As you know the government is pressing ahead with reform of IB. The aspiration in the long term is to achive an employment rate of 80% (it's currently 73%)among people of working age. The only OECD country with an employment rate at or above 80% is Iceland.

To help achieve the 80% aspiration (note: not described as a target), the government intends to move 1 million people off IB and into paid work. The DWP's Five Year Strategy document states that 1 million people on IB would like to have paid work.

Even allowing for this being a long term aim, do Rightsnet visitors believe that this 1 million figure is realistic? Can improved support and rehabilitation really reduce the numbers so dramatically - even if there was a dramatic improvement in Jobcentre Plus standards?

Based on my own contact with IB recipients and that fact that you don't ever get onto IB LT rate unless you succeed in passing the PCA (a stringent test by any standards), it just feels like a very unrealistic target but one which is driving some potentially very nasty benefit cuts.

I'm sure that many people on IB would love to have a job and there is scope for moving some into work with support and improved welfare to work rules, but there is a huge difference between wanting to work and surviving in today's "flexible" labour market.

What do others think?

The following is a link to yesterday's rightsnet news story highlighting the concerns Citizens Advice have expressed about the proposed incapacity benefit reforms -

Incapacity benefit reforms require \'face-to-face support provided by skilled staff\': Citizens Advice response to Queen\'s Speech

Most of the Incap clients that I see (about 90%) are not really capable of full time work anymore, due to their medical conditions. However, there does seem to be a train of thought emerging that goes along the lines of "we can/will find you a job that can accomedate your particular disability": or is it just me being more paranoid than usual......

Where the State has full control over the labour market this utopian image might, just might, be possible - in our capitalist democratic society however, the majority of employers in the private sector are not happy now to take on someone with possible long term medical problems: are they going to revert to the old days, when employers had to employ a certain percentage of disabled workers?

It is this seemingly undignified rush to put totally unsuitable people into the first job that comes along which is most worrying. JCP's have targets to meet - after a few months signing on you are expected to apply for any vacancy that they show you.

For some reason I have this image which keeps appearing in my mind of old Russian newsreel footage showing work gangs of little old ladies sweeping snow off the streets, and freeing frozen tramlines in Moscow............

But surely there plenty of jobs for lift operators amd petrol pump attendants?

Since the current Personal Capacity Test is designed to determine an individual's capacity to undertake any sort of work, then failing (or passing, depending on your approach) means that no employment will be suitable.

Since this test replaced a test that was more occupation specific, will the test have to be re-designed again to provide a two tier structure to determine absolute incapacity, or partial incapacity.

If this occurs the appeals system will be swamped with appeals against redetermination.

hhmm. The government aspire to move 1 million IB claimants into work, because 1 million would like to work.

I imagine most IB claimants would like to be able to work, but that is very different to being fit enough to actually do so at the present time.

"I imagine most IB claimants would like to be able to work, but that is very different to being fit enough to actually do so at the present time".

That, as they say, is an immaterial fact, and has no bearing whatsoever on the real reason that the subject in question keeps coming up. The mere fact that a medical professional, with at least six years training and probably years of experience, has arrived at the conclusion that you are unable to work because you suffer from a disabling medical condition certainly does not seem to carry any weight any more.

There is still an underlying point of view in certain circles that GP's may be biased and overly sympathetic towards their patients - most GP's I know and deal with, who have patient lists of 4000/5000 or more have'nt got the time to prescribe sympathy. Additionally of course, all the GP's I've spoken to have taken a very dim view of their integrity and judgement constantly being called into question.

As with all benefits, there is a very small hard core who do try and manipulate the system, but they amount to a very (very) small percentage of the total number of IB claimants - the odd outrageous case that has come to light ahs been blownup and used as a justification to target Incap claimants in general.

If you remember, we had this with DLA - allegeded massive fraud etc - in came the "benefit integrity project" - result was hundreds lost their benefit on very bad errors of judgement by DBU officers - successful appeals soared in number, and they found millions of pounds being underpaid. At the end of the day I think I heard that they counted the number of successful prosecutions on one hand, whilst the whole project had cost hundreds of millions.

Apology for length of posting, but I do feel that we are constantly going round in circles as they keep trying to reduce the overall bill for benefits - the easiest target being the disabled of course.

