Government Bureaucracy, how it trips itself up.

Today I had to go to a Job Centre in Southend on Sea, to have an initial meeting with a Work-Coach. I have had to move back this way for a few months to overwinter … domestic separation is frankly a nuisance (to put it mildly). 

Why is a visit to a Job Centre worthy of a blog? Easy to answer. As per a post from a few weeks ago, Airing your personal disaster laundry in public. I have discovered that I was set on (in my opinion) the wrong road when I was pushed in the direction of Employment Support Allowance. 

How did I deduce this? Again, Easy. My newly assigned Work-Coach in Southend on Sea asked me about the pre-existing health condition (back injury, current but mending, with an over-arching long-term limitation), and said that I needed to register with a local GP and provide Fmed3 certificates until such time as I feel fit for work if that is appropriate. 

She told me that if I need to take the “Health Journey” within the Universal Credit system I will have to go through the process of having … wait for it … A Work Capability Assessment, within the Universal Credit system.

So, I was right. I am right. I was injured I needed space to recover. There is an existing system in place to account for the process. Job Seekers Allowance using FMed3 forms (Fit Notes to you and I), and if you have run out of national Insurance credits for the purposes of Job Seekers Allowance you fall into the Universal Credit remit. If you are sick while on either Job Seekers Allowance or Universal Credit, all you need to do is provide Fmed3 forms (Fit Notes to you and I) until you are well enough to work again, and or it is decided that you can’t work anymore. In my humble opinion, I am now fit for work and looking for a part-time role to carry me through the winter until I can Exfil back to the West Country.

What shouldn’t have happened? Easy to answer again. I shouldn’t have been moved from a Job Seekers Allowance to Employment Support Allowance. I should have been told to provide FMed3 forms (Fit Notes to you and I) within the Job Seekers Allowance process and or Universal Credit process until such time as I was fit for work.  And not be put into a stream for people who may have “perpetual” Limited Capability for Work. A private letter costing £30 would have been useful in bridging the gap and certifying from a medical perspective, that I can’t do manual work long-term because I only have two working lumbar disks and they are as Isildur would say “Precious to me”.

Let’s briefly talk about the qualifying criteria for Employment Support Allowance. Well actually let’s just post a link to the form, then you can read it through and see exactly how stringent the criteria are to qualify as having limited Capability to Work. And bear in mind I know a guy who manages a massive garden centre from the confines of a motorised wheelchair (quadriplegic). His neck was broken at the age of twenty-one (passenger in a car that crashed). I tore some soft tissue in the lumbar slipping on ice, I may have ricked the cage at my lowest fusion site but I still haven’t seen an orthopaedic specialist or had any form of scan.

ESA Limited capability for work form

ESA50-capability-for-work-questionnaire.pdf

Then let’s look at the equivalent Universal Credit, Limited capability for work form

UC50-interactive.pdf 

Apart from the form's internal number and layout (Four page overall difference, down to line spacing as far as I can tell) … spot the material difference. I am not going to investigate further than this. I am going to ask what’s the point? What is the point of having two separate streams of assessment with the same stringent criteria to measure limited capability for work?

I have an official complaint in progress. I am told there will be a response to me by the 27th of October 21.

Things I already know.

Job Centres don’t record calls. They can’t necessarily see everything from every other silo and vice versa. 

Job Centre and call centre operatives working from home don’t record calls. No one takes notes verbatim; they write what they think they heard not what was said (if at all). It could be that the notes just say the time and date of the call and nothing more.

Call centre staff in call centres do record calls. No one takes notes verbatim; they write what they think they heard not what was said (if at all). It could be that the notes just say the time and date of the call and nothing more.

Someone from Newport tried to swerve the complaint and say that it was invalid. They hadn’t actually read it, they just tried to dismiss it. I had to insist it was moved forward.

The paperwork for the work capability assessment did go missing. This I already thought I knew. However, it had been dismissed, by a Job Centre manager in Bridgwater … turns out she was wrong.

Where do our taxes go? Where is the value add in all this? Why are there these ridiculous silos? How is Universal Credit, universal, when it is nested in with all these other duplicate systems? Why is there Job Seekers Allowance, New Style Job Seekers Allowance, Employment Support Allowance, New Style Employment Support Allowance? And a plethora of others.

I’ll just say, right here that the answer to all of this idiocy is UNIVERSAL BASIC INCOME. Just think about the savings.

