Amelia Gentleman paints a bleak but accurate picture of the disability benefits system as it currently operates ('It's a mess': benefits test that clears terminally ill for work, February 23). With a system so complex and flawed, only those who can challenge perverse decisions can hope for a fair outcome.
But what of those without such support? Advocacy services are an essential element of such a system – and the government is rapidly eroding such services. The Supporting People scheme, for example, has effectively enabled many vulnerable people to access essential benefits. But their funding, allocated to councils, is no longer ringfenced.
Until the system is "improved", will Chris Grayling guarantee that independent advocacy will be available for all who need it? Or will public protests be the only way to register our anger at the way the vulnerable are being targeted?
Katy Simmons
Burnham, Buckinghamshire
• It is frightening that the government is rolling out a test to assess disabled people's ability to work without waiting to see what lessons can be learned from a pilot, and without implementing recommendations from an independent report which showed up serious flaws ('They don't mark down that every step you take is painful', G2, 23 February). Chris Grayling sees it as a "constant piece of refinement". But when you are dealing with people's lives you can't introduce a system that isn't working perfectly.
The test has to look at all the barriers that disabled people face. Somebody's ability to pick up a pen bears no relation to the likelihood that they will get a job. The government risks leaving thousands of disabled people without the support they need, and wasting more money in the appeal process.
Richard Hawkes
Chief executive, Scope
• I can only endorse your criticism of the work capability assessment. My child has Asperger's syndrome on the autistic spectrum. Though high-functioning intellectually, she answers all questions literally, which leaves no room for flexibility on the questionnaire.
My child "failed" the assessment, despite evidence from our GP, a consultant psychiatrist and psychoanalyist, who all deemed her incapable of work. To then be "passed as fit for work" by a combination of computer and less qualified professionals, is not only insulting, but a waste of both time and money. The anxiety of the assessment was intolerable, matched only by my anguish at the effort of then going to tribunal.
In order to have any financial support during this trying time, we had to claim employment support allowance. This meant filling in another enormous form, more telephone calls and interviews.
At the tribunal, we "passed" without even presenting our evidence formally. We were told our case should never have gone this far, and should have been accepted at assessment level.
Name and address supplied
• Thank you for the excellent article. However, you fail to mention that both the jobseeker's allowance and WCA groups will find that their benefit will be means tested. By the figures you quoted, this means 70% of people who are receiving incapacity benefit, a non-means tested benefit, will now find themselves subject to a means test – so if they have savings or another income, or are in a relationship with someone who earns more than the limit, then they will lose all or part of the benefit.
Name and address supplied
• Insinuations that people pretend to be sick in order to make benefits claims have been a feature of the British political landscape for decades. I suspect that few people would voluntarily opt out of paid work for a benefit which seldom reaches £100 a week. Genuine support may enable long-term sick people to return to the workforce, and a serious effort to achieve this would reduce spending and increase income tax receipts. The use of a patently flawed test to harry some of our most vulnerable citizens reveals the lack of concern of the various ministers who make pious faces of sympathy. How can they be allowed to get away with it?
Cllr Larry Sanders
Green, Oxfordshire county council