New Government Proposals on Welfare

This is taken directly from ‘The Coalition: our programme for government’ paper. It is still lacking a lot of details which need filling out, so a proper analysis can’t be made of it just yet. But it does show there are some major changes coming, which seem to be aimed at continuing to force people off incapacity benefits or training people on pointless courses for non-existent jobs through private companies. We should also note that there are massive plans to cut public spending and I think its safe to say, this is one area the government will be targetting.

The Government believes that we need to encourage responsibility and fairness in the welfare system. That means providing help for those who cannot work, training and targeted support for those looking for work, but sanctions for those who turn down reasonable offers of work or training.

• We will end all existing welfare to work programmes and create a single welfare to work programme to help all unemployed people get back into work.
• We will ensure that Jobseeker’s Allowance claimants facing the most significant barriers to work are referred to the new welfare to work programme immediately, not after 12 months as is currently the case. We will ensure that Jobseeker’s Allowance claimants aged under 25 are referred to the programme after a maximum of six months.
• We will realign contracts with welfare to work service providers to reflect more closely the results they achieve in getting people back into work.
• We will reform the funding mechanism used by government to finance welfare to work programmes to reflect the fact that initial investment delivers later savings through lower benefit expenditure, including creating an integrated work programme with outcome funding based upon the DEL/AME switch.
• We will ensure that receipt of benefits for those able to work is conditional on their willingness to work.
• We support the National Minimum Wage because of the protection it gives low-income workers and the incentives to work it provides.
• We will re-assess all current claimants of Incapacity Benefit for their readiness to work. Those assessed as fully capable for work will be moved onto Jobseeker’s Allowance.
• We will support would-be entrepreneurs through a new programme – Work for Yourself – which will give the unemployed access to business mentors and start-up loans.
• We will draw on a range of Service Academies to offer pre-employment training and work placements for unemployed people.
• We will develop local Work Clubs – places where unemployed people can gather to exchange skills, find opportunities, make contacts and provide mutual support.
• We will investigate how to simplify the benefit system in order to improve incentives to work.

Taken from HM Government website

Stop Demonising the Unemployed

Unemployment figures were up to 2.5 million by the end of March, and there’s no reason to think they won’t get any higher: some estimates put them as high as 3.3 million by the end of the year.

As well as rises in unemployment over the past few years, there have been increased attempts on the part of capital to project an image of criminality onto the unemployed, with high-level campaigns targeting “benefit thieves”. Such campaigns have the basic effect of portraying the unemployed as lazy, scrounging criminals, in what seems like a more-or-less conscious campaign to undermine solidarity on the part of the rest of the working class.

For those lucky enough not to hang around in JobCentres, here’s what you have to do to get your £64 a week (£100 if you’re married). At first it’s suprisingly relaxed: you go to reception, get waved through by two or three security guards, sit in a waiting area for ten minutes or so, before being called over to sign on and have a ‘chat’ with your advisor. You’ll have been expected to fill in a jobsearch booklet, detailing all your efforts to find work. Your advisor will glance at it, and then you’ll be free to go. I’ve been signing on for a while, and have never once had my jobsearch checked in any meaningful way. It can happen though, and if they find it ‘unsatisfactory’, or if you’ve failed to fill it in at all, then they can, and often do, stop your benefit for a fortnight.

Incidentally, the waiting areas can be great places to meet people. Last time I was signing, I got talking to someone. He was going off his head because they were going to stop his benefit, predictably enough because his jobsearch wasn’t ‘satisfactory ’. The guy was pretty ill, and on heavy medication. He was terrified of becoming homeless. He was 65 years old. I eavesdropped on his interview when he was eventually called over. They gave him a week’s grace, and they spoke to him like he was a five year old. A few years ago, he would have been on Disability Benefit, and would not have had to put with such harassment and condescension. But these days Disability Benefit is being phased out, and is almost impossible to get on.

When you’ve been signing on for three months things start getting to be a bit more serious. You’ll probably be put on “intensive signing”, which means you’ll have to sign on weekly instead of fortnightly, and your advisor will look a little more closely at your jobsearch.

At further ‘stages’ in the process – you move up a stage every three months – you’ll be given various ‘offers’. Training courses, most of which are absolutely useless and are run by private companies, A4e being the most notorious example. These companies have zero knowledge of the issues facing the long-term unemployed, and the services they offer are completely useless in terms of getting any meaningful work. And things are set to get a lot worse. From October sections of the unemployed in Greater Manchester will be forced to take part in the proposed Work for Your Benefits scheme, where they will have to do full-time work whilst remaining on benefit money. Of course, with the new government, this may well change – but it’s unlikely to change for the better.

