Forum Home → Discussion → Work capability issues and ESA → Thread
Work and Health green paper
Nice one John .. I see the Work, Health and Disability Green Paper will be available from 3.30pm
Have you found it yet Shawn?
Answering my own question, apparently it’s not online yet
From DWP Press Office - It is due to be published later this afternoon - a link will be tweeted once it goes live.
https://twitter.com/dwppressoffice/status/793104743048544256
Looks like Damian Green is to make a statement in the House of Commons at 4.15 ...
Mr Green finally off.
Oh gawd, “We will build on the success of Universal Credit…..”
Green offers assurances that no cuts to SSP.
However, also confirms no plans to reconsider work allowance cuts for UC and also worryingly says they want to remove entitlement to different levels of benefit from assessed level of sickness and disability. Basically sounds like they want to scrap additional payments completely through UC.
Here we go ... Open consultation: Work, health and disability: improving lives
Consultation closes on 17 February 2017.
[ Edited: 31 Oct 2016 at 05:03 pm by shawn mach ]Looks like going to introduce conditionality for support group to me….
Yes, looks that way doesn’t it?
Highly appropriate stuff for Halloween.
Paul Spicker makes a point which has been troubling me about a lot of the media reporting on ESA: it is a sickness benefit, not a disability benefit; and it is there to support those who should be excused from the labour maket. This is the case even for those who “only” qualify for the work group (you know, those people who might have easily qualified for long-term Incapacity Benefit under the PCA in previous years).
Looks like the Support Group as we know it will go, with only a much stricter criterion of those with the most serious lifelong health conditions remaining who will not be reassessed. All others it appears are required to engage with the labour market at some level. This could effectively mean a much larger WRAG paid at JSA levels, or more UC conditionality, (although there is talk of applying for increased financial support) . The type and amount of conditionally appears to be decided by a nominated DWP advisor, rather like a JSA/UC agreement. The changes already announced with the dropping of paying the WRAG component, no reassessment for the most restricted in the Support Group, and extended periods of sickness with JSA/UC fit well in with the Green Paper Proposals. The review of SSP is also interesting. Most companies do manage their sick often with them parting company with their employee and consequential migration to ESA. This appears to be what the review is targeting. Expect more on this going under the radar. The tone of the report is positive and aims to be helpful to the most desperate which has to be welcome. ESA as a scheme to assist the most vulnerable has failed beyond a money saving shakeup of IB. The Green Paper is proof of this despite umpteen enquiries and reforms of ESA. It is little wonder many are, if not sceptical, apprehensive, about yet another set of changes designed to ‘help.’
[ Edited: 1 Nov 2016 at 08:18 am by ikbikb ]Note the way in which the meaning of the word “support” has been changed to mean “bully, apply undue pressure, threaten and punish”.
Just finished a first read through and I’m actually quite surprised how little there is on benefits - the vast majority of the paper is concerned with health interventions, employer support and occupational health offers. On the benefits side, these points stood out for me:
For new claimants in the Employment and Support Allowance Work-Related Activity Group (ESA WRAG), and the equivalent Universal Credit Limited Capability for Work Group (UC LCW), an enhanced offer of support will also include:
• a place on either the new Work and Health Programme or Work Choice, for all eligible and suitable claimants who wish to volunteer; p.27 - so no more mandation/sanctions to attend Work Programme style support?
83. This is a significant improvement on the current process in Employment and Support Allowance, where people are not routinely having a face-to-face conversation with a work coach about practical support to help them back to work until after their Work Capability Assessment is complete –and this can be many months after their initial claim. Over 60% of the 2.4 million people receiving Employment and Support Allowance –those currently in the Support Group - do not get this opportunity p.28 - that’s an administrative issue, and wasn’t intended to be how system worked originally. WCA was supposed to happen within 13 weeks, with first WFi around 6 weeks.
92. To that end, we have developed a new Health and Work Conversation between an individual and their work coach. In the Health and Work Conversation, work coaches will use specially designed techniques to help individuals with health conditions to identify their health and work goals, draw out their strengths, make realistic plans, and build resilience and motivation. People will be required to attend the Health and Work Conversation, where appropriate, but the actions they subsequently agree to within the conversation will be entirely voluntary in the period before the Work Capability Assessment, and will be captured in a new Employment and Support Allowance Claimant Commitment. p.31 - everyone will have to sign a claimant commitment in the future, so everyone expected to be doing something in respect of getting back to work?
110. Our aim is not to reduce the amount of benefit those in the Support Group (or the Limited Capability for Work and Work-Related Activity Group in Universal Credit) receive or to change the conditions of entitlement, but we do want to ensure people are treated as individuals. p.36 - implies no further cuts to LCWRA payments
114. As there is currently no requirement for people in the Support Group to stay in touch with the Jobcentre, besides engaging with reassessments, we could consider implementing a ‘keep-in-touch’ discussion with work coaches. This could provide an opportunity for work coaches to offer appropriate support tailored to the individual’s current circumstances, reflecting any changes since their Work Capability Assessment. This light-touch intervention could be explored as a voluntary or mandatory requirement and we would consider our approach carefully, utilising digital and telephone channels in addition to face-to-face contact, depending on which was more appropriate for the individual and their circumstances p.37 - so consideration also to everyone potentially having to go to meetings with work coaches, and if mandatory, at risk of sanctions?
135. For instance, any assessment for financial support should draw as far as possible on existing information that has been gathered from the NHS, the adult social care system or through other benefit applications, such as from a Personal Independence Payment application, where this is appropriate and relevant. And it should still focus on the impact that an individual’s health condition has on them p.43 - sharing of information between different benefit claims and other relevant data, i.e. patient health records etc, a long-term ambition of Jeremy Hunt
136. An assessment which only considered financial support would also align to the principles of Universal Credit, meaning that an individual would continue to receive the ‘limited capability for work and work related activity’ rate of Universal Credit even if they moved into work, which would taper away as earnings increased.
p.43 - as these payments are being abolished in April 2017, how will that work? Or have they changed their mind here?
Diagram below implies that all ESA claimants and UC claimants with LTHC or impairment will (1) have meeting with work coach within one month of new claim and (2) have to sign a claimant commitment, in respect of possible employment support. p.43, as noted earlier on.
150. We are therefore consulting on whether we should introduce a more appropriate process for people who have severe health conditions and disabilities, who represent a small proportion of those in the Employment and Support Allowance caseload. For instance, we could consider whether a simpler assessment process could be developed, that means that people do not need to provide as much information as required under the current system. It may be possible to achieve this, with an individual’s consent, by using data already held in the NHS to determine severity of condition and functional impact where this is appropriate p.45 - data sharing again for people with LTHC’s in terms of assessment/reassessment but presumably still required to attend work coach meetings for employment support and sign claimant commitment.
It looks as if SG claimants will face some form of compulsion – and sanctions?
Interesting that DEAs are back in fashion – I thought DWP had told us they weren’t needed any longer?
Is the ‘Health and Work Conversation’ not just a re-hash of the Work-Focused Health-Related Assessment?
The boasting about the success of UC is worrying, as is the ‘building on the approach of Universal Support’, given that this is chaotic and undeveloped at the moment.
Little or no consideration that work is not a solution or even an option for some people, or that UC is especially disastrous for those who are unable to work at all, (and for those who are also carers)
I’m also worried by the claim that the current system ‘leaves 1.5 million people ‘with the impression they cannot work and without any regular access to employment support, even when many others with the same conditions are flourishing in the labour market’. You know what they’re hinting - eh,eh, eh???