Universal Credit Begins With A Fraudster’s Free For All

Today marks the launch of Universal Credit, the all encompassing change to the welfare system that was furiously scribbled down on the back on an envelope after Iain Duncan Smith watched an episode of Shameless.

The changes, which will prove devastating for many of the lowest income families, are as inept as they are callous and likely to lead to unprecedented chaos.  The decision to restrict the roll out of Universal Credit to just a handful of claimants from one Manchester Jobcentre shows how even DWP Ministers are running scared of the new digital by default system.

A gushing press release from the DWP already reveals one major flaw even in this small trial.  Addressing concerns that many, if not most, claimants do not have internet access at home, the DWP boast:  “Eight computers will be available at Ashton-Under-Lyne Jobcentre Plus to help people who do not have access to the internet, and over 130 computers will also be available at certain libraries and council offices in Tameside.”

Making a claim for Universal Credit will involve providing huge amounts of personal information to the DWP via the internet.  Many claimants will have never used a computer before and have little understanding of online security.

It is unlikely Iain Duncan Smith, or Lord Fraud, have ever used an internet cafe or library to access the web.  If they did, they might have noticed that it is not uncommon to visit a site such as facebook or yahoo and find the person who used the computer before you is still logged in.

This is one of the reasons that banks warn:  “As you cannot be certain about the security of public wireless networks or computers in public places (like a library or internet café) you should be cautious about using internet banking services in these situations. Never change your security details while using a public wireless network or a public computer.”

Far from just changing your security details, such as your password, the DWP seem to be actively encouraging people to make their entire initial claim from public computers.  In some cases this could mean the next person to sit down at that machine could have complete access to a previous user’s Universal Credit account.  Even if the library or internet cafe uses software to clear caches and remove passwords after each session (and not all do), anyone looking over someone’s shoulder will be able to steal their log in details and gain access to their account.

This is not the first time Iain Duncan Smith has played fast and loose with claimant’s online safety.  The government job search website Universal Jobmatch has already been plagued by spam, scams and spoof vacancies.  This hasn’t stopped IDS throwing caution to the wind and not just recommending people use libraries to access Universal Credit, but leaving many claimants no other choice.

For all the DWP’s talk about getting tough on benefit fraud, they don’t appear to have a clue about protection from online fraud.  Whilst there is no secure way for people to access their Universal Credit accounts then Iain Duncan Smith has created an identity fraudster’s free for all that could turn into a living nightmare for some of the most marginalised people in the UK.

Follow me on twitter @johnnyvoid

UKIP’s Disappearing Welfare Policy: Claimants are “a parasitic underclass of scroungers”

UKIP’s mild success in Eastleigh – and before their swivel eyes pop out in over excitement it’s important to remember that they lost the election – is sadly not limited to Tory and Lib Dem strong holds.

UKIP have enjoyed similar mild success in several Northern towns amongst working class voters who’ve spotted not one of the three main parties give a flying fuck about them.  The truth is neither do UKIP.

Even some claimants have been sucked in as the party has gone deliberately quiet about their own welfare policies.  When @boycottworkfare began tweeting their workfare plans to claimants who thought UKIP might be on our side, they decided to ‘disappear’ their welfare policy summary from their website.

Luckily it was still available on google cache, where it won’t stay for ever so it’s reproduced below.  They also forgot to remove the full policy document from their server which can be downloaded at: http://www.ukip.org/media/pdf/UKIPwelfare.pdf

This is well worth reading and describes benefit claimants as “a parasitic underclass of scroungers”.

UKIP’s welfare policies include forced unpaid work for all Housing and Council Tax Benefit claimants, Incapacity Benefit (now ESA) slashed to Job Seeker’s Allowance rates and childcare support for working parents demolished.  Don’t trust them.

