Dear Department for Work and Pensions,

Please can you answer the following areas of concern:

1. What reason, if any, would Atos Healthcare ('AH') have to
attempt to attempt to deny any Employment Support Allowance ('ESA')
claimant the right to take notes during a Work Capability
Assessment ('WCA')? This, particularly with reference to when the
claimant attends alone and unrepresented. Is there any reason why a
claimant should not take notes but a representative should do so?
Is it an infringement of the Human Rights Act if AH attempt to
prevent note-taking by a claimant?

2. Does AH have any authority from government for such a practice?

3. Have AH any verbal or written policy concerning such practice,
and if so, where can a web or e-mail record of this policy be
accessed?

4. Under what circumstances would AH be allowed to with-hold the
reimbursement of travel expenses to an ESA claimant following
attendance at a WCA for a period of 10 or more weeks? How long on
average is AH's WCA-to-payment timescale? How many complaints have
been recorded about this? What checks and balances are in place to
ensure that AH are not earning interest on such retained funds?

5. What pre-checks are made of the claim form ESA50 by AH with a
view to prevent a wasted journey by the claimant because AH have
not arranged for a suitably qualified healthcare professional to be
allocated to conduct the appointed assessment?

6. In circumstances where AH abort a WCA due to what AH call a
Nurse-to-Doctor-Handover, to what timescale if any must AH
re-appoint the WCA? Are AH acting properly if they abort a WCA due
to a claimant wishing to take notes?

7. Have AH any right to take more than their claimed allowance of
20 working days to respond to a complaint? Where a sick person
requests escalation of a complaint to a named company director of
AH have AH any right to pass the complaint to 3 or more Customer
Service Team Leaders instead?

8. What penalties are provided for situations where AH staff
falsely notify DWP that a claimant has failed to attend a WCA when
the claimant has in fact attended?

9. Is it correct for DWP to decline to respond to a claimant's
complaint about the conduct or performance of AH?

10. Is the DWP e-mail address [email address] working as at
20/05/10? Under what circumstances might it be acceptable for a
number of e-mail messages sent to that address over a period of
some 2 months to be ignored?

11. Is it true that AH are allowed to select the body chosen by DWP
to act as the Independent Tier for compalints against AH?

12. Are any assessments made on a clerical basis, in other words
without attendance at a WCA being deemed necessary?

13. What checks are in place to ensure that an assessor is at least
as well qualified as the General Practitioner who deems the sick
person incapable of work?

14. How many complaints have been made regarding:
(a) Non-reimbursement or slow reimbursement of travel expenses
(over 1 week after the WCA)?
(b) Improper conduct of a WCA?
(c) Delay of more than one week reappointing a WCA?
(d) Failure to respond to a complaint after 20 working days?
(e) Refusal to act upon repeated requests for escalation of a
complaint?
(f) Falsely informing DWP of non-attendance at a WCA?

15. Under what circumstances would AH's £500 million, 7-year
contract be revoked on the grounds of inefficiency and awarded to a
different supplier?

16. How does DWP respond to the findings of Citizens' Advice Scotland that ESA is "unfit for purpose"?

17. To what extent is DWP aware of the huge groundswell of anger felt by many of this country's ESA claimants about the conduct of Atos?

18. Can DWP comment on the appalling treatment at the hands of Atos of a terminally ill brain cancer patient, as reported at http://www.whywaitforever.com/dwpatos.html

Thank you

Yours faithfully,

John Moore

Dear DWP Adelphi Freedom-of-Information-Request,

Although you have sent me a copy of the current ESA Assessment Handbook, that is only a tiny part of my FOI request and I feel that there were plenty of 'quick wins' in there which you should have addressed by now.

Apart from being over your time limit on the request, I believe that much of the information I requested should be readily available. In view of this, please may I have answers by return, to more of the questions I submitted?

Yours sincerely,

John Moore

Dear Department for Work and Pensions,

Please pass this on to the person who conducts Freedom of Information reviews.

I am writing to request an internal review of Department for Work and Pensions's handling of my FOI request 'Control of Atos Healthcare, a contractor to DWP'.

[The FOI request is beyond deadline and I have only been given an answer to one item. Other items I have requested should be easily answered]

A full history of my FOI request and all correspondence is available on the Internet at this address:
http://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/co...

Yours faithfully,

John Moore

Dear DWP Adelphi Freedom-of-Information-Request,

Thank you for your interim acknowledgement but you have not set any milepost or target date by which you propose to actually give me the answers to my questions, even though you refer to having some answers in draft form. By what date will you deliver answers to the rest of my questions, please?

I would point out that I should have become eligible for an enhanced rate of ESA sickness benefit 19 weeks ago and as a result I am having to tell creditors of priority debts that I cannot pay them because of the timewasting and stalling behaviour of Atos Healthcare! One reason for my FOI request was to highlight system failure but the delays in this FOI itself are not helping at all. DWP has expressed no ownership of the problem even though they are nominally in charge of the ESA benefit.

Yours sincerely,

John Moore