All of this doesn’t seem to be much more than a punishment system for those who for whatever reason can’t get a job. Claimants are demoralised and patronised, and are certainly not offered any meaningful help. The training that you can do outside of the JobCentre system is severely limited by the cap that is placed on the number of hours you can do if you are not to lose your benefits. Voluntary work – which any sensible system would understand to be the best place to gain new skills – is limited to registered charities. In dark moments I almost think that ultimately the benefits system would like to force inactivity: if you’re not actively seeking work, you shouldn’t be doing anything at all.

Traditionally the unemployed have been used in capitalism as a reserve workforce, to instil fear and discipline into the working population. That’s starting to change: we are increasingly portrayed as a criminal class to be feared and despised, entirely separate from the working class proper. Sometime in the last five years the term usually used for people who fiddle their benefits was changed from ‘benefit cheat’ to ‘benefit thief’. The DWP website claims that “those who steal benefits are picking the pockets of law-abiding taxpayers. In 2008-9 benefit thieves stole an estimated £900 million from public funds, that’s why we are determined to catch them”. They don’t mention that there’s an estimated £10.5 billion saved in unclaimed benefits each year. Nor do they mention how reluctant the DWP are to explain precisely what benefits you are entitled to. And they certainly don’t have anything to say about that pack of benefit thieves in Buckingham Palace, who with the Civil List have their very own, very high class benefits system.

On the Benefit Thief section of the DWP website, alongside the usual drivel about “hidden cameras and mobile surveillance”, there is an online form for the enthusiastic Benefit Snitch to fill in. It is remarkably detailed: it wants to know the victim’s NI number, their height, the colour of their eyes. It would be pretty funny if it wasn’t ever so slightly sinister. Who are these snitches who know the colour of your eyes? Just like with terrorists, the honest taxpayer in expected to see benefit thieves everywhere, and to dob them in at every opportunity. Far from being a criminal class, the unemployed are actually a scapegoat class: one more example of capital’s vicious tendency to set up the most vulnerable people in the country – migrant workers, asylum seekers, the ill, the ‘insane’, the list goes on – as hate figures.

Since Thatcher, and even more so since Blair, it is always automatically assumed that the unemployed quite simply don’t want to work. Blair and Brown were always droning on about “benefit culture”, about how a “life on the dole” would soon be impossible. They never say anything that since the all-out attacks on the industrial base in the 1980s there are massive areas of the country where work is quite simply not there, or that most of the “job creation” they talk about is either meaningless or illusory. It is worth repeating: the jobs are not there. The only sane response would be to accept that full employment is an impossibility, and to then start coughing up a decent amount of benefit money. And ultimately, an all-out critique of the entire ideology of work is necessary: of course, these demands are totally incompatible with capitalism.

The dole is essentially one of the front-line zones of capital, where we come face to face with the seething contempt that it holds for us. But we’re not taking it lying down. One of the most exciting developments for the left over the last year has been the massive increase in Unemployed Workers’ Unions throughout the country: groups have formed in Cambridge, Salford, Oxford, Sheffield and London. The Cambridge offices of A4e were picketed in January, and in March, London Coalition Against Poverty, the Disabled People’s Direct Action Network and Feminist Fightback organised a week of action against the Welfare Reform Bill.

Claimants are only able to be scapegoated because the public don’t know what the conditions for the unemployed actually are. The new campaigns can challenge this, and will lead to greater solidarity has between the unemployed and the wider movement. False images of the unemployed have to be challenged at every opportunity. Most important of all, Work for your Benefits, or whatever version of it Cameron decides to throw at us, must be treated in the same way that we treated the Poll Tax. Resistance to capitalism is slowly but surely increasing in intensity: the unemployed have a key role to play in the struggle.

Taken from the commune

Tories Harsh Crackdown on Benefits

Welcome to Reality Check. Today I’m taking a close look at the Conservative pledge to cut billions from the welfare bill.

Tory 3-strikes Policy
First-time offenders would lose benefits for three months
Second-time offenders would lose benefits for six months
Third-time offenders would lose benefits for up to three years

The party says that benefit fraud and error has cost £80 every second under Labour.

Their answer is what they call a “crackdown” on cheats. Anyone who is cautioned or convicted of benefit fraud three times will have their payments stopped for up to three years.