Having worked all my life mostly in commercial areas. I struggle with government systems, I struggle with bureaucracy, I struggle with petty bureaucracy, I struggle with the mess, the convolutions, the silos, duplication, the misinformation caused by the complexity that serves no purpose, except it seems to bamboozle the public create a smokescreen for people to hide behind and as I said elsewhere, allow people to avoid all responsibility, through judicious buck-passing.

This isn’t the government of the day's fault, or the previous governments or indeed successive governments over decades. This shit is the fault of the civil service, it’s willfully and woefully inefficient because it provides security of tenure by dint of opacity.

Airing your personal disaster laundry in public (over 6000 words, it takes a while to read).

I emailed a copy of this letter to the following members of parliament and the Sun Newspaper (firing for effect). it is over 6000 words, it takes a while to read, but if you are in any way affected by the same or similar issues, then I want to hear from you.

 therese.coffey.mp@parliament.uk, Department of Works and Pensions.

 sajid.javid.mp@parliament.uk, Health Secretary.

 james.heappey.mp@parliament.uk, My local MP.

christopher.pincher.mp@parliament.uk, The housing minister.

 boris.johnson.mp@parliament.uk, Their boss.

Dear Sirs and Madam

I am writing to you today to recount the events of the last eight months. There will be references to periods of time extending back to the mid-1980’s. For context, I will start there.

In 1986 I had a long spinal fusion to correct Scheuermann's kyphosis plus scoliosis, from T1 to L3. In layman’s terms, this means my entire thoracic spine was fused along with a third of my Lumbar spine at age seventeen.

In 1996, I had the Harrington rods that provide the structural support for the fusion removed as they had broken in three places. As you can maybe imagine this means I have scars that run the entire length of my spine, plus two others above my hips at the rear, from where bone was removed for grafting during the fusion process.

In 2001 after a minor accident lifting, I herniated one of my remaining lumbar disks (L5/S1) and was recommended for surgery, with the caveat that it may not be the cure for chronic sciatica I was suffering.

Over the course of the next six years (all while still working), I tried all manner of alternative therapies, from acupuncture, chiropractic interventions, Lumbar spine epidural nerve root injections (X-ray guided needles poked into your intervertebral spaces. It is not without risk). Zombyfying pain killers, hanging upside down on an inversion table, and mechanical traction under the guidance of an NHS physiotherapist. My surgeon at the time said it was advisable to avoid surgery if at all possible because I only had three working Lumbar disks. (I forgot to write in the version I sent to the ministers above, also had private chiropractic interventions),

In 2007 I had to concede defeat and underwent spinal decompression surgery at The National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery. I had bi-lateral Hemi-Laminectomy, Foraminotomy, and micro-diskectomy, at selected sites at Lumbar levels: L4/L5 and L5/S1. This is major surgery, on two of the three remaining Lumbar disks.

In 2011 after soldering on for four more years, I had to have the L5/S1 Lumbar section fused. This is major surgery. I had a follow up twelve-week group physio course at UCLH in 2012.

To summarize. Of twenty-four mobile bones in my spine, I have fifteen that are fixed. Of the mobile bones in my spine, seven are in my neck. One remaining lumbar disk L4/L5 has a narrowing, as demonstrated by X-ray in April 2019 (at the time of another `minor injury’ that rolled on for weeks).**

The scarring from these four surgeries run from just beneath my neck to my coccyx. My spine has been opened four times. Both, thoracic and lumbar sites have been opened independently twice each (plus the overlaps between sites at the base of my back).

Between 2011 and 2021 I have had numerous problems but have soldiered/managed through injuries that are frequent, given the overall instability in the lumbar spine. I have tried as far as reasonably possible not to allow the back problem to get in the way of work, in spite of several periods of intense pain, or lack of mobility because I have been “stuck” due to instability in the two remaining mobile disks in my lumbar spine. These incidents can last from hours to days, and with injury weeks and months.

** In 2019 I had an issue that left me crippled for six weeks, after pulling something while in the garden. It was suspected to be yet another soft tissue injury and not as first feared damage to the cage at the site of the L5/S1 fusion. Needless to say, I soldiered through and went to work in spite of the massive difficulties I was having. However, the people I worked for at the time (company name omitted) were understanding and could see I was in trouble. The boss bought me a special chair to accommodate my injury and to ensure my comfort long-term. After two and a half months things were relatively stable. Life carried on. It has been suggested that I tore internal scar tissue mid-spine and lumbar. However, at the start of this injury, I could only walk from the house to my car, about twenty-five metres, this went on for weeks. I couldn’t swim more than two strokes, back or front crawl, for weeks.

