Attacks on the Unemployed and Those on Benefit: The Right to a Livelihood Is Inviolable!

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Attacks on the Unemployed and Those on Benefit: The Right to a Livelihood Is Inviolable!

Nottingham Job Seekers Face Lie Detectors

For Your Reference:
Incapacity Benefit

Both the New Labour government and the Conservative opposition are launching an assault on British unemployed workers, not only threatening them but also blaming them for the problem of unemployment. There is a trend of competing amongst the two parties on who is tougher on those claiming benefits, and this is given aid by the “mainstream” media who promote with propaganda that the unemployed are a burden on society. So how do the workers affirm their right to a livelihood whether in work or unemployed? And what type of society needs to be created in order to give workers rights’ an unassailable guarantee?

            Conservative leader Cameron is setting out his “get tough” plan on unemployment benefit. This plan includes a “three strikes and you’re out” rule, under which if an unemployed person turns down three jobs then benefits will be stopped for six months. This will cost the individual £9,000 and £14,500 for couples, over three years. The Tories willingly announced that parents on Job Seekers’ or Incapacity Benefit could lose a third of their income under the new rules. Meanwhile New Labour is proudly stating that they are already carrying out a similar policy towards the unemployed and that they are also “tough” on the unemployed. This trend of competition between the bourgeois parties is abetted by the media who are now following the New Labour lead in whipping up a frenzy over Disability Benefit “fraud”. The small number of stories of benefit fraud are promoted massively in the headlines and are used to attempt to justify the clamp down on those receiving Disability Living Allowance (DLA), making life very difficult for claimants. Those who are unable to work due to disability must have the inviolable right to a livelihood to be provided for by the state, without fear of incrimination.

            Far from and sheltered from the life and needs of the unemployed,   Cameron as part of his “get tough” plan has now proposed that those who are long-term unemployed  must take up voluntary work or risk losing their benefits. So without being guaranteed a secure job and a livelihood, unemployed workers will be expected to do “service to the community” effectively making them slaves of the state.

            This situation of the exploitation of those who have not had their rights recognised is an attack that must awaken unemployed workers to the crisis of society. Throughout British history there have been unemployed workers’ unions and movements to end unemployment and affirm the right to a livelihood. Unemployed workers struggles are part of the whole working class movement and so the question must be posed as one of defending the rights of all. These inviolable rights must be provided with a legal guarantee. Only by taking up these questions of how the working class and people can create a government which holds the people as sovereign and upholds the central human right to employment as inviolable, can we move towards creating a society that answers these questions.

Notts Indymedia, 11.01.2008

Beginning this month as part of an extended pilot scheme, residents of Nottingham will be subject to Voice Risk Analysis when telephoning to make a claim for Job Seekers' Allowance.

            Voice Risk Analysis (VRA) software analyses a person's “normal” voice and flags up changes in frequency and tone characteristics which may mean the person is lying. The DWP has helped to fund a series of local pilot schemes to study the effectiveness of the technology in reducing so-called "benefit fraud" (which pales into insignificance when compared with tax evasion by the rich). Even amongst those who worry about such things, there is scepticism about this usefulness of this technology as an anti-fraud tool. Mainstream critics say that savings do not necessarily mean the software is accurately pinpointing fraudsters, arguing that genuine claimants may also be deterred from claiming when entitled to benefits.

            Following similar schemes in Edinburgh, Durham, Chester-le-Street, Harrow (London) and Birmingham, residents of Nottingham will now be subjected to having their speech analysed if seeking financial support while looking for work. The pilot will operate within a call centre in Lincoln from January for a limited period, concluding the DWP's research by around springtime. Presumably ministers will then decide whether to roll the technology out across the welfare sector in order to conserve tax payers' cash.

            People wanting the Job Seekers' benefit are now directed to initiate a claim by calling the Job Centre's New Claims number. Claims are initially assessed on the basis of information given over the telephone, but some people are required to attend an interview to provide additional information or evidence. The Job Centre Plus call centre in Lincoln will be using VRA software to monitor stress levels in callers' voices and identify claimants who may be trying to claim benefits when the state has decided they are not entitled. Callers who are identified as being a High Risk of fraud will then be interviewed and have their claims examined more closely.

