It's hard to believe it's November 2018 and I'm still running around in the same circles.
In the past 5 days, I have, yet again, been let down by legal counsel.
Sara Lomri of the Public Law Project was supposed to be supporting me in a battle against the DWP (Department of Work and Pensions) in a Judicial Review in respect to getting the department to comply with their own legal requirements of corresponding to me via an effective email channel due to my disability of ME/CFS (Myalgic Encephalomyelitis / Chronic Fatigue Syndrome) which they'd point blank refused to do.
To a lay person this was a slam dunk case, but for some reason whenever it gets into the hands of poor lawyers, something straight forward becomes inordinately complicated and last week, she with my(?) barrister had a negotiation, that resulted in me losing everything, seemingly even my trial date.
It's hard to explain to sound thinking people the ludicrous nature of this current predicament, not least because, of every single person I've discussed it with (and that amounts to well over a hundred) they all do that annoying thing of applying logic to the situation and agreeing with me.
But here is the best explanation I've been able to give anyone below. The nature of my current health, means I'm being looked after by friends in St. Albans, unable to write or concentrate
One of my difficulties in getting someone else to look at the case has been trying to be succinct in what this case has been about, having been dragged around the houses for 2 years.
Put simply, it was that the DWP emphatically said they wouldn't communicate with me by email even though they had overwhelming evidence of both my disability and my homeless circumstances. Much coverage of this issue had been made in the press about other disabled people suffering the same indignities of not being allowed email communications. I therefore contacted John Pring, editor of the Disability News Service, following on from one of his articles on the subject, to see if some form of class action would be raised as I would like to give evidence as part of it. He transferred me on to an organisation handling the case through Svetlana at Inclusion London and they finally passed me on to the Public Law Project (PLP), where I became a lone-case, albeit with first EU funding then subsequently Legal Aid.
PLP were however able to discover that this DWP email behaviour was systemic and widespread, with only 32 people, myself allegedly now included, in the entire of the United Kingdom granted permission to correspond with the department by electronic email communications as an Alternative Format on the grounds of disability.
As everyone knows, I worked for what was then the DHSS in the 1980's and what later became the DWP and have an IT Background having worked on the some of the most influential technological advancement launches in history, including the world's first online banking (Pegasus Software/Barclays Bank) and the world's first internet streaming video (Iterated System), so I come at this with a much wider understanding than most.
I had had for years though, been communicating directly with named contacts in the DWP for both Disability Living Allowance & Incapacity Benefit via email immensely satisfactorily, with responses generally coming within hours at most a day, problems resolved in an instant and effectively and found genuine compassion. This of course became a problem when those benefits were phased out and replaced by ESA & PIP which are altogether different propositions that I've yet to transfer too but that are run entirely online and is of course, where these problems all stemmed.
This previous email behaviour by the DWP is in utter stark contrast with the current alleged email communications I am having, where responses are generally taking a month and then usually simply to obfuscate.
My benefits have repeatedly been incorrectly stopped. I am yet again having to take the DWP to appeal court to get my DLA (and conceivably my Incapacity Benefit, as nobody has a clue as to what is happening with that benefit, as the dedicated Alternative Format Team in the the DWP only address communications with my DLA for some inexplicable reason) for failing to get to a medical because of the very condition they are attempting to assess. This will be the 5th time in 5 years that I've proved the DWP to be wrong yet each time going a year or more without any funds from them at all.
The DWP have been proven in lies time and time again but for some reason, that doesn't come into this
Nor indeed the impact of not being able to communicate with the department which they've used to their advantage to consistently stop benefits.
So as it stands, as I understand it, the DWP have just used court proceedings as a way of torturing me for 2 years, whilst lawyers on both sides have profited.
There were only two things I wanted out of proceedings, the first, that the DWP would never, ever be able to do this to anyone else again, and therefore garner a change of law to ensure that, or, failing that, a substantive cash payment that would mean I would never have to have any dealings with the DWP ever again.
I can live on £15,000 per year (I currently survive on £5,000 a year without housing), I'll probably not make it to my 60th Birthday (homeless people tend to live to around 48 years old, so I'm already beating the odds by 2 years; as everyone knows 6 homeless people have already died due to the changes in temperature in the past 2 weeks), but let's say I make it to 70, so to be safe, a settlement figure of around £300,000 (20 years x £15,000) would be the only acceptable amount. I've been informed that because lawyers have not been very good in these proceedings in the past and judges are biased towards the state, this would be an impossibility.
