From Benefits and Work

VIDEO REMOVED AGAIN! IMPORTANT UPDATE 3rd JULY 2012: https://blacktrianglecampaign.org/2012/07/03/help-make-chris-grayling-even-madder-help-spread-the-video-he-didnt-want-you-to-see/

Here’s an opportunity for you to help make Grayling wish he hadn’t interfered….

Back in March we wrote about the Ministry of Justice’s (MoJ) employment and support allowance appeals video (external link) on Youtube.  The video was pulled after less than a week, on the orders of senior officials.

Independent benefits expert Neil Bateman (external link), discovered that the video was taken down after employment minister Chris Grayling emailed the ministry complaining about, amongst other things, the fact that it told claimants:

• that they are twice as likely to win their appeal if they appear in person rather than having a paper hearing;
• that the DWP doesn’t normally send a representative to the hearing;
• to send additional evidence to the tribunal, when Grayling wants it sent to the DWP.

Yesterday, three months later, the video reappeared and, to their credit, after their initial panic MoJ officials seem to have left it unaltered.  The video is actually reasonably informative and reassuring for people who have no previous experience of appeal tribunals.

Normally, however, MoJ videos get very little attention – one has had just two views and few of the 120 videos on the MoJ channel gets more than a few hundred views.  

If Grayling hadn’t intervened this video would probably also have remained largely unseen.  Now, however, we’re asking Benefits and Work newsletter readers to make it the most popular video the MoJ has ever produced.  The current record holder has had 4,269 views and the ESA video currently stands at 1,063.

So, please, make Grayling mad by taking a look at the video and passing the link on to anyone you think might benefit: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4L8EPHDjeqU

Benefits and Work