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Incapacity benefit
Tony Blair has said that responsibility should be placed at the heart of the benefits system.
Linking welfare reform with the "bigger picture" of wider plans for community regeneration and an end to anti-social behaviour, the prime minister said his plans were "all about fairness and mutual respect for other people".
Alan Johnson, work and pensions secretary, has said that reform of incapacity benefit will form the centrepiece of the overhaul of the welfare system.
Government Response: Department for Work and Pensions
Alan Johnson, secretary of state for work and pensions, said: "We know that a million people on incapacity benefits want to work. So we must end the stifling of ambition caused by a system which for too long has assumed that all people with health conditions and disabilities are condemned not to work and instead live in isolation as passive recipients of benefits.
"It doesn't make sense to have a system that lumps everyone together - treating in exactly the same way the person with back pain and the person with terminal cancer. And for people with conditions that the right support can make more manageable, we should be rewarding steps towards work instead of the length of time on benefits.
"Our radical reform should mean that sickness benefit represents a pause in people's working life, not a full stop. Our agenda is one of rights and responsibilities: we can expect more of people as long as we safeguard their right to financial security and expand their opportunities to engage with the labour market.
"With unemployment at a record low and 600,000 vacancies in the economy we have a golden opportunity to tackle this problem and help one million people achieve their own aspiration of staying in or getting back to work."
Party Response: Conservatives
David Willetts, shadow work and pensions secretary, said: "Everyone agrees that those who can work should be expected to, while those who can’t should be supported through the benefits system.
"The government talks the talk but doesn’t deliver. In 1998, they said they were going to create a ‘whole new culture’, with attendance at work-focussed interviews becoming an ‘integral part’ of incapacity benefit claims. Six years later, they’re saying the same things all over again. In America, today is Groundhog Day. It looks like Labour have chosen to celebrate it by repeating the same promises on welfare reform that they’ve made again and again and again.
"There are 2.7 million people on incapacity benefits, but today’s announcements won’t help these people. Amazingly, the government thinks it can tackle the problem by measures that will only apply to people who start claiming the benefit in three years’ time. Our approach is to help people today."
Party Response: Liberal Democrats
Steve Webb, work and pensions spokesman, said: "The current system of incapacity benefits just isn't working. Seven years ago ministers were saying exactly the same things. The truth is Labour has simply failed to get to grips with this issue.
"The British economy and the British people need a benefits system which recognises that one size doesn't fit all. Disability has shades of grey, but the current system is black and white. We need a system that fits people rather than the other way around.
"We need to give individuals the support they need to get back into work rather than just forcing them off benefits and into poverty. That is why the Liberal Democrats would refocus the New Deal budget, which currently uses only a fraction of its money to deal with disability, into individual work schemes.
"We would also introduce a partial capability benefit so that those currently on incapacity benefits whose conditions fluctuate or could do some work could take some paid work without the risk of losing benefits altogether.
"Once again Labour is trying to sound tough and failing to find solutions."
Stakeholder Response: Help the Aged
Mervyn Kohler, head of public affairs at Help the Aged, said: "Evidently, there are large savings to be made by the government by the reform of incapacity benefit. Let's not forget that access to this benefit was often used as a sweetener for redundancy packages where traditional heavy industry was closing down in the 1980s and '90s, leaving no alternative sources of employment in large parts of the country. In many places, not much has changed, and employment can still be hard to come by for some.
"Where people over 50 want to go back to work, but need to retrain and re-skill, we would like to see the courses available to help them achieve that. However, as an example, 'pathways to work' as yet only covers around one third of the population, leaving a majority without access to that particular route back into the workplace. We would also like to see employers creating more part-time and flexible opportunities. These would appeal to older workers.
"However, there have not been major efforts made by the government to encourage employers along these lines. Help the Aged would prefer to see more use of the carrot, and less of the stick, under these circumstances."
Stakeholder Response: Disabilities Trust
A spokesman for the Disabilities Trust said: "The prime minister's statements on welfare and benefit reform have rightly focused attention on the problems of the benefits system. It is probably true that there are substantial numbers of people who are able to work and who presently do not do so while claiming benefits. However we should avoid making simplistic assumptions as to why that is so.
"Many of those people will be individuals with a variety of impairments and disabilities. The overwhelming majority of disabled people want and expect to work and despite many common and misplaced prejudices are fully capable of doing do. At present however there are serious impediments to disabled people taking their place in the workforce.
"While some of these are to do with the benefits system's inflexible and bureaucratic approach, (something the government must address), if the workplace did not so often present disabled people with daunting barriers (both physical and cultural) and there was a wider acceptance by employers of the capabilities of disabled people, then there would be far fewer disabled people condemned to a life of benefits handouts.
"Of course this is not just about the inequity of preventing disabled people from working with all of its financial implications, but also in an age of increasingly tough and global economic competition it makes no sense for our society to waste the potential of the millions of disabled people living in this country."
Stakeholder Response: Disability Rights Commission
Bert Massie, chairman of the DRC, said: "Disabled people on incapacity benefit are living in poverty. The DRC welcomes the government's announcement today that those who are able to, and want to, will be supported into work. The changes introduced today will mean that disabled people will be able to make a positive contribution.
