Sim-O

I don’t think I need to add anything more to the following from Johnny Void (although it is my emphasis)…

From October this year [Employment Support Allowance] claimants will not be able to appeal against a ‘fit for work’ decision until they have first requested a ‘mandatory reconsideration’ by a DWP decision maker. Only if the claimant disagrees with this decision will they be able to take an appeal to a benefit tribunal. This process is likely to take months.

A recent response to an FOI request (PDF) confirms that claimants will not be able to claim ESA whilst waiting for this process to be completed. The DWP say that claimants will instead have the: “option of applying for alternative benefits, such as Jobseekers Allowance, however they must meet the conditions of entitlement”.

One of the key conditions of entitlement for Jobseekers Allowance (JSA) – the benefit for those unemployed not unwell – is that the claimants is able to work.

This will mean that those appealing an ESA decision and claiming Jobseekers Allowance will be placed in a potentially fraudulent position. They will be appealing an ESA decision based on the fact they do not believe themselves able to work, and will be claiming JSA based on a claim that they are able to work.

I wonder if I could trouble you for some suggestions for a WordPress theme, please?

I’m not very good at getting into the code of themes so I need a theme that is very easily modified. It is for a work project I am doing in my own time and just need to be able to knock up a working mock up that has the same style as our existing website. I doesn’t need to be exact, just good enough to illustrate how the final version would look.

what I need is:

• to be able to put a full width image in the header
• links across the top, just underneath the header image. These links need to be anchored with images.
• The links down the left hand sidebar are to be images.
• A full width image in the footer.
• It needs to be free. I have no budget, and probably won’t get one with the final version either.

As I say, I’m not up to digging into the code of the style sheet or templates to start changing widths and placements etc of elements so the easier to modify the better. I know a little about coding, but in reality that translates to next to nothing.

Any suggestions would be welcome and can offer nothing in return except some gratitude and a little bit of link-love (for what that’s worth from this little ol’ site here).

Thank you.