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

Disability: A Claimant’s View

According to a recent OECD report, the UK already has one of the most stringent tests for assessing disability in the world. However, that has not stopped Labour introducing the ‘Employment and Support Allowance’, yet another ‘get-tough’ initiative aimed at reducing the 2.6 million claimants currently receiving Incapacity Benefit (IB). Labour have blamed the Tories for this state of affairs, but have achieved little themselves – apart from enraging the disability lobby.

I first got into trouble with my back in 1993, through working in libraries with work stations poorly adapted for computer use. My GP prescribed anti-inflammatory tablets and advised me to carry on working – advice which was subsequently reversed. Then I tried physiotherapy, which made the pain worse, and acupuncture, which achieved little. I had x-ray, MRI and ultrasound scans, all of which showed no problem, but by now rest days were used merely to recover and get my pain down to tolerable levels. The best advice, which did bear some fruit when followed, came from the GP’s receptionist(!), when she told me sotto voce, “Alan you will get no further with the NHS, you need to see an osteopath”. We are now well into 1994.

I worked spasmodically until 1996, then gave up. I still, 13 years later, have pain every day, which gets worse through repeated stooping, sitting on firm chairs, lifting heavy shopping, or even key-boarding for more than, say, 15 minutes. I thought them weird, but it soon became clear that symptoms like mine are not uncommon. Besides my GP, I also saw two Benefit Agency Doctors, and had no trouble claiming long-term benefits. In 1996 Invalidity Benefit, as it was then called, paid just over £100 per week – not bad – until Major’s government slashed it to just over £60 per week, made it taxable and renamed it Incapacity Benefit. When Labour took over in 1997, there was talk of reducing IB to the level of Job Seekers Allowance (JSA), but instead dramatically raised Council Tax, which effectively cut all benefits and pushed claimants towards means-testing. I received a flyer inviting me to a ‘work-focused interview’, but ignored it since there was no mention of a medical input. Nothing has changed, but Labour’s propaganda, coupled with my inability to prove that I have real physical problems, makes me feel vulnerable.

Things didn’t turn really nasty until 2007, when I was sent a hefty form to fill out. Ominously the word ‘pain’ did not appear on it – until added by me on each page. Another ‘medical’ followed, but this time, while I answered his questions, the doctor was typing away on a lap-top. As became clear later, he was trying to put together a case against my claim. I was shocked when told in a letter that I had scored only two points, my benefit was stopped and my P45 enclosed. The offer of a loan followed soon after, an offer I was fortunately able to ignore.

Having decided to appeal against the decision, my GP provided me with a support­ing letter. When it came, the appeal was heard by an independent doctor and a lawyer, and took about 40 minutes. I had two witnesses; no one appeared for the DWP, but this, it seems, is normal. The verdict, in my favour, came in writing for me to take away: amazing! The DWP’s miserly two points had been increased to 10. I got back all of the benefit which had been stopped, but the whole process took six months, and had done my developing anxiety and depression no good at all.

I had been encouraged to appeal by an ex-DWP employee, who told me that most of the DWP’s doctors would never make it in a hospital or general practice.

Six months passed when I was dismayed to receive yet another form, with another follow-on medical, but this time there was no lap-top and no further trouble. But, I was now quite paranoid about receiving any more brown A5 envelopes from Belfast. This is the reality of ‘welfare reform’.

A. Claimant

Taken from Freedom

Don’t lose out if you are a carer

The search is on for Wearside’s “hidden carers” to make sure they get the financial state help they are entitled too.

Research by Mori shows one-in-six carers either gives up or cuts back work to look after a loved one.

A spokeswoman for the Department of Work and Pensions, said: “Carers contribute a lot to our society and we want to make sure they are looked after as they look after others.

“They could be missing out on vital financial support they are entitled to.

“Receiving the right benefits can help carers to make ends meet, and getting practical support can help to prevent the physical and mental stresses of caring taking too much of a toll.”

Future financial security might not be at the top of many carers’ “to do” lists, but the state pension system is changing so that people’s financial security in later life can be better protected.

From April, people caring for someone for more than 20 hours a week could get National Insurance credits to help them build up entitlement to state pension.

The spokeswoman added: “We need help to find hidden carers out there who probably don’t even think of themselves as carers.

“Instead, they are just trying to be good to a parent, or a good parent to their child, but they may be able to get state pension help from April.”

If you are looking after a sick or disabled loved-one, get a benefits check and to explore options to protect your pension.

Call Carers UK’s adviceline, tel. 0808 808 7777 for expert advice.

Taken from Sunderland Echo

Double it and you get the real jobless total

The Government thinks it can achieve full employment. Wrong. Mass unemployment is an unavoidable fact of life

How many people are out of work? This week’s (18/12/09) official figures put the number of unemployed at 2.49 million: 7.9 per cent of the workforce. This is less than half the story. The government figures also showed that there are around half a million people working part-time who would prefer a full-time job, and that there are 2.26 million people who are economically inactive (home-makers, the unwell and students) who would like a job.

Add these three groups together, and there are 5.76 million people who would like to work more; about 15 per cent of the working-age population. You can quibble over how many of these are seriously looking for work; they are called “economically inactive” for a reason. But even so, the figures suggest we have truly mass unemployment.

If you think this shows the scale of the recession, you’re wrong. Even at its low point in the autumn of 2004, unemployment on this measure stood at four million. The move from boom to slump accounts for less than a third of today’s unemployment.

Nor are immigrants to blame. Back in 1996, before anyone had heard of the Polish plumber, unemployment on this measure was at more than 5.4 million. Few serious economists believe migrants add to aggregate unemployment. A study by the economist David Blanchflower has found that immigration from Eastern Europe “appears to have had little or no effect on the unemployment rate.” Indeed, in the good times, jobs for migrants increased alongside jobs for natives. Between 2003 and 2008, the number of foreign-born people working in the UK rose by 1.13 million, and the number of UK-born people in work by 1.16 million.

Nor can we blame much of this unemployment on the Government’s regulation of the job market. In the US, where the labour market is less regulated, the unemployment rate, on a measure similar to mine, is 17.2 per cent. Even at its low-point in 2000, it barely dipped below 7 per cent. And these figures exclude the 2.3 million people in prison.

These figures suggest a bleaker story: that the unemployed, like the poor, are always with us. In boom or slump, in regulated or less regulated markets, there is usually a large number out of work. Take the high point of Victorian capitalism, before trade unions and the welfare state, and when the free market ruled as much as it ever would. Between 1860 and 1890, unemployment, on a measure comparable to today’s 7.9 per cent rate, averaged 4.4 per cent of the workforce, and occasionally, as in 1879 and 1886, topped 10 per cent.

But what about the Fifties and Sixties? Wasn’t there full employment then? On a superficial reading of the statistics, yes. Unemployment averaged less than 2 per cent in those decades. But there was a massive amount of hidden unemployment then. Many women stayed at home; in 1955, less than 46 per cent of women of working age were in the labour market, compared with almost three quarters today. But many of these desperate housewives wanted to work; we know this because when opportunities to do so emerged in the late Sixties and Seventies, women took them.

Mass unemployment, then, is the norm. And this is true for pretty much any economy. So why is unemployment ubiquitous? This is like asking why many people will be lonely this Christmas. The labour market is like the dating market. Sometimes, people are out of work because they have unrealistically high expectations. Just as a girl stays single because she’s waiting for Mr Right, so people stay unemployed as they wait for the right job. At other times, there’s a mismatch between supply and demand. If you’re looking for a partner who is educated, cultured and sensitive, you’ll stay single if you’re looking in Dagenham. Ditto, if you confine your job search to the car industry in Birmingham.

In other cases, there is a signalling problem. Even if you find Mr Right, it can be hard to show him that you are Miss Right. Similarly, there is a big gap between finding the right job and showing that you’re the right candidate. And in other instances, there is just a lack of knowledge of opportunities. Some people are unemployed for the same reason that Carol Vorderman hasn’t snapped up your correspondent: they haven’t yet found out where the right match is.

Moreover, some lack the skills to get work. The New Policy Institute says that a young person without qualifications is four times as likely to be out of work as one with a degree. It was for this reason that Tony Blair claimed his Government’s priorities would be “education, education, education”: this, more than mere macroeconomic policies, was the road to fuller employment.

There is, however, at least one problem with this policy; it’s terribly expensive. Yes, school results have improved: the proportion of pupils getting five or more GCSEs at grades A*-C has risen from 45.1 per cent to 69.8 per cent since 1997. But this is merely because the Government has thrown more money at schools. A recent Office for National Statistics report on education spending since 1996 showed that each pound spent isn’t working any harder. With spending set to be squeezed, and diminishing returns likely to set in (because further improvements in results require educating the least educable pupils) we shouldn’t expect education to fix unemployment.

History and common sense, then, suggests that high unemployment is, if not inevitable, then at least normal. Which makes a White Paper issued this week by the Department for Work and Pensions all the more remarkable. It affirms an “ambition for full employment”, defined as having eight out of ten people of working age in employment (the current rate is 72.5 per cent). This would require an extra 2.9 million people to find work, on top of any population growth. The DWP says that such a rate “has not been seen before in the UK and is not seen in any of the other major developed countries”. What happened to evidence-based policy-making?

Taken from Times Online