have to fight this government of devils
Statements submitted to MPs have provided further evidence of widespread dishonesty among healthcare professionals who carry out disability benefit assessments, but their inquiry has had to be abandoned because of the prime minister’s decision to call a general election.
Despite its inquiry into the personal independence payment (PIP) assessment process having to be scrapped, the Commons work and pensions select committee has published written evidence it has received from PIP claimants and disability organisations.
The committee held an urgent evidence session about the assessment process in March, a hearing partly triggered by a Disability News Service (DNS) investigation, before seeking further written evidence.
DNS had provided the committee with substantial evidence of widespread dishonesty among PIP assessors in the reports they prepare for government decision-makers.
The DNS investigation revealed that assessors working for the outsourcing companies Capita and Atos – most of them nurses – had repeatedly lied, ignored written evidence and dishonestly reported the results of physical examinations.
DNS has now collected nearly 200 examples of cases in which PIP claimants have said that healthcare professionals working for Capita and Atos produced dishonest assessment reports.
DWP has consistently claimed that there is no dishonesty at all among its outsourced healthcare assessors.
Inclusion London, the pan-London disabled people’s organisation, provided the most detailed written evidence of all the individuals and groups that contributed to the committee’s inquiry.
It said in its evidence: “Again and again Disabled people are reporting that assessors have ignored written and verbal evidence and that reports do not reflect what occurred in the assessment.”
Inclusion London quoted widely from evidence compiled by DNS, and concluded: “The extent to which false information is included in assessment reports cannot be attributed to one or two negligent assessors but indicates systemic failings with the current PIP assessment process.”
It called for all assessments to be recorded, and for “a clear and accessible system for Disabled people to file complaints against assessors with an independent body and for complaint statistics to be made public”.
It also called for a new PIP assessment, based on the social model of disability and created in co-production with disabled people, which focuses on “barriers and the impact of impairment on daily life rather than functionality”.
Other written evidence submitted to the committee appears to confirm the conclusions of the DNS investigation.
Among those who responded to a survey by Disability Rights UK (DR UK) was a healthcare professional with a first-class degree in physiotherapy.
They said they had been “shocked by the level of errors, inaccuracies, omissions and, quite possibly, lies” in the assessment report compiled for their PIP claim, according to DR UK’s evidence to the committee.
The respondent concluded that “the musculoskeletal assessment conducted was appalling and could not have provided sufficient information upon which a decision regarding my physical capabilities to carry out work for any period of time could be made.
“Lies were also told about the content of the musculoskeletal assessment – data was recorded for tests which were not conducted.”
Another DR UK survey respondent described how PIP decisions were often overturned on appeal due to “assessors making inaccurate statements, assessors making false statements, assessors incorrectly interpreting things the claimant said or did”.
In its evidence to the committee, the mental health charity Rethink said that respondents to its own survey on PIP “felt that there was a discrepancy between what was discussed at the assessment and the content of the subsequent written report.
“We received several examples of PIP applicants claiming that assessors had deliberately misinterpreted them and in… some cases included complete fabrications in their reports.”
But the evidence compiled by the committee may now end up being discarded because the decision by Theresa May to call a general election on 8 June means that parliament was dissolved this week, leading to some committee inquiries having to be abandoned.
Mark Lucas, a PIP claimant who has spoken out repeatedly about the “shockingly poor and dishonest” assessment system, and has given evidence to an inquiry into PIP assessments set up by Stoke-on-Trent City Council, said the decision to call an election was “another set back at the end of many set backs”.
He said: “Clearly the health professionals have been dishonest and the government has gone to great lengths to ensure the PIP scam is kept quiet for as long as possible.
“Everyone knows what has gone on is wrong but only few have voiced their concerns.
“I am sure if we continue to have the same government the rights of persons with disabilities will be further abused.”
A spokeswoman for the committee said the PIP investigation was “one of the inquiries that fell with the announcement of the election”.
jonh p
When the committee is reformed in the new parliament – probably in September – it could choose to relaunch the inquiry, but will be under no obligation to do so, but if it does it could choose to “keep and use the evidence they have now”, she said.
Posted by jeffrey davies [86.17.83.77] on 05 May 2017
reply | edit & publish | delete
jeffs post
remploy maximus owned rent a slave for fees of government but hay slavery was outlawed wasnt it hmmm
By John Pring Disability News Service 4th May 2017
Disabled people helping to deliver a vital part of the care watchdog’s inspection programme were refused support workers, while one was bullied into resigning, documents obtained by Disability News Service (DNS) have revealed.
The internal reports – finally released following a freedom of information request submitted last June – show the scale of concern at the Care Quality Commission (CQC) with the performance of Remploy after it took over most of the Experts by Experience (ExE) programme.
Under the programme – which is likely to have cost nearly £6 million in 2016-17 – people with experiences of using services, including many disabled people, accompany CQC inspectors on their visits to services such as residential homes, hospitals and home care agencies across England.
But Remploy was hit almost immediately by accusations of incompetence when it took on the contracts in February last year, with claims of resignations, confusion and cutbacks.
The disability employment business – formerly owned by the government but now mostly owned by the scandal-hit US company Maximus – had been awarded three of four regional contracts to run the programme, covering the south and north of England, and London.
But the internal reports show that CQC was forced to write “formally” to Remploy three times over its concerns, while a CQC report in May 2016 found there had been “multiple issues with Remploy’s performance to date”.
By week 13, Remploy was still providing an ExE for less than three-quarters (73 per cent) of the necessary inspections of social care and health facilities.
The CQC report said Remploy was fulfilling its key target of confirming the names of ExEs taking part in inspections 28 days before they were scheduled to take place just 16 per cent of the time.
And it said there had been “multiple” changes to Remploy staff members working with the commission, which had led to “inconsistencies, confusion and communication difficulties”.
It also raised concerns about Remploy’s “lack of a viable recruitment action plan”, and warned that its online recruitment process “lacks a robust selection procedure”, with no face-to-face interviews with prospective ExEs and apparently no “selection criteria” used to recruit new staff for the highly-sensitive programme.
Remploy’s training for new ExEs was carried out solely online, with “no individual interaction”, the CQC report said.
The report said CQC had received “numerous concerns regarding support arrangements for ExE”, including disabled ExEs being refused support workers and “experts with disabilities bullied into leaving”.
A Remploy report, also released to DNS by CQC, shows that, three months into delivering the contracts, it had secured just 21 per cent of the required number of ExEs to deliver the three contracts, while between the end of February and the end of March 2016, the number of Remploy ExEs had plunged from 270 to 189.