Cannot help thinking that the government's approach is based on a mis-conception.

The real problem is IB claimants either do not feel able to work or more commonly, they rightly perceive that employers will discriminate against them where there are opportunities for jobs with attractive pay. This is a society where competitiveness, efficiency and lets be honest greed, is encouraged by the government. I cannot honestly see why any rational employer will take on a disabled/sickly person if there is an alternative of a fit person in such a society.

I have never found IB recipients unwilling to work. It is fairly self evident that anyone would prefer to earn significantly more money than benefit pays.

But what kind of jobs are available?
All too often the disabled are pushed towards very poorly paid jobs because that is all that is available (presumably there is not as much competition from fit people). Part of the governments proposals is to lower benefit rates which will presumably make very low paid work more competitive. The fact that it also changes workless poor into working poor is apparently ignored.

If the government really wants to get disabled people into employment they need to give employers real incentives to employ them. The current programme once again puts all the onus on the disabled person thenselves and does it using threats and sanctions. This pressure only adds to the claimants feeling that they are unable to work at all.

Are we going back to the days of the thoughts of Patrick Mumford, i.e. create a low income economy amongst the masses which will keep inflation and interest rates low?
All this scares me. Of course, if you ask an IB recipient if they would like to work they will reply in the affirmative, you get the same reply if you ask them if they would like to be fit and healthy. Almost all the IB recipients I deal with would like to work but are unable to do so because they would not be able to hold down a job.

I think the £1m figure is a bit of clever spin and when that figure is quoted it needs to be challenged.

Speaking from a high IB claim area and from an area about to join the pilot in October.

It is very true that in this area people were possitively encouraged to go on "the sick."

We have had massive redundancies from the shipyard particularly and i can remember hundreds of people being told by the Jobcentre to go on the sick.

We've now got people quite indignant that they seem to be being penalised for doing as they were told in the first place!

I am dreading joining the pilot - we all know that the minority (even in this area) fake it. The people who are genuinely incapable of work will be the ones who suffer - as usual.

We've also got the added problem that, at least last time i spoke to them, our local JC+ do not appear to know fully how the system will work and could not answer many of my questions.

I put a request out on rightsnet some time ago asking for other advisers experiences but received no replies.

We'll just have to wait and see!

As has been stated above, I would agree that changing the attitudes of employers is a crucial aspect to any such debate, as the blame as it were, always seems to land at the feet of IB claimants as to why they aren't in work, especially in relation to mental health problems where there is a great deal of fear, misconception and pure prejudice. The fact that disabled people have rights under the DDA in relation to employment discrimination is of arguable value, given the difficulties in finding adequate advice or affordable representation in cases where discrimination does occur.

Also, there are structural issues in relation to IB, and associated benefits such as IS, HB, CTB, etc, that must be addressed as so much work now is also of a short term nature. The present linking rules are so convoluted and complex that many claimants would have difficulty understanding whether or not they are putting their levels of benefit in jeopardy by taking short term or uncertain employment. This is especially pertinent when long term benefit recipients may also have debt issues, transport issues, housing issues, etc that are also in need of resolution.

Further, it would appear that JC+ advisors aren't up to the job of properly advising claimants of the effects and outcomes of moving into work, in relation to income levels, other benefit/tax credit claims, reclaiming, employment rights etc (see, for example, DSS Research Reports 220 and 222). This isn't necessarily the fault of these advisors, but rather a result of the cost cutting and inadequate training that has occured as JC+ has been rolled out nationally, whereas the pilot JC+ projects worked well when intensive resources and focus ensured its (relative) success compared to predecessors.

And again, for many people who would even consider moving towards work, finding independent free advice on such issues is increasingly difficult - the role of CABx, law centres, local authority WRUs and other independent advice agencies has been severely undermined by funding problems restricting client caseloads, opening times, outreach services, etc etc.

If anything, with these strategies, it seems like we are moving, as in so many other parts of our society, into concepts of deserving and undeserving citizens - people whose circumstances and lifestyles that fit predefined notions of correctness are accepted, but anyone who is outside of these notions is to be punished or denied in a punitive fashion. Rather than have a universal idea of what is acceptable as a minimum, we now have benchmarks to be aspired to and God help you if you can't reach the level expected.