The JRF designed these with research input from the disability charity Scope.
This involved in-depth discussions with and surveys of Disabled people. JRF also analysed levels of hardship amongst people receiving health-related UC.
Key findings
The Government has committed to £3 billion in cuts to health/disability benefits. However, the JRF says that targeting arbitrary savings (set by the previous Government) won't lead to effective reforms that unlock work and risks deeper hardship for Disabled people already at severe risk:
“Of adults on health-related UC: 75% are in material deprivation, 34% couldn't afford to keep their house warm, and 24% used a food bank last year. These levels of hardship are even higher than for people receiving non-health-related UC, and far higher than the general population.”
The report says that tackling hardship must involve improving circumstances for people receiving work-related disability benefits.
With so many people being held back from participating in good jobs, it stresses that this is also crucial to the Government’s objectives around economic growth and to ensure everyone has the same opportunities to access work and economic security.
In addition, policy must focus on improving population health and healthcare. It needs to ensure jobs are designed to be much more viable for Disabled people and more supportive when employees become ill.
The JRF highlights three big barriers to work in the benefit system that must be addressed:
- The system creates a strong sense of insecurity and risk of being made worse off because of engaging with the DWP or moving into work. Almost 3 in 4 work-related disability benefit recipients we surveyed said that fear of losing benefits was a significant or very significant barrier to work.
- This insecurity is underpinned by low trust in the DWP and a culture of fear and negativity, including traumatic experiences of assessments. There's also a pervading fear of sanctions and unsuitable conditions, which pushes people away from engaging with employment support.
- This combines with a lack of proactive, positive engagement from DWP and poorly tailored employment support. Over half of people in the limited capability for work (LCWRA) group surveyed said they had either never been contacted by the DWP or had been contacted less than once a year.
The JRF report calls for a fresh approach to work-related disability benefits and employment support, working alongside Disabled people to put forward an alternative reform agenda.
Reforms need to:
- Reduce risk for Disabled people looking to work, including put a comprehensive Work Transition Guarantee into law to prevent reassessment for benefits within 18 months for those who participate in job support and to reinstate benefits if work doesn’t work out; increase UC’s work allowances for Disabled people.
- Improve trust in DWP, fix assessments and change the culture of fear and negativity, including work with Disabled people to develop a replacement for the Work Capability Assessment; replace the current unhelpful ‘limited capability for work’ language framework in work-related disability benefits.
- Bring a step-change in early, voluntary engagement, and effective employment support, including: a serious programme of proactive engagement to stay in contact with work-related disability claimants on a voluntary basis, with robust trials of different approaches; provide support to both claimants and employers, brokering workplace changes and helping employers to make them, with support continuing for 6 months after starting a job.
The JRF report Unlocking benefits: Tackling barriers for Disabled people wanting to work is available from jrf.org.uk.
The Scope research Making benefits work: Improving support for Disabled people is available from scope.org.uk.
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