Heads up - new sickness/disability benefit changes may be announced this week

apple85

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2023/08/31/claiming-sickness-benefits-to-be-made-harder/

Quoting the telegraph article above:

” Claiming benefits because of being deemed too sick to work is going to be made significantly harder under plans set to be announced by the Government next week.

Ministers will reveal that they want to reform work capability assessments, which determine whether someone is fit enough for employment.

The plans will attempt to cut the 2.4 million people who receive sickness benefits but are given no support to get them back into work because of their health. 

The figure has grown by 40 per cent over the last decade, with a notable increase in people claiming long-term sickness during and since the Covid pandemic.

One proposed change will see assessors urged to take more account of work from home possibilities for people with disabilities, which could offer employment opportunities not available a decade ago. 

Another will explore whether people deemed incapable to work because of mental health conditions could be given the support of work coaches to see whether some form of job could suit their situation. 

The ideas, the first reform to the system since 2011, are set to be unveiled in a consultation next week with a view to announcing formal policy changes in the Budget later in the year, meaning speedy implementation.

It is hoped the new approach, when implemented, could see hundreds of thousands of people who are currently claiming long-term sickness benefits find employment.

The new system would affect people already claiming sickness benefit when they are reassessed, which roughly happens every few years, as well as new claimants.

Mel Stride, the Work and Pensions Secretary, has championed the changes, with Rishi Sunak having called for reforms to help more people to move from welfare support into work.

An ally of Mr Stride told The Telegraph: “Mel passionately believes in the power of work to transform people’s lives and thinks it’s wrong that anyone should be written off.

“He’s been driving bold reforms to the system to ensure it reflects how the world of work has changed and the employment support now available to those with disabilities and health conditions. We know that a significant number of this group want to work and are being held back. Mel wants to ensure that’s no longer the case.”

The reforms, seen as a major policy announcement inside the Government, are the latest in a string of changes aimed at getting people on benefits back into work.

The jump in welfare claimants during Covid lockdownshas not been reversed to pre-pandemic levels, meaning it has become a focus as ministers seek to boost economic growth.

The changes being proposed revolve around how people who are claiming benefits because they are too sick to work are categorised by welfare assessors.

Those who are deemed able to take up jobs in some capacity are judged to have “limited capability for work”, meaning they are encouraged to still seek work. They are given work coaches to help guide them back into employment and receive around an average of £400 in sickness benefits a month. There are some 450,000 people in this group.

But those who are deemed incapable of working at all when assessed are judged to have “limited capability for work-related activity”, a similarly named category but with different implications.

This group are given no active state help to find a job. They receive almost twice the amount in benefits, roughly £800 a month, although amounts vary with personal circumstances.

There are 2.4 million people in this category, a marked increase on past numbers, with government officials arguing that the category was meant to be much more targeted when designed.

Ministers want to reduce the number of people in this group by hundreds of thousands, and will argue that the state providing no support to find a job could amount to a dereliction of duty. They will propose ways of encouraging people to be recategorised instead into the first group.

They are expected to acknowledge that scores of seriously ill and disabled Britons are rightly deemed too sick to work and thus must get financial support from the state. But they will also argue that too many people are receiving sickness benefit while not being given any support through the welfare system in getting back to work.”

I could of sworn that all of this was already announced (disability white paper in March 2023 announced that work capacity assessments were going to be scrapped (and odds on replaced with a worse solution) but no earlier than 2026) - so is Mel Stride announcing something new to give us sleepless nights, bring the white paper nasty plans forward or the telegraph just got things wrong as no one else is reporting this?

On another note I was so hopeful for 5 minutes today that starmer had replaced ashworth with someone who didn’t mirror a Tory for shadow work and pensions minister but if social media is anything to go by the new shadow minister may be no better than stride (‘goes to have a sob’)

poppy123456

It maybe the Telegraph but it's still a newspaper...

apple85

There’s another article from the telegraph with some further info of sorts:

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/08/31/rishi-sunak-has-played-his-last-best-card/

” The biggest social justice problem for the Tories is, of course, welfare. The progress made under Iain Duncan Smith was washed away by the lockdowns. Official figures slipped out two weeks ago show 5.4 million now on out-of-work benefits. A fifth of working-age people in Liverpool and Birmingham are on such benefits, as is a quarter of Middlesbrough and Blackpool. 

The economic and social damage being inflicted on these cities – at vast cost to the taxpayer – makes this the biggest scandal in politics. But a quiet one, because just 1.4 million are in the official unemployment figures (sickness benefit etc, doesn’t count).