Roll forward to January 2021. I went out into our little car park on January the 9th 2021 to feed the birds. As I stepped off a kerb, my left foot made solid contact with the ground (all good) but my right unbeknown to me was on black ice and shot out from underneath me backwards at an unfeasible rate and stopped. I didn’t drop the birdseed, I didn’t fall. I had a little chuckle at how lucky I had been (the scariest thing for me is snow and ice). I had a minor twinge in the lumbar, I thought I would be able to settle it down with a walk (if you have a back problem, move as often as you can). The night following, I had peripheral neuropathy, and sciatic pain while walking but much more so when lying down, this is a very bad situation. Standing sciatica eases when you lie down. lying down sciatica prevents you sleeping. Best bet, take it easy but keep mobile. Night two, severe sciatica while laying down, hardly any sleep.

To cut a long story short I then spent six weeks (initially) in the most, sleep-deprived agonised state I have ever been in (and that includes the periods of surgery over the years, because in hospital they give you morphine).

I was working for a company in Cheddar (company name omitted) having been made redundant the previous September after seven months of furlough. The company made no attempts to accommodate the injury, and I was met with comments to the effect that everyone has a bad back. Man, up and shut. I was sitting on a broken chair, and my immediate manager wouldn’t buy me a new chair because I was still on probation (I had no clue that there was an access to work scheme that may have assisted, and the outcomes below may never have happened).

Needless to say, that with a combination of sitting on a decrepit chair and with what was a severe injury around the lumbar, the loss of sleep, because I couldn’t risk taking opiate enhanced paracetamol … because it would compound the lack of sleep, with a drug-induced brain fog the next day. I was suffering very badly at work. This is not ideal when you are estimating or dealing with people over the phone or face to face, and dealing with large sums of money, in terms of orders and materials.

I wasn’t happy, I was in severe pain almost twenty-four seven. I couldn’t even walk to the end of our cul-de-sac for the first few weeks. And it was six weeks before I could walk three-hundred-and-sixty metres (that was a big day … though I should have walked one-hundred and eighty metres because the walk back was horrific).

My partner said I should walk away from the job as she couldn’t stand my moaning about the pain and the idiocy at work, and she didn’t want me more broken than I already was. After two weeks of batting the idea around and thinking about the cost to our lifestyle. I finally conceded defeat. I gave them notice and left in February. I wasn’t getting any better quickly, in spite of bringing a memory foam mattress from our camper into the house to modify my bed. NB: My partner and I sleep separately because I have issues with space, and I fidget a lot and have spasms occasionally (though since January they are far more frequent; leg and whole-body).

I couldn’t see my GP. The best advice I could get was take Naproxen for a month (that is a huge period of time to be taking that medication, the recommended period is around five days). I need to say that compounding the lumbar back issue, was an emergent issue with my neck (wear and tear, and chronic tennis elbow). I did as I was told and took the medication. Things settled to, debilitating but not permanently agonised, but still very problematic day to day, day to night. Lockdown ended I could start swimming again. Swimming aggravated the neck problem for a while, but it made no difference to the back, other than the fact that as soon as I was effectively weightless in the water I could again manage my cardiovascular fitness.

I have had to alter the way I swim and the way I turn at the end of the pool (much the same as prior to surgery in 2007 and 2011).

After waiting six weeks from the time, I quit my job, I needed to sign on for Job-Seekers Allowance. It was time to look for a new job. But by signing on at a Jobcentre I could make sure I was in the system for NI purposes and any help I could get finding a job.

I filled in the online form, and a few days later a young lady from Bridgwater Jobcentre called me to go through the security ID and onboarding process. Fair enough, all normal so far.

She asked me about any health issues. In the past I haven’t said a word about my back problems because employers discriminate against people with bad backs; they are liability, I know this from experience (I only told `company name omitted' after the fact). However, I was still in a lot of trouble from the injury in January. So, I told the young lady all about my back problem, and the fact that I was looking for work but would have to be very choosy about roles I applied for. I genuinely thought that’s all I would have to do. A note would be put on the system so a Work-Coach could see you that you couldn’t just take any old job -say in light manufacturing or warehousing- of which there is a great deal in this part of Somerset.

