It’s fast approaching October 2010 the time the DWP has appointed for migrating claimants from Incapacity Benefit and Income Support to ESA, for the few, JSA for the many and oblivion for the rest.
Has the DWP completed the pilot schemes I heard they had put in place? Does anyone know of the outcome of these schemes; or, was that just yet another exercise in lip service?
Any ideas as to how they’re going to tackle the migrations? Are they going to use demographic age bands such as 18 to 24, 25 to 34, 35 to 44, 45 to 54 and 55 to 64? Will they begin with the younger groups, with an expectation of finding it a) easier to find them ‘fit’ for work and b) younger people have better opportunities of finding employment?
As I understand things they are expecting to have migrated all existing claimants from Incapacity Benefit and Income support by March 2014. This is a massive logistical task; and, will mean the movement of some 10,000 people per week.
According to the government there are 20 centres looking after this work; which means around 500 people a week passing through their gates. I wonder, have they considered the impact the cuts will have on these services. After all, by Tories own admission there will be no sacred cows; all departments are up for between 25% and 40% cuts.
Hopefully, Clegg will get his comeuppance in a few weeks time at his party’s conference in Liverpool. With a bit of luck that will herald the beginning of the unravelling of this coalition of the desperate to get back to power after 65-years in the wilderness and the desperate to get the their hands on the Welfare State to sell it off to their chums.
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