Coutinho was, briefly, working on this as a welfare minister, asking if Tory welfare reform could be rekindled. The party did this once, so why not again? Perhaps the most alarming statistic in British government right now is a forecast that the disability benefit caseload will rise by 25 per cent over four years, to more than seven million. No wonder the UK growth forecasts are so grim for so long. What country can ever prosper if such a large chunk of its people are economically decommissioned?

But here, too, Sunak is moving. Mel Stride, the Work and Pensions Secretary, will next week start to reform the assessments for sickness benefit, seeking to stem the flow of claimants from 5,000 a day (twice what it was pre-lockdown). Four in five of those now assessed under Universal Credit are judged not fit for work – a ratio that has doubled since Iain Duncan Smith’s day. Are we really so sure that so many are unable to do any work at all, in a homeworking era, in a country facing a worker shortage crisis? Are those with mental health complaints being written off instead 
of helped?

Asking such questions, and updating the 12-year-old system, is harder than it seems. Welfare reform is tough, arguably the toughest task in politics. Department for Work and Pensions workless payments now govern a population the size of Norway, so mistakes here can hurt millions of the poorest people in the country. 

This is perhaps why Labour is so coy about the whole agenda. Culturally, the party is queasy about pointing to an excess of benefit claimants, especially if a worker shortage crisis means there is no recession to blame.

If Keir Starmer becomes prime minister, he’d have only two options: to accept economic stagnation or to start a welfare reform process that even the Tories have been unable to face going through again. For too long, it has suited both parties to pretend that the post-lockdown welfare crisis isn’t happening. At least Stride is about to try and, if he and the Prime Minister move fast, they may see some results. If not, then the doom graphs will be used by Labour to say that Toryism promises years of social failure”

I agree that the telegraph is a **** paper, but it’s also one that has Tory mps and ministers lining up to chat and feed them info…….prehaps more than the daily mail and express

But as I said in my last post wasn’t a huge amount of reform already announced with the disability paper in March 2023 and many reporters in the know were tweeting that no reform would start before the next election to help calm the community down

The only thing that comes to my mind is that the Tory’s are reaching new lows every week now and their chances of winning the next election is slim. The higher up tories are obviously in headless chicken mode and I’m fearing that they are moving up the timetable of benefit reforms (and cutting the amount of people on the system) as it is unfortunately a crowd pleaser for a good chunk of the British public and may be a good distraction story for them, and sadly even a vote winner (there are a surprising amount of disability deniers in this country that think disability and sickness benefits should be scrapped)

so yes I do hope as it’s only the telegraph reporting this it’s a sensationalist articles written from old articles but I’m fearing that the Tory gov are once again going to May an example of the sick and disabled to try and save their own behinds!

(Feel free to talk me down from this conclusion because it’s making me panick)

poppy123456

Yes the "white paper" was announced during the last budget. Plans for this are not due to start until at least 2029. Until anything further is announced no one really knows anything at all. My advice is not to worry until we know more because worrying doesn't really get you far, apart for more anxiety and stress.

Ray212

The article is wrong anyway, people on LCW getting £400 a month. Where did they get that from!

And people on LCWRA getting £800!

66Mustang

I don't get LCWRA but I get the legacy equivalent being in the ESA support group. I get £600 every 4 weeks so £650 a month not £800.

£150 difference might be trivial to the average Telegraph reader but it would make a lot of difference for me.

I am grateful for what I get that said.

As Woodbine says I will believe the news if and when it happens. That said, I would welcome any support into work if there was a job I could do, especially work from home.

apple85

I don’t think this is the announcement that the telegraph was alluding to but it’s certainly new news to me

https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/lifestyle/money/new-pip-plans-fluctuating-conditions-30864756.amp

Ray212

I wouldn't read too much into any of it @apple85. That story isn't introducing anything new, they are just talking about the white paper and "proposals" they would like to see introduced.

In all honesty rather than looking for things I would just wait and see what happens. Worrying about something that may never happen is no good

apple85

There are a few cases where people on the support group of esa get £800+ due to getting the enhanced/severe elements but it’s a small percentage and those elements no longer exist on uc

also for a good few years (almost 10yrs now - about 8?) new worked related activity group claims on esa and uc don’t get any extra money than the average jobseeker

im sure many on the support group would be open to more support getting into work but we all know with the dwp current methods either not to touch with a barge pole or at least approach with extreme caution 

I understand the dwp frustration that the numbers on disability benefits have hiked since the pandemic so you can see why they want to lessen that number - but they probably won’t care who they knock off as long as they get the stats and it will most likely be the most vulnerable caught up in this rather than those few playing the system (also the dwp need to release long covid is a thing and of course their stats are running high)

Jimm_Scope

Without context I do agree that work from home has changed many aspects of what people "can do".