From Welfare to Workfare
A Welfare Policy for an Independent Britain
A Policy Statement
January 2010

The UK’s current welfare system is ridiculously complicated and requires an army of bureaucrats to administer. There are more than 70 separate benefits, each requiring masses of forms and helping to entrench dependency. UKIP’s proposals will humanise the system and help people to help themselves out of the poverty trap. UKIP will:

· Roll the mass of existing benefits into simpler categories, while ensuring every UK citizen receives a simple, non-means tested ‘Basic Cash Benefit’ (BCB)

· Roll key benefits – such as Jobseeker’s Allowance, Incapacity Benefit and Student Maintenance Grant – into a single, flat-rate BCB set at the same weekly rate as Jobseeker’s Allowance or Income Support. For students, the BCB will be termed ‘Student Vouchers’ or ‘Training Vouchers’

· Allow part-time and temporary workers to continue claiming BCB until their wages reach UKIP’s proposed £11,500 personal allowance so they can take jobs without being heavily
penalised by the system

· Merge Child Benefit, the Child Trust Fund, Child Tax Credits and the Education Maintenance Allowance into an enhanced Child Benefit, payable for each of the first three children in a family

· Merge Early Years’ Funding, Sure Start, the childcare element of Working Tax Credit and the tax relief on Employer Nursery Vouchers into a flat-rate, non-means tested ‘Nursery Voucher’ to cover approximately half the cost of a full-time nursery place

· Ensure British benefits are only available to UK citizens or those who have lived here for at least five years. Currently, British benefits can be claimed by EU citizens in their arrival year

· Require those on benefits – starting with Housing and Council Tax Benefit recipients in private rented homes – to take part in council-run local community projects called ‘Workfare’ schemes. The schemes will be in addition to council jobs

Follow me on twitter @johnnyvoid

Think All Coppers Aren’t Bastards – Read This

Just over half of coppers would definitely report a colleague who violently assaulted someone a report has revealed this week.

In the wide ranging survey coppers were asked whether they would report another officer for punching someone as punishment for fleeing and resisting arrest.

In a shocking admission, only 56% said they would definitely report their colleague for the assault.  Equally revealing is that only 83% of coppers thought that punching someone as punishment is a serious or very serious offence. The most worrying part of all is that these coppers think they are the good guys.  Only 33% of officers said they thought most people in their force would definitely report the behavior.

The truth is it’s very easy for coppers to claim they would do the right thing in a survey -and even then, it appears many wouldn’t.  But in the case of a serious incident, such as a death in custody, with pressure coming from colleagues and above, then how many of even the pretend decent coppers would buckle under pressure.

The answer, past events suggest, is almost all of them.  That’s why, despite almost one and a half thousands deaths in custody since 1990, not one copper has been convicted.

Don’t believe that Inspector Morse shit.  Coppers really are all bastards.

The survey can be read at: http://www.open.ac.uk/icccr/files/icccr-police-integrity-report.pdf

Follow me on twitter @johnnyvoid

Empty Threats and Tantrums Are All Iain Duncan Smith Has Left In Universal Jobmatch Fiasco

Iain Duncan Smith has resorted to increasingly bizarre and empty threats in an effort to defend the shambolic Universal Jobmatch website.

The new job seeking website, which has been plagued by spam, scam and spoof jobs since its launch last month, has the facility for Jobcentre staff to remotely monitor how claimants are using the site.  Whilst the DWP is to force everyone on Job Seekers Allowance to register with the site in the New Year, they cannot legally compel claimants to tick the box giving advisors the right to snoop on their activity.

This obvious oversight in the construction of the new regime has led to yet more tantrums from Iain Duncan Smith.  Speaking to The Metro shortly before Christmas IDS appeared to suggest that claimants who do not allow Jobcentre staff to snoop on their online job seeking activity could face being hauled into Jobcentres on a daily basis.