So how much will their “three strikes and you’re out” policy actually save?

We asked the Conservatives and they said “We can’t say”, so I have attempted to do the sums instead.

How many people have been convicted of benefit fraud three times? The Department for Work and Pensions tells me the answer is… zero. No-one. Ever.

How many have had their benefits stopped after two convictions? Last year the figure was 69 people.

Stopping their benefits for twice as long, as the Tories propose, would save roughly £100,000 a year or less than one penny a second. Thus reducing the cost from £80 a second to £79.99.

Even if we include those people cautioned as well as convicted, it is clear that this proposal is not going to save much money.

Theresa May was asked if she knew there was no record of anyone being convicted three times for such an offence

The shadow work and pensions secretary, Theresa May, was asked by Reality Check if she knew there was no record of anyone being convicted three times for benefit fraud.

She declined to give a direct answer, but said the policy was intended to send out a clear message to benefit fraudsters.

More savings

The Conservatives’ bigger promises on welfare rely on saving £600m within three years. Not by targeting cheats, but getting people off Incapacity Benefit (IB).

Basically, the Tories argue that one in five of the 2.6 million people currently on IB is fit for work. That’s just over half-a-million claimants.

They would be moved onto Jobseekers Allowance which gives them about £1,300 a year less.

The government is already planning to do the same thing and last month calculated moving people off IB would save £300m a year over the next five years.

The Conservatives’ figures suggest a saving of £200m a year – significantly less than Labour.

But there’s a problem with both figures.

They are based on an assumption that significant numbers can be moved off IB. But no-one knows if that is right because it’s not been tried.

We do know that with new claimants, a quarter of those told they were fit to work appealed against the decision, and of those, more than a third had their appeal upheld.

Neil Coyle of the Disability Alliance prefers to get benefits right the first time

And Neil Coyle, of the Disability Alliance, believes the policy would hit the vulnerable. He prefers to get benefits right first time

Both Labour and the Conservatives believe that getting tough with benefit claimants goes down well with voters.

But if the consequence of reform is thousands of vulnerable individuals with long-term health conditions being treated unfairly, it’s a policy with built-in dangers.

Taken from BBC News

Response suggests many people wrongly judged fit to work

There have been a great many interesting responses to the Citizens Advice report – published last week that detailed “grave concerns” over the number of sick and disabled people being judged fit for work by the new Employment and Support Allowance (ESA) testing system.

The report found that terminally-ill patients, people with advanced Parkinson’s Disease or Multiple Sclerosis, with severe mental illness, or awaiting open heart surgery have been registered as fit to work.

The Citizens Advice report was inspired by the high number of people consulting their local bureaux in the wake of being wrongly, they believed, registered as capable of returning to work. Their concerns seemed to chime with those of a number of Society Guardian readers, several of whom wrote in detailing their own experiences of being assessed and found fit, when they felt they were not able to work.

One reader described the fitness test as “the most prejudicial, unfair and downright negligent piece of so called medical practice he had ever witnessed”. He wrote:

“I can barely walk and am about to have a second ankle fusion surgery. I can’t stand or walk for long without intense pain and despite my medical records was given a score of 0 out of 15 for my ankle problem, 0 being completely fine. This was a shock considering I’m about to have a major surgery including bone grafts for which I am in plaster for 6 months. My GP and surgeon can’t believe it.”

One reader wrote of a friend who had her benefit cut off because she missed her assessment appointment, because she was in hospital bed having chemotherapy for stomach cancer; she was penalised for missing the appointment by having her benefits stopped. Another said the assessment process was like being “interviewed by a computer”.

Describing the difficulties his mother has had with the system, another reader wrote:

“She was recovering from one complete knee replacement operation and due to undergo the second in a matter of weeks. A blind man on a galloping horse could tell that she was not fit to work but sure enough the result of the consultation was that she should be taken off benefit.”

He went on to highlight a concern that many readers touched on:

“One of the problems is that the benefits agency doesn’t conduct these examinations, they are outsourced to a private third party who I suspect have a mandate to remove as many people from the system as possible and have a target to achieve.”

Later, a healthcare professional working for the private healthcare company which carries out these assessments, wrote in indicating that there was a target that the inspection team were expected to meet. Under the username rightthewrong, he wrote:

“I probably am going to get fired tommorrow for coming on this forum, but I don’t care. I have been doing these “assessments” for some time now. It’ s rubbish, draconian to say the least and it is designed to get people off the sick benefit. It is designed so that 75% of the people who apply for ESA, come hell or high water, ‘fail’ it.”