Remploy admitted, at a meeting on 23 February this year, that its communications with ExEs and CQC inspectors had been “poor or absent”, and that its performance in all three contract regions had been “inadequate”.
It also admitted that its decision to slash the pay of ExEs had led to only a “small” number of ExEs joining Remploy from the consortium that previously ran the contract.
Remploy decided to cut the pay of its ExEs from a reported £17 per hour to just £10.16 per hour (and £11.58 in London) when it took over the contracts, before CQC agreed to subsidise the wages for existing ExEs (although not new recruits) for the first 14 months of the contracts.
That subsidy has ended and all Remploy ExEs are now paid £10.16 per hour (and £11.58 an hour in London).
The charity Choice Support, which runs the scheme in the central region, pays its ExEs £15 per hour.
Remploy said in the report that its performance had shown “steady improvement” in the second six months of its contracts, to January 2017, and that it was now “performing well” across all three.
It said the satisfaction rate among ExEs had been as low as 11 per cent, although this had now recovered to 76 per cent.
CQC only released the documents after DNS lodged a complaint with the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO).
DNS first asked to see the reports last June, but CQC claimed that releasing them earlier would have “jeopardised the performance improvement” achieved by Remploy in the last six months.
A CQC spokesman told DNS that the failure to provide disabled ExEs with support workers was “addressed and resolved with Remploy”, while the bullying allegations were “appropriately investigated and managed with the relevant parties”.
He admitted that Remploy had experienced “significant underperformance” in the early stages of the contracts.
He said this was “in part due to the transfer of existing Experts by Experience from previous contracts taking longer than expected, resulting in insufficient numbers in position in the early months of the contract to cover the contracted inspections, exacerbated by recruitment and training of new Experts being slower than anticipated”.
He said there were also delays to CQC’s introduction of a new system for sharing information about supply and demand with both Remploy and Choice Support.
But the CQC spokesman said there had been a “very significant improvement” in Remploy’s performance.
CQC said that it would be “extremely rare” for an inspection to be cancelled because an ExE was not available, as their main role “is to talk with people using the service and to gather their views and experiences” and these duties can be carried out instead by the inspector.
A CQC spokesman admitted that Remploy only carried out telephone assessments rather than face-to-face interviews with potential new recruits, but he said that training was now delivered “in person as part of group sessions”.
He said: “We are satisfied with the current processes [for recruitment and training] they have in place and keep this under review.”
He also said that CQC had been forced to reiterate and clarify Remploy’s responsibilities in providing support workers for ExEs, but was now “satisfied with the current support arrangements”.
The CQC spokesman said there was only one incident of bullying reported and that Remploy had told CQC that it was “resolved to the individual’s satisfaction”.
Remploy declined to answer several specific questions about its performance, although it released a lengthy statement claiming that it was “proud to be delivering the programme to a high standard” and had been “meeting or exceeding” all of its “key performance indicators” on the contracts for several months.
A Remploy spokesman said: “Both Remploy and the CQC have acknowledged that there were challenges in the implementation of the ExE contract in 2016, and we have worked together and with our Experts by Experience (ExEs) to address these issues in a systematic and coordinated way.
“We continue to work closely with our ExEs to take on board feedback and make changes where necessary.
“Challenges during implementation included elements of the initial recruitment and training package, and after consultation with the CQC, inspectors and ExEs we took immediate action and developed a bespoke training package.
“Our recruitment process has been reengineered to ensure greater rigour, and Experts undertake phone-based and face-to-face training.”
He declined to confirm that Remploy had drastically cut pay rates compared with the consortium that previously managed the contracts, but claimed their rates were “benchmarked against roles in related sectors” and were “significantly above the living wage”.
He refused to say what action Remploy had taken over the issue of refusing support workers and bullying, but claimed that “any complaints relating to bullying are dealt with in line with Remploy’s stringent anti-bullying policy”
Posted by jeffrey davies [86.17.83.77] on 05 May 2017
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jeffs post
By John Pring Disability News Service 4th May 2017
Disabled people have described how the “terrifying” and “abusive” benefit assessments delivered by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) have seriously damaged their health, and how its failings will affect how they vote in next month’s general election.
The discussion on the social media platform Twitter was the first major event organised by the new user-led campaign #CripTheVoteUK, which hopes to enable disabled people to become a major political force in the UK, and help decide the election.
One contributor to the discussion, Hazel Fairs (@Hazel_Fairs), said the benefits assessment process had been “hell”, and added: “It made me suicidal. It’s like having an insulting abusive controlling ex with the power to starve and evict you.”
Another, @hufflewoof, said the process of assessing sick and disabled people for their eligibility for benefits was “an abusive process, built on mistrust”.
She added: “I have several MH issues anyway but my interactions with the DWP have exacerbated them significantly. It’s been awful.”
Payton Quinn (@PaytonQuinn) said the benefits assessment process had been “difficult and exhausting”.
She tweeted: “Our PIP assessor lied on the report and they have ignored our complaints, rejected our appeal.”
Jen Byrd (@jenjenbyrd) tweeted: “Assessor had sweet, caring face on while writing inaccuracies and (purposeful?) misrepresentations.
“Assessor had no understanding of my illness(es), medical terminology or even, having read his report, morals.”
Juliette Gazzard (@juliettegazzard) said her dealings with DWP “drove me to a suicide attempt, panic state I have never recovered from. Live in constant fear of contact with DWP.”
One contributor to the discussion, @victoriaclutton, spoke of how dealing with DWP was “terrifying, frustrating, dehumanising and outright surreal”.
Jonathan Hume (@IamMrJ), who has previously told Disability News Service how an assessor working for government contractor Maximus asked him what was stopping him taking his own life, was another who described how his interactions with DWP had affected his mental health.
He tweeted: “I used to be confident. I didn’t used to panic at a knock on the door or unexpected post.”
Social worker Brooke Winters (@brookewinters33) said she was supporting #cripthevoteuk because she can see that austerity “isn’t working”, harms disabled people, and does not save money.
She added: “As a disabled person I don’t have the support I need or adequate health care under the current government.”
Another contributor, @zagbah, tweeted: “I have a MH issue and I want to #CripTheVoteUK because I don’t want to spend another five years having to prove I ‘deserve’ disability benefits.
“I feel really angry with the DWP. Because of them, all the progress I was making is in ruins. I have to start over, AGAIN.
“My agoraphobia is worse. I can’t take the rubbish downstairs now. I can’t even step into the communal hallway.
“Dealing with the DWP is like being forced to play a neverending, live action version of #snakesandladders.”
Journalist and presenter Mik Scarlet, tweeting at @MikScarlet, said: “I’m stunned at how scared I am every time I have a brown envelope in the post ever since my #PIP reassessment started. Nightmare.”
