Proposed welfare changes that the government says will help disabled people benefit from the chance to work from home could lead to many losing out on almost £400 a month in support, campaigners say.
The work and pensions secretary, Mel Stride, announced a consultation on changes to the work capability assessment on Tuesday, saying it was aimed at ensuring “no one who can work is permanently written out of this country’s strong labour market story”.
The government plans to update the definitions used to assess claimants’ readiness for work to take account of shifts including home working.
“The work capability assessment does not reflect how someone with a disability or health condition might be able to work from home, yet many disabled people do just that,” Stride told MPs.
Disability charities and employment experts welcomed the focus on getting more people into jobs but pointed out that assessing claimants as ready to prepare for work meant they would lose out on £390.06 a month in extra support and face tough conditions such as having to attend a jobcentre regularly.
James Taylor, the executive director of strategy at the disability charity Scope, said: “It’s right that the government wants to provide more relevant employment support to disabled people but it must be flexible and voluntary. We’re worried these proposals will end up forcing huge numbers of disabled people to look for work when they aren’t well enough, making them more ill. If they don’t meet strict conditions, they’ll have their benefits stopped. In the grips of a cost of living crisis, this could be catastrophic.”
Tony Wilson, the director of the Institute for Employment Studies, a thinktank, said: “They’re presenting this as about extending employment support to more people but that is a red herring. This is primarily about trying to save money.”
He suggested extra support to help disabled people into work should not come with such stringent conditions. “DWP are so stuck in the mentality of delivering a highly conditional, requirements-based social security regime that when it wants to extend support, its immediate thought is: how do we require more people to attend jobcentres?”
The number of people on health-related benefits has risen by a quarter since the eve of the Covid pandemic. Most of these are in the limited capability for work-related activity (LCWRA) group, who receive the additional £390.06 a month.
The changes set out by the DWP would take effect relatively slowly, as they are expected to be applied only to new claimants or those whose claims are being reassessed. They will affect four of the 17 categories used to check applicants’ suitability for work.
Analysis published on Wednesday by the Resolution Foundation suggested that those affected were likely to be lower-income individuals.
“Three-quarters of those in receipt of means-tested health-related benefits are in the bottom half of the income distribution, and a third (34%) of disabled people were materially deprived in 2020-21 – almost three times the share among the non-disabled population (13%),” Resolution’s Louise Murphy said.
Sarah White, the head of policy at the disability charity Sense, said: “We’re seriously concerned that if the government does overhaul its assessment process without putting any additional support in place, then disabled people are just going to be put under more pressure to find work, without having the support they need to do so.”
Responding to Stride in the House of Commons on Tuesday, the shadow work and pensions secretary, Liz Kendall, accused the government of “tinkering around the edges of a failing system”.
