Tribunal

My friend Brenda moved into my house this week, hurray! Now we are in and out of each other’s flats several times a day. I can so see myself running in the staircases in my pyjamas and slippers with a tea cup in my hand. It’s only two doors down the corridor. I will try not to stalk her too much; Brenda might like some privacy...

I went to a Tribunal this week regarding my appeal against the department of Work and Pensions, Employment and Support Allowances (ESA). I was so nervous. In my head the people on the tribunal would be something similar to Stasi officers, with grim faces and suits. As I entered the room there were two cute old ladies at the table, looking like two grandmothers, smiling friendly at me. I won my appeal and the whole process took less than five minutes! I seriously have to stop worrying about silly things like tribunal hearings etc. Life is too short for that shit. To help me stop my obsessive worrying I am having CBT once a week. I am sure I will be cool as cucumber one day - Jah, Man!

On the way to the Tribunal I read the Metro (Tuesday 3 August 2010, page 15) and there was an article about ESA. The story told about a man that got his ESA support stopped two days after his brain surgery! ESA said he was fit to work despite the doctors saying differently. ESA is taking the piss!
I presume, the whole idea with ESA is to stop the benefit fraud in the UK. The state thinks that most people that say they are unable to work due to ill health are lying in order to live on the state. Mind you, ESA gives you 65.40/week and in London you can't survive on it. So it's not a particular cunning plan for the lazy benefit fraudsters.
I am pretty sure that you can find a fraudster or two amongst all the people claiming benefits, possibly even 10% of them. But that does not give the state the right to treat the other 90% as fraudsters! In a modern democracy you are presumed innocent until proven guilty, not so?

As I see it, ESA must be the most ineffective and costly Governmental department in the history of mankind. They have offices up and down the country with ESA officers, making decisions of the cases. They also have call centres, manned by a private company taking queries, not able to give you any answers, from the public. There are another private company that does the medical assessment of all applicants, which must be a goldmine for the company in question. This private company just ignore the medical assessments the applicants’ GPs already made (on the cost of NHS, which then becomes a waste of money since their judgement is ignored by ESA!).
Then there is a private company that does all the obligatory seven “Pathways to Work”- sessions you have to attend. Each meeting takes 30 minutes and is basically a chat about how you are and in practice completely pointless. Not to forget the cost of the new section within Home Office that has to process all applicants with foreign background to make sure they are legally in the country despite the fact that you have to show a passport and your immigration documents when you apply for the damn thing in the first place. If they don't believe the passport to be proof enough, why ask for it then?
The worst thing of it all is that ESA almost always refuse to allow the support on the grounds that the applicant get zero point on the medical assessment by the private company, this results in that everybody has to lodge an appeal against ESA, including myself. This can explain why it took ten months before I got my appeal hearing and why the waiting room at the tribunal was jam-packed with people!
All this money is wasted just to get the 10% benefit fraudsters in the country. It would probably be cheaper to just give the bloody £65.40/week to the few benefit fraudsters and spend the money saved on education or NHS!