When Universal Credit is introduced next year 5 million people will be expected to constantly look for ‘more or better paid’ work as a condition of keeping in-work benefits.  Those who are judged not trying hard enough to find jobs may have benefits sanctioned, or be forced into workfare.  The enforcement of this job seeking activity is to be ‘digital by default’ – suggesting that in the near future part time workers, sick or disabled claimants and self-employed people forced out of business due to Universal Credit, will all be required to sign up to Universal Jobmatch.

Even if just one in five of those claimants refuse to allow the Jobcentre access to their account, this this would mean around a million people hauled into Jobcentres every day.  Currently Jobcentres are running at full capacity, seeing around one and a half million people, mostly once a fortnight.  Far from being digital by default, if Iain Duncan Smith’s threats are implemented then the launch of Universal Credit will need to recruit tens of thousands of new public sector workers.

Since this isn’t on the cards anytime soon Iain Duncan Smith’s words should be greeted with the mocking contempt they deserve.  There is no legal requirement to tick the box granting the Jobcentre the right to snoop on your account and no way that the DWP can force you to accept cookies on a home computer.

Of perhaps most concern is Iain Duncan Smith’s attempts to threaten claimants with harassment should they exercise their basic legal rights.  This is a clear attempt to undermine the principle of equality under the law.  If the Secretary of State gets his way then one law for the rich and another for the poor will be firmly enshrined in DWP policy.

One person seems to have spotted that the DWP may be monitoring more than just activity on Universal Jobmatch but also attempting to monitor use of other websites.  Keep an eye on the following Freedom of Information request: http://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/information_returned_from_cookie/new

The Information Commissioner’s Office, who monitor data protection laws, provide guidance on some of the relevant laws surrounding Universal Jobmatch’s use of cookies, the small computer programmes that allow tracking of users activity on the site. 

Follow me on twitter @johnnyvoid

8% Less New Houses Built Due to Universal Credit Warns Housing Association Boss

A director of one of London largest housing associations has warned that house building and provision of new properties has been scaled down due to fears about the upcoming changes to the benefits system.

Speaking before the Public Accounts Committee today, Mike Donaldson, a director of social housing provider L&Q, warned of a double whammy with evictions and arrears set to rise under the new regime.  The impact of this will be that housing associations will be unable to spend cash building new homes meaning a toxic combination of fewer homes and more homeless people.

Such are his organisation’s fears of the oncoming debt tsunami that Donaldson claimed they had already cut the number of new properties provided over the last year from 1000 to 920, a fall of 8%.

Benefits are to be paid monthly under the new system and payments will go direct to tenants, leading to fears that some of those on the lowest income may find managing money difficult and fall into arrears.  On top of this a ‘bedroom tax’ will mean claimants having money docked from benefits, leaving them with either a weekly shortfall or forced to move.

Donaldson’s shocking admission comes on the day that information from pilot schemes to test the new payment system was announced by the DWP.  The figures suggest that rent arrears have doubled in the pilot areas, even though many of the most vulnerable tenants have not been included in the pilots.  No tests of the new system had taken place for tenants in the private sector, where around 30% of claimants have rent payments sent direct to their landlords.

With homelessness already soaring it seems that everyday this Government does something to make the problem worse.  The cardboard cities which emerged in London under the last Tory government may yet become a feature of every major city in the UK.

You can watch the meeting of the Public Affairs Committee, which also includes questions on the Work Programme (haven’t watched it yet so don’t know what was said) at: http://www.parliamentlive.tv/main/Player.aspx?meetingId=12123

Join the Housing for the 99% protests in London tomorrow (Tuesday 18th December)

Universal Jobmatch: A Scammers Paradise

UPDATE 27/2/13:  Registering an account with Universal Jobmatch will  become mandatory from the beginning of March 2013.  There should still be no requirement to tick the box giving DWP access to your account.  For the latest details and what this means for claimants keep an eye on:  http://consent.me.uk/2013/02/26/mandatory/

The Government’s new job vacancies website, Universal Jobmatch, is riddled with outright scams, data harvesting operations, spoof job vacancies and dodgy business opportunities.  The recently launched website is the latest crazy scheme from Iain Duncan Smith to snoop on the ‘job seeking activity’ of benefit claimants.

