Saturday 12 March 2011

Open email to Maria Miller

Hi,

I wrote to Maria Miller, Minister for Disabilities, using this address nearly a month ago. 16th of February in fact. 

I've had no response whatsoever. 

It was a reasonable email, full of suggestions on how the coalition's disability reforms might be improved. 

It was packed with useful links to information and testimonials. 

It pleaded with ministers to engage on these issues while the Welfare Reform Bill is still in the committee stage. 

I never get a response. Nor do my colleagues from other very prominent campaigning groups. We know that you receive many approaches from our supporters too, but they never receive a response either. Not one reply from anyone connected with the government on welfare reform. 

I wrote to tell her that I'd written her an open letter on my website http://diaryofabenefitscrounger.blogspot.com/2011/02/open-letter-to-maria-miller.html Thousands of people have read it in the meantime. Sadly, I have no idea if she's read it herself.

Despite many people forwarding it to her, they never received replies either. 

Democracy is in a terrible state here in the UK isn't it? 

Please respond to my original email as I believe that we CAN work together to make reforms work for sick and disabled people in the UK. 

Regards

Sue Marsh


5 comments:

  1. Sue your great believe me but these people you keep writing to are scum and you have to understand that and not get so wound up with it all

    I have met these types of people and worked with them all my life i know them far better then anyone else in society and they will never change

    My mp and i will do what we can but as he is a conservative it wont be much it cant be much he is decent and phones me up when I'm bad or sends an email to me but as for the others your wasting your time and one day when all we have left is our bread and cheese you'll thank me i don't know what for but hopefully we both will still be around

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  2. The secret of contacting a minister is through your MP you write an email to your MP asking that they take the matter up with the minister.

    What happens when you write a letter say to Cameron a private firm looks at the letters or emails and then decides if it is important enough to be seen by the minister, for all other letters or emails what they do is give the minister a break down, so many letters or emails were about this or that.

    Tony Blair brought in the private firm because he was getting over two million letters emails a year.

    Your MP has a duty to act on your behalf you can of course ask a freedom of information in the same way.

    I have written many letters to MP's and ministers, I once wrote a letter to Thatcher when she said she was going to charge for prescriptions, she wrote back in her own hand writing saying she had decided not to do it, when Blair did it I wrote to him through my MP, he said people must realize that you get nothing for free in the world.

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  3. My mp had to write to IDS but the reply he got back didn't even answer the question so he wrote again and got a carers pack back in return which was not the question the question was why have i had £54 deducted from the allowance i get for my wife from my incapacity benefit stopped

    Yes it's simple question but the answer is many pages long and you would need a degree to understand it my mp doesn't
    Hence the best we could do is the carers pack to be filled in to try to get the money back at some point in the future

    What the pm should do is to set up a forum like at the DSLR the worlds largest general forum so that help and advice can be given by expert's and thus keeping all queries and concerns under one roof so to speak

    In this way the public would get the help they need and no one would be left out as to what is going on we would all know the prime minster specifically he could then appoint the appropriate staff to look at the difficult cases that cropped up which would then reassure the public that their case was being looked at and that help or lack of it was on the way

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  4. Thanks for that info guys.
    Robert - Funny you should crop up at the perfect moment. I was just wondering who I could ask about FOIs!!
    Would you do one for me?
    I'm so busy just with writing, I need all the help I can get.
    I want to know what % of certain conditions are going into the support group of ESA, the WCA group and being found fit for work.

    6 conditions could be used as a sample : Cancer, Bowel Disease, MS, Parkinsons, Heart Disease & Schizophrenia

    Is that the kind of thing you can ask?

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  5. I had an interveiw with an adviser at the d.w.p the other day lm on esa and dla lve got leg problems and suffer with depression
    and have mild learning disibilities,l asked what support they could offer me it was pathetic to be frank a maths and english course few hours aweek and a gardening project which lve visited l know people how
    go there it is good for your conifdence but no future prospects of getting work there are'nt any courses with support to get me
    back into and l only have limited abilities with the internet a have problems remembering things lve done,reading your comments l was going to write to maria miller but what lve read is there any point
    if she is being dismissive its a waste of time
    but l might try anyway

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