Why the benefits system for disabled people needs urgent attention

In a new report published today, we set out how the system is performing against the goals we all share of a fair and adequate system for all.

Employment and Support Allowance (ESA) is the out-of-work benefit paid to people who are unable to work due to a long-term health condition or disability. The process of claiming Employment and Support Allowance (ESA) is long and complicated. Following a Work Capability Assessment (WCA), a judgement will be made as to whether a person is fit for work, and if they are declared ‘unfit’ they are assigned to the Work-Related Activity Group or the Support Group. Those in the Work-Related Activity Group (WRAG) are expected to be able to eventually return to work, and are consequently expected to make steps to prepare for this. Like Job Seeker’s Allowance (JSA), they are obliged to sign a Claimant Commitment, which details the ‘work related activity’ they are expected to undertake.

Changes in the 2016 Welfare Reform Act meant that those who open a new claim and are placed in the ESA WRAG are now paid the same amount of benefit as JSA recipients, and the equivalent “limited capability for work” component in Universal Credit will be abolished. This has reduced the level of benefits for new ESA recipients from £102.15 to £73.10, a cut of nearly a third.

At this point it is important to remember those in the ESA WRAG have been medically assessed as currently unable to work, because of their disability or health condition. Is it proper to introduce conditionality and sanctions?

The government has suggested that cutting the rate of ESA will incentivise sick and disabled people to work. This is even though there is no evidence supporting this view. Disability campaigners have raised concerns for years about the WCA’s validity for determining fitness for work, citing the numbers of appeals and unrealistic eligibility criteria.

The latest available data from the DWP shows the number of appeals heard on ‘fit for work’ decisions on assessments, only 41% of the completed appeal decisions in this quarter were upheld. And DWP data shows more than 70,000 people on ESA have had their benefits stopped between December 2012 and 2016, over 12,000 of these sanctions have lasted for over 3 months.

Those receiving sanctions include people who were too sick to get out of bed to go to the job centre, or were attending medical appointments. Sanctions are harsh for any benefit claimant, but sanctions on disabled people make them vulnerable, and it can simply be summed up as a cruel policy.

Many of our findings are backed up by the recent UN’s committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities report, this made a scathing attack on government policy towards disabled people. It sets out the detrimental impact of conditionality and sanctions on people with disabilities receiving Employment Support Allowance, and calls for a review.

The TUC believes that conditionality is inappropriate, it ‘individualises’ the problem of disability, pointing the finger at an individual’s work-readiness rather than societal and structural barriers making it difficult for them to find work.

An assessment of disabled people’s capability to work should not be undertaken without regard to the quality of services and support that are available to disabled people who have the responsibility to seek work placed upon them. Disabled people suffer from barriers such as discriminatory behaviour by employers, lack of flexibility (for example, limited options to work on a reduced hour basis) and inaccessible workplaces. The social model, in which the disability is understood to be the result of barriers preventing the inclusion of people with impairments, and not the impairment itself should be used as the foundation for work in this area.

The UN report discussed earlier,  also recognized the process of the Work Capability Assessment (WCA) emphasized a functional evaluation of skills and capabilities of disabled people, rather than recognizing the barriers faced by them.

We hope that government will listen to the UN, and the millions of disabled people across the UK, and look again at how the system can be made to work better.