The bug ridden site, which many claimants say barely works, is now leading to fears unemployed people may be forced to hand over personal information to fraudsters or face benefit sanctions.

An advert appeared last week for the Montcalm Hotel offering a staggering £3-5000 a month for bar work and catering staff.  All candidates had to do is send a full CV, with contact details and a passport sized photograph, to an email address which appeared to emanate from Thailand.

This advert, which was an obvious identity fraud scam, has now been taken down.  But this was only after several people had identified it on twitter and made the real Montcalm Hotel (which does exist) aware of the fake job advert.  It seems to have easily passed through the shabby vetting procedures the DWP requires from employers wishing to advertise jobs on the system

An obvious scam such as this appearing on a Government website is embarrassing enough, but of far more concern is that unemployed claimants can now be forced to apply for any job on the site or face losing benefits.  This is not scare-mongering.  The DWP could force you to hand over your personal details to an obvious fraudster.  In fact this could have already happened.

The lax security procedures were highlighted when the site launched and an advert with the reference number 007 called for an Elimination Specialist at MI6.  This weekend two adverts have appeared asking for a ‘gay princess’ with a company called spamco suggesting hackers have already found their way through the verification system.

Even the jobs which aren’t outright scams or spoofs are dubious at best.  Several adverts ask for ‘distributors’ for a company called Focus Group Distribution.  Like many of the jobs on the Universal Jobmatch site, this position is commission only.  Potential candidates are asked to visit a website to apply where they are presented with a form asking for a name, address and telephone number.  The company claim to be a long established British PLC.  Yet according to Companies House, Focus Group Distribution don’t exist.  The website is registered to a single individual at a home address.

Several more vacancies are available with the optimistically named Freedom Enterprises.  Once again this leads to a website which demands full personal details before before providing any information on the company.  According to who.is, this website is registered to a non-trading individual.

Unlike the Montcalm Hotel scam these commission only jobs advertised on dubious websites may be perfectly genuine.  Or they may be pyramid schemes, spammers or the kind of ‘business opportunity’ that demands huge cash payments up front. The DWP don’t know.  Or even seem to care.  So desperate are they to punish and harass anyone who might find themselves unemployed, that they no longer seem interested if by their actions they further destroy people’s lives.

An increasing number of people forced off sickness benefits and into endless job seeking activity have learning disabilities or mental health conditions.  Most are desperate and living in dire poverty.  These are exactly the people scammers like to target to strip away any last remaining cash they may have.

And the DWP will help them along the way by demanding that huge numbers of unemployed people are  forced to hand out personal information to any passing ID fraudster.

Follow me on twitter @johnnyvoid

Deborah Orr and Iain Duncan Smith – Two Sides of the Same Coin

There is nothing more vile than the rich lecturing the rest of us about what it means to be poor.  Whether it comes from a chinless failure like IDS, who sponges off his wife’s wealth, or a liberal hack like Deborah Orr, who sponges off her husband’s book royalties, it is the most contemptible trait of the so called chattering classes that they think they know anything at all about our lives.

Couched as it is in crass liberal piety, Deborah Orr’s column in The Guardian today exposes the truth about what fake left liberals truly think of those who haven’t reached their latte slurping heights.  The concept of the deserving and undeserving poor is just as entrenched amongst humous guzzling Clapham (or in Orr’s care, edgy Stockwell) yummy mummys and flash daddys as it is in any Knightsbridge drinking club.

Orr has deigned to speak of the lower classes today in order to offer a tacit defence of Iain Duncan Smith’s attempt to rebrand poverty as a moral failing.

