.......strangely called Fairness and Opportunity for all states that From April 2010 all IB claimants ... will be required to take the work capapbility assessment.

Is this news?

yes, for those who've been on benefit since before october 2008

see also today's rightsnet news story ... Budget 2008: Welfare benefit and tax credit highlights

Certainly news to us. We knew that previously under-25-year-old IB claimants are to have the WCA applied to them from 2009. Apparently, both groups will remain on IB/IS although being assessed under the new assessment, with voluntary Pathways to Work engagement also on offer. No concrete news on migration at this stage, the intention is to let the new system bed in before any large scale migration takes place.

I have to say I hate to think what kind of results will be coming out of the medical assessments if the assessors are being required to do assessments of both sorts in the same session - it would be a recipe for total confusion! The "logical" thing to do would eb to swap existing claimants over as soon as they come up for reassessment, subject to some sort of transitional protection perhaps: but when does logic ever have anything to do with it?

In the budget debate James Purnell said that these assessments will be phased over the three years starting in 2010, and that £30 million has been allocated to do the assessments. As there are about 2.5 million people getting IB and IS for incapacity, this only comes to about £12 a claimant assessed. I would expect Atos to charge DWP more like £100 per assessment. Another case of Government figures that don't add up?

DWP does not appear to be planning to apply the Pathways to Work WFI,back to work preparation and in-work support package (which is very expensive)to these existing claimants. The worry is that the main intention is to pitch large numbers of people with long term health problems onto JSA, so that they can be paid less benefit and sanctioned if DWP think they are not trying hard enough to get a job.

I'm pleased to see that someone else has arrived at the same figure of £12 per head for medical assessments - I thought my calculator had had a touch of the sun ....

Anyway, if this policy is carried through then I can envisage another spell of incapacity Benefit appeals similar to those we use to have by the dozen up until they changed to the present day PCA......

i hate to mention this in polite company, but surely someone should remind Mr Purnell about the ill-fated Benefits Integrity Project, which was founded on similarly unclear principles other than a vague feeling that some claimants were receiving benefit incorrectly and was set about with similar levels of decisions being over turned on appeal.

Should all hit the fan just as the government reaches the next election!

".......Should all hit the fan just as the government reaches the next election!......." Now there's a thought to conjure with...

As far as the Benefit Integrity Project is concerned, there are quite interesting similarities between the circumstances surrounding the birth of BIP, and the introduction of the forthcoming purge on Incapacity Benefit claims.

In both cases, they are the outcome of either some very misinformed views, or if you wanted to be very cynical, the outcome of a well orchestrated policy designed to reduce the Welfare bill.

Some of us will recall that at the time of BIP, there were some highly imaginative and totally unsubstantiated claims being made, (both inside and outside of the House of Commons) as to the supposed levels of fraud within DLA - ie, large numbers of claimants not really entitled to the benefit - this was based to some extent on a couple of highly publicised cases. As I recall, the eventual outcome was that the project had cost the DBU millions and had uncovered just a handful of dubious claims: the icing on the cake was the substantial number of claimants who had been underpaid....

Now, are there parallels to be drawn where Incapacity Benefit is concerned or not? Perhaps there are: every time someone feels that the Incap bill is getting too high, then they revamp the test: the justification for this is that too many people are claiming when there's nothing much wrong with them - what they really want to do is work etc etc. I seem to recall that we were hearing a similar justification for BIP.

The most worrying aspect of what is being proposed is that a substantial number of those 2.6 million claimants who will be subject to a medical suffer from a mental health problem of one description or another......

".......Should all hit the fan just as the government reaches the next election!......."

Next election presumably 7/5/09 (otherwise why a one year only increase in Winter Fuel Payments this year?). Perhaps a little too early for the full amount of the sewage in the pipeline to have yet reached the ventilator?

On the subject of £12 per assessment.

Wouldn't the £30Million be on top of the budget already allocated to do PCA's?

There's no suggestion that PCA's would have stopped being performed in 2010 or that the WCA would be an 'extra' intervention.

Could the £12 per claimant be seen as the difference in cost between a PCA and a WCA?

These planned medicals are for those claimants who were in receipt of Benefit before autumn 2008 - even if there will only be a million in that catagory, at £100 per head you are still looking at far more than £30 Mil.

I'm sorry, perhaps I've not explained myself properly.

There must be a current budget for PCA's, assuming Atos Origin don't do them for free?

My thoughts were basically that the £30million is reflective of the costs of performing a WCA rather than a PCA (which has already been budgeted for.)

I think that the cost of PCAs (and other medical sevices) is not for public knowledge for reasons of commercial sensitivity. The contract was reported to be around £500,000,000 for seven years or (£71million a year or thereabouts.)

