Over half the people ruled ‘fit to work’ by ATOS were left unemployed without any income, according to a new government study.
The department of Work and Pensions have admitted that 55% of people who lost their disability benefits after assessments with the french IT company were unable to find employment. 30% were relying on other forms of benefit and only 15% had found a job.
The DWP was forced to release the figures following a Freedom of Information request.
Public anger continues to grow towards the firm, hired by the DWP to slash the benefits bill, after assessing terminally ill claimants as ‘fit to work’. Citizens Advice Scotland alone have received over 24,000 complaints against them. Their current contract is worth £110 million.
The figures were collected through a survey of 1100 people deemed fit to work. A follow up survey of 590 claimants found 43% were still without any form of income, 28% were on other benefits and 29% had found employment. They were conducted between April and June 2009 and were included in a report for the DWP in 2011.
Earlier this week a former ATOS nurse Joyce Drummond spoke out against the firm, claiming that her role was to ‘trick’ people out of their benefits. She was instructed to assess people as fit to work if they were able to write or attended interviews properly dress- even if her medical experience indicated that they wouldn’t be able to cope with employment.
“If someone came in with a toddler in tow, they were doomed because if they could manage a child, they could surely work.”
She found the role so distressing that she left the company.
Defending their role in the crackdown on benefits, an Atos spokesperson has said “Our doctors, nurses and physiotherapists use their clinical knowledge and apply the Government’s policy and criteria to each assessment.
“We try to make the part of the process we are responsible for as comfortable as possible.”
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