In an attempt to demonstrate she isn’t a vile old Tory, Orr points out that a life of minimum wage work is hardly an aspiration, unlike Iain Duncan Smith’s work makes you free mantra.  She stops far short of calling for higher wages though (wonder how much she pays her cleaner?).  Instead she declares:  “Duncan Smith’s indicators invite consideration of how the poorest can truly be motivated.”

Nothing else she says before or after this statement really matters.  She has clearly decided in her Chablis addled mind that all the poor need to do is motivate themselves and their problems will disappear.

Iain Duncan Smith announced this week that he will abandon the internationally agreed definition of poverty, which is calculated according to how much money someone has compared to everyone else.  Instead he has come up with yet another hare-brained scheme which attempts to shift the blame of poverty firmly onto those who are poor.

Along with the predictable ‘worklessness’, the new Tory speak for unemployment, IDS claims that family breakdown, poor health, low educational attainment, addiction and debt are the new causes of child poverty.

Yet even the richest in society can suffer from all of these  so called moral failings including worklessness.  Deborah Orr is a prime example.  She seems to think that writing the occasional shit column for The Guardian, whilst her husband – the public school then Oxford educated Will Self – spunks out the odd book and is sometimes on the telly, means they have proper jobs.

Worklessness infects the cosy media elite, with their army of underpaid child minders and  cleaners, far more than the rest of us who have to clean up our own shit and look after our our own kids.

As for the other new indicators of poverty, poor health can happen to anyone, and at some point is likely to happen to everyone.  Millionaires can run up huge debts whilst the divorce courts are full of squabbling Tarquins and Jemimas ripping each other apart over who gets to keep the fucking chandelier.  Deborah Orr’s own husband spent a large part of his earlier arduous career as a Guardian journalist shooting up smack.

The question is how these social problems, which cut across the classes, impact on people’s lives.  And that is down to how much money people have.

When kids who’ve lost EMA can no longer afford books and fares to school or College, their poverty has nothing to do with poor educational attainment.  Their poor educational attainment is down to the fact they’ve got no fucking money.  When people’s health is worsened because they can’t afford good food, warm homes, or their local hospital has closed down, that  is down to simple lack of cash.

If couples split up because of arguments over money, or because the benefit system increasingly pays people to be apart – something that will get much worse when next year’s benefit cap for families is introduced – they are placed under that pressure because they are skint.  When families run up huge debts with loan sharks because they can’t pay the heating bill, then that debt is merely a symptom of having no money, not the initial cause.

People on sickness or disability benefits are not poor because they are unmotivated, or even because they are sick or disabled.  Lots of rich people are sick or disabled.  They are poor because society no longer has the decency to ensure those who can’t work due to illness or disability are paid a livable income.

And whilst a cosy spell in The Priory may be enough to confine youthful drug addiction to a scary dinner party anecdote amongst the pampered middle classes, shit housing, shit benefits, and shit treatment services mean the reality is very different if you are poor.  And by poor I mean have no money, which is what poor means.

The endless jumping through intellectual hoops in an effort to redefine poverty that comes from both liberals and tories is rooted in the same entrenched sense of class entitlement.  Neither wishes to acknowledge their own privilege and instead insist they are in such a cosy position because they are simply wonderful examples of human beings who’ve worked hard and are very clever.  Both sides overlook the structures in society which create both mass poverty and their own affluent lifestyles.  And both sides, just like  Deborah Orr and Iain Duncan Smith, send their children to private school to pass on their social privilege.

They will both connive to maintain this privilege, insisting that society can’t be organised any other way and all the poor need to do is pull their socks up and stop whining.  As Deborah Orr herself said, protesting about the cuts is a waste of time.

And both, whether openly expressed, or snidely insinuated, believe that those with least are responsible for their poverty – because if people stop blaming the poor, then they might start blaming the rich.  And even the most mung bean sprouting, Big Issue buying, politically correct and oh so concerned affluent liberal knows instinctively whose side they are really on in the class war.

