DLA entitles you to the disabled worker element so you'd only need to do 16 hours to qualify for WTC. See http://www.disabilityrightsuk.org/tax-credits-extra-money-due-disability

GPs have a duty of care clearly described at http://www.gmc-uk.org/guidance/good_medical_practice/duties_of_a_doctor.asp If GPs are being put under too much pressure from patients due to cruel and unusual treatment from ATOS and the DWP then they, not patients, need to be taking issue with those bodies.

Great news I just noticed over on MSE that doesn't seem to have been posted here. http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/news/banking/2013/04/card-protection-and-id-protection-mis-selling-now-banks-will-have-to-refund-victims The gist of this is that the FCA have now decided that the financial institutions who got people signed up for CPP are also responsible for mis-selling and will have to refund their customers. The article says "Those mis-sold are entitled to whatever they paid out." but doesn't mention statutory interest or any interest that may have been charged on what was paid out. Does anyone know how that works?

Just a quick update on this situation :- After several phone calls and secure messages through online banking during which I explained their obligations under BCOBS Nationwide returned £75 in bogus charges, the last of which I didn't even have to ask for. Despite telling me by phone that they wouldn't be refunding any more charges they messed up with credit/debit order yet again and refunded the charge almost immediately without my involvement It's still ridiculous that you should have to insist that your bank fulfil their obligations before they do it as a matter of course.

You don't need to be a member of Facebook to do anything with the petitions and, regardless of what you may think, as the biggest social network in the western world Facebook is a very sensible place to gather people. Just over 50% of the UK population are on Facebook & almost 60% of the UK online population. There are also around 32 million active UK users of Facebook per month. This makes not putting a campaign on Facebook a very, very stupid thing to do - nothing else has the potential reach. What might be stupid is putting this stuff only on Facebook so luddites like you refuse to access it Here are links to the petitions currently shared in the group. http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/33327 http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/47615 http://www.avaaz.org/en/petition/Amnesty_UK_to_protect_the_human_rights_of_the_sick_disabled http://wowpetition.com is another way to keep in the loop.

Just to make it easier for people to get to the group, here's a clickable link - http://facebook.com/groups/479586538776371/

Meanwhile, back in the world experienced by people with genuine problems who see daily discrimination, lack of support, cuts in funding to the services that actually help them and would like nothing more than to be allowed to find a way to work within the limitations of the conditions which prevent them fitting in to the world of conventional work ... The alleged support to help people get back into work which sounds wonderful turns out to be very little more than an exercise in paper shuffling so parasitic corporations can get "paid on results" by pushing the people they're supposed to be helping into inappropriate and, quite frankly, offensive training programs, taking absolutely no account of their conditions or previous work experience. The measures taken by employers in order to comply with the equality act end up being the absolute minimum they can possibly do to get on the right side of the law. Poor take up and not seeking advice generally comes from lack of awareness, embarrassment and previous experience of bad advice and/or things that sound good turning out to be just going through the motions to avoid legal problems. Well good for you, I'm glad there's at least one person in the UK with a long term mental condition who apparently isn't affected by the prejudice and constant battle to get support that a *lot* of others experience. The implication here that other people would rather sit at home and feel sorry for themselves is hugely offensive and if you really do work in the NHS and you're a medical professional you might consider reading up on the code of conduct you're supposed to adhere to. You're in work and not claiming ESA not because you are "willing and able to go out to work" but because you are fortunate enough that your condition isn't sufficiently debilitating to prevent you going out to work.

Sorry, I was just editing that post while you replied, added this bit :- The rules may be different if she has too much capital to get means tested benefits. Depending on how much over the limit she is it might be worth looking into paying off enough to get under the savings threshold or just getting the savings invested and let them take it from DLA over 5 years. Hadn't realised she was over the savings limit.

I had the same impression as Nystagmite actually - when I had council tax arrears they couldn't take third party deductions from Incapacity Benefit. Once my girlfriend moved in & we had a joint claim they were able to take them from Income Support which was arranged at the statutory minimum of around £3 a week. I'd do some checking on that - http://www.dwp.gov.uk/docs/dmgch33.pdf looks like it covers the regulations. For income based benefits it says this - http://www.dwp.gov.uk/docs/dmgch23.pdf will give you the personal allowances. Probably going to have to do a bit more digging but I eventually found relevant legislation - http://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/1987/1968/schedule/9/made The rules may be different if she has too much capital to get means tested benefits. Depending on how much over the limit she is it might be worth looking into paying off enough to get under the savings threshold or just getting the savings invested and let them take it from DLA over 5 years.