Activist Alice Kirby was another to discuss the impact on her mental health of continual communication with DWP, tweeting: “I hate contacting them, I hate them contacting me.
“Constantly receiving letters, sometimes every other day, feels like harassment.”
And Recovery In The Bin, the user-led mental health group, tweeted: “We in @RITB_ want to #cripthevoteUK b/c we are suffering individually and collectively by ongoing fear, harassment, sanctions, destitution.”
#CripTheVoteUK plans to share material about political parties’ disability policies through the election campaign, to “generate discussion about the issues affecting disabled people, including children”.
Although the campaign is non-partisan and does not promote any particular party, it will still be critical of policies that have harmed disabled people and those that could do so in the future.
It will also stress that the Conservative UK government has been condemned by both the UN’s committee on the rights of persons with disabilities (CRPD) and the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) for the abuse of disabled people’s rights.
Last November, a damning CRPD report found the UK government’s social security reforms had led to “grave or systematic violations” of the UN disability convention.
And only last month, EHRC concluded that disabled people’s rights had regressed in at least nine areas since the coalition government assumed power in 2010, and that disabled people were still being treated as “second-class citizens”.
Eleanor Lisney, disability activist and co-founder of #CriptheVoteUK, said: “Disabled people should make sure they tell the politicians that, for 13 million in the voting age, we make a substantial number.
“We need to vote in order to get a chance to survive the future onslaught on our human rights.”
Another campaigner, Dennis Queen, said: “At this point in time, disabled people are quite literally voting for our lives.
“We need all voters to know this is an emergency for thousands of disabled people and help us fight back.”
Posted by jeffrey davies on 05 May 2017
=================
jeffs post
oh dear these devils aint or wont go but on its goes for the poor souls who have to fight this government of devils
Statements submitted to MPs have provided further evidence of widespread dishonesty among healthcare professionals who carry out disability benefit assessments, but their inquiry has had to be abandoned because of the prime minister’s decision to call a general election.
Despite its inquiry into the personal independence payment (PIP) assessment process having to be scrapped, the Commons work and pensions select committee has published written evidence it has received from PIP claimants and disability organisations.
The committee held an urgent evidence session about the assessment process in March, a hearing partly triggered by a Disability News Service (DNS) investigation, before seeking further written evidence.
DNS had provided the committee with substantial evidence of widespread dishonesty among PIP assessors in the reports they prepare for government decision-makers.
The DNS investigation revealed that assessors working for the outsourcing companies Capita and Atos – most of them nurses – had repeatedly lied, ignored written evidence and dishonestly reported the results of physical examinations.
DNS has now collected nearly 200 examples of cases in which PIP claimants have said that healthcare professionals working for Capita and Atos produced dishonest assessment reports.
DWP has consistently claimed that there is no dishonesty at all among its outsourced healthcare assessors.
Inclusion London, the pan-London disabled people’s organisation, provided the most detailed written evidence of all the individuals and groups that contributed to the committee’s inquiry.
It said in its evidence: “Again and again Disabled people are reporting that assessors have ignored written and verbal evidence and that reports do not reflect what occurred in the assessment.”
Inclusion London quoted widely from evidence compiled by DNS, and concluded: “The extent to which false information is included in assessment reports cannot be attributed to one or two negligent assessors but indicates systemic failings with the current PIP assessment process.”
It called for all assessments to be recorded, and for “a clear and accessible system for Disabled people to file complaints against assessors with an independent body and for complaint statistics to be made public”.
It also called for a new PIP assessment, based on the social model of disability and created in co-production with disabled people, which focuses on “barriers and the impact of impairment on daily life rather than functionality”.
Other written evidence submitted to the committee appears to confirm the conclusions of the DNS investigation.
Among those who responded to a survey by Disability Rights UK (DR UK) was a healthcare professional with a first-class degree in physiotherapy.
They said they had been “shocked by the level of errors, inaccuracies, omissions and, quite possibly, lies” in the assessment report compiled for their PIP claim, according to DR UK’s evidence to the committee.
The respondent concluded that “the musculoskeletal assessment conducted was appalling and could not have provided sufficient information upon which a decision regarding my physical capabilities to carry out work for any period of time could be made.
“Lies were also told about the content of the musculoskeletal assessment – data was recorded for tests which were not conducted.”
Another DR UK survey respondent described how PIP decisions were often overturned on appeal due to “assessors making inaccurate statements, assessors making false statements, assessors incorrectly interpreting things the claimant said or did”.
In its evidence to the committee, the mental health charity Rethink said that respondents to its own survey on PIP “felt that there was a discrepancy between what was discussed at the assessment and the content of the subsequent written report.
“We received several examples of PIP applicants claiming that assessors had deliberately misinterpreted them and in… some cases included complete fabrications in their reports.”
But the evidence compiled by the committee may now end up being discarded because the decision by Theresa May to call a general election on 8 June means that parliament was dissolved this week, leading to some committee inquiries having to be abandoned.
Mark Lucas, a PIP claimant who has spoken out repeatedly about the “shockingly poor and dishonest” assessment system, and has given evidence to an inquiry into PIP assessments set up by Stoke-on-Trent City Council, said the decision to call an election was “another set back at the end of many set backs”.
He said: “Clearly the health professionals have been dishonest and the government has gone to great lengths to ensure the PIP scam is kept quiet for as long as possible.
“Everyone knows what has gone on is wrong but only few have voiced their concerns.
“I am sure if we continue to have the same government the rights of persons with disabilities will be further abused.”
A spokeswoman for the committee said the PIP investigation was “one of the inquiries that fell with the announcement of the election”.
jonh p
When the committee is reformed in the new parliament – probably in September – it could choose to relaunch the inquiry, but will be under no obligation to do so, but if it does it could choose to “keep and use the evidence they have now”, she said.
Posted by jeffrey davies [86.17.83.77] on 05 May 2017
reply | edit & publish | delete
jeffs post
remploy maximus owned rent a slave for fees of government but hay slavery was outlawed wasnt it hmmm
By John Pring Disability News Service 4th May 2017
Disabled people helping to deliver a vital part of the care watchdog’s inspection programme were refused support workers, while one was bullied into resigning, documents obtained by Disability News Service (DNS) have revealed.
The internal reports – finally released following a freedom of information request submitted last June – show the scale of concern at the Care Quality Commission (CQC) with the performance of Remploy after it took over most of the Experts by Experience (ExE) programme.
Under the programme – which is likely to have cost nearly £6 million in 2016-17 – people with experiences of using services, including many disabled people, accompany CQC inspectors on their visits to services such as residential homes, hospitals and home care agencies across England.