"But for these measures to work, high quality support will be needed from assessment of those deemed able to work, right through to finding and maintaining opportunities to work.
"It is important that people on incapacity benefit who cannot do paid work are not penalised financially or made to feel guilty. I hope also that the incendiary debate over last few months – which has done nothing to encourage disabled people into work and everything to make the most vulnerable members of our society extremely worried about possessing pretty paltry sums – can now end and that we can now have a grown up conversation about the measures needed to help those that can, get back into work.
"Let's not forget that as long as employers continue to show disabled people the door rather than work to keep them in a job, we will still have an uphill battle to ensure that disabled people are genuinely able to participate fully in society.
"Over one third of calls to the DRC were about employers refusing to make adjustments that could keep disabled people in work. There must be more efforts to give employers advice and guidance on how this can be done."
Stakeholder Response: Institute of Directors
Geraint Day, head of health policy at the IoD, said: "The fact that so many people who actually want to engage in employment but for one reason or another have not been able to, means that action is needed. This would not only benefit individuals, but also business and the economy as a whole.
"One of the IoD's roles is helping to spread more information on how employers can engage in good practices, and how public agencies such as the Department for Work and Pensions, the Health and Safety Executive, the NHS and the independent sector, can help support SMEs."
Stakeholder Response: Age Concern
Gordon Lishman, director general of Age Concern England, said: "We support the aims of this package but the devil will be in the detail. We need reassurance that the new responsibilities placed on those claiming rehabilitation support allowance will be flexible enough to accommodate individual health needs and circumstances. Those who are unsuccessful in finding work should not be penalised - everyone should have access to a decent income.
"However it is positive that those with severe health conditions will gain from the new disability and sickness allowance. We welcome the recognition that many vulnerable people with disabilities may be unable to return to work and are most at risk of prolonged poverty.
"But the government should not forget the millions already on incapacity benefit who also need additional support and generous financial incentives to return to work. We welcome the success of 'pathways to work' which is helping new claimants of incapacity benefit return to work quickly but the lessons of the pilot scheme must be built into the new reforms."
Stakeholder Response: Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development
Dr John Philpott, chief economist at the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development, said: "The government is right to distinguish between the most severely disabled and claimants capable of work. The proposed rehabilitation support allowance represents an ideal mechanism for providing support to people with disabilities who might return to work while providing incentives to make use of that support.
"There will be understandable concern that the reform package 'punishes' disabled people. But the cost and waste associated with the current incapacity benefit system, and the obvious reality that at least one in three claimants could work, means that it is those who oppose reform that do the greatest disservice to the disabled jobless.
"The new package will help alleviate welfare dependency and bring more people into a labour market starved of people willing and able to work. And it will put pressure on employers to change their working practices to accommodate people with disabilities, people who at present lose out to those easier to recruit and deal with, such as immigrant workers.
"Given the slow pace of reform the government is open to the charge that it is 'all talk and no action' on this issue. However, Mr Johnson appears to be a minister who knows how to combine tough rhetoric with what is practical. His reform package makes sticks sound like carrots – which is precisely how 'tough love' welfare reform should be presented. The disabled jobless need to be convinced that work makes best sense for them, by highlighting what they can do to help themselves.
"The only obvious downside to the reform package is that the new measures will not be fully operational until 2008. This is too long a delay – it means that the reforms will be slow to reduce welfare dependency and make no difference to employers desperate to fill job vacancies today."
Stakeholder Response: Leonard Cheshire
John Knight, head of policy at disability charity Leonard Cheshire, said: "Today’s proposals put a great deal of emphasis on the initial capability assessments and the personalised support that disabled people will receive. We will need to hear much more detail about how this will work in practice – staff must be fully trained to be able to deal with the complex new demands that will be placed on them.
"We also need the government to confirm that there is no intention to tighten the gateway on to IB. The current medical assessments are extremely stringent and the new procedure must not be used to try and turf people off IB who are desperately in need of support.
"If the new proposals are implemented with sensitivity to the individual then there is much that will be welcomed in today's announcement. The system needs to be able to deal with the complexities of disability such as fluctuating and progressive conditions – a 'one size fits all' approach would have the potential to be very damaging for disabled people."
Stakeholder Response: SANE
Marjorie Wallace, chief executive of SANE said: "There is a growing fear among those who call us that their Incapacity Benefit may be withdrawn, and we know of seriously ill people whose benefit is being threatened. We fear that because the reasons why people with mental illness cannot work can be far less obvious than in the case of those with physical conditions - but with effects just as crippling - the increased pressure on individuals who are mentally frail may push them over the edge, triggering a relapse and a worsening of their illness.
"It is illogical to expect that people with serious mental illness whose claim to Incapacity Benefit is defined under quite rigorous terms by their inability to sustain being employed, can with no change in their condition be able to seek work. For such people, the benefit makes the difference between a deprived or bearable daily life."
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Published:
Wed, 2 Feb 2005 15:01:00 GMT+00
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