IDS Think Tank Funded by Work Programme Contractor Accused of Fraud

One of largest funders of the think tank run by Iain Duncan Smith are the owners and founders of a Work Programme contractor who are mired in fraud allegations.

The Centre for Social Justice is a right wing Christian dominated think tank which has been behind much of this Government’s welfare reforms.  Whilst Iain Duncan Smith stood down as Chairman when this Government weren’t elected in 2010, he remains a patron.  As revealed in the Guardian yesterday, his policy special advisor, Phillipa ‘pray away the gay’ Stroud, is now co-chair of the organisation.

The Centre for Social Justice list Manpower as one of two ‘platinum’ corporate partners who provide funding to the organisation – the other being international management consultants Oliver Wyman.

Manpower founded, and remain one of the largest share-holders of Working Links, a welfare to work company.  Working Links have Work Programme contracts in Scotland, Wales and the South West and currently receive around £120 million a year from Iain Duncan Smith’s department.

This means that Phillipa Stroud not only picks up a salary from the DWP as a policy advisor, presumably advising on things like who gets Work Programme contracts, but is also paid  by an organisation funded by a Work Programme contractor.

And if that conflict of interest isn’t enough, it gets worse.  Working Links have been accused of endemic welfare to work contract fraud, something the DWP is currently investigating.  So in her DWP  job Phillipa Stroud is involved in investigating the Manpower funded company, whilst simultaneously being paid a wage elsewhere by a Manpower funded think tank.

Working Links have also provided direct funding for the Centre for Social Justice, handing over £10,ooo to fund their 2010 awards.

By happy coincidence, Phillipa Stroud’s co-chair at the Centre for Social Justice is David Blunkett.  Blunkett is also a paid advisor to A4e, the other company accused of fraudulent behaviour relating to their Welfare to Work  contracts.

Once again today the DWP dodged providing any performance figures for the Work Programme which has already cost almost £1 billion.  Long term unemployment continues to soar despite the scheme, but for Phillipa Stroud and Manpower it appears to be full steam ahead on the Work Programme gravy train.

Above pic from: http://a4eprotest.blogspot.co.uk/2011/04/g4s-work-programme-protest.html

How Much Did Atos Lie To Win PIP Contract?

The PIP tender reveals that poverty pimps Atos misrepresented their relationship with several organisations to win the  £540 million contract to carry out the upcoming Personal Independence Payment (PIP).

Disabled People Against Cuts (DPAC) are seeking legal action after Atos claimed they were in regular consultation with them to discuss any concerns about their health and disability assessments.  In fact DPAC have been some of the most outspoken critics of the company and have organised countless protests aimed at Atos.

Atos claim this bare-faced lie was a mistake.  Other charities Atos claim to consult with at national and local level include Citizens Advice, Mencap, DRUK, MIND, Macmillan Cancer Support, RNIB, SENSE, The National Autistic Society, the Northern Ireland Association for Mental Health and the Scottish Association of Mental Health.  Whether there is any truth in these claims remains to be seen.

Now other organisations named by Atos are coming forward to reveal that they have been misrepresented in the tender.  Big Mouth Media (now LBi) are named as Atos’ suppliers who will be responsible for pro-actively monitoring social media to judge any areas of ‘public concern’ into their activities.

As revealed in the comments here, LBi deny they are involved with Atos. stating clearly:

“I’d just like to clarify that bigmouthmedia, which is now part of LBi, does not work with ATOS Healthcare in any way. We were initially involved in a project to help them better understand social media, but in February this year we decided to bring an end to our relationship. Furthermore, we were categorically not involved with the closure of any website, blog or online community space on behalf of ATOS Healthcare.”

The Atos contract is dated May 2012, meaning Big Mouth Media/LBi had already ended the relationship when the tender was submitted.  An unofficial spokesperson for LBi has claimed on facebook that there was a ‘difference of opinion’ between the companies.