But Remploy was hit almost immediately by accusations of incompetence when it took on the contracts in February last year, with claims of resignations, confusion and cutbacks.
The disability employment business – formerly owned by the government but now mostly owned by the scandal-hit US company Maximus – had been awarded three of four regional contracts to run the programme, covering the south and north of England, and London.
But the internal reports show that CQC was forced to write “formally” to Remploy three times over its concerns, while a CQC report in May 2016 found there had been “multiple issues with Remploy’s performance to date”.
By week 13, Remploy was still providing an ExE for less than three-quarters (73 per cent) of the necessary inspections of social care and health facilities.
The CQC report said Remploy was fulfilling its key target of confirming the names of ExEs taking part in inspections 28 days before they were scheduled to take place just 16 per cent of the time.
And it said there had been “multiple” changes to Remploy staff members working with the commission, which had led to “inconsistencies, confusion and communication difficulties”.
It also raised concerns about Remploy’s “lack of a viable recruitment action plan”, and warned that its online recruitment process “lacks a robust selection procedure”, with no face-to-face interviews with prospective ExEs and apparently no “selection criteria” used to recruit new staff for the highly-sensitive programme.
Remploy’s training for new ExEs was carried out solely online, with “no individual interaction”, the CQC report said.
The report said CQC had received “numerous concerns regarding support arrangements for ExE”, including disabled ExEs being refused support workers and “experts with disabilities bullied into leaving”.
A Remploy report, also released to DNS by CQC, shows that, three months into delivering the contracts, it had secured just 21 per cent of the required number of ExEs to deliver the three contracts, while between the end of February and the end of March 2016, the number of Remploy ExEs had plunged from 270 to 189.
Remploy admitted, at a meeting on 23 February this year, that its communications with ExEs and CQC inspectors had been “poor or absent”, and that its performance in all three contract regions had been “inadequate”.
It also admitted that its decision to slash the pay of ExEs had led to only a “small” number of ExEs joining Remploy from the consortium that previously ran the contract.
Remploy decided to cut the pay of its ExEs from a reported £17 per hour to just £10.16 per hour (and £11.58 in London) when it took over the contracts, before CQC agreed to subsidise the wages for existing ExEs (although not new recruits) for the first 14 months of the contracts.
That subsidy has ended and all Remploy ExEs are now paid £10.16 per hour (and £11.58 an hour in London).
The charity Choice Support, which runs the scheme in the central region, pays its ExEs £15 per hour.
Remploy said in the report that its performance had shown “steady improvement” in the second six months of its contracts, to January 2017, and that it was now “performing well” across all three.
It said the satisfaction rate among ExEs had been as low as 11 per cent, although this had now recovered to 76 per cent.
CQC only released the documents after DNS lodged a complaint with the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO).
DNS first asked to see the reports last June, but CQC claimed that releasing them earlier would have “jeopardised the performance improvement” achieved by Remploy in the last six months.
A CQC spokesman told DNS that the failure to provide disabled ExEs with support workers was “addressed and resolved with Remploy”, while the bullying allegations were “appropriately investigated and managed with the relevant parties”.
He admitted that Remploy had experienced “significant underperformance” in the early stages of the contracts.
He said this was “in part due to the transfer of existing Experts by Experience from previous contracts taking longer than expected, resulting in insufficient numbers in position in the early months of the contract to cover the contracted inspections, exacerbated by recruitment and training of new Experts being slower than anticipated”.
He said there were also delays to CQC’s introduction of a new system for sharing information about supply and demand with both Remploy and Choice Support.
But the CQC spokesman said there had been a “very significant improvement” in Remploy’s performance.
CQC said that it would be “extremely rare” for an inspection to be cancelled because an ExE was not available, as their main role “is to talk with people using the service and to gather their views and experiences” and these duties can be carried out instead by the inspector.
A CQC spokesman admitted that Remploy only carried out telephone assessments rather than face-to-face interviews with potential new recruits, but he said that training was now delivered “in person as part of group sessions”.
He said: “We are satisfied with the current processes [for recruitment and training] they have in place and keep this under review.”
He also said that CQC had been forced to reiterate and clarify Remploy’s responsibilities in providing support workers for ExEs, but was now “satisfied with the current support arrangements”.
The CQC spokesman said there was only one incident of bullying reported and that Remploy had told CQC that it was “resolved to the individual’s satisfaction”.
Remploy declined to answer several specific questions about its performance, although it released a lengthy statement claiming that it was “proud to be delivering the programme to a high standard” and had been “meeting or exceeding” all of its “key performance indicators” on the contracts for several months.
A Remploy spokesman said: “Both Remploy and the CQC have acknowledged that there were challenges in the implementation of the ExE contract in 2016, and we have worked together and with our Experts by Experience (ExEs) to address these issues in a systematic and coordinated way.
“We continue to work closely with our ExEs to take on board feedback and make changes where necessary.
“Challenges during implementation included elements of the initial recruitment and training package, and after consultation with the CQC, inspectors and ExEs we took immediate action and developed a bespoke training package.
“Our recruitment process has been reengineered to ensure greater rigour, and Experts undertake phone-based and face-to-face training.”
He declined to confirm that Remploy had drastically cut pay rates compared with the consortium that previously managed the contracts, but claimed their rates were “benchmarked against roles in related sectors” and were “significantly above the living wage”.
He refused to say what action Remploy had taken over the issue of refusing support workers and bullying, but claimed that “any complaints relating to bullying are dealt with in line with Remploy’s stringent anti-bullying policy”
Posted by jeffrey davies [86.17.83.77] on 05 May 2017
reply | edit & publish | delete
jeffs post
By John Pring Disability News Service 4th May 2017
Disabled people have described how the “terrifying” and “abusive” benefit assessments delivered by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) have seriously damaged their health, and how its failings will affect how they vote in next month’s general election.
The discussion on the social media platform Twitter was the first major event organised by the new user-led campaign #CripTheVoteUK, which hopes to enable disabled people to become a major political force in the UK, and help decide the election.
One contributor to the discussion, Hazel Fairs (@Hazel_Fairs), said the benefits assessment process had been “hell”, and added: “It made me suicidal. It’s like having an insulting abusive controlling ex with the power to starve and evict you.”
Another, @hufflewoof, said the process of assessing sick and disabled people for their eligibility for benefits was “an abusive process, built on mistrust”.
She added: “I have several MH issues anyway but my interactions with the DWP have exacerbated them significantly. It’s been awful.”
Payton Quinn (@PaytonQuinn) said the benefits assessment process had been “difficult and exhausting”.
