The Government's latest goal - outlined in a Green Paper - is getting a million Incapacity Benefit claimants back to work. But is this easier said than done, asks Peter Madigan
Our televisions are rife with depictions of the benefit cheat. From Keith Miller in EastEnders to Government advertisements urging us to shop fraudulent claimants, the view that the benefits system is being systematically rinsed is reinforced on a regular basis.
Exposes such as Tonight with Trevor McDonald - Britain on the Sick lead the general public to believe the welfare state is open to large-scale abuse and the taxpayer is supporting those too lazy to work.
Fraudulent
In fact, statistics suggest that this couldn't be further from the truth, with the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) estimating that just 0.5% of claims are fraudulent.
The Green Paper on welfare reform that the DWP published in January outlines the Government's plans to overhaul the system for qualifying for and claiming Incapacity Benefit (IB).
The changes aim to get a million of the 2.7million people currently claiming IB off the benefit and back to work within a decade. In addition, they also seek to get 300,000 single parents back to work after their youngest child begins secondary school and help a million people over 50 either stay in employment or return to work.
The key to achieving these targets is the nationwide roll-out of the DWP's Pathways to Work programme.
The scheme was piloted in several areas and was a massive success, exceeding all expectations.
A DWP spokesman says: "More than 160,000 people took part in the first Pathways to Work programme and it is available in 11 regions throughout the UK with a further seven set to launch in April. "Eventually the programme will be expanded to cover the entire country," says a spokesman for the DWP.
Charities and unions agree that the Pathways initiative is an innovative and effective means of getting people back into employment. Fears have been raised, however, that extending the project nationwide will overstretch the funding the DWP has allocated it.
The Citizens Advice Bureau (CAB) is concerned that the high level of support provided in the pilot regions will be replicated on a national scale.
"With 30,000 jobs being lost from the DWP it is hard to see how it will be possible to sustain the level of advice, training and support that many people with disabilities and long-term illnesses will need in order to get back to work," says John Wheatley, senior CAB social policy officer.
The Green Paper states that £360m has been earmarked for the extension of the Pathways scheme over the next two years. Worryingly, however, the Institute of Public Policy Research (IPPR) has calculated that the cost of rolling out Pathways nationwide is closer to £500m a year - so there is a possibility the funding will not be adequate to provide the level of support that has made the scheme a resounding success at pilot stage.
Questions are also being asked about the changes to how people claim IB. The Green Paper states that the current method of assessment for IB entitlement - the Personal Capability Assessment process - is regarded as one of the toughest in the world.
Under the new proposals doctors may be offered incentives to use "good practice" in writing sick notes for patients and should encourage patients to go back to work. This has set alarm bells ringing for charities representing disabled people.
"GPs will be told to minimise the number of sick notes they write for people who feel they are unable to work. The General Medical Council itself has said that nothing should get in the way of a doctor making the diagnosis he feels most appropriate," says Sue Christoforou, policy adviser at mental health charity Mind.
According to the CAB, misdiag-nosis of a person's ability to work is already rife in medical circles, to such an extent that more than six in 10 decisions to withdraw or refuse benefit are overturned on appeal.
"Getting benefit decisions right first time is key to ensuring vulnerable people get the money that is rightfully theirs. There has to be a vast improvement in the quality of medical assessments and decision-making and this has to happen before the Government goes ahead with its welfare reform plans," says Wheatley.
Both new and existing claimants will have to attend work-focused interviews to assess whether they are capable of returning to work in any capacity.
In the pilot areas these interviews have been very effective in returning claimants to employment, often in a part-time capacity, while they continue to claim IB.
Professionals
• aturally, such interviews must be conducted by professionals who are experts in assessing a person's ability to work.
The rapid expansion of Pathways nationwide, apparently without sufficient funding, means the risk of unqualified staff making the wrong decisions regarding ability to work is a real worry.
This is a problem that insurers feel they might be able to help with.
"I would imagine the voluntary sector and bodies such as the Shaw Trust would receive the bulk of outsourced rehabilitation work since they have much greater capacity than insurers," says Dr Michael O'Donnell, chief medical officer at UnumProvident.
"But if these schemes are being extended nationwide then that will mean a lot more people will need to be trained. This is where insurers have a role to play in spreading knowledge and promoting a model for vocational rehabilitation."
The DWP has confirmed that the extension of Pathways will "maximise the involvement of the private and voluntary sectors" although how that involvement will manifest itself remains vague at this stage.
The possibility that the changes might also prove detrimental to the income protection market have been largely dismissed by insurers also, as fewer claims will mean prices will fall and new business could offset any companies dumping their cover because they no longer regard it as relevant.
Reaction to the Green Paper has been cautiously positive. Although charities are concerned that the emphasis of the new qualification assessments seems geared towards catching out benefit cheats rather than helping those who are genuinely incapacitated get the support they need, they still applaud the Government's intentions.
Tightening
By tightening up the way people qualify for IB, the Government may be fulfilling its pledge to cut the number of people on the benefit .
A parliamentary question in February asked whether the Government had made this pledge based on evidence suggesting that in the course of the next decade a million IB claimants will either reach retirement age or die.
By simply cutting the number of new claimants the Government will take a massive leap toward reaching its goal.
This is the kind of information that the DWP can do without when facing accusations that it is making benefits harder to obtain for the genuinely incapacitated.
• onetheless the response to the proposals has been generally good. The biggest concern is that the funding provided is insufficient to sustain the level of support that has made the pilot Pathways schemes so effective.
As Christoforou says: "If the IPPR says that the extension of the scheme needs £500m, it doesn't take a mathematical genius to realise that the delivery of Pathways will be compromised due to poor funding."
The Government certainly appears to be on the road to tackling the IB problem. Whether it is prepared to spend the money necessary to really help disabled people who want to work, however, is another kettle of fish.