Atos’ dodgy claims don’t end there.  Ever opportunistic Labour MPs have called for an “immediate investigation” into the PIP tender after Atos claimed they would be working with organisations such as Greater Manchester Coalition of Disabled People (GMCDP), Disability Cornwall and ecdp (formerly Essex Coalition of Disabled People).

All of these Disabled People’s Organisations (DPOs) have firmly rejected the claim they would have anything to do with Atos.  According to a piece recently published on the DPAC website, Richard Currie, an executive member of GMCDP said of the claims:

“As an organisation we are not keen to work with organisations that actively make life more difficult for disabled people.

“We would never want anything to do with Atos. We do not feel they are a fit and proper company to do the assessments, as they proved with the employment and support allowance claimant debacle.”

Hundreds of millions of pounds are to be handed over to Atos to manage the new disability assessments on which PIP is based.  One fifth of disabled people are set to lose benefits when the new system is introduced.  Atos’ claim that the very real suffering to disabled people that this will cause is to be minimised by them engaging with disabled claimants is based on little more than hot air.

For the victims of the Work Capability Assessment, already forced into workfare and poverty by the actions of Atos, the news that Atos lie will sadly be of no great surprise.

Big Mouth Media – The Online Stalkers of the Disability Denial Industry

Recently released tender documents for the upcoming Personal Independence Payment (PIP) assessments reveal Atos has been using the services of online marketing agency Big Mouth Media to spy on disabled people’s social networking pages.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Big Mouth Media/LBi claim they ended their relationship with Atos in February this year and were not involved in the website closures by Atos mentioned in this piece, for more information see:  How Much Did Atos Lie To Win PIP Contract?

LBi claim: “I’d just like to clarify that bigmouthmedia, which is now part of LBi, does not work with ATOS Healthcare in any way. We were initially involved in a project to help them better understand social media, but in February this year we decided to bring an end to our relationship. Furthermore, we were categorically not involved with the closure of any website, blog or online community space on behalf of ATOS Healthcare.”

UPDATE: An unofficial spokesperson for LBi/Big Mouth Media claim they are no longer involved with Atos due to a ‘difference of opinion’.  Full official clarification is promised soon.

Atos claim that using Big Mouthed Media to “pro-actively monitor websites and social media”  for mentions of the company has helped them identify any areas of public concern about their activities. In reality Atos have been responsible for using legal threats in an attempt to censor and stifle any online criticism of their disability denying benefit assessments.

Atos carry out the notorious Work Capability Assessment.  This crude computer based test has been used to strip benefits from out of work sick or disabled claimants.

An increasing number of deaths have been linked to the endless assessment and re-assessment regime, whilst earlier in the year it was discovered that 32 people a week die after being found ‘fit for work’ by Atos.  The company recently won the contract to carry out similar assessments for those claiming Disability Living Allowance, when it is reformed into Personal Independence Payments (PIP) next year.  It is in the tender document for these assessments, recently published online by bungling DWP officials, where Atos claim to monitor the social networking pages of sick or disabled claimants.

The Carer Watch website was shut down by Atos, simply because a post on their forum was critical of the company.  Other sites, such as the Atos Register of Shame, were bullied offline due to the phrase Atos Kills.

Big Mouth Media do not boast of their involvement with Atos on their client list, preferring to keep that dirty little secret to themselves.  But there can be little doubt that this company is making money was making money (see updates) supporting Atos and their drive to force as many sick and disabled people into poverty as possible.

There can be few things more embarrassing then for a online marketing company to become a target for protests and complaints themselves on social media websites.  This is the kind of thing they are hired to prevent.  Strangely Big Mouth Media, who claim to be an expert on social media, are inactive on twitter* where they have an empty account @bigmouthmedia.  Luckily they are on facebook, so why not tell them what you think of their involvement with disability denying poverty pimps Atos:  http://www.facebook.com/bigmouthmedia/

*Big Mouth Media recently merged with LBi, who can be found on twitter @LBiLondon