Professor Harrington’s review of the WCA

‘Training on the benefits of work’ is not only irrelevant to whether someone passes the WCA, it is a value judgment influenced by and reflecting government policy, and would be a breach of s. 3(5) of the Constitutional Reform Act 2005.

Having been at the launch I may be able to explain this. Prof Harrington was trying to get across the view that failing to score 15 points can be seen as a good thing, not a bad one. I have had personal experience of unsuccessful tribunal appellants being quite happy to be told that there is no reason why they couldn’t look for work, subject to the restrictions allowed by Jobseeker’s Allowance rules. I have also certainly met many IB/IS claimants in the past who would almost certainly felt a lot better in some sort of work than moping at home thinking about their condition.

I think Prof Harrington meant that Tribunals should emphasise the positives to those people whom they find to be below the threshold. As an occupational physician he knows that for many people the right sort of work is not likely to make their condition worse, whatever they may believe, and having something to do increases self-worth.

A significant number of appeal are made because people believe that being found “fit for work” means (a) that they are lying about their health problems and (b) that they are expected to go back to full-time work at their old job, which they no longer feel physically or psychologically capable of. Even knowing that they can put reasonable restrictions on their availability for work sometimes cheers them up no end - the decision notice never tells them this. It would help if the wording indicated that the health condition is accepted but that it is not such as to create a total barrier to work.

Now if we can only stop JSA DMs telling these people they can’t get JSA because they aren’t fit for work….

I agree that there are many confused messages going out.

In Torbay a JCP Disability Employment Adviser has been moved into the JSA stream to support former ESA claimants.  The alleged failure of ‘Pathways to Work’  is, I believe, partly down to the paradox of the ESA descriptors being misaligned to the potential target caseload for Pathways to Work. The expereince here is that huge numbers of people with disabilities end up with the lesser JSA support than that provided by Pathways (which in this area (A4e) was at any rate good).

The government has addressed the problem by having one entry point of support from next spring - The Work Programme.
Prof. Harrington’s remit didn’t cover the Pathways issue but it would have been interesting if it had as I believe this was a key problem.

On a separate point, the feedback I am getting from people who have attended various DWP presentations is that there is no national focus on retention in the workplace. Most of the current EAS/IB caseload started out in employment. Surely it is better to invest (e.g. extending Access to Work funding and advice) to people already in work than wait for them to exit the employment scene (bolting the stable door etc.).