The young lady informed me that I wasn’t eligible for Job-Seeker’s allowance because it sounded like I had “Limited Capability for Work”. She said she would advise some other department internally of the situation and that I should go online and apply for Employment and Support Allowance because that initiated a process of assessment to determine how limited my capability for work is. It sounded like a bit of a bureaucratic faff when a £30 private letter from my GP would have covered the same ground. This I know, because I paid £30 for the letter (later refunded, when issues moved beyond my control).

I did as I was told.

There were no shortcuts. No way for the DWPs systems to acknowledge that I clearly have a long-standing back problem (forty years if you include the time from the start of the scoliosis until now, I was fourteen, I am fifty-four now), I needed this recognition so that during back to work interviews I could mitigate for refusing manual jobs, which in essence is all I really needed long-term. And in the short term, I needed space to recover from this current injury.

Needless to say, I filled in the thirty-eight-page Employment & Support Allowance form as honestly and as best I could (in spite of being told by my first Work-Coach to make sure I only described the situation in the context of the worst days). I couldn’t get a raft of supporting information in time, so sent the forms in with just the information I had from private practice from a few years ago. My medical centre in Burnham-on-Sea is understaffed and struggling to keep up with demand. In an ironic twist of fate, after I sent the forms in the post a letter arrived saying that the DWP didn’t have sight of my completed forms and I was being given a mandatory two-week extension to the four weeks already provided. These events overlapped by a day or so.

I was granted ESA on the basis of further assessment.

My assigned Work-Coach told me that they would support me, and I didn’t have to look for work, and instead should concentrate on recovery, while I awaited the assessment. I just had to provide F-med3 fit-notes regularly and on time. I did as I was told.

My first Work-Coach and I had two conversations and then he left.

I was assigned a new Work-Coach, but he was sick the first time I was supposed to speak to him, so, spoke to someone who was covering his work for a day. I did eventually speak with my newly appointed Work-Coach, who reiterated that the point of being on ESA was to get better, await the outcome of the assessment, and then make a subsequent plan.

I was told that there were extensive delays to the assessment system due to the DWP not dealing with new claims for several months because of the pandemic and it would be a waiting game (this was in April 2021). Eventually, I was given an appointment to speak to an assessor on the 16th of June 2021. I spent an hour and forty-eight minutes on the phone with a lady from an external assessing company contracted to the DWP.

Roll forward to the 8th of August and I hadn’t heard anything, even though I had phoned for updates, and spoken to my Work-Coach at the Bridgwater Jobcentre regarding the outcome of the assessment. In early August I was told in a snotty manner by someone in the general contact centre that `there was a backlog and eventually I’d be spoken to’. This person didn’t investigate, this person didn’t look. I waited on hold for forty-nine minutes to be dismissed as a nuisance (so much for treating people with dignity), frankly, I was livid. My life at that time was becoming strained, tense uncertain, and I still carry the injury, not quite as bad, but still very temperamental and random, I have had a lot of setbacks doing very little. I am worried sick about my future. What if this is just me into old age? I was asked on the assessment interview if I was suicidal, and it caught me short because I realised that in the back of my mind, that I had seriously thought that if this is me going forward, then getting off the bus early is a consideration. No one as active as I have been wants to live their days, idle and in pain. You know after surgery that there is a long road to recovery. When you don’t know what has been broken, how do you determine the destination in time?

We interrupt now for a slice of life at home between my partner and I.

It’s now early to mid-August, she is working full-time. I am at home, wandering about like a ghost, flitting between sitting, standing, and walking because I am still very symptomatic, still not sleeping, and have had to pester my GP surgery several more times since January (I should have gone to Accident and Emergency in direct contradiction of the instructions from the Government and Public Health England). I have had to take a couple of long-term courses of Naproxen and Codeine Enhanced Paracetamol to help me through the very bad periods. These are random and the trigger events are opaque, it just happens with. You can go to bed fine and wake up ruined, walk too far (but no distance relative to my life before January 9th, 2021), lift something awkwardly, trip, cough, take your pick, and this isn’t an exhaustive list.

I still haven’t seen a GP (at the time or since), but the MSK (Musculo Skeletal Nurse Practitioner -Nurse Kate) has confirmed to my GP that I have a problem and that she should confirm to the DWP, to support my claim for ESA. This happened between the 6th of May and the 17th of May 2021.

In lieu of seeing the doctor, I have written letters describing the ongoing problem, and then have been getting texts to say that prescriptions are waiting for me, or I have been referred to an external orthopaedic centre 26th of August 2021 (I have jumped a few minor steps here, this already runs to plus 6000 words).

