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WCA Abolished
From the Treasury.
A Health and Disability White Paper will be published on the day of the Budget outlining our plans to scrap the Work Capability Assessment. Under the current system disabled people need to have a health assessment and be found incapable of work to receive additional income support through the benefits system. Scrapping the Work Capability Assessment is the biggest reform to the welfare system in a decade, meaning that disabled people can try work without fear of losing their benefits, and reducing the number of assessments needed to qualify for health-related benefits.
OK, I doubt anyone will miss the WCA, but what does abolishing it actually mean?
At the moment, the WCA is used to identify people who are entitled, as of right, to a reduced level of conditionality and (potentially at least) to more money.
If we just excise the WCA from the system without replacing it, then doesn’t that leave a situation where (a) nobody is entitled to reduced conditionality as of right because of their health - and conditionality is permanently a question of DWP discretion and (b) nobody gets any extra money on account of their health keeping them out of work?
Will be curious to see what these proposals actually look like
[ Edited: 12 Mar 2023 at 05:18 pm by Elliot Kent ]Here are some losers…..
https://www.capitapipjobs.co.uk/your-journey-0
Five weeks of online virtual training and you are given enough knowledge to overrule a hospital consultant.
Not forgetting the cash incentives.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=STJo3qbhT08
Here are some losers…..
https://www.capitapipjobs.co.uk/your-journey-0
Five weeks of online virtual training and you are given enough knowledge to overrule a hospital consultant.Not forgetting the cash incentives.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=STJo3qbhT08
Somehow I reckon that PIP assessors will come out of this just fine!
This is from us yesterday based on the available info doing the rounds:
... guess we’ll get the detail on Wednesday ...
Hunt is looking for savings in the Welfare Bill. I expect the phasing out of the LCWRA element in the same way the LCW payment was stopped and some compensation via PIP. The DWP has been trialling an integrated assessment for PIP/ESA/UC recently. I hope this doesn’t descend into a ” Benefits Street ” type attack on the sick and disabled ,with JCP staff enforcing a new sanctions regime.
Interesting thread on overlaps between client groups.
https://twitter.com/karlhandscomb/status/1635594121267011589
Can someone tell me what they are proposing happens to the WCA within CESA? I cant figure it out/find any specific info.
It looks like everyone on UC will be a jobseeker and those who also have PIP might get a bit more money and possibly less work requirements at the discretion of their work coach. By setting the UC health element at the same rate as the LCFWRA element, the DWP looks like it’s trying to ignore the court decisions on the discrimination cases regarding SDP/EDP. It’s unclear what might be put in place for people who aren’t on PIP.
Looks like contributory, or New Style, ESA will be replaced by a new contributory health and sickness benefit but nothing about eligibility for it or if it will be paid at a single rate or have more than one rate.
Looking at the timetable for this, it’s entirely possible that it will be 2029, if not later, before ESA claimants are migrated onto UC.
I don’t see much in the way of good news for people who are unable to work because of ill health who will be on standard rate UC with “sanctions applied more rigorously”
[ Edited: 15 Mar 2023 at 02:23 pm by keith ]Full White Paper
The bit you want to worry about is buried at para 158-160:
158. To achieve our ambition, we are proposing to remove the WCA. This includes the removal of the automatic assignment of people with limited capability for work to the work preparation-only group, and those with LCWRA to the no work-related requirements group. [...]
160. We want to introduce a more tailored approach, to allow work coaches to build a relationship with an individual and determine what, if any, work-related activities an individual can participate in. This also means that where work or work-related-activity is not possible or appropriate for someone, they will not be expected to participate in these activities to receive their benefit entitlement.
i.e.
Nobody will be immune to work-related requirements and - therefore - sanctions on health grounds. It will depend on work coach discretion (which of course will not be appealable).
Yesterday the ICO orders DWP to disclose its research on the effectiveness of benefit sanctions and today the Chancellor says UC sanctions will be “applied more rigorously”…
Are they hiding the research because they’re too modest to admit how wonderfully effective they are in improving employment outcomes?
