DWP adviser horrifies campaigners

By Katharine Quarmby

Disability organisations are furious at comments made by David Freud, a former investment banker who has been appointed as an adviser on benefit reform to the Department for Work and Pensions.

Mr Freud used his first interview in post to launch a devastating critique of incapacity benefit (IB). He claimed, in a February interview with the Daily Telegraph, that up to two thirds of those claiming IB are not entitled to it, dubbed the eligibility tests “ludicrous” and said that between five to seven per cent were working on the black market.

He said: “If you’re disabled, work is good for you and not working is bad for you.” He also praised James Purnell, who has taken over as work and pensions secretary after Peter Hain was forced to resign following a police inquiry into undeclared donations to his deputy leadership campaign.

Mr Freud commented that Mr Purnell’s appointment meant that “there is going to be more single-minded ferocity” about benefit reform.

The Tories have already endorsed what David Cameron has dubbed a “tough love” approach based on the American Wisconsin model (see Disability Now January).

Disability groups are horrified by the new rhetoric. Paul Treloar, of the charity Disability Alliance, said many of Mr Freud’s claims – about fraudulent claimants, for example, are “completely unevidenced”. He adds that such talk “is creating tremendous fear and anxiety among disabled people. This is a key emerging battlefront between the two parties.”

Ian Charlesworth, chief executive of the Shaw Trust, which runs many of the government’s welfare to work local programmes, is also worried, saying that Mr Freud may have “lost the plot a little bit... I don’t think that people are swinging the lead. We aren’t funding the programmes to get them back to work.”

Disability Now asked the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) whether it agreed with Mr Freud that the disability tests used to award benefits are “ludicrous”.

A spokesman said, instead, that a “fairer and more accurate medical test” would be introduced.

The spokesman also refused to agree with Mr Freud’s claim that only about one third of current IB claims are credible, saying instead only that “there are many more people who could and should be supported to move off benefits”.

The spokesman also refused to be drawn on whether the DWP agreed with Mr Freud’s estimate of IB fraud.