She tweeted: “Our PIP assessor lied on the report and they have ignored our complaints, rejected our appeal.”
Jen Byrd (@jenjenbyrd) tweeted: “Assessor had sweet, caring face on while writing inaccuracies and (purposeful?) misrepresentations.
“Assessor had no understanding of my illness(es), medical terminology or even, having read his report, morals.”
Juliette Gazzard (@juliettegazzard) said her dealings with DWP “drove me to a suicide attempt, panic state I have never recovered from. Live in constant fear of contact with DWP.”
One contributor to the discussion, @victoriaclutton, spoke of how dealing with DWP was “terrifying, frustrating, dehumanising and outright surreal”.
Jonathan Hume (@IamMrJ), who has previously told Disability News Service how an assessor working for government contractor Maximus asked him what was stopping him taking his own life, was another who described how his interactions with DWP had affected his mental health.
He tweeted: “I used to be confident. I didn’t used to panic at a knock on the door or unexpected post.”
Social worker Brooke Winters (@brookewinters33) said she was supporting #cripthevoteuk because she can see that austerity “isn’t working”, harms disabled people, and does not save money.
She added: “As a disabled person I don’t have the support I need or adequate health care under the current government.”
Another contributor, @zagbah, tweeted: “I have a MH issue and I want to #CripTheVoteUK because I don’t want to spend another five years having to prove I ‘deserve’ disability benefits.
“I feel really angry with the DWP. Because of them, all the progress I was making is in ruins. I have to start over, AGAIN.
“My agoraphobia is worse. I can’t take the rubbish downstairs now. I can’t even step into the communal hallway.
“Dealing with the DWP is like being forced to play a neverending, live action version of #snakesandladders.”
Journalist and presenter Mik Scarlet, tweeting at @MikScarlet, said: “I’m stunned at how scared I am every time I have a brown envelope in the post ever since my #PIP reassessment started. Nightmare.”
Activist Alice Kirby was another to discuss the impact on her mental health of continual communication with DWP, tweeting: “I hate contacting them, I hate them contacting me.
“Constantly receiving letters, sometimes every other day, feels like harassment.”
And Recovery In The Bin, the user-led mental health group, tweeted: “We in @RITB_ want to #cripthevoteUK b/c we are suffering individually and collectively by ongoing fear, harassment, sanctions, destitution.”
#CripTheVoteUK plans to share material about political parties’ disability policies through the election campaign, to “generate discussion about the issues affecting disabled people, including children”.
Although the campaign is non-partisan and does not promote any particular party, it will still be critical of policies that have harmed disabled people and those that could do so in the future.
It will also stress that the Conservative UK government has been condemned by both the UN’s committee on the rights of persons with disabilities (CRPD) and the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) for the abuse of disabled people’s rights.
Last November, a damning CRPD report found the UK government’s social security reforms had led to “grave or systematic violations” of the UN disability convention.
And only last month, EHRC concluded that disabled people’s rights had regressed in at least nine areas since the coalition government assumed power in 2010, and that disabled people were still being treated as “second-class citizens”.
Eleanor Lisney, disability activist and co-founder of #CriptheVoteUK, said: “Disabled people should make sure they tell the politicians that, for 13 million in the voting age, we make a substantial number.
“We need to vote in order to get a chance to survive the future onslaught on our human rights.”
Another campaigner, Dennis Queen, said: “At this point in time, disabled people are quite literally voting for our lives.
“We need all voters to know this is an emergency for thousands of disabled people and help us fight back.”
Posted by jeffrey davies] on 05 May 2017
============================
jeffs post
A FORMER serviceman for the British Armed Forces has been forced to reply on charity and food banks, Labour’s Shadow Business Secretary has claimed.
The news comes as the Trussell Trust, a welfare charity, revealed in its latest report that in that demand for food bank assistance in the UK was at a record high.
Rebecca Long-Bailey, while answering a question on BBC’s Question Time, told the story of a 50-year-old veteran that is forced to work seven miles every day to get to work and accept charity from food banks.
Ms Long-Bailey said: “There’s been a group of people trying to recreating his [George Orwell’s] footsteps [in his book The Road to Wigan].
“Recently they visited a Staffordshire food bank. In that food bank they met a man who walked seven miles every day to work, he was on a zero hours contract, often turned away and had to walk all the way back home again.
“He was 50 years of age and he had given 15 years fighting for Britain in the Armed Forces.
“He’d given his life to this country. Now is this the kind of Britain he deserves, where he is forced to rely on charity?
She added: “I think it is absolutely shameful that we have food banks on the streets, that we aren’t building an economy that will keep sustained.”
Her comments came after an audience member accused the Conservative Party of conspiring to ignore the homeless.
A man in the audience said: “The benefits system, as we all refer to it, is the main reason people are falling society and living on the streets.
READ MORE : EXPRESS
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Half of young mums skip meals to feed their children, survey shows : WELFARE WEEKLYIn "POVERTY"
Syrian asylum seekers in UK forced into poverty : Guardian.In "POVERTY"
Student nurse slams Theresa May’s ‘disgraceful’ food bank comments : Socialist WorkerIn "ELECTION"
Posted by jeffrey davies [86.17.83.77] on 05 May 2017
jeffs post
A FORMER serviceman for the British Armed Forces has been forced to reply on charity and food banks, Labour’s Shadow Business Secretary has claimed.
The news comes as the Trussell Trust, a welfare charity, revealed in its latest report that in that demand for food bank assistance in the UK was at a record high.
Rebecca Long-Bailey, while answering a question on BBC’s Question Time, told the story of a 50-year-old veteran that is forced to work seven miles every day to get to work and accept charity from food banks.
Ms Long-Bailey said: “There’s been a group of people trying to recreating his [George Orwell’s] footsteps [in his book The Road to Wigan].
“Recently they visited a Staffordshire food bank. In that food bank they met a man who walked seven miles every day to work, he was on a zero hours contract, often turned away and had to walk all the way back home again.
“He was 50 years of age and he had given 15 years fighting for Britain in the Armed Forces.
“He’d given his life to this country. Now is this the kind of Britain he deserves, where he is forced to rely on charity?
She added: “I think it is absolutely shameful that we have food banks on the streets, that we aren’t building an economy that will keep sustained.”
Her comments came after an audience member accused the Conservative Party of conspiring to ignore the homeless.
A man in the audience said: “The benefits system, as we all refer to it, is the main reason people are falling society and living on the streets.
