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The thing to remember with the presentation of any statistics is that it is often just like the telling of the story of the missing £ or $ depending on which version you read of the missing coin riddle in action.

http://money.wikinut.com/the-missing-pound-riddle/1ynsr7y2/

The original 75% figure used in the media, i.e. only about 25% of new claimants got/get ESA, came about because for all the reasons we know some simply get better during the assessment phase or leave the figures for other reasons. So it would actually be far fairer to say that the proportion of justified claims is actually far higher than 25% but closer to 33% - 40% once that and successful appeals has been allowed for in the figures.

We all know there is also the further slight of hand used in how appeals are generally not mentioned, let alone factored in, and also the misrepresentation of an award of work related ESA meaning the claimants are "fit for work" is achieved - hence the infamous "Only 1 in 14 actually have valid claims" headlines of a few weeks back.

What this new statistic shows, and yes they will have made some educated guesses (projections based on statistical analysis) of sample populations to predict the likely results of the changeover from IB to ESA over the next three years, is that roughly 75% of exisiting IB claimants will actually eventually be found to have valid claims and will be placed in either the Support or Work Related groups as appropriate and not the lower 25% predicted by the media hype about IB/ESA right now.

This relatively higher percentage of 75 may "seem" surprising, given all the hoo har in the media about us all being frauds and scroungers, but isn't actually that surprising at all, not least given the tougher PCA and Atos involvement has been increasingly culling the easy targets from the IB claimant base over the last few years by way of periodic reviews already.

The reality is that 75% of surviving IB claimants who go through the transition to ESA from now will remain on illness/incapacity related benefits and of those who do not half of them will still remain on benefits just not illness/incapacity related benefits.

The reality being that, even with the far harsher WCA rather than PCA being applied by a compliant Atos, they will still only be able to find about 1 in 10 claimants "fit for work" and less than 1 in 10 of them will have been found to have been "fiddling" in the past i.e. the known half to one percent of fraud already known to exist within the system.

The presentation of statitics is always smoke and mirrors, especially in their use in the media, and is all about creating perceptions rather than reality and not only will the claimants not go away the supposed savings of the latest "being tough on claimants" image being promoted by the Coalition will eventually disappear in a puff of the smoke in the Mirror and other tabloids as fast at the missing coins in the original riddle I linked to above. :)

But in the meantime Governement, most MP's, Atos and the DWP will all have been "seen" to be doing their job and earning their keep and so deflecting the nation from their individual and collective lack of professionalism let alone the compassion and common decency we should be expecting from them instead of a large stick.

Leaving millions in fear and uncertainty (often for years) is, for them, a "fair" price they are willing to pay to "appear" to be solving the nations problems and we are just the collateral damage of the war they "must" be seen to be fighting on befalf of all those Tax-paying middle class voters.

(Message edited by Peter_aka_Sociable On 06/08/2011 10:34 AM)