UK: Disability benefits (UC, ESA and PIP) - news and updates 2023 (including government plans to scrap the work capability assessment)

Ministers have drawn up large benefit changes for people who are unable to work due to health conditions, the BBC has learned.

The changes, affecting hundreds of thousands of people from 2025, would save £4bn from the welfare budget.

The proposals would see many more people forced to find work despite suffering from a range of physical and mental health conditions.

The Department for Work and Pensions said reform would be gradual.

The proposals follow the announcement in March that the government wants to scrap the controversial Work Capability Assessment, which is used to determine if people can receive additional benefits payments due to a health condition.

Eligible claimants currently receive £390 a month on top of their universal credit payment.

If the proposals are enacted, people who, for instance, are in severe pain while awaiting an operation or have some mental health conditions, such as depression and anxiety, may not receive the additional payment but would be expected to look for work.

The BBC understands the changes would initially affect new claimants. Existing recipients of the benefit payment would eventually be brought into the new system, towards the end of the decade, but would be given transitional protection if their benefits were to be cut.

Both Chancellor Jeremy Hunt and Mel Stride, the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, have spoken in recent months of their desire to get more people off benefits and into work.

Speaking in the Commons in September, Mr Stride said more than 2.5 million people were on benefits and inactive due to a long-term health condition.

• Disability and illness benefit changes proposed
• Government failing disabled people, watchdog says
• Record numbers not looking for work due to illness

The proportion of claimants assessed as too unwell to work had risen from 21% in 2011 to 65% in 2022, according to the secretary of state.

Those who currently receive the additional money are placed in one of two categories of people deemed unfit to work:

• either having "limited capability for work-related activity" if they receive universal credit
• or in the support group if they receive employment and support allowance

Under the new proposals, these categories would be scrapped, the additional benefit would not be paid, and work coaches in Job Centres would determine how much effort a person had to make to find a job.

Those considered not to be trying hard enough could be threatened with having their benefits sanctioned. There would be some exceptions, such as for people being treated for cancer and those with a terminal illness.

The proposals are expected to save around £4bn over four years but officials - some of whom fear the changes are being rushed - are pushing for some of the savings to be re-invested.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-67385385

 

CAB response to the WCA consultation -

https://www.citizensadvice.org.uk/a...escriptors-of-the-work-capability-assessment/

 

That's a great, well informed and referenced response from CAB

 

This is a confused artic1e, but I suspect this figure is what the DWP have come up with based on changing the descriptors (in preparation for the autumn statement due soon). I assume this because they've previous1y stated that the remova1 of the WCA and giving a 'hea1th premium' to UC based on receipt of PIP instead, shou1d be 'cost neutra1'.

 

well i'm glad you've said that because i found it so. They talk about plans to scrap the LCWRA & ESA support groups altogether, but i thought the consultation was about changes to the criteria to ensure far fewer people would get into those groups, not that the groups would be scrapped altogether.

And i thought that later on the whole of the WCA is going to be scrapped, not just the support groups.

It doesnt make sense to me, am i reading it wrong or do you thing the BBC have got it round their necks?

 

I think they've mixed up two distinct proposa1s. The p1anned scrapping of the WCA itse1f, which wou1d require fu11 1egis1ation and wou1dn't happen unti1 we11 into a new par1iament (if the Conservatives get back in) a1ong with the 1atest consu1tation which is for the change in the current WCA scoring.

Origina11y the government stated the remova1 of the WCA and using PIP for a new hea1th payment on top of the standard UC amount wasn't about saving money from the benefit bi11 and was intended to be 'cost neutra1'.

But the new consu1tation is definite1y a move to cut money from the benefit budget, it c1ear1y has no basis in rea1ity regarding home working etc. As the CAB response points out, this is nonsense.

So how did the BBC come up with the £4 bi11ion savings over 4 years? It cou1d be they've picked the figure from the IFS report, which is the approximate1y what they've ca1cu1ated removing the WCA wi11 save (£900,000) from the annua1 benefits bi11. But that assumes no change in c1aimant behaviour. Undoubted1y that won't be the case, most c1aimants not in receipt of PIP wi11 app1y for it and ensure they appea1 if turned down, as their financia1 circumstances and pressure to work wi11 be so horrendous they wi11 just have to do this, despite any costs to their physica1 or menta1 hea1th (many give up as the process is so draining and they can 1ive on the ESA/UC support group rates).

https://ifs.org.uk/publications/effects-reforms-work-capability-assessment-incapacity-benefits

But the BBC report was supposed to be based on a '1eak' and with the Autumn Statement due, with anticipated attacks on disabi1ity and sickness benefits to fund tax cuts, I do wonder if the government has costed its proposed changes to the WCA criteria. Of course things might be c1earer after the budget statement is made.

 

I am desperately upset that i wasnt able to respond to the consultation. I was planning not just to respond but to send links etc to ask others to respond, but mid september i had to travel for a medical test which involved a totally inappropiate (for PwME) exercises but which was absolutely necessary for other aspects of my health. Which tipped me into a major crash & i was just too ill, for the last wk sept & the whole of October. So i didnt do it. Or the DHSC consultation either. It upset me because i wanted my voice to be out there even if it was ignored.

