In her Spring Budget 2024 speech, the Chancellor said that the Government will be taking steps to ensure that welfare spending is “more sustainable” and that:
“... we inherited the last government's plans to reform the work capability assessment. We will deliver those savings as part of our fundamental reforms to the health and disability benefits system that My Right Honourable Friend the Work and Pensions Secretary will bring forward.'”
In the Spring Budget 2024 document it states without comment:
“3.19 At Autumn Statement 2023, the government announced a new Back to Work Plan to expand employment support for the long-term sick and disabled, and the long-term unemployed. Reforms to the Work Capability Assessment announced at Autumn Statement 2023 will reduce by 66% the net flow of people forecast over five years to be assessed to have no work requirements as a result of their health condition, ensuring that more individuals receive the right work and health support at the right time.
The Autumn Statement measures built on the comprehensive employment package from Spring Budget 2023, which focused support on groups where inactivity levels were high or where employment support is most needed, including the long-term sick and disabled, welfare recipients, and people aged over 50.”
It is difficult to see how exactly the same WCA reform “savings” projected by the previous administration would be achieved without implementing all or some of its planned WCA reforms.
The consequences of those measures will be devastating for the Disabled people affected. They will also add to already unreasonable workloads and working conditions for frontline DWP staff.
The inherited plans include abolishing the WCA and replacing it with Personal Independence Payment (PIP).
The deeply flawed PIP assessment process would determine eligibility for financial support if you’re not well enough to work.
This poses real risks to Disabled people’s financial security:
The Office for Budget Responsibility estimates that the planned reforms to the WCA from 2025 would mean that by 2028/29, 424,000 people with serious mobility or mental health problems would be denied both extra Universal Credit worth over £400 a month and protection from sanctions.
It estimates that just 3% of these people would be expected to move into work in the subsequent four years.
We do not believe the reforms would achieve their stated objective of reducing economic inactivity. Instead, they would condemn seriously ill and Disabled people to a life of poverty and the threat of sanctions.
There is also a growing body of evidence that suggests inadequate social security can in fact make it harder to get a job – whether because of being unable to meet costs associated with job-seeking, or because your time is taken up with trying to manage on a very low income.
Analysis shows that rates of out of work disability claimants have remained broadly stable over the past decade.
We can find no justification for the proposed measures.
In reality, the WCA proposals are a huge and potentially deadly cost-cutting exercise.
If the Government simply wants to help more people attempt to work, they could do so just by guaranteeing a safe return to existing levels of benefits for a Disabled person who tried working but was unable to sustain it.
Support should be offered to prepare for work without any threat of benefit sanctions.
We would urge that the Government should drop the WCA reform proposals and instead commit to a comprehensive and detailed review commissioned by the DWP to establish what works and what does not, regarding how successful various employment support schemes are in getting Disabled people into work and supporting them to stay in work.
The DWP should also collaborate with Disabled people and our organisations to better understand what effective models for supporting disabled people to move towards work look like.
For more information see Spring Budget 2024 available from gov.uk.
See also our related 2023 news stories: