Campaigners target Games sponsor Atos

Demonstrators with Disabled People Against Cuts will rally outside the company's head offices in London's Triton Square on Friday afternoon, apeing the Paralympic Games with their own Closing Atos Ceremony.

Organisers have promised an "audacious, daring and disruptive action" alongside tax reform and welfare campaigners UK Uncut.

But they said it was purely the Games sponsor in their sights - "as dangerous an opponent as any government, law or barrier the disability movement has faced in its long history.

"It's not just welfare but our very identity and our place within society that is under attack," the group said.

Atos has promised the International Paralympic Committee an estimated £100 million over the next decade - yet subsidiary Atos Origin makes that much in a single year under a lucrative contract with the Department of Work and Pensions.

The contract pays private contractor Atos Origin to examine disabled beneficiaries using a points-based programme.

Trials last year saw a 70 per cent drop in full benefits and a 30 per cent drop in "unfit for work" assessments, leading critics to accuse Atos of deliberately driving people off benefits.

Atos denies the claim - but a Channel 4 programme has shown company instructors saying a 13 per cent approval rate was "too high."

Since the programme's launch more than 300,000 people have challenged their decisions and 38 per cent have won. A judicial review is pending.

An Atos spokeswoman said this week the tests were just one element of the DWP's decision and successful appeals did not mean their assessment was wrong.

But the claim has done little to mollify critics. Campaigners affected by mobility issues joined an "armchair activism" Games event today, bombarding Atos's chief executive and press office with tweets, calls and emails.

One petitioner, Sam Brackenbury of Birmingham, said he hoped the pressure would continue after the Games end.

Around 1,500 Atos employees are members of the anti-cuts PCS union - and disabled people desperately need their help, he said.

"We need as much support as we can."

rorym@peoples-press.com