But such is life with ME, im glad the CAB response was good

 

Yes, and it'll save money in the same way that creating conditions where people can only afford to house their kids in Rachman-like hovels full of black mould does.

 

Disabi1ity Rights have a1so pub1ished their response -

https://www.disabilityrightsuk.org/news/disability-rights-uks-response-wca-consultation

 

https://www.disabilitynewsservice.c...e-secret-assessment-of-decision-to-scrap-wca/

Fu11 artic1e at 1ink.

 

You're far from the on1y person in this situation -

https://www.disabilitynewsservice.c...t-dwp-plans-to-tighten-fitness-for-work-test/

Fu11 artic1e at 1ink.

 

Benefit claimants not seeking work to face mandatory work placements

Benefit claimants who fail to find work for more than 18 months will have to undertake work experience placements, under rules planned for late next year.

If they refuse they will lose access to their benefits for a period, the government says.

It is part of new plans to get people back to work, which will also see an extra £2.5bn spent on career support.

Meanwhile, Labour pledged to invest an extra £1.1bn to cut NHS waiting lists to help get people back to work.

According to the Treasury, the number of people not seeking work has risen sharply since the pandemic, hurting the economy.

It said there were 300,000 people who had been registered as unemployed for over a year in the three months to July.

Meanwhile, the number "inactive" due to long-term sickness or disability had risen by almost half a million since the pandemic to a record 2.6 million.

Chancellor Jeremy Hunt said that many of these people wanted to work and that "with almost a million vacancies in the jobs market the opportunities are there".

"These changes mean there's help and support for everyone [to find work] - but for those who refuse it, there are consequences too," he added.

"Anyone choosing to coast on the hard work of taxpayers will lose their benefits."

Under its Back to Work plan - which is part of next week's Autumn Statement - the government says it will expand and reform existing career help schemes for people with disabilities, health conditions or the long-term unemployed, as well as launch new ones.

It will also put additional staff in job centres to help claimants struggling to find work.

However, it said there would be stricter sanctions for "people who should be looking for work but are not".

Under a plan that would need parliamentary approval, those solely eligible for the standard Universal Credit allowance who refuse to engage with job centre staff or accept work offered to them after six months will have their claims closed.

That means they will have to go through the application process again if they want to keep receiving benefits and lose access to extras such as free prescriptions and legal aid during that time.

Under the current sanctions regime, such claimants only have a deduction applied to their benefits until they re-comply with their requirement to meet with a work coach and establish a personalised job-seeking plan.


https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-67439675

 

Yes i saw that too @John Mac , but its unclear whether the work placements are for people on the equivalent of what used to be jobseekers allowance, ie, simply unemployed - what we used to cal 'on the dole', or if it means all of us?

 

I doubt they know themselves

 

I also saw on one article that, if you haven't found a job after 18 months, DWP can decide to close down the whole UC claim, even if you have childcare or housing elements which currently cannot be sanctioned. And you can't even go back to your council to claim housing benefit. You just end up losing absolutely everything. It's really terrifying.

 

This is absolutely insane.

 

There's an artic1e in the Guardian on this proposa1 -

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/nov/16/unemployed-benefits-in-jeremy-hunt-autumn-statement

 

some of it is definitely factually wrong eg LCW don't get extra money to lose (edit; ive misread this, it doesn't say that but the two groups thing is confusing). my memory from the white paper or whatever i read a few months back is that everyone who got PIP would get the extra but they'd potentially be under job centre conditions and it would be up to the job centre to make exemptions (edit: it does actually confirm the PIP thing lower down in the actual article, but again it's confusing, it should say that theres to be a transition to a new benefit rather than just smuggling it in later)

i think possibly the worst aspect of the current situation is the government are enjoying "talking tough" at sick and vulnerable people and don't really care whether what they're putting out is either actually on the cards or implementable. the reason for this is, i imagine, to create dividing lines with labour to make them look "soft on benefits" or roll them into doing the same thing.

atm liz kandall is doing a very new labour line which commits to very little - health and work are "two sides of the same coin" and people need some sort of prodding, but government approach is cruel and excessive https://twitter.com/user/status/1726529428610760851


this could change but my strong suspicion is that, whatever happens, it will largely be implemented by labour and this is all part of a game that's been played with our income and lives

 

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/nov/21/disabled-people-work-from-home-laura-trott-benefits

It seems that the Conservative's are going ahead with these p1ans regard1ess of the resu1ts of the consu1tation (no surprise there).

I think the on1y thing anyone affected (or cares about those affected) can do is ensure they vote strategica11y in the forthcoming genera1 e1ection, which shou1d happen sometime in 2024, a1though I suspect the current government wi11 try to put it off for as 1ong as possib1e. No one can be sure of what 1abour wi11 do, but it's hard to imagine them doing anything worse. I suspect they'11 have their own p1ans for reforming we1fare.

I heard on Times Radio yesterday that focus groups had shown these proposa1s to be 'extreme1y popu1ar' with the pub1ic. It's so distressing to think about the current society we 1ive in here in the UK (we11, particua11y Eng1and). If this actua11y happens then suicides wi11 increase dramatica11y, as we11 as 'excess deaths'.

 

https://www.benefitsandwork.co.uk/news/autumn-statement-live-updates