            The VRA software, based on the polygraph and owned by the Capita group (who are involved in various government projects, including the nascent National identity Database), works by detecting inaudible fluctuations in the human voice which are linked with stress. However, the technology relies on a single measure unlike the traditional polygraph which also takes measurements of heart rate, respiratory rate (breathing), and sweating. (Bear in mind that even polygraphs cannot be used as evidence in courts due to their limited reliability.) The available scientific research into VRA is hardly an overwhelming endorsement of its accuracy. An American study published in 2005, for instance, tested five different VRA devices and five different operators, several of them with many years of experience. This paper found that these systems were only accurate in about 62% of cases, with the software giving 22% false positives and 14% false negatives.

            James Plaskitt, anti-fraud minister, said: “I'm always interested to deploy as much technology as we can to help us achieve further reductions in fraudulent claiming of benefits. We know that this particular piece of technology has been used for some years by the insurance industry in the UK, and they certainly claim considerable benefits from it. I think it's sensible for us to pilot it in respect of benefit claims.”

            DWP press officer Darragh McElroy could not point to any evidence to support the use of VRA software, but said DWP statisticians would analyse the results of the pilot recordings to evaluate the scheme’s success at detecting fraud. He said that applicants whom the software labels as “high risk” will be subject to further investigations into their personal lives, such as having bank accounts checked or visits to their homes, but that these were the usual checks. The software is hoped to replace the “‘eyes’ of the operative”, as face to face contact is phased out in favour of telephone applications.

            The Nottingham lie-detecting pilot scheme commences on January 28, targeting new and repeat claimants for Jobseeker’s Allowance and Income Support, and will run for approximately a month, before data from this and the other trials is processed and the decision made as to whether or not to proceed with the intention to roll out the use of the software for all benefits applications.

            It remains to be seen when similar technology will be introduced to assess the claims of government ministers.

(taken from an article “Tories and New Labour go after the disabled”, January 8, 2008, By Richard Seymour)

Incapacity benefits refers to a wide range of receipts. Incapacity Benefits proper are received by 1.4m people; national insurance credits for incapacity by 1m; and Severe Disablement allowance by 0.3m. There are a further 0.3m on Disability Living Allowance who are not included in the overall count. The IB claimant counts are highest in the older industrialised areas of the north, and two areas in Wales have IB claimant counts higher than their working age population. This is associated historically with mass redundancies in the former mammoth industries of coal and steel. Claimants tend to be older, and male – perhaps in part because women receive pension at 60, while men don’t receive it until the age of 65. There has already been a reduction in claimants registered in 2004, for the first time in a generation, and if this were to hold, then the reduction by 2015 would amount to 200,000. On the other hand, population dynamics could see trends in the opposite direction – if IB claimants over fifty increase by the same rate as the over-fifty population, then the overall count will have 115,000 added to it. Overall, regardless of policy, the current flows extrapolated to 2015 would add 67,000 to the count. And, since women will have their pension age revised upward to 65 by 2020, the claimant count would be increased further.

            In theory, there are enough “hidden unemployed” in the IB claimant figures to reduce them by one million. The government’s proposed measures for dealing with this include precisely those recommended by the Tories – introduce compulsory work-focused interviews with the intention of sorting out those who can work from those who cannot. The benefit will be phased out for all but the most sick or incapacitated and replaced by Employment and Support Allowance, with a strong element of conditionality – recipients must accept forms of training and education designed to get them into work, for face financial penalties. And until they receive their Personal Capability Assessment, claimants will receive exactly what they would on the Job Seekers Allowance (presently £59.15 per week for a single person over 25), thus removing a financial incentive to claim incapacity benefit (£61.35 for short-term incapacitated; £72.55 from weeks 29 to 52; £81.35 for long-term incapacitated) – actually, as you can see here, the financial incentive is initially tiny. Only those expecting to be on IB for a long time would expect a financial benefit from it. That is why one of the government’s other proposed measures is to remove the escalation after six and twelve months. They also intend to “support” GPs in “helping” people return to work – suspected to amount to target-based pressure to force people into accepting work. The journal’s research suggests that even these stern measures will not reach the government’s target – at best, they might remove half a million from the count by 2015, which means that they would have to find a way to double the impact of their existing measures. Most of the reduction would have to be in those areas mentioned earlier – old industrialised parts of the north with high unemployment.