I interpret this as:
- WCA abolished & LCWRA element abolished;
- only those who receive PIP (any element) will qualify for the “new health allowance” (which will be akin to the current LCWRA);
- a UC claimant on LCWRA is only deemed disabled in the eyes of the DWP when on PIP (this is catastrophic given that the refusal rates of PIP are so high, there are tens of thousands of people who should be getting PIP who aren’t because they’ve been kicked off it, takes 12 months minimum to get to a tribunal);
- those currently getting UC with LCWRA will be ‘carefully determined’ by the DWP as to whether they’ll meet the criteria for PIP (we all know what this means. See quote of this on RN home page in the main article). This is most worrying;
- those who don’t get PIP & therefore cannot get the LCWRA / new health allowance will be sanctioned;
This is a model that has been engineered to sanction the most vulnerable. Again.
I interpret this as:
- WCA abolished & LCWRA element abolished;
- only those who receive PIP (any element) will qualify for the “new health allowance” (which will be akin to the current LCWRA);
- a UC claimant on LCWRA is only deemed disabled in the eyes of the DWP when on PIP (this is catastrophic given that the refusal rates of PIP are so high, there are tens of thousands of people who should be getting PIP who aren’t because they’ve been kicked off it, takes 12 months minimum to get to a tribunal);
- those currently getting UC with LCWRA will be ‘carefully determined’ by the DWP as to whether they’ll meet the criteria for PIP (we all know what this means. See quote of this on RN home page in the main article). This is most worrying;
- those who don’t get PIP & therefore cannot get the LCWRA / new health allowance will be sanctioned;This is a model that has been engineered to sanction the most vulnerable. Again.
.......... and in my post further above you can see the level of expertise of the Capita PIP assessor and the motivation.
I interpret this as:
- WCA abolished & LCWRA element abolished;
- only those who receive PIP (any element) will qualify for the “new health allowance” (which will be akin to the current LCWRA);
- a UC claimant on LCWRA is only deemed disabled in the eyes of the DWP when on PIP (this is catastrophic given that the refusal rates of PIP are so high, there are tens of thousands of people who should be getting PIP who aren’t because they’ve been kicked off it, takes 12 months minimum to get to a tribunal);
- those currently getting UC with LCWRA will be ‘carefully determined’ by the DWP as to whether they’ll meet the criteria for PIP (we all know what this means. See quote of this on RN home page in the main article). This is most worrying;
- those who don’t get PIP & therefore cannot get the LCWRA / new health allowance will be sanctioned;
I don’t think that this is quite correct, in that it is not being suggested that the health-related element would provide any sort of exemption from conditionality. It would basically function as a means-tested uplift to PIP.
The position seems to be that nobody at all would be exempt from conditionality on health grounds. In every case, it would be for a work coach to decide what ought to be required of the claimant and to what extent that would be backed up with sanctions.
It’s a move from a system based on rights, to one based on discretion.
Interesting thread on overlaps between client groups.
https://twitter.com/karlhandscomb/status/1635594121267011589
Here’s the post frmerly known as #12, originally posted at 19:13 yesterday evening but removed by me due to issues with account:
I’m concerned for the routes to increased support for those who would struggle to qualify for PIP, given that measuring up to the quite narrowly defined activities and descriptors is the only way to get an award. Part of the group who get UC LCW/RA and/or ESA but not PIP (see the Karl Handscomb Twitter thread) will be those whose care and mobility needs don’t meet PIP criteria but who were found to have limited capability for work under the substantial risk regulations for ESA and UC. Perhaps we should be lobbying for a similar backstop for the PIP criteria for claimants who can’t pass through the current PIP ‘gateway’.
Also, where does this leave Scottish claimants, who can no longer make new PIP claims, while existing Scottish claimants are already being shuffled off DWP’s books with what sometimes appears to be unseemly haste? ADP’s default is to make a decision on entitlement without a consultation wherever possible; will UC accept ADP awards made on this basis as fully equivalent to a PIP award based on an outsourced consultation?