The issue there is that once you add in the context that many companies are trying to reverse course and make people come into work, and there are still many issues with indirect disability discrimination in many workplaces. It's sad to see them manipulating numbers to suggest the majority get "roughly" £800 a month.

While Covid has seen an increase in said numbers I do wonder how much is actually attributable to the cost of living crisis? I know it's what pushed me to re-apply for PIP when inflation started being a concern.

Whatever changes they wish to make I will point out that this government does not have much longer with an election in the next year or so. And so far, in my personal eyes, they haven't been able to change anything quickly and anything they have attempted to do quickly has met legal battles. 

I'd await a proper announcement from the government outside of 1 or 2 newspaper articles!

apple85

True - the next election has to be held within the next 17 months and that shouldn’t be enough time common sense wise for anything major to happen

However we are dealing with an increasingly desperate Tory pm and party with a sizeable majority who needs to find some ‘red meat’ so to speak, and I go back to the old, sick and disabled being the easy targets

also the next election is basically between the tories and labour and from everything I’ve read the new w&p minister is cut from the same cloth as ids, mcvey, Coffey and stride (though I will say the shadow disabilities minister is significantly better than who the tories have on the job)

I really hope that people clock on to the 3rd option of forcing a labour coalition with the Lib Dem’s (I’m hoping they’ve learnt from their mistakes last coalition and with his background davey may be more empathetic) 

I personally can’t vote labour after this latest middle finger. ( why couldn’t he give us Nandy instead of demoting her?)

apple85

https://www.thenational.scot/news/23768411.dwp-change-sickness-benefits-bid-push-workforce/

Announcement this afternoon? (It says Tuesday afternoon and I presume as the original article came out last week it’s referring to today and not next week)

apple85

https://whatson.parliament.uk/event/cal45474

poppy123456

The changes for new claims for LCW/WRAG started from April 2017. 

apple85

poppy123456 said:

The changes for new claims for LCW/WRAG started from April 2017. 

Okay 6 1/2 years ago 😉

(history never my strong point!)

bg844

woodbine said:

PIP was introduced ten years ago and there are still some waiting to be transferred from DLA.

And I have been claiming for many years but wasn't transferred over to PIP until 2020 (strangely during Covid when everything was 'suspended')!

Jimm_Scope

The wording says consultation. Which I assume means there will be a consultation period before any changes are implemented. That in itself will take months, even if it begins soon. I believe 6 to 12 weeks for the feedback portion itself, the planning and analysis also take time before and afterwards.

WelshBlue

Ahhh Newspapers ... the same ones that say if you've got these conditions you're entitled to ... 

A lot of online ones still scaring people with the proposed new changes, and still saying everyone will be on UC by 2024

I'd rather take my chances of the old days of chips being wrapped in newspapers, than believe them about most things benefits wise

apple85

Jimm_Scope

Okay, I sat and watched through the announcement.

Let me give a little rundown. I will make it as concise as possible.

- Government want to change, remove or reduce points awarded relating to "mobility, incontinence, social engagement and getting about". No other descriptor categories are being consulted on for change. I could not here "mobility" very well as he slurred the word slightly. The reasons for this are that work from home is now more available they say so these are apparently less applicable than when they were first made.
- Changes will not affect those receiving cancer treatment or near end of life. Nor will it affect those of "severe disablement", such as those "with severe learning difficulties or unable to move from one seat to another."
- They will  also be consulting on the provisions for claimants who would otherwise be capable for Work Preparation Activities but are excluded due to substantial risk being applied. This is often applied on mental health grounds and the government believes it has gone beyond it's original scope so will be changing how risk is assessed and applied.

The government gave some other reasoning for the changes too. The government stated that 1 in 5 on WCA want to work, and these changes will help "bring them into the labour market to life a more fulfilling life."

The consultation will go on for 8 weeks. They will consult disabled people, charities, employers as examples. The earliest any changes could be put into practice is 2025.

Jimm_Scope

WCA is indeed being scrapped according to the Transforming Support: The Health and Disability White Paper - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk). The earliest that could happen is 2026 but I've heard some say it could take until 2025.

However, it seems the government believes action is needed now to get more people into work. Which the minister repeatedly said would be more beneficial the disabled.

I find this an odd argument because I don't believe WCA prevents you from working at all. Someone please correct me if I am wrong.