Taken from guardian.co.uk

New benefit test will fail to spot illness and disability

People with mental health problems who are frequently unable to complete more than two tasks in a row could be assessed as fit for work, under new revisions to the sickness benefit test outlined by the government last night.

Mind already has grave concerns that the Work Capability Assessment, the current test for sickness benefit Employment and Support Allowance, is not sophisticated enough to accurately measure when someone’s mental health affects their ability to work. However, in a radical tightening of the criteria, revisions to the test proposed today will simplify the test further by slashing the sections relevant to mental health in half, prompting fears that tens of thousands of people with serious mental health issues could be stripped of their benefits and forced to look for work they are unable to do.

Mind’s Chief Executive Paul Farmer said:

“Most people with mental health problems want to work, but need time and support to be able to do so. However we have seen some truly shocking examples of people who cannot be reasonably expected to enter any workplace being assessed as fit for work, including one person who was sent an assessment form while in psychiatric hospital, and another who cannot manage even simple tasks including getting up in the morning without one to one support.

It is clear that the current assessments are failing to pick up on people with major barriers to work, yet the government has responded by simplifying the tests even further, radically reducing the likelihood of spotting serious and enduring mental health problems. People who really cannot work because of serious illnesses who are found fit for work will have their benefits taken away and will be forced to look for work, some without hope of an employer ever taking them on.

Tightening the test may be a move to reduce the sickness benefits bill, but the knock on effects will be felt further down the line. The legacy of these errors would be another generation of people parked on a different benefit, unable to find a job and having to live on reduced incomes, in poverty.

The government proposals are hard on the heals of a Citizen’s Advice Bureau report released just last week finding widespread failings in the whole assessment system, ranging from problems with the test, problems with the guidelines for those carrying out the test, and problems with their knowledge about mental health and disability”.

Examples

Jenny* has worked in the past but when she developed depression and anxiety she applied for Employment and Support Allowance. Despite two GPs, a psychiatrist and a senior nurse stating that she is not able to work or seek work, a 54 minute assessment and report written in the remaining 6 minutes disagreed and she was refused. The report included comments that she ‘did not appear to be trembling…sweating…or make rocking movements”. Jenny feels that her condition has been made light of and the refusal of ESA has caused her very significant distress which is severely impeding her recovery.

Michelle* has a diagnosis of paranoid schizophrenia, severe anxiety and depression. She has very poor short-term memory, relying on a task list to get through daily routines, and avoids social contact and going to new places due to severe anxiety and panic attacks when she is particularly unwell. Michelle had to fight on appeal to qualify for Employment Support Allowance, but under new proposals, would likely be assessed as fit to work.

* names changed

Taken from MIND

Seriously ill ‘forced back to work’

Seriously ill and disabled people are being pushed into finding work without any help or support, a charity has warned.

Citizens Advice said it had “grave concerns” about how sick and disabled people are being assessed for Employment and Support Allowance (ESA).

The allowance was introduced in October 2008 to replace incapacity benefit for new claimants, and to give more support to people who may be able to return to work.

But the charity said that since the allowance was introduced, its advisers across England and Wales had been reporting high numbers of seriously ill and disabled people who were being found “fit to work” under the new work capability assessment.

People who were found to be fit to work included those with advanced stages of Parkinson’s disease and multiple sclerosis, as well as people with severe mental illness, and some who were dealing with acute short-term health problems, such as waiting for open heart surgery. Overall, 69% of people who were assessed for the allowance were refused it.

In its report, which is supported by 18 other organisations, including Macmillan Cancer Support and the Multiple Sclerosis Society, the group warned that the medical test people undergo to assess their fitness to work does not account for the complexities of many illnesses and disabilities.

It said it was also hearing numerous reports of hurried medicals, where vital details were missed and unjustifiable assumptions were made. It added that the assessments did not place enough emphasis on the impact of mental health issues on people’s ability to work.

The charity said that failing the assessment could have an enormously detrimental effect on people. It said people who failed were told they must find work, and they could also be put on jobseeker’s allowance, which it said was a less supportive benefit, while in some cases they may receive no benefits at all.

Citizens Advice also warned that the stress of the test and the prospect of having to fight unfavourable decisions at a tribunal put considerable pressure on people, and risked making it harder for them to return to work.

David Harker, chief executive at Citizens Advice, said: “The current test to determine eligibility for ESA isn’t working. We are seeing cases where the Government’s aim of moving people into work is being totally undermined. Seriously ill and disabled people are being severely let down by the crude approach of the work capability assessment.”

