Threatening gestures. Hitting where it hurts

The latest round of government welfare reform could hit unemployed disabled people directly in the pocket. Ruth Patrick meets some of those who would benefit from support rather than the threat of benefit sanctions to find work.

The coalition government, like Labour before it, puts repeated emphasis on the idea of work as the best form of welfare. Ending the supposed evil of welfare dependency requires sustained efforts to shift people off benefits and into the world of paid work, or so the rhetoric goes.

But with the latest reforms about to be rubber stamped in parliament, it looks likely that many disabled people will face increased sanctions if they fail to take steps to prepare for a return to work.

Those who find themselves in the Work-Related Activity Group (WRAG) of Employment and Support Allowance (ESA) could lose up to £71 a week if they don't take part in the back to work activities demanded of them.

Underpinning these reforms is a rhetoric and policy direction that seems to imply that most disabled people on benefits don't work, and perhaps have never worked. What's more, the use of sanctions suggests that the stick of compulsion is necessary to help push claimants into the workforce. The Government repeatedly boasts of the fantastic, personalised support available to those wanting to return to work via the Work Programme and Work Choice schemes.

But do disabled people really need sanctions and strict conditions to return to work? And is adequate support available for those who need it?

As part of ongoing research with a small group of benefit claimants, I've been speaking to disabled people affected by the government’s welfare reforms. The hope is to highlight benefit claimants’ own experiences and attitudes towards reforms because they are the most affected but their views are usually absent from media and government debates. Now they speak out through Disability Now.

Isobella is in her late 50s and lives on her own. She has Rheumatoid Arthritis and various related complaints. Isobella has recently been put in the WRAG of ESA and has been turned down for Disability Living Allowance.

She has a long history of paid work and worked as a legal secretary for many years in London before becoming ill. She now runs her own business under the permitted work rules which allow her to earn a small amount without it affecting her benefits.

She makes greeting cards to sell  at craft fairs. It doesn't bring in much money and  the work is physically exhausting, but Isobella enjoys it.

"In reality, all this that I’m doing is just occupational therapy. It gets me out, it gets me meeting people and I’m doing things whereas I still don’t think I would be able to do full-time or even part-time office work, this is still good because I can rest."

Although Isobella values the work that she does, she worries about getting an office job as she doesn’t see how a company would be able or prepared to cope with all her needs for rests and breaks.

Kane is serving a prison sentence after setting fire to his flat. He has a history of serious mental health issues but is currently feeling much better. Before he went to prison, Kane had been at university but dropped out after becoming unwell. He's spent time in the army and has also had a variety of catering jobs.

He's not had any help from the Job Centre to return to work, but is now doing some training in prison and hopes to get a City & Guilds Diploma so that he has more chance of finding a job when he's released.

In a letter sent to me from prison, Kane writes “My medication’s working better now and I hope to be fit for work when I get out! Not working was just making my depression worse coz it made me feel useless and like a burden. The media make all the people on sick out to be lazy bastards but most I’ve met feel bad that they aren’t working."

Employment has always been a key objective for Kane.  When I asked him about his future plans before he went to prison, Kane said “in the short term to get a job in prêt a manger, unless my health goes back, deteriorates, but I’m hoping it won’t.  And long term to do that open university [course] and get into computing."

Tess is in her 30s and lives with her partner Jim, who like her, has mental health issues. She has treatment resistant schizophrenia and feels very unwell most days.

Tess hasn't worked for a number of years, but had a successful career as a senior civil servant. It ended with her receiving compensation following alleged breaches in disability discrimination legislation.

“We’d rather be well and working. We didn’t say like 10 years ago, oh great, I hope I don’t have to work again. I had a good job, I were happy. I had good money – more than I get on benefits – a lot more. And then you just, it just hits you.”

She misses working “I do want to work in the future, that’s what keeps me going".

But she doesn’t think this is a realistic aspiration at the moment due to the severity of her ill health.  Tess tries not to tell people she's on benefits because she feels that she's judged as a scrounger. As she's in the WRAG of ESA, Tess has been called to attend a work-focused interview at the Job Centre. She's not well enough to attend this because she can’t leave the house on her own.  She's not been offered any other support to return to work.

These stories show the wide gap between the government’s rhetoric and the lived reality for disabled people reliant on out-of-work benefits but who want to work.

The Government likes to paint disabled people as passive welfare dependents. But the reality is that many of those currently reliant on benefits have worked in the past and may well be combining benefit receipt with some form of paid work.

My research suggests that the government’s reform agenda is unlikely to succeed, especially where it continues to rely on the policy tools of welfare conditions and the threat of sanctions. More needs to be done to look at the disabling barriers to disabled people’s participation in work such as employer attitudes, physical access barriers and an inflexibility around what constitutes work. Only then will the government’s stated aim of increasing the numbers of disabled people in work stand a fighting chance of success.

*Names have been changed