On Hansard for 2006 & 2007 the numbers of PCA's were around 447000 and 490000 for the resepective years.

However, take away infrastructure costs, wages and the rest of the services DLA/IIDB for instance and the £71million can't stretch that far.

The budget for medical services must be much higher than the £500000000 declared.

Anyway I digress.

My point being that the £30million is not the total budget for WCA's but the additional cost of WCA's over PCA's.

Interestingly, I asked the question of JCP - the reply reproduced below is even more illuminating - you can't help but notice that first of all the £30 million is now the cost for the first year - 2010 - after that we appear to be going into the realms of creative accounting, or at least accounting which appears to be based upon a number of unknown and undeterminable facts.

As far as the difference in cost between a WCA and a PCA is concerned - I can't really envisage it being noticably different.


Anyway, the response from the Head of Health and Benefits Division in DWP states:

"The £30 million is the gross cost for the first year. After this there will be cost offsets because the WCA is better targeted at those people who cannot work, and we expect this will mean fewer people on IB

In addition, by 2010 we estimate there will be fewer than 2.6 million on IB anyway, because there will be no new claimants after October 2008 and a number of the people currently on IB will have left benefit".

Well done, Mike, for getting this response from JCP.

On the money, the position seems to be that the Treasury has given DWP an extra £10m for this work in 2010/11 (Red Book, table A1), but the work that year will cost £30m, so DWP has to find the other £20m from its existing budget. This will be a challenge as the Pre Budget Report (Table D22) shows DWP has to save £699m in cash from what it could spend in 2007/08 on running DWP - £7.78billion down to £7.08b. Challenging "efficiency" savings by any standards, especially when the Welfare to Work agenda requires JCP to be much more pro-active. If you think the service is bad now, it is likely to get much worse unless better IT and contracting out of the welfare to work stuff really do deliver.

If each WCA costs £100, it looks as if JCP plan to do 300,000 more each year than their normal programme (i am not sure what that is, but everyone on IB who is not exempt is supposed to get a PCA periodically). So there will be an extra 900,000 WCAs over the 3 years - more if Atos are cheaper than I think. As JCP say, the numbers on IB will have fallen by 2010/11 because there will be no new claimants after ESA is introduced in 10/08, and people will be leaving IB for one reason or another. But it is still hard to see that there will only be around 900,000 needing a WCA by 2010/11.

The JCP statement "the WCA is better targeted at those people who cannot work, and we expect this will mean fewer people on IB" is chilling. But JCP is wrong to argue that less WCAs will be needed because of this. You have to give the IB recipient the WCA before you chuck them off IB and onto JSA!

I think JCP are relying on the fact that around 200,000 LTIB claimants fail the PCA per year (2005 figures.)

The normal programme is around 450,000 PCA's (from Hansard).

The maths doesn't quite add up which is unsurprising given that the accounts have to be 'qualified' 18th year in a row as I remember.

I'm sure the figures haven't taken into consideration linking rules n stuff.

Don't forget the fact that the evaluation of the new WCA shows an increase in disallowances in the region of 10% or so. So more failures of both new ESA claimants, as well as current IB claimants losing out will diminish the number of examinations over time as well.

....."On the money, the position seems to be that the Treasury has given DWP an extra £10m for this work in 2010/11 (Red Book, table A1), but the work that year will cost £30m, so DWP has to find the other £20m from its existing budget...."

which is not the impression that you get from reading the Secretary of State's statement - the way he says it gives the distinct impression that it's £30 million new money, and it's to cover the cost of up to 2.6 Mil WCA's. The version I got from JCP sounded quite different to that.

"......Don't forget the fact that the evaluation of the new WCA shows an increase in disallowances in the region of 10% or so....."

When CMS was introduced their evalation of the increase in Social Fund business did not even begin to foresee an increase of 40% plus......

I would like to think that they are financially prepared for what I suspect will be a noticable increase in Incap Appeals, or whatever the equivalent will be...it'll all end in tears as usual...

It has always been the intention to migrate all IB claimants over to ESA in due course. The only question has been when this would happen. The recent announcement is giving them 5 years from the introduction of the new beenfit.

Have you factored in the savings to be made from not trying to keep track of, administer and test two totally different beenfits for ever at the same time? From the point of view of reducing benefit complexity, granted that ESA was coming anyway, it could be regarded as desirable to get rid of IB sooner rather than alter. If only not to confuse DMs and result in even more refusals as they forget which test they're supposed to be applying.

It's not though - the proposal is to make all IB claimants subject to the new WCA, not to migrate them onto ESA. This position has been confirmed to us by DWP officials. So IB claimants who succeed in establishing an ongoing entitlement will remain on IB, and will not be offered the support that ESA promises, that's why we said that this move was dishonest, as it appears that this is simply about reducing IB claimant numbers, not about helping people into work.