So as things stand, I've been starved, forced to live on the street, bullied, vilified belittled, had my family dispossessed, unable to help my son with his suicidal tendencies or mental health because of the DWP and even though there's overwhelming evidence that they have done all this through deception, lying and obfuscation they are going to get away scot free.
Having not instigated a proper email system to communicate with claimants out of their impoverished £3/4 Billion annual budget for DWP Digital, having no law changed to protect claimants from this abuse happening in the future or compensated realistically for the damage and hardships they've cause to me mentally, physically, emotionally and to my family.
So my position stands as it did from the beginning as you go into talks with them. If they are only dealing with 32 claimants, having a single individual staff member to be the conduit is entirely cost effective and means that claimants are not being made to jump though hoops. The format letters can be passed to that individual directly and the likelihood of failure or error diminished because the person will know all the people he/she is dealing with and their circumstances (This is of course exactly as it was when I worked at the DHSS in Cardiff being responsible for the individuals in my section of surnames S-Z) a personal i.e. name of individual email is passed out to the claimants and that person and that person alone (with the exception of a number 2 to cover sickness and holidays) would be responsible for all aspects of the 32 individuals claims and responses could be then be granted in under 48 hours. Even if everyone wrote at the same time, that's still only 32 emails to respond too (I get through that many in 2 hours) the number will not increase, because all other benefits are online, so it will simply be a decreasing responsibility until all claimants transferring have been dealt with. Let's say of £30,000 a computer and desk space £5,000 so in real terms the cost would be no more than £50,000 per year, but of course they could simply allocate a current staff member and equipment and they'd be no intrinsic rise in costs whatsoever. This needs to be agreed as law.
Failing that, a minimum of a £350,000 cash settlement from the DWP (they could ignore the over-payment of £23,000 or whatever it was) and I'll happily sign whatever document they'd like resolving them of any future obligations towards me until my death. As I'm entitled to Housing Benefit of a maximum of £250 per week, I've already saved them £117,000 in housing benefit with being homeless, add that with another 20 years £260,000 and the benefits due PIP £400 & ESA £400 per month - £192,000 (all approximate figures of course as they don't take in account any increases or inflation as I'm simply working on today's figures) means the offer will save the state just under a £1/4 Million pound over my lifetime, which I think is an inordinately reasonable offer considering their appalling behaviour and deception towards me.
That's it, there are my instructions and not up for debate. Good luck.
In the past 5 days, I have, yet again, been let down by legal counsel.
Sara Lomri of the Public Law Project was supposed to be supporting me in a battle against the DWP (Department of Work and Pensions) in a Judicial Review in respect to getting the department to comply with their own legal requirements of corresponding to me via an effective email channel due to my disability of ME/CFS (Myalgic Encephalomyelitis / Chronic Fatigue Syndrome) which they'd point blank refused to do.
To a lay person this was a slam dunk case, but for some reason whenever it gets into the hands of poor lawyers, something straight forward becomes inordinately complicated and last week, she with my(?) barrister had a negotiation, that resulted in me losing everything, seemingly even my trial date.
It's hard to explain to sound thinking people the ludicrous nature of this current predicament, not least because, of every single person I've discussed it with (and that amounts to well over a hundred) they all do that annoying thing of applying logic to the situation and agreeing with me.
But here is the best explanation I've been able to give anyone below. The nature of my current health, means I'm being looked after by friends in St. Albans, unable to write or concentrate
One of my difficulties in getting someone else to look at the case has been trying to be succinct in what this case has been about, having been dragged around the houses for 2 years.
Put simply, it was that the DWP emphatically said they wouldn't communicate with me by email even though they had overwhelming evidence of both my disability and my homeless circumstances. Much coverage of this issue had been made in the press about other disabled people suffering the same indignities of not being allowed email communications. I therefore contacted John Pring, editor of the Disability News Service, following on from one of his articles on the subject, to see if some form of class action would be raised as I would like to give evidence as part of it. He transferred me on to an organisation handling the case through Svetlana at Inclusion London and they finally passed me on to the Public Law Project (PLP), where I became a lone-case, albeit with first EU funding then subsequently Legal Aid.
PLP were however able to discover that this DWP email behaviour was systemic and widespread, with only 32 people, myself allegedly now included, in the entire of the United Kingdom granted permission to correspond with the department by electronic email communications as an Alternative Format on the grounds of disability.
As everyone knows, I worked for what was then the DHSS in the 1980's and what later became the DWP and have an IT Background having worked on the some of the most influential technological advancement launches in history, including the world's first online banking (Pegasus Software/Barclays Bank) and the world's first internet streaming video (Iterated System), so I come at this with a much wider understanding than most.
