This week, up to 7,000 existing incapacity benefit (IB)claimants will receive letters they have been dreading; asking themto be re-assessed for their benefit.While the mainstream mediawent with the ‘benefit crackdown’ angle on this, the reality forthe majority of claimants is somewhat different. Legitimateclaimants are worried that they will be wrongly assessed as fit forwork, which will lead to them losing out on the benefits on whichthey rely. The re-assessment is completed through the new workcapability assessment (WCA). This has been unpopular from theget-go, even after Professor Malcolm Harrington’s independentreview, which brought some changes. Many still view it as flawed,saying that it often lacks the sophistication to take into accountconditions that fluctuate. Mental health charities especially havehighlighted this. But despite these continued protestations, thegovernment has pressed ahead with its plans. It is interesting thatthis has been rolled out one whole working day after the pilots inBurnley and Aberdeen closed. I thought that the idea of a pilot wasto run it, then take time to assess its effectiveness, and thenmake any necessary changes to the scheme, before rolling it outnationally. Apparently not. While the Department for Work andPensions did release its interim findings in January, surely deeper thought about the WCA was needed?Whatever the reasons for the haste in implementing this change – afeeling persists that it is driven by the cuts agenda, although thegovernment has consistently denied this – many people are set tolose out on some of the benefit money they receive. Jobseeker’sallowance (JSA) can be up to £30 a week less than incapacitybenefit, depending on which rate of IB or JSA is claimed. Moving30% of people (taking the pilot results as a national indicator)onto JSA from IB could save hundreds of millions a year. But movingpeople onto JSA wouldn’t be so much of a problem if the jobs werethere for people to take up. They aren’t. With some 2.5 millioncurrently out of work and with more to come as a result of cutbacksin the public sector, add in several hundred thousand former IBclaimants, and the total could well rise to over 3 million. Witheconomic growth slow to static, many employers are not recruitingand those that are, are bombarded with applications. Competition isincreasingly fierce and, given the prejudice that people withlearning disabilities already face in the workplace, their chancesof getting a job diminish further. As a result of all this, morepeople with learning disabilities will end up in poverty, whichwill only have a detrimental effect on them and their families.Hardly helping the vulnerable, is it?