By the end of June, my partner is getting impatient and testy, by the end of July, we start to bicker more often. I have slowed down, I am risk assessing everything I do, for effort and duration, lifting bending, repetition etc. Life is fraught, I am trying to mend myself while flailing about in ignorance of what is actually wrong. Exacerbations of the current injury are frequent and debilitating, I am not a lot of fun to be around.

Late August Early September my partner wonders if I’m doing enough to chase matters up, after all it’s three months since the assessment and seven months since I left my job to recover.

In between times under the guidance of the Jobcentre Work-Coaches I have applied for PIP and done as I’m told and concentrated on getting well (if at all possible), and only looking for work if I feel it’s sensible roles I can manage. Some days you think you’re fine. Others you wake up with a setback, intense soreness in the lumbar area, sciatica, rigidity that takes hours to loosen off, or you brush your teeth and get stuck, have minor footdrop and trip etc etc etc. That or you have tossed and turned sleeplessly for hours, because of restless leg or sciatica, and are just totally and utterly washed out and useless.

Things start to get messy now. I have had to write to the GP again at the start of August and am given a telephone call appointment with a General Nurse Practitioner. He and I have spoken a couple of times now. He seems fairly competent and appears to understand MSK issues quite well. He has said that the damage I have done in January is permanent and that going forward “Naproxen is my best friend.” (Those exact words, in that order). I Take two weeks of Naproxen twice a day. I stop taking them on the 18th of August, and by the morning of the 20th of August, I am back to square one.

Caveat: I still haven’t seen a GP, I haven’t had a CAT Scan, MRI, or X-ray. The diagnosis above is the nurse practitioners best guess. Frankly, that’s not very reassuring. For all I know there is a further narrowing of the L4/L5 disk space from the position in 2019, and all my symptoms could be due to that. It could be adhesions. It could be what he has suggested: hardened internal scar tissue that frequently tears and induces a chronic inflammation of the lumbar area that then causes, sciatica, peripheral neuropathy, numbness, paraesthesia (pins and needles), the result of which is constant pain, sleepless nights, and a constant state of fatigue, and sometimes triggers the need to urinate (though quite often it’s just the sensation and nothing happens. That is a nerve being triggered abnormally due to other inflammation). A blood test has ruled out an inflammatory disease, however, it’s taken a while to get a blood test and I have been taking high doses of anti-inflammatory medication.

Pre-sleep/relaxation body spasms are another symptom, as is the body/brains necessity to wake up to move during the night because the pain has overcome the effects of painkillers. I can say that I haven’t had these kinds of problems with these levels of frequency, since surgeries, or periods leading up to surgeries, and definitely not for as long as the current period (eight months). I haven’t slept through a single night in eight months.

All the above means I am depressed, lost in limbo. I am not in charge of my destiny. I am stuck in a system that I can’t get out of until I have a decision about my capability for work, or limited capability there-in. If I bail out and just get a job, and things go wrong again, I go to the back of the queue and have to start all over again. Based on the year so far that is not ideal, and it means lying to potential employers about my health status (it really is as simple as that). So, I wait for the outcome of the assessment.

Relations between my partner and I are getting toxic. I can’t perform in the bedroom, I can’t be touched or hugged because I’m touchy about being pulled about and hurt, which seems so easy lately, she feels rejected.

I am more depressed and still stuck in limbo. On the 6th of September 2021 she asks me in a belligerent manner to leave our home of seven years, our third in thirteen. She is sick and fed up with me hanging around, not earning, not being very communicative, being bad-tempered and introverted. I ignore the request. On the 7th it’s not mentioned again I assume things have settled. On the 8th of September 2021, she stresses that she wants me gone. And so, I take a few things and borrow the camper and drive  to my son's housing association flat and become technically homeless (had I known better I would have just stayed in our home, but to avoid exacerbating the problems I left).

I then spend some days trying to sort out my affairs to find out where I am in the ESA assessment process and with regards to my PIP claim/assessment. I call on the 14th of September, I speak to a man who finally looks further than the front page of my case on the DWP system. He goes away for a while and comes back to tell me that the assessment report hasn’t been passed back to the DWP since it was carried out in June. He will follow it up.

Remember it’s already too late. My relationship of thirteen years has broken down. I am no longer living in my house.

