Reports on the Pathways to Work programme's aims to reduce the number of people claiming incapacity benefits and help them into work. This title suggests that it has had a limited impact and has turned out to provide poor value for money.
During 2008-09, the Department for Work and Pensions (the Department) paid £12.6 billion in incapacity benefits to 2.6 million people who were unable to work because of disability or ill health. The Pathways to Work programme was launched nationally between 2005 and 2008 to help reduce the number of incapacity benefit claimants through targeted support and an earlier medical assessment. It is delivered by contractors in 60 per cent of districts, with Jobcentre Plus providing the service in the remainder. By March 2010, the programme had cost an estimated £760 million. The numbers on incapacity benefits reduced by 125,000 between 2005 and 2009 but the Pathways contribution to this reduction has been much more limited than planned. The programme was not well implemented. Pathways was introduced without effective piloting and rigorous evaluation of its likely impact. Early medical assessments appear to have had some success in moving people off incapacity benefits, although the Department does not monitor whether all these people move into work or onto other benefits. In other areas money has not been spent effectively. Private providers have seriously underperformed against their contracts and their success rates are worse than Jobcentre Plus. The Department should consider the evidence of the Committee's enquiries thoroughly before embarking on its new Work Programme. It should ensure good value for money by making good use of Jobcentre