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Atos assessments 'trampling on people's human dignity', says Archbishop

By staff writers
June 7, 2013

The Catholic Archbishop of Glasgow has written to the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, Iain Duncan Smith, to express his disquiet at "the assessment system currently being operated by the firm Atos, under your Department's supervision, to review the benefit entitlement of people currently deemed unfit for work."

Archbishop Philip Tartaglia asks Iain Duncan Smith "to consider ordering a review so that thousands of the most vulnerable people in this city and beyond may be spared the anxiety and distress which has already befallen so many."

The full text of the Archbishop's letter reads as follows:

Dear Mr Duncan Smith

I am writing to you to express my concern at the impact on very many vulnerable people in this Archdiocese and beyond, of the assessment system currently being operated by the firm Atos, under your Department's supervision, to review the benefit entitlement of people currently deemed unfit for work.

I do not write as a politician, and the concerns I express are not party political. I acknowledge your own personal commitment to improving the benefit system and I know that you have visited this city on more than one occasion to learn about the local situation. For this I thank you.

My concern is as a bishop whose people are suffering. It is not the Church's role to define benefit levels or set targets for savings. It is, however, the Church's role to speak out against injustice, especially when those affected are often weak and without means.

I have been made aware of cases of terminally ill people being summoned for assessments; people with severe learning difficulties being asked to present themselves for assessment not knowing what the process is all about; people being passed as fit for work and having their benefits stopped when they are clearly still seriously ill. People’s human dignity is being trampled upon and glaring errors are being made (reflected in the fact that 40 per cent of appeals are, I believe, currently successful).

These circumstances, together with recent revelations by nurses and doctors who have spoken out against the tests they are being asked to perform on people, and which they, in conscience, can no longer collaborate with, must surely mean the time has come for a re-think.

In addition, it is wrong for Atos to be profiting when sick and disabled people are suffering because of the harshness and bluntness of the work capability assessment, and there are many in this city who question the wisdom of having them as sponsors of the Commonwealth Games. But while Atos implements the assessments it is your own department's responsibility to regulate the system, and so it is to you that I address my appeal.

My concerns are shared by very many people of all parties and none, of all faiths and none. And while I recognise that you cannot comment on individual cases or respond to specific claims, surely the large number of successful appeals, the widespread concern among parliamentarians and the press, and the testimonies of health professionals who have spoken out against the indignity and injustice of the process must lead you to the conclusion that a rethink is needed.

In response to this situation, I ask you to consider ordering a review so that thousands of the most vulnerable people in this city and beyond may be spared the anxiety and distress which has already befallen so many.

Philip Tartaglia
Archbishop of Glasgow

* The Archbishop's letter follows one from an alliance of church leaders to the Prime Minister yesterday (6 June) which condemned the government for 'misrepresenting the poor'( http://www.ekklesia.co.uk/node/18507).

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