READ MORE : EXPRESS
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Share this:
TwitterFacebookGoogle
Related
Half of young mums skip meals to feed their children, survey shows : WELFARE WEEKLYIn "POVERTY"
Syrian asylum seekers in UK forced into poverty : Guardian.In "POVERTY"
Student nurse slams Theresa May’s ‘disgraceful’ food bank comments : Socialist WorkerIn "ELECTION"
Posted by jeffrey davies [86.17.83.77] on 05 May 2017
jeffs post
A FORMER serviceman for the British Armed Forces has been forced to reply on charity and food banks, Labour’s Shadow Business Secretary has claimed.
The news comes as the Trussell Trust, a welfare charity, revealed in its latest report that in that demand for food bank assistance in the UK was at a record high.
Rebecca Long-Bailey, while answering a question on BBC’s Question Time, told the story of a 50-year-old veteran that is forced to work seven miles every day to get to work and accept charity from food banks.
Ms Long-Bailey said: “There’s been a group of people trying to recreating his [George Orwell’s] footsteps [in his book The Road to Wigan].
“Recently they visited a Staffordshire food bank. In that food bank they met a man who walked seven miles every day to work, he was on a zero hours contract, often turned away and had to walk all the way back home again.
“He was 50 years of age and he had given 15 years fighting for Britain in the Armed Forces.
“He’d given his life to this country. Now is this the kind of Britain he deserves, where he is forced to rely on charity?
She added: “I think it is absolutely shameful that we have food banks on the streets, that we aren’t building an economy that will keep sustained.”
Her comments came after an audience member accused the Conservative Party of conspiring to ignore the homeless.
A man in the audience said: “The benefits system, as we all refer to it, is the main reason people are falling society and living on the streets.
READ MORE : EXPRESS
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Share this:
TwitterFacebookGoogle
Related
Half of young mums skip meals to feed their children, survey shows : WELFARE WEEKLYIn "POVERTY"
Syrian asylum seekers in UK forced into poverty : Guardian.In "POVERTY"
Student nurse slams Theresa May’s ‘disgraceful’ food bank comments : Socialist WorkerIn "ELECTION"
Posted by jeffrey davies on 05 May 2017
=============================
just for a laugh
Love this from Damian on the mirror chicken story. 🤣
"Hello is that the police?"
"Yes"
"Good. I'd like to report an offence."
"Ok, go ahead."
"There's someone dressed as a chicken outside."
"I'm sorry, what? Could you repeat that please?"
"I said there's someone dressed in a chicken costume outside!"
"Dressed in a chicken costume??? So what's the offence you'd like to report?"
"Are you deaf, man???"
"No sir. You told me you wished to report an offence, but I'm still waiting for the details."
"THERE IS SOMEONE OUTSIDE, DRESSED IN A CHICKEN COSTUME!!!"
"Ok, but what's the offence, sir? What has the person done? Have they committed a crime?"
"THEY ARE STANDING OUTSIDE, DRESSED AS A CHICKEN!!!"
"But that's not a crime, sir."
"WELL IT BLOODY WELL SHOULD BE!"
"But it's not, sir."
"Well send someone around anyway! He's a threat to National Security!"
"In what respect, sir?"
"In the respect that he's bullying our Prime Minister!!!"
"In what way?"
"He's holding a sign suggesting she's scared of public debates! He could be a Trotskyist!"
"There's no such thing, sir! And that's not really bullying - the eviden..."
"Screw the evidence you pompous ass! You'd better get someone round here right away or I'll have you fired before your shift ends you useless pleb! You don't run this fucking country!!!"
"*sigh* I'll send someone over now."
Posted by jeffrey davies [86.17.83.77] on 04 May 2017
reply | edit & publish | delete
jeffs post
imagine a former Daily Mirror or Guardian editor joking about Theresa May being knifed to death as a cause for national celebration. There would be a national furore. It would be presented as a striking case of how hate-filled, vicious and sadistically intolerant the modern left is. Anyone vaguely on the left would come under immense pressure to immediately dissociate themselves from such a sickening outrage, or otherwise be tarred by association.
Labour condemns Kelvin MacKenzie's ‘Corbyn knifed to death’ joke
Read more
But this is exactly what Kelvin MacKenzie (who will go down in history for smearing Liverpool fans, if nothing else) has just done, his target being Jeremy Corbyn. “I think the fake news headline that would give this country the most joy would be: Jeremy Corbyn knifed to death by an asylum seeker,” was how the ex-editor of the Sun put it in a New York Times interview. It is, incidentally, less than a year since the Labour MP Jo Cox was murdered by a far-right terrorist who yelled: “Death to traitors, freedom for Britain!”
The left is routinely smeared as being full of hatred and bile. As we head into an election that is destined to sink pretty quickly into the sewer, it is worth challenging this lie. The corruption of British public debate – through hatred and smears – overwhelmingly comes from the Conservative party and, more specifically, its allies in the British press: a press that practically every day excoriates immigrants, refugees, Muslims, unemployed people – you name it; a press that cheerleads this election not as an exercise in the glory of democracy, but as an excuse to “crush the saboteurs”, commit “blue murder” and “kill off Labour”; a press that casts judges as “enemies of the people”.
Before returning to the press, let’s consider the behaviour of the Conservatives. Once again, they’ve hired the spinmeister Lynton Crosby, one of whose many campaign devices is the “dead cat” – saying something eye-catchingly nasty in an attempt to shift the debate from territory disadvantageous to the Tory party. A Crosby-inspired Boris Johnson, for example, has already lifted the tone of British political debate by denouncing Corbyn as a “mutton-headed mugwump”.
Then there is Michael Fallon, aka the minister for vicious smears. In the last election it was he who smeared Ed Miliband as a man “who stabbed his own brother in the back”, and would go on “to stab the United Kingdom in the back”. When the Mail denounced Miliband’s Jewish refugee father – and Royal Navy veteran – as “the man who hated Britain”, the aim was clear: leftish political opinion meant hatred of your own country, sedition. But here’s the danger: throw in one dead cat, and people become desensitised. Next time you need two, three, even five. Could that be the story of this election campaign?
Zac Goldsmith, the Tory mayoral candidate in London – a twice-defeated disgraced charlatan whom the Tories are once again fielding in Richmond – ran a vicious, bigoted campaign against Sadiq Khan, implying he was an associate of Islamist extremists. But these attacks were sanctioned at the very top of the Tory hierarchy, falsely smearing Suliman Gani, an ex-Tory Muslim imam from Khan’s constituency, as being an Isis supporter. It was a smear so serious Gani’s safety was endangered. Fallon paid compensation for repeating it.