Taken from Yahoo! News UK

DWP report finds doubts about work capability assessments among welfare-to-work staff

Jobcentre Plus staff feel many people who pass work capability assessments are not fit for work, according to a study by the Department of Work and Pensions published yesterday.

They believed this was especially damaging for clients with mental health problems and exacerbated their symptoms.

Work capability assessments decide whether people are eligible for one of the two levels of employment support allowance (ESA) or jobseeker’s allowance, which is worth £25 less than the lower level of ESA.

ESA replaced incapacity benefit in October 2008 for new claimants, with the work capability assessment introduced at the same time, and early evidence has shown that more people have been deemed fit to work under the new regime.

Neil Coyle, director of policy at the Disability Alliance, said he sympathised with jobcentre staff’s frustration. In his experience, many were unable to deliver support they felt clients needed because the assessment made them ineligible for ESA.

The study also confirmed a large backlog of appeals against work capability assessment decisions.

Coyle said the backlog was likely to get worse because the government intends to push all remaining incapacity benefit claimants through work capability assessments. “It’s worrying, not least for those of us who foot the bill because appeals are very expensive,” Coyle said.

The study, based on in-depth interviews with more than 70 staff and customers, found considerable delays in having a work capability assessment and this limited the scope of work-focused interviews. These take place between nine and 13 weeks after a client has made an ESA claim and are aimed at supporting claimants into work.

Some people had received no assessment by the time of their third interview.

Benefit delivery centre staff, who process claims, reported that there was an incentive in the system for appeals because it allowed claimants to continue claiming ESA, as opposed to jobseeker’s allowance, until the appeal was heard. Several staff were acutely concerned about the extra costs this entailed.

Minister for disabled people Jonathan Shaw said: “This research was carried out some time ago soon after the benefit was introduced and we have made considerable improvements since then. We continue to see where improvements and changes are needed to ensure that ESA is working as it should be.”

A Department for Work and Pensions spokesperson said the work capability assessment was currently being reviewed to ensure that it was accurately identifying people for the most appropriate benefit and work was underway to streamline the appeals process.

Taken from CommunityCare

Carers on the march for rights

Carers from across Wearside will march to Parliament today to fight for their rights.

Representatives from Sunderland Carers’ Centre will present a petition at Downing Street before MPs meet to discuss issues facing the city’s unpaid army of carers.

Protesters are arguing against the carers’ allowance which they say is too low and doesn’t recognise wider issues facing carers.

About 300 carers in Sunderland who look after a disabled, frail or elderly loved one have signed the petition, which is part of a national campaign organised by the Carers’ Poverty Alliance.

Among them is Linda Gardner, 52, who cares for dad Robert, 84, who has cancer of the pancreas.

“We would like to see a fairer deal for carers,” she said.

“If I claimed the carers’ allowance, money would actually be taken off dad, which wouldn’t be fair.”

The mum-of-two also said more needs to be done to physically support carers.

She said: “Home help is available, but it is only for a few hours a week and it’s expensive. It was going to cost us £70 to have someone come and switch on the microwave for dad.”

The carers’ allowance is currently £53.10 a week. However, if you receive certain other benefits at the same amount or more, you are not eligible for the funds.

Fraser Kemp, MP for Houghton and Washington East, will be among MPs from across the country who will meet at Westminster to discuss issues affecting carers.

Mr Kemp, who has held surgeries for carers in the past, said: “The work that carers do on Wearside is of tremendous value and we have one of the highest proportion of carers of anywhere in the UK.”

About 11 per cent of Wearsiders – a total of 32,000 people – are carers.

Taken from Sunderland Echo

Poor paying for energy profits

Crippling energy costs hit the poor and elderly as companies cash in on cold weather

Households across the UK are facing record energy bills this month as a result of the recent freezing weather conditions. After one of the coldest Januarys in over 25  years gas and electricity bills are set to rise from an average £156 to £237 – a massive 52 per cent increase, according to official figures, with many people falling further into debt in order to pay.

The extreme weather during the first month of 2010 saw average temperatures slip below 3c with widespread heavy snowfall and sharp frosts across most of the UK. According to the Met Office the minimum temperature recorded was (minus) -22c. The extraordinary weather over the winter period is estimated to have caused a 30 per cent surge in energy consumption, as families and the elderly struggled to cope with the freezing temperatures.

