Welfare reform plans unveiled

Katharine Quarmby

The welfare secretary, James Purnell, unveiled plans to reform the benefits system, with huge implications for disabled people, in Parliament yesterday.

Plans include a new target of 80 per cent of all people of working age to be employed and for income support to be abolished.

The system as a whole will be simplified down into two benefits -  employment support allowance, which will replace incapacity benefit (IB) from October (for new claimants) and from 2013 for all claimants, and job seekers allowance, for those who the government deems fit to work. All IB claimants will be forced to take a work capability assessment from 2009.

Gone, however, is much of the damaging rhetoric around disabled people – the emphasis on scroungers and sick note Britain has lessened – although lone parents and those with drug and alcohol problems will be targeted. In fact the green paper hymns many mantras beloved of the disability rights movement, talking of “what people can do”, rather than what they cannot, giving disabled people “more control” over their lives and insisting that getting more disabled people into the work-place is about achieving equality, not compulsion. There must be an end, the government says, to “writing off the talents of disabled people” and the paper states: “We need to move from a welfare state which has, in the past, abandoned those with disabilities or long-term health conditions to a life of dependency on benefits to one which helps everyone who can work back to employment.” The three linked mantras of control, capability and contribution runs through the green paper.

The proposals have met with a mixed response from disability groups and individuals.

Some new proposals in the green paper have been welcomed, including the increased funding for Access to Work and the roll-out of individual budgets so that disabled people can decide what they need to help them go to work. The increased funding for the job support programme Workstep is also welcome, say groups.

But other proposals have created more concern, in particular the roll-out of Pathways to Work before it has been evaluated, and the extension of private and voluntary providers’ right to bid for any “back to work” service. The work capability assessment worries many disabled people, who are not bought off by the government’s promise that they will receive what it calls “personalised back to work support”. And many mental health service-users are concerned about the focus on them and the government’s oft-repeated belief that work is essential for those with mental health problems.

Rethink, the mental health charity, says the emphasis on mental health service-users getting back to work, when employers stigmatise them and shy away from taking them on, is unfair.

Paul Corry, Rethink’s director of public affairs, says that the government is “throwing people with mental health problems to the lion of discrimination and have broken their promises to make it easier for people with mental health problems to take small steps towards work”. 

He adds that ESA will penalise people with mental health problems because it does not account for fluctuating conditions such as mental illness.

The fact that benefits may go up for some disabled people who will be deemed unable to work does not buy off the many who fear that they will be compelled into the workplace.

Radar has “cautiously welcomed” the green paper, in particular the investment in Access to Work. Liz Sayce, chief executive of RADAR said: “The broad thrust of these proposals is right. But we must ensure that disabled people who most need support to work and develop careers get it, and that the price is not increased poverty for people in IB, who already struggle to get by day to day.”

The charity also commented that Access to Work must have an expanded remit. The money would then be spent not only on tangible “kit” like computer equipment, but also on support for people with fluctuating mental and physical health conditions, so they do not lose employment if they experience a period of ill-health. To date, most government schemes have worked well for people needing a technical fix, but have largely neglected people with fluctuating and mental health problems, who have the lowest employment rates.

Jon Sparkes, the chief executive of Scope, of which 20 per cent of its staff are disabled people, said: “Scope supports measures to enable more disabled people to move into work. However, we have deep concerns about the tone of these reforms and the target-led ethos underpinning them. Disabled people face a myriad of barriers in finding employment, including negative attitudes from employers and inadequate social care support. Punitive measures against individual disabled claimants will do nothing to remove these barriers.

“We also have concerns about how the reforms will work in practice. A payment-by-results culture is likely to disadvantage disabled people with complex support needs who will take longer to make the transition to work and who may be more expensive to support. Also, if disabled people are expected to do voluntary work as a condition of claiming benefit then the government must extend its Access to Work scheme to disabled volunteers.”

Ruth Patrick, a disabled researcher from Leeds University, who is conducting research into welfare reform, said: “My research into attitudes towards the government's reforms found that disabled people feel that compulsion and conditions are the wrong tools to use if the government wants to help them into work.

“Instead, what is needed is tailored support that looks at individual disabled people's needs and the wider societal problems that can hinder disabled people's attempts to find and sustain paid work. James Purnell and his colleagues in the Department for Work and Pensions need to spend more time listening to the real experts on disability – disabled people themselves.  Headline-grabbing goals to cut incapacity benefit rates by one million miss the point… extending the reach of compulsion and threatening benefit sanctions are clumsy instruments destined to fail.”

She welcomed the increased funding for Access to Work. “Although the government's proposals place too much emphasis on disabled individuals and not enough on the disabling structure of society, there are small indications of progress. 

“In particular, the increased funding for Access to Work is to be welcomed. Furthermore, the new work capability assessment is right to shift the onus from what disabled people cannot do to the many things which a disabled person can do. However, as always the emphasis is on the individuals' impairments rather than on the external disabling forces created and sustained by society."

She also questioned the extension of Pathways to Work, saying: “The Pathways to Work programme needs more research and evaluation before it is rolled out nationally. While measures to support and encourage disabled people to find work should be welcomed, tying such programmes to conditionality and compulsion is unlikely to prove effective. 

“There is no doubt that many disabled people want to work. What is in question is whether they will always encounter an accessible and non-discriminatory work envirornment which supports them to make the most of their abilities."

Paul Treloar, from the Disability Alliance, was also cautious about the proposals. He said: “James Purnell is good at dressing up the message. There is so much double-speak in this green paper, they are obviously trying to head off any obvious criticisms…there are lots of bits and piece of things we have pushed for, but very little is definite.”

He pointed to the lack of clarity around individual budgets and how they might be used, as one example. But he added that the doubling of the Access to Work budget was “fantastic”, although “there should be much more in the green paper around the responsibilities of employers”. 

And he was scathing about the plans to look at the employment support allowance and the work capability assessment when they have not yet been introduced. “How can you reform a test that hasn’t even started? This is ludicrous. How can we comment on ESA and WCA when they haven’t been implemented? These are evidence-free proposals.”

He said he was also concerned about the undertaking to assess everyone on IB at a time when a new benefit is about to be introduced.

Steve Fisher, the director of RSI Action, the charity for people with repetitive strain injury, said that many people with the condition, like himself, are denied IB and are likely to be forced back to work under the new proposals. He challenges the notion that “work is good for you” when it can cause real problems for people with RSI if reasonable adjustments are not made.

Barry O'Connell, a disabled person who receives incapacity benefit, said: “For years, the nanny state has encouraged so many people to say they are disabled. Now the government is simply doing what should have been done years back. Give those who are seriously disabled more benefits, and allow those who are really not seriously disabled to earn a proper wage and regain their dignity. Maybe I am being hard, but I think the proper disabled have been swallowed up by so many who really are not really 100 per cent disabled or are on the outer fringes.”