Katie Hopkins calling migrants vermin recalls the darkest events of history
Zoe Williams
Zoe Williams
Read more
The left is often portrayed as a hate-filled mob for two reasons: a small minority of angry tweeters (I’ve been on the receiving end of their work), and an even smaller group of angry people who yell things like “Tory scum”. But that hardly matches the ferocity of a tabloid press that runs front page obscenities such as “The ‘swarm’ on our streets”, “Migrant workers flooding Britain”, and “1 in 5 Brit Muslims’ sympathy for jihadis”. Or the creation of an atmosphere in which hate crimes flourish. (It’s not as if Tory voters or City bankers are randomly being abused or assaulted on the streets by leftwing pedestrians, is it?) Take Katie Hopkins – who calls refugees “cockroaches” and is accused of inciting hatred against Muslims and minorities. She’s no fringe figure. She’s employed by Mail Online, the world’s biggest online newspaper, and as a national talk radio host by LBC.
The most powerful rightwinger on earth, of course, is Donald Trump, a bigoted megalomaniac whose path to power is strewn with racist and misogynistic debris. But for an insight into the psychology of some of the most extreme rightists in this country, scan the comments section of the Telegraph, Spectator or rightwing blogs. Before long, you’ll encounter an unhinged intolerance to any vaguely left-of-centre opinion: generally abusive, sometimes violently so, equating differing opinions with treachery.
Is this how most right-of-centre Britons think? No, not even close. But rightwing tabloids and politicians deliberately fan extreme and abusive intolerance in an attempt to smash the opposition. The test will come in this election. Yes, disagreement should be passionate and rigorous: our democracy should accommodate such debate. But if it plunges into a sewer, will decent and honest Tories stay silent? What is more important to them? Party politics, or the integrity and health of our democratic system? guardian owen
Posted by jeffrey davies on 04 May 2017
=================================
Jeffs post
the torys backhanders
In 2012, the US government was persuaded by our government not to pursue criminal charges against HSBC for allowing rogue states, terrorists and drug dealers to launder millions of dollars after George Osborne and the UK banking regulator intervened to warn that prosecuting Britain’s biggest bank could lead to a “national and global financial disaster”. Instead of facing a prosecution, the bank were given the option to pay a record $1.92bn (£1.4bn) fine.
The House financial services committee report said the UK interventions “played a significant role in ultimately persuading the DoJ [Department of Justice] not to prosecute HSBC”.
The report revealed that Osborne wrote to Ben Bernanke, who was then the Federal Reserve chairman, and Timothy Geithner, the then treasury secretary, to warn that prosecuting a “systemically important financial institution” like HSBC “could lead to [financial] contagion” and pose “very serious implications for financial and economic stability, particularly in Europe and Asia”.
In 2015, it came to light that there are long-standing links between the scandal-hit HSBC and the Conservative Party, after Electoral Commission records showed three senior bank figures have donated £875,000 to the party in recent years.
Further revelations emerged that the bank allegedly helped wealthy individuals evade tax through Swiss accounts, it was revealed that HSBC’s deputy chairman, Sir Simon Robertson, has made 24 separate donations totalling £717,500 in the last nine years.
He gave 17 donations to the Conservative Central Office between 2002 and 2014, and four totalling £100,000 to George Osborne between 2006 and 2009. The other three went to the party in East Hampshire. Sir Simon, who was knighted in 2010, is reported to have a personal wealth of £10m.
Conservative donors, peers and a high-profile MP are listed among the wealthy who legally held accounts in Switzerland with HSBC’s private bank, for a wide variety of reasons. Their ranks include Zac Goldsmith, MP for Richmond Park, plus his brother, the financier Ben Goldsmith, and a Swiss resident, German-born automotive heir Georg von Opel, who has donated six-figure sums to the government in the past two years.
Peers named in the HSBC files include Lord Sterling of Plaistow, the P&O shipping and ports entrepreneur who was ennobled by Margaret Thatcher, and Lord Fink, who was a party treasurer under David Cameron and has given £3m to the Conservatives.
Zac Goldsmith has, with his brother Ben and their mother Lady Annabel, donated over £500,000 in cash and in kind to the Conservatives.
The Conservatives have raised over £5m from HSBC clients with Swiss accounts.
This is a bank that has:
Rigged financial markets (from LIBOR and foreign exchange markets to gold, silver and oil).
“Missold” wholly inappropriate products such as interest rate swaps to “unsophisticated” customers.
Leaked files from HSBC’s Swiss private banking arm revealed the bank supported clients, which included international criminals, to hide millions of dollars from tax authorities. The clients ranged from celebrities and politicians to international criminals condemned by the UN. Some accounts belong to individuals involved in arms trafficking, money laundering, the illegal trade of blood diamonds (diamonds mined in a war zone, often to fund the war) and other precious minerals, and other types of organized crime and corruption.
Laundered money for Mexican drug cartels. This included transporting billions of dollars in armored vehicles, clearing suspicious checks, and helping traffickers buy planes through Cayman Island.
Helped rogue states such as Iran and North Korea avoid international sanctions.
Worked closely with Saudi Arabian banks linked to terrorist organizations.
Following search warrants and raids in 2013, Argentina's main taxing authority accused HSBC of using fake receipts and dummy accounts to facilitate money laundering and tax evasion.
In June 2013, a media outlet in India did an undercover expose where HSBC officers were caught on camera agreeing to launder "black money." HSBC placed these employees on leave pending their own internal investigation
In 2012 it was reported that HSBC had set up offshore accounts in Jersey for suspected drug-dealers and other criminals, and that HM Revenue and Customs had launched an investigation following a whistleblower leaking details of £700 million allegedly held in HSBC accounts in the Crown dependency
HSBC also held billions of dollars of assets for the Libyan Investment Authority, which was controlled by Colonel Muammar Gaddafi; after Gaddafi's overthrow and assassination, the bank refused to reveal information about the funds, citing customer confidentiality.
In 2003, HSBC acquired HFC.
Notorious for predatory sub-prime lending in the US, HFC brought its business to the UK in the 1970s. The bank engaged in fraudulent schemes to overcharge consumers through the store accounts of household names like Dixons, Currys, PC World, and B&Q.
When HSBC made the acquisition, they took over the store accounts of John Lewis, extending a culture of corruption, and applying the illegal charges to John Lewis customers.
Nicholas Wilson is a former Litigation Manager and Head of Debt Recovery at Weightmans Solicitors LLP, company that has represented HSBC. involves customers of HSBC-owned HFC Bank and John Lewis Financial Services (JLFS) who fell into difficulty with credit card payments.
Between 2003 and 2009, the two companies referred customers having financial problems and difficulty with credit card payments to their solicitors. It then added 16.4% of customers’ credit card balances to their accounts as a “debt collection charge”.