The other thing that's happening is that nearly all the DLA submissions I'm now seeing include an IB85 PCA report. Until a few months ago I'd be looking to the vague answers provided in the GP 'factual' medical report as a source of weakness, but now I expect to see the IB85 in the bundle. Oddly, enough, the clinical findings are frequently indicative of likely care needs and mobility problems, but clients still have to appeal.

I wonder how the new new capability assessments will impact on DLA decision making in the future (as if I can't already guess).

It's all a con, say the Tories

http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/economics/budget_2008/article3549631.ece

The guy who runs the local bus company round here (in reference to the 'free' bus pass funding row) stated on the radio today that this government based its funding on 'Zimbabian economics' model.

Maybe he's got a point.

SSP takes up a lot of short term sickness (would we even be in the position of abolishing sickness otherwise?)

not all employers sack someone because they have been unfit for work for 6 more than months, (although some do!!!)

what happens to someone who has their job kept open for them? and what happens to the self-employed roofer who's broken his ankle?

(he pays private sickness insurance and just pays his NI for nominal sickness cover?) something wrong here? false premise maybe?>

just to let you know that ESA regs are being laid in the House today by James Purnell, i have a copy in my possession and will be reading through all 180 pages for the next few hours. if i come across anything of interest/concern/etc i will let you know. one carrot is the promise of an automatic passport onto EDP for support group claimants of means-tested ESA (only for HR care DLA claimants currently)

insofar as the proposal for applying the WCA to existing claimants, we were told this morning that the DWP do plan to begin applying the new assessment but the promised support that was concomitant to the new approach will be offered as resources allow. make of that what you will.

i did point out that this approach has the feel of son-of-BIP about it but officials wouldn't accept that at all. could be a few appeals flying about come 2010 methinks, unless some radical improvements to decision making and evidence gathering/analysis occurs.

"....... we were told this morning that the DWP do plan to begin applying the new assessment but the promised support that was concomitant to the new approach will be offered as resources allow. make of that what you will....."

Paul - is there an english translation of the above available - I only ask because the costings just don't add up - I can't see any savings anywhere - for example, if they were to manage to take one million off Incap and on to JSA, they still have to pay them JSA(CB) or JSA(IB). So, they may say that the savings they make on Incap will contribute towards the extra costs of the WCA's, but they then have the costs of administering and paying JSA: plus of course the additional costs of all the much vaunted back to work programmes. Additionally, just how many charitably minded employers with up to a million vacancies are there out there?

Strikes me they are just moving the costs from one internal budget to another.

So far as BIP is concerned, those JCP staff that were around at that time are surprisingly quiet when the subject is raised - almost tetchy one could say - and this does have the feel of BIP. You've really got to look beyond the hype and ask why the sudden overwhelming desire to thin out the ranks of the sick and disabled....you've also got to question any plan which the author justifies by telling you that it's really good for you, or for your own good......

Another thing you've got to take into consideration - what is more embarressing politically - a large number of Incapacity claimants or an equally large number of claimants suddenly arriving on the unemployent register......

Whilst on the subject of politically inspired policies destined to possibly become the source of egg on face syndrome, the success of the move to make all single parents (with youngest children age 12, 10 & eventually 7) register with JCP as seeking work will depend on three
factors -

1. The availability of jobs that allow the flexibility to balance work and children
2. The availablity of affordable flexible Childcare: who will collect children from school for example - child minders ?
3. The availability of reliable, affordable and adequate public transport.

The provision of all three is totally outside the control of JCP, and without them the whole programme becomes pointless, other than adding more to the unemployment figures.

Thu 27-Mar-08 12:41 PM by Paul_Treloar_

sorry Mike. What I'm getting at is that when the WRA went through Parliament and introduced ESA/WCA, it was on the premise that the fundamental nature of the test of entitlement was being changed from looking at what someone could not do, instead to what they could do, so that the appropriate support and assistance could be provided to them byway of WFI's etc.

Now, we're being told that the more rigorous test of entitlement will be applied to claimants but they will not be offered the appropriate support and assistance unless resources allow.

As for savings, I would imagine it's as simple as LT IB paying £81.35p/w against JSA paying £59.15p/w, making a saving of ~£20p/w. For a million people, that's a saving of ~£1,000,000,000 per annum on a quick calculation. Also, the income-based ESA rate has been set at a level that is £1.85p/w less than someone would get on IS with a DP, which again if you factor onto a current claimant load of a million IS claimants claiming due to IB, comes up with a saving of ~£96,200,000, if my maths is correct.