I had had for years though, been communicating directly with named contacts in the DWP for both Disability Living Allowance & Incapacity Benefit via email immensely satisfactorily, with responses generally coming within hours at most a day, problems resolved in an instant and effectively and found genuine compassion. This of course became a problem when those benefits were phased out and replaced by ESA & PIP which are altogether different propositions that I've yet to transfer too but that are run entirely online and is of course, where these problems all stemmed.
This previous email behaviour by the DWP is in utter stark contrast with the current alleged email communications I am having, where responses are generally taking a month and then usually simply to obfuscate.
My benefits have repeatedly been incorrectly stopped. I am yet again having to take the DWP to appeal court to get my DLA (and conceivably my Incapacity Benefit, as nobody has a clue as to what is happening with that benefit, as the dedicated Alternative Format Team in the the DWP only address communications with my DLA for some inexplicable reason) for failing to get to a medical because of the very condition they are attempting to assess. This will be the 5th time in 5 years that I've proved the DWP to be wrong yet each time going a year or more without any funds from them at all.
The DWP have been proven in lies time and time again but for some reason, that doesn't come into this
Nor indeed the impact of not being able to communicate with the department which they've used to their advantage to consistently stop benefits.
So as it stands, as I understand it, the DWP have just used court proceedings as a way of torturing me for 2 years, whilst lawyers on both sides have profited.
There were only two things I wanted out of proceedings, the first, that the DWP would never, ever be able to do this to anyone else again, and therefore garner a change of law to ensure that, or, failing that, a substantive cash payment that would mean I would never have to have any dealings with the DWP ever again.
I can live on £15,000 per year (I currently survive on £5,000 a year without housing), I'll probably not make it to my 60th Birthday (homeless people tend to live to around 48 years old, so I'm already beating the odds by 2 years; as everyone knows 6 homeless people have already died due to the changes in temperature in the past 2 weeks), but let's say I make it to 70, so to be safe, a settlement figure of around £300,000 (20 years x £15,000) would be the only acceptable amount. I've been informed that because lawyers have not been very good in these proceedings in the past and judges are biased towards the state, this would be an impossibility.
So as things stand, I've been starved, forced to live on the street, bullied, vilified belittled, had my family dispossessed, unable to help my son with his suicidal tendencies or mental health because of the DWP and even though there's overwhelming evidence that they have done all this through deception, lying and obfuscation they are going to get away scot free.
Having not instigated a proper email system to communicate with claimants out of their impoverished £3/4 Billion annual budget for DWP Digital, having no law changed to protect claimants from this abuse happening in the future or compensated realistically for the damage and hardships they've cause to me mentally, physically, emotionally and to my family.
So my position stands as it did from the beginning as you go into talks with them. If they are only dealing with 32 claimants, having a single individual staff member to be the conduit is entirely cost effective and means that claimants are not being made to jump though hoops. The format letters can be passed to that individual directly and the likelihood of failure or error diminished because the person will know all the people he/she is dealing with and their circumstances (This is of course exactly as it was when I worked at the DHSS in Cardiff being responsible for the individuals in my section of surnames S-Z) a personal i.e. name of individual email is passed out to the claimants and that person and that person alone (with the exception of a number 2 to cover sickness and holidays) would be responsible for all aspects of the 32 individuals claims and responses could be then be granted in under 48 hours. Even if everyone wrote at the same time, that's still only 32 emails to respond too (I get through that many in 2 hours) the number will not increase, because all other benefits are online, so it will simply be a decreasing responsibility until all claimants transferring have been dealt with. Let's say of £30,000 a computer and desk space £5,000 so in real terms the cost would be no more than £50,000 per year, but of course they could simply allocate a current staff member and equipment and they'd be no intrinsic rise in costs whatsoever. This needs to be agreed as law.
Failing that, a minimum of a £350,000 cash settlement from the DWP (they could ignore the over-payment of £23,000 or whatever it was) and I'll happily sign whatever document they'd like resolving them of any future obligations towards me until my death. As I'm entitled to Housing Benefit of a maximum of £250 per week, I've already saved them £117,000 in housing benefit with being homeless, add that with another 20 years £260,000 and the benefits due PIP £400 & ESA £400 per month - £192,000 (all approximate figures of course as they don't take in account any increases or inflation as I'm simply working on today's figures) means the offer will save the state just under a £1/4 Million pound over my lifetime, which I think is an inordinately reasonable offer considering their appalling behaviour and deception towards me.
That's it, there are my instructions and not up for debate. Good luck.