Wilson told HFC Bank in 2003 that its actions were illegal. The bank ignored him. Wilson was sacked in 2006 by Weightmans following his whistleblowing. In 2010, the Office of Fair Trading said that HFC Bank and JLFS charges to customers were unreasonable. Following a ruling by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), the bank has agreed to pay back £4m to 6,700 customers after wrongly charging interest on credit card debt. Wilson says that the true amount HSBC owes is closer to £1bn.
Treasury Select Committe grill Financial Conduct Authority over HSBC fraud
The Conservative Party has already been fined £70,000 following an investigation into election campaign expenses, the Electoral Commission (EC) has announced.
The Tories failed to properly declare a total of £285,813 in campaign spending and failed to keep records in three by-elections during 2014.
Simon Day, the registered treasurer of the party at the time, had failed to ensure spending was accurately reported, and has been referred to the Metropolitan Police for one of two offences committed under the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000.
On March 20, 2017 The Guardian reported that hundreds of banks had helped launder KGB-related funds out of Russia, as uncovered by an investigation named Global Laundromat. HSBC was listed among the 17 banks in the UK that were “facing questions over what they knew about the international scheme and why they did not turn away suspicious money transfers,” as HSBC “processed $545.3m in Laundromat cash, mostly routed through its Hong Kong branch.” Other banks facing scrutiny under the investigation included the Royal Bank of Scotland, NatWest, Lloyds, Barclays and Coutts.
In response, HSBC stated that it was against financial crime, and that the case “highlights the need for greater information sharing between the public and private sectors.”
More government corruption exposed
The Conservative Party has already been fined £70,000 following an investigation into election campaign expenses, which was announced by the Electoral Commission
The Tories failed to properly declare a total of £285,813 in campaign spending and failed to keep records in three by-elections during 2014.
Simon Day, the registered treasurer of the party at the time, had failed to ensure spending was accurately reported, and has been referred to the Metropolitan Police for one of two offences committed under the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000.
It has also come to light that HSBC gave a private investment firm called IPGL, run by former Conservative Party Treasurer Michael Spencer, a substantial loan of £214.2m loan to IPGL. At the time, IPGL was having financial difficulties, with one of its subsidiary companies (City Index), reporting £43m losses.
Move Your Money and Debt Resistance UK uncovered fresh evidence raising questions over the Conservatives 2010 and 2015 election funding, exposing millions of pounds of dirty money flowing into the Conservative Party via IPGL Ltd and HSBC.
The leaked internal email suggests HSBC has flouted anti money-laundering protocols which require screening of high risk political clients, ignoring its own commitment to "political neutrality."
Loan documents obtained by Move Your Money and Debt Resistance UK show that HSBC lent over £214m to the private company IPGL Ltd, chaired by Conservative Party Treasurer and Chief Fundraiser for the Conservatives 2010 general election, Michael Spencer.
Spencer had to put in £70m of his personal £1bn fortune to bail out the failing company.
Despite the financial hardship, from 2007 to 2011, IPGL was donating between £500,000 and £1.1m a year to the Tories (pg 4). The company gave (pg6) £1.03m to the Conservatives’ 2010 election campaign, including £18,706 directly to Cameron, which paid (pg 60) for him, George Osborne and four unnamed others to fly by private jet to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. Months before the 2010 general election. The Guardian also named Spencer in Cameron’s “cash-for-access” scandal, as he attended private dinners with the former PM at Number 10.
Spencer is on record saying that he would ensure enough election funding for the Conservatives to “blow Labour out of the water”. The party reportedly needed £40m for the election campaign. Spencer had also co-founded the Conservative Party Foundation, a group with the specific aim of “underpinning” the party’s finances.
IPGL and other subsidiaries controlled by Spencer donated more than £5m to the Conservatives, donations that would not have been possible without HSBC’s loan, and which HSBC must have known about, as they bank IPGL.
Labour MP John Mann, who is on the Treasury Select Committee, said: “This is a very major regulatory issue and needs assessing for potential criminal behaviour. It's political games being played in the hope of a weaker approach to bankers fraud.”
Roger Mullins - Treasury Spokesperson for the SNP - said: “This is a very serious and deeply worrying case, suggesting that a major bank and a business customer have been involved in activities serious enough to warrant criminal investigation. I shall be writing to the Electoral Commission, there must be an investigation into this and before the General Election of 2017.”
Since the £214m loan, HSBC has gained significant concessions from successive Conservative governments, including escaping investigation for Mexican money laundering and terrorist financing, light treatment for the Panama Papers and Swiss Leaks scandals, as well as successfully lobbying for a roll back on the bank levy in 2015. The bank denied claims of corruption and undue political influence when challenged by Move Your Money at the bank’s AGM last week.
The news emerges as 30 Conservative MPs are still facing charges for 2015 election spending fraud, and threatens to engulf the party in a fresh dirty money scandal with only five weeks until the country goes to the polls.
Releasing the evidence, campaigner for Debt Resistance UK, Joel Benjamin, said:
"Cash for Conservatives shows just how easy it is for big banks like HSBC to buy off the Tories, who are already being investigated for electoral fraud."
“Michael Spencer’s donations were only made possible through an undeclared HSBC loan. Regulators must get a grip on City dirty money corrupting British politics.”
The donations to the Conservatives from IPGL Ltd include a £20,000 donation to Theresa MayMay (reference: C0247748, on 13/07/2016).
IPGL & Michael Spencer's donations to the Conservatives can be seen here.
Wealthy individuals and corporations spend unlimited sums to affect elections, and rich donors can now give huge amounts to political parties. Transparency International, the leading international NGO in assessing and curbing corruption, defines it as “the abuse of entrusted power for personal gain.”
Big corporate political donations are having a very corrosive influence on our democracy. To understood the nexus of corporate money and politics, one only needs to observe the toxic high tide of privatisation and deregulation, the rise of jaw-dropping levels of boardroom pay and the eye-watering squeeze on citizens' standard of living; big business devotes massive resources to politics, and their large-scale involvement increasingly re-directs and constricts the capacities of the political system and shrinks our democracy.
Any suggestion of adjusting taxes for top earners so that they contribute to a society from which they have ganed so much, or tougher regulations on the abuse of market power is howled down as "dangerously anti-business". What is the point of "wealth creators" if they hoard it? Transferring income from the “idle rich” to poorer sections of society through taxation is probably more of a pro-business policy.
Our political economy too often rewards lobbying and donations over innovation and crucially, public needs.
Corporations donate to Conservative governments because they regard them as a probable source of profits and supportive of their narrow interests. Neoliberalism incurs a lot of costs. A self defined "business friendly" government comes at a price.
But it's the public that pay the highest price.
Posted by jeffrey davies on 03 May 2017
