Linda Burnip of Disabled People Against Cuts highlights an outrageous aspect of this week’s Budget

Background

For many years, the UK social security system has had two disability-related benefits, both designed to meet different needs and with completely different assessments, measuring completely different things.  

Disability Living Allowance which has largely now been replaced with Personal Independence Payments (PIP)is meant to provide support to disabled people for higher living costs – research has shown that on average these are over £580 a month higher than for non-disabled people – such as special diets, additional heating and equipment. Entitlement is unrelated to income or ability to work.

Secondly, there has been a payment to meet daily living costs to support those whose condition limits their ability to work.

Many disabled people only receive one of these social security payments. The Institute for Fiscal Studies says 1.6 million people receive both benefits, 1.0 million receive Employment and Support Allowance or a Disability Premium in Universal Credit and 0.8 million receive only PIP.

Cruel Changes

The long awaited proposed government reforms to Disability Benefits were announced with the Budget on Wednesday. Work Capability assessments have been toxic and not fit for purpose since their introduction in 2008 and the claims system has led to many unnecessary deaths. Having complex physical and mental health needs assessed by an ex-physio or Occupational Therapist has been truly horrific for many who have been wrongly denied the payments they need to survive.

However, now it appears that job centre staff with no medical trainingwhatsoever will decide who is and who isn’t fit for work and what steps people need to take to search for work. DPAC believe this is totally outrageous and not acceptable in any way.

Currently, those placed in the Support group of ESA or its Universal Credit equivalent are subject to few requirements to take steps to prepare for or search for work (so-called ‘conditionality requirements’). That is not true for all disabled people, however, and the number of disabled people sanctioned and left without any income, or a reduced income, possibly for up to three years is between 26% and 53% higher than for non-disabled people.

Government plans are that only those disabled people also in receipt of PIP will now get an additional health-related payment with their Universal Credit and the government claims they will introduce a personalised conditionality approach where the medically unqualified job centre coaches will decide on disabled peoples’ capacity to work. The decisions of these work coaches will be important, because if claimants fail to abide by the requirements they can be sanctioned.

This proposed change is planned to take place at the same time the government has promised to strengthen the DWP sanctions regime and ensure job centre coaches have the tools and training to implement sanctions against claimants.

The government’s stated reasoning for this change is work incentives bringing us once more full circle to the scrounger rhetoric disabled people faced from 2010 onwards and yet again to the “Useless Eaters” propaganda so reminiscent of Nazi Germany.

It ignores the many barriers disabled people face in being able to access the labour market and the lack of support available to them. In order to be able to consider working, disabled people firstly may need to have the social care support to enable them to get up and out of bed in the morning. Yet we know that for many this support is not provided and the astronomical costs disabled people are forced to pay for such care has forced many to give it up.

Access to Work funding is in complete meltdown with delays of up to six months. We’ve come across so many cases of disabled people having to stop working due to not having the funding from Access to Work to pay their support staff or where, due to not being paid in a timely manner, support staff have been forced to leave their jobs.

Transport too is another major barrier, especially in large cities like London. Often getting onto a crowded tube or bus in the rush hour is impossible if you’re a wheelchair user as there just isn’t any space for you. For those with a Mental Health condition or autism, travelling on crowded public transport is just impossible as it causes so much anxiety. Support for people in Mental Distress is almost non-existent.

The government state that there are 1 million job vacancies but that definitely does not mean such jobs would be suitable for the majority of disabled people.

The Institute for Fiscal Studies says while this reform would strengthen work incentives, such incentives may have only a limited effect on disabled people, as the government’s own survey shows that only 4% of disabled claimants feel that they could return to work now if the right job were available.

PIP assessments too are in disarray, with well over 60% of appeals against being refused PIP being successful with the benefit being awarded at this stage. Appeals can take up to 12 months or sometimes even longer to be heard and a new claim can take  three months to process.

Linking a health -related payment in UC to PIP is likely to force greater numbers of disabled people to claim, pushing an already creaking service onto its knees. Not claiming could cause disabled people to lose £345 a month when anyone moved to UC from Support Group ESA will already have lost £167 a month due to the removal of Disability Premiums from UC.

While we would support the number of re-assessments people have faced since 2010 both for PIP, ESA and UC being reduced, having a single assessment based solely on entitlement to PIP seems a bizarre and cruel alternative.

These proposed changes, however, require primary legislation to be put in place and are unlikely to happen before 2030. However, we know now is the time we must all oppose such draconian plans.

While those of you reading this may not now have a long term health condition or disability the vast majority of disabled people acquire a disability or become ill later in life, rather than being born with a condition, and many years of austerity have also taken its toll on people’s mental wellbeing, so this could affect you too.

Linda Burnip is co-founder of Disabled People Against Cuts.