I get a voicemail from the snotty chap I spoke to in August, on the 17th of September 2021, saying that my stuff is being `found’ and passed to a decision-maker. He is more concerned that I haven’t answered my phone and that I should keep my phone switched on. It was on, I was in a rural location with poor mobile reception. The man is not nice, his attitude to DWP clients is frankly demeaning.

I have emailed the central contact centre to try and get a message to my Work-Coach to update him on the details, to change postal address and landline number so I don’t miss any more calls. But I get no response. I have chased up in-between times to find out what’s going on with no success, other than the stock response that there are massive delays and I just need to be patient.

I am already homeless and my relationship with partner of thirteen years has broken down.

On the 22nd of September 2021 my Work-Coach calls for our regular catchup. I tell him what has transpired at home (he was never notified of my attempt to contact him; he doesn’t have a direct dial). And I still haven’t had the results of my assessment. He can’t see on the system if my assessment has been returned (not in his gift). I have to phone the general number again. I speak to a lady. She updates all my details and tells me that the report hasn’t been passed to a decision-maker, but the DWP don’t have the result. I am now classed as “Residing with Family.” I have no idea what that status means, it isn’t explained.

Later, on the same day, the 22nd of September 2021 (about 16.30), I receive a call from a decision-maker. This person has no idea what has been going on. He tells me that he was passed the report on the 21st of September and that it was urgent and outstanding. The assessor has decided that I am just capable of work and has assigned me no points in any category.

Remember all I wanted was a note on the system to say I have a long-term back condition that means certain jobs are out of scope for me.

The form and the interview don’t appear to recognise any of the pre-existing conditions. Effectively it says as long as I can find work that won’t exacerbate my back issues go to work. What it fails to do in every instance is a note that I have a pre-existing spinal issue, which means the Jobcentre can’t point me in the direction of manual work or give me the right to tell employers that I have a bad back, and cannot do manual work, especially repetitive or involving manual handling.

Now here is the travesty that has turned into a personal tragedy.

Had the DWP passed the report to a decision-maker in good time, my partner and I wouldn’t have reached an impasse and then split up so catastrophically. I wouldn’t have had time to become manically lost and depressed in uncertainty while waiting for this outcome.

The decision-maker I spoke to on the 22nd of September, and I had a long chat. I am astute, I could hear a man who didn’t get it. A man who told me to reject the assessment once I have read it (so much for that as a suggestion ... they closed the case the same day, and I am not even entitled to a mandatory review according to a guy I spoke to on the 27th of September 2021). And in doing so can continue to get a small amount of money; currently £298 PCM, this doesn’t go far (I am living on my son’s charity).

I have followed the rules. I have done as I have been told. I have been honest and not exaggerated my symptoms and given an open honest account to the assessor and to all other concerned parties over the last eight months. The ongoing back issue remains unresolved, not formally diagnosed; though I am now after eight months on a list … to join a waiting list to get further MSK assessment. I am still in recovery and not back to what I would call my 100% as I understand it.

Maybe we’ll get some imagery. Then maybe I will have a better idea of how to manage my degenerative condition going forward.

Because of the delay in this reports return and its finding not being passed back to the DWP and then to me, for three and a half months, there has been time for my relationship with my partner to decay catastrophically.

Because of this delay, because of being held in limbo at the express instruction of my Work-Coaches and the system, I have lost the woman I love and called my partner of thirteen years, and everything We/I have worked for and created in our home since we moved in on the 1st of May 2014. Had it not been for the pandemic we were going to get married last year.

Because of the issues around GP appointments and the absolute absence of face-to-face time with a GP I have been fobbed off. I’ve been given a “best guess” diagnosis and told that this condition is permanent. And yet that is at complete variance to the assessment of the DWP’s independent assessor, who by dint of not awarding any points to my case suggests there is nothing wrong and that I can just carry on working within my capabilities (not defined).

This, therefore, leaves me open to being put forward for work that could cause me physical problems. Never mind the fact that once I start working again if the current situation continues, and that sleep deprivation and pain continue to plague me … I won’t be able to perform at work, at the technical level that I was previously capable. This shoves me down an echelon into work that is more menial, and therefore far more likely to exacerbate the problem, and doing so reduces my quality of life, quality of mental and physical health and ultimately induces further long-term health issues related to the degeneration of (primarily) my remaining two working lumbar disks. One of which is already narrowing L4/L5.

Clearly, that puts me in the position of being a drone, who works, recovers, and works again, with no consideration for quality of life. Never mind the fact, that as the remaining two lumbar disks degenerate, I am exposed to the potential of having no mobility in my spine beneath my neck due to further fusion surgery or disk degeneration. I already have some arthritis in my hips because they carry a greater load of overall suspension than they should because my spinal column transfers the load directly to my hips. This isn’t postulation or theory, this is a “something to be aware of” going forward, as advised by both physiotherapists and an orthopaedic surgeon I saw privately for epidural injections in the early 2000’s at BUPA Harpenden. This is why I swim religiously.

Is this the Great British ideal? Is this what we aspire to? For all our systems and contributions over decades, I as a white working-age male of British descent find myself to be at the bottom of every pile. I have literally fallen through every crack in the system and hit every branch of the incompetence tree on the way down, from the very first advice to apply for Employment & Support Allowance, by someone who clearly doesn’t/didn’t understand how strict and limited the criteria for application were, to the unavailability of diagnostic services.

I have to say, when I was filling in the forms, I thought it all looked a bit extreme and not applicable. And I will reiterate that from the outset, all I really wanted was space to recover, and not to be forced to work in roles that could have longer-term detrimental effects on a pre-existing condition.

Let me say this. After the experience of the last few months, and after the experience of the last three weeks, as things came to a festering head at home. And now in the lea of the decision as imparted to me on the 22nd of September, in a supreme display of back covering; and in the knowledge that was the paperwork not lost in transit somewhere three months ago. I would still be enjoying life with my partner of thirteen years, and not living hand to mouth in camper van. With the very real prospect (as stated in the covering letter from the DWP) that my meagre £289 Employment & Support Allowance ceases to be paid from the 22nd of September.

As of today the 27th of September, I am without any financial support.

I now understand with a rare and terrible clarity, why people connect vacuum hoses to exhaust pipes, take overdoses, throw themselves from cliffs or slit their wrists in hot baths. I feel absolutely betrayed.

Incompetence has cost me everything. It has ruined my life, and I have no doubt whatsoever that my now vibrant joyous ex-partner is feeling torn lost and as confused as I am. There are no winners in break-up, there are just questions. How’s? what ifs? and what happened’s?

To continue past the emotion and the fury I feel at this situation put upon me, we need to look at the next steps, which at first glance look as moronic, convoluted, confused and contradictory as the previous debacle.

I have never been on benefits. However, from the look of things, I am no longer entitled to Employment Support Allowance (pending review ... well that isn't going to happen). I may be entitled to Universal Credit until such times as I find a job. But you can’t get Universal Credit for housing if you aren’t in a house. But if you haven’t got an income, you can’t get a house. This circular idiocy is why people remain homeless. Never mind the fact that being homeless makes you undesirable to employers in the first place (so do you lie about your housing situation? Blag it? Hope you last long enough to pull together enough deposit and rent money and hope you can find a flat close to where you work so you can rebuild your life?

I find it staggering when confronted with the contradictions of the systems that are supposed to support are so fractured, disjointed, and difficult to navigate, with people within the DWP, who have not one whit of a clue how parts of the same organisation work, and use expedience to absolve themselves of responsibility, and or plead ignorance by dint of demarcation.

I have spoken to Homes in Sedgemoor. They have told me that because I am on the deeds of a property, I am technically not homeless and that also technically I am entitled to legally re-enter my former home. I think my former partner may prefer that didn’t happen. I can only hope when she reads this, that she sees how she has become as much a victim of incompetence and idiocy as I have.

Homes in Sedgemoor say that there are far too many people looking for one-bedroom places than there is supply (bedroom tax seems to be a massive factor in compounding the issue). They estimate a best guess of four years to get into a place. The private sector for rental properties locally is non-existent. Homes in Sedgemoor has said that since the pandemic, it has been inundated with newly single men looking for homes. All the collateral damage of multiple lockdowns.

This is like living in the surreal world of the film Brazil. A single clerical error within the government's systems has crashed my life. And beyond that my now ex-partner and I have to unpick thirteen years of togetherness, and to tarnish our memories, our hopes and all the work we have done together. Our mortgage-free and settled lives are now ruined as solicitors fill their coffers while my ex-partner and I try and work out who is owed what for the thirteen years, and three houses we have owned between us. While working and paying taxes, filling pension pots and being good citizens.

I’ll say it again for effect. White working-age British men are the most systemically discriminated bunch of people in the UK in terms of support from civil systems, that people like me pay into for all their working lives.

