STUPID IDEA?

It’s a good job we’re not holding our breath waiting for an answer !

Dear all

We acknowledge that influencing the Government takes time and that this is hugely frustrating, especially for the people affected by the policies the Government are trying to implement. However, we do believe that we have taken some very important steps forward in improving the WCA and Simon’s appointment to the Scrutiny Group and the Policy and Campaigns Team hard work behind the scenes have been pivotal to that. Recently the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) have committed to a major piece of work to test how WCA is currently working and to test whether the recommendations (made by the MS Society, in partnership with other charities) can improve the assessment process for people with fluctuating conditions. We are hopeful of a positive result.

The DWP are also drafting a new and improved application form for ESA based on MS Society’s recommendations, which more accurately reflects the needs of people with fluctuating conditions, such as MS. Work is ongoing on this, but we are also hopeful that these will be signed off and implemented as soon as possible.

In response to the point made about the campaigns work stopping in April, we hope you will take a look at our campaigns blog which shows that welfare reform is a regular and consistent feature. We focus a lot of work on welfare reform because we know how important this is to our members and posted just a few days ago on the latest work we’re doing with over 50 charities as part of the Hardest Hit campaign. We urge you to let us know your thoughts and ideas about our work via the comments boxes in the campaigns blog or the Campaigns Network and are always happy to hear from the people who are affected by the issues we’re campaigning on – the Policy and Campaigns Team contact details are also on our website.

Finally, thanks for flagging up the lack of a standard template letter on welfare issues. We have done ad hoc template letters on welfare at specific times (such as a recent campaign to get people to invite their MP to a Parliamentary event on welfare issues, and letters to write to your MP during the course of the Welfare Reform Bill). However, we acknowledge what you said, and will create a standard template letter about welfare reform that people can use to lobby their local MP on an ongoing basis. We plan to get this up online in September.

Thanks for your comments and contributions,

The Policy and Campaigns Team