My apologies then, although it might have been better if you'd made it clear in your post that you weren't being supportive of their rather interesting view of what constitutes fit for work. I interpreted that as "your GP is wrong but the DWP are right and you should be out working" and even reading it again now I'm not sure that I can reinterpret the post in a better light :/ It's the "I have to take slight issue with your contention about 'other work'" part, it really makes it seem as if you support the DWP viewpoint and, for me, turns it into what looks like a trolling attempt. I'll freely admit to being perhaps a touch over-sensitive on this subject ( and, being Irish, I have a marvellous talent for understatement) due to the rhetoric from politicians and the nonsense being reported in the national media. Four years!? Jeez, I've just gone through the IB to ESA conversion process and started an appeal so I'm waiting to get put on the assessment rate atm. It took 3 weeks to get the HB claim sorted out thanks to the big mess the DWP have made - to be fair to the HB people, they were actually really, really helpful. The system is ridiculously complex and I feel really sorry for some of the people having to administer it. What's interesting is that I'm pretty sure the DWP are breaching all kinds of regulations and, in some cases, actually breaking the law. Listening to people who feel let down by their GPs in this process I've found that the unsupportive GPs seem to be in breach of the GMC code of conduct and there really doesn't seem to be anywhere for people caught up in this mess to turn to for help. external links removed

Donated, sorry it's not much.

Yes I reported the correct post and if you really think that telling someone in the middle of a fight with the DWP over an ATOS "medical" report "if you can hold a mop so there's work you can do" is an example of healthy discussion then I'm really not sure what I can say. If you think that's an appropriate comment to make in this thread then maybe you'd like to attend a meeting of people who just scored 0 points in a WCA despite a long history of depression, anxiety and staying indoors for fear of smacking people in the face with a brick. You can't see any rising to any "alleged" bait because no-one has yet risen to it, I reported the post and made the followup post as an attempt to pre-empt it.

I almost replied to this opinion but, rather than drag the thread off in an unhelpful direction I chose to report the post - it's the triangle with the exclamation mark. Rather than rise to the bait it would be better if everyone else channelled their anger in that way. I won't be responding to any replies to my post or the previous one so please don't reply unless you have something constructive and helpful to say in response to the opening post. Thanks for your understanding

I don't want to denigrate your efforts in any way so please don't feel that I am - I actually have tremendous admiration for anyone involved in fighting this system and the inherent injustice. I completely get where you're coming from with the fear element and people not wanting to risk having their claim messed around and I completely understand it. As it happens my conversion from IB to ESA began back in June and they've just denied me ESA for non attendance despite doctor's notes saying I was too unwell to attend the WCA. It's a long story but basically I've been going through counselling which has brought up various things that have made me more volatile than usual. On top of that, filliing in the ESA50 triggered old problems and my medication was increased so I could cope. The worst of it is that I've been building up to going self employed to get away from this nonsense and I was trying to delay things long enough to get the space to sort it all out properly. I thought about just attempting to explain that but ended up being scared that they'd just decide I was fit for work and mess things up anyway. It might be better to say that you've made a lot of effort getting to the point where ATOS will admit that they have no legal right to deny claimants a recording or to demand authorisation in advance. You could always demand a recording, they just stonewalled people so they could run assessments without a recording accessible to the claimant. The coalition government are depending on people being paralysed by fear so they can force through purely idealogical austerity measures which all the evidence shows is making the situation worse - there's a serious risk we're going to triple dip now. None of us has to face this alone, there are many groups and organisations doing what they can to stop this madness and support people who can't stand up for themselves. We could do with some better networking to make sure everyone has all the information and resources available but there's a lot of help and support around. I'm sure I found a Facebook group trying to co-ordinate a buddy system to make sure that everyone can be accompanied to ATOS assessments but I've lost it again. http://edinburghagainstpoverty.org.uk/node/5 has some good info though. Even if you don't do anything else to fight this madness, sign the petition calling for a cumulative impact assessment of the welfare cuts, an end to the WCA and forced labour and an independent enquiry. http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/43154 Some more info can be found through the link in my signature. Anyone willing and able to help spread the word is welcome, however little you feel capable of contributing.

I had a look at your child benefit thread pointed out by joeblogs and I'd have to say just leave this well alone and concentrate on yourself and your children. If you poke this too much you're liable to find yourself embroiled in a fraud case with you as one of the defendants. From what you've said here and in the other thread it's going to be very difficult for you to argue that you weren't complicit in the fraud, if there was one. Something worth mentioning is that reporting people for perceived fraud does not somehow magically result in the money they were paid being reallocated to someone more in need. In actual fact the ensuing investigation is more likely to exceed any savings in the short term which will effectively reduce the budget available. There's also the small matter of general fraud levels actually being much smaller than the DWP would like you to believe and cases like this lead to genuine claimants being scapegoated.