All the words above convey the facts. What is beyond words, beyond my ability to describe is the maelstrom of emotions: anger, rage, disgust, confusion, incredulity, fear, hurt, loss, desperation. Walking the line between what would be easy in the face of such overwhelming incompetence and odds of clawing my way back up … Suicide. And the alternative, of which this is step one, trying to navigate a set of bureaucracies, that seem to be designed to make them less accessible.

I broadly assume the purpose of this inaccessibility is to dissuade claimants and push them in the direction of work. However, for the genuine claimant, it just makes the systems opaque. And I think we can agree I’m not without grey matter, and I struggle with the circular nature of the government’s offerings.  I am reminded frequently of the “for next loop, 10 goto 10” problem of old computers and denial of service attacks, designed to frustrate and confuse. This suggests that the people that design the systems are gatekeepers, not facilitators. It also suggests that there is an absence of trust between the civil service, the government, and the people that these institutions serve. It suggests that shared information is a loss of power and that the arcane arts of the civil services arms are not for the people. In which case what have I been paying for over thirty years?

I have registered a request via the Citizens Advice Bureau to find out how I can seek compensation for the loss of my home. The world-shattering loss of my relationship. The utter despair and sense of incomprehensibility at how this happened. And for the fallout that is going rain down on my partner and I for “who knows how long?” because Government systems are idiotic. I will reiterate one more time for the record. All I wanted was space to recover, and not to be pushed forward for all conceivable roles via Jobcentre plus, due to a pre-existing back problem. For clarity: In 2014 when my partner and I returned from travelling around Europe in our camper van, and I attended Bridgwater Jobcentre, no quarter was given for my back problem. This is why based on direct experience of the system, that this time, I made the concession to myself, and accepted the path offered to allow me to mitigate long term health risks. And look where it’s gotten me?

My mother says I try too hard to be normal, I spend too much time pretending that I don’t have a problem, covering it up, denying, putting on a brave face, seeing setbacks surgeries and injuries as challenges to be overcome, the long war for self. Now we know what happens when you surrender.

You couldn’t make it up.

This Means War (on the DWP).

I have fallen through every crack in every system and hit every branch of the incompetence tree on the way through. I will post a copy of the letter I have written to my MP, The DWP minister, The Health Secretary, and the housing minister, describing the events of the last eight months, in a subsequent post. I wasn't going to, but I don't really have a choice now.

I stand here today in a state of disbelief at how catastrophically badly run our civil service systems are run. How convoluted, complex and short-sighted they are. How narrow the bandings are? How inflexible they are. How little, people from department to department ... desk to desk, seem to know about the systems they administer. The absolute absence of integrity or taking of responsibility for errors and omissions and the subsequent catastrophic results for external parties (me).

You speak to people, and all have their own view, or interpretation and there is no consistency. And if you hit a habitual gatekeeper or petty bureaucrat, by crikey are you going to struggle. Never mind "Computer says NO", find someone who just wants to do the minimum and bounce out calls for the flimsiest reasons but hit their KPI for answering a phone, and then hides behind "it's not in my remit." "That's a different section." "no one is available." etc etc

You are told things that are entirely contradictory, by people in the same place/department or organisation on the same day. People who are blithering on, from their stock set of responses, without looking further than the end of their noses. To then be forced to; only to find that now their noses are going rubbed in it because they weren't willing to look when first asked. Once this is done, all you can hear is the sound of back-pedalling and excuses.

Systems shut you down with no chance of appeal and no room to move, and the people that manage these systems apparently have no control over them (there is the "the computer says No." aspect, in addition to intractable people). There is a deliberate and conscious effort and cultural imperative to; Back-cover, deny, and clear evidence of failure ... bad luck I keep every email.

I count myself fortunate, that I have a certain intellect, and have kept notes for eight months, because, had I not; then I have not the first clue what I would do. 

As I have said in the letter that I will publish on my blog. It is easy to see why people (I am positive I am by no means alone) when confronted with such overwhelming crass stupidity, end up committing suicide. And I don't say that lightly or for dramatic effect, feels or likes. Lesser minds, less well organised, who may have blindly trusted a system to find themselves where I am today, could easily crumble, and I get it 100%. The mind truly boggles. 

To suggest that it's all just an aspect of the pandemic, and therefore no one is to blame, denies utterly the structural failings of pre-existing systems, and the government's inability to get its people working from home while imposing that condition on millions of people and companies UK wide. I am not going to be collateral damage. I am going to be dishing it out.

I am going to be creating some very big waves going forward.