Economically it means the UK’s 27 million households will pay out a total of £6.1 billion on their energy bills for the last month, an increase of £1.89 billion despite the decrease in the cost of fuel. Wholesale gas prices fell by 60 per cent during 2008/9, but the savings have not been passed on to consumers with customer bills being reduced by less than ten per cent. Critics argue that the major energy suppliers are waiting until the summer to bring down prices rather than risk a cut in profits during the peak energy consumption over the winter months.

The UK’s largest energy supplier, British Gas with 15.7million customers, is set for a 50 per cent rise in annual profits to more than £500million, while Scottish and Southern Energy’s profits rose by 36 per cent in the past six months. Thousands of elderly, meanwhile, have been unable to afford to keep warm during the coldest spell in 30 years. One energy expert commented “There is still scope for significant price cuts for both gas and electricity to ease the burden on hard-pressed households. A lot of people, especially the old, poor and vulnerable, were already struggling to pay their bills even before the sharp drop in temperatures and they need help.”

There were 36,700 more deaths among the elderly during winter than in warmer months, according to the Office of National Statistics, up 12,000 on the previous year. At the same time there are millions of pensioners among the 5.4million who are in fuel poverty. The Age Concern and Help the Aged charity condemned the rise in winter deaths, which it links to ‘cash-strapped older people turning down the heating’. Energy watchdog group Consumer Focus commented: ‘All of the suppliers will be enjoying rocketing profits while millions of consumers worry about how to afford to keep warm.’

The windfall for gas and electric companies comes on the back of an the energy regulators Ofgem critical report that found energy suppliers waiting 65 days after putting up prices before informing customers of the increase, leaving many in the dark over the true cost of their energy consumption.

Taken from Freedom

Disability tests in need of overhaul

The Work Capability Assessment (WCA), which came into operation nearly a year and half ago, is the test that is meant to determine whether people are eligible to receive the new employment and support allowance, which offers support for disabled people and people with long-term conditions to get in to work. But as more figures become available showing just how tough this new test is, and as more claimants report bad experiences, have we reached the point where we need to ask whether the test itself is actually fit for work?

The early indications for the test were not positive. While to its credit, the Department for Work and Pensions did engage a large number of disability organisations in the design process, many of the organisations (including Leonard Cheshire Disability) felt that their concerns were not always listened to, and that changes were being made without enough real evidence. It was clear from the outset that the new test was being made tougher, even though the old test had been described by a former secretary of state as “the most stringent” in the world. The result, of course, is that there are far fewer people being assessed as needing additional support to get back to work, and fewer people receiving the additional financial support that the employment and support allowance can provide.

The government contracts out the responsibility for carrying out these tests to a company called Atos, which in turns employ “health professionals” to conduct the assessments. But there have been serious concerns both about whether the people conducting the tests have sufficient expertise to fully understand the huge range of different impairments that they might encounter, and whether the test itself is appropriately constructed. Already research has highlighted problems: the National Autistic Society found that the system was not always working for people with autism; Citizens Advice Scotland reported that the system was causing disabled people “unnecessary financial distress and emotional strain”; Macmillan and Citizens Advice reported that some people with terminal cancer were not being fast-tracked through the system.

Those who feel that they have not been properly assessed can complain directly to Atos. But very often a poor assessment will lead to an appeal, a tribunal and delays, as well as extra expense to both the individual and the taxpayer. Most importantly, of course, every time the test doesn’t work appropriately it can mean someone missing out on the support that they need to find work, and the financial support that they need because of their impairment.

Given all the concerns with the system it might seem positive that a review of the WCA has been ongoing for some months. But sadly the review was not set up in response to the serious difficulties that some disabled people were experiencing with the system. It was set up to make changes to the assessment that the government estimates will mean 10% fewer people again receiving the employment and support allowance.

Benefits should not be about targets but about ensuring the right support is delivered to those who need it. If disabled people can be supported into work then there will be a direct benefit for them, and also for the taxpayer. But if people are forced off the benefits designed to support them and into appeals by an unfair system, then that could lead to wasted opportunities, and even poverty. While the employment rate for disabled people is just below 50%, an overwhelming number do want to work. The employment and support allowance should be seen as the opportunity to deliver the support that many disabled people need to move into employment.

It is not too late to widen the current review of the WCA so that it really examines what needs to happen to make sure that the benefits system meets the needs of disabled people. An assessment that just gets tighter and tighter, restricting support for more and more people, will simply not be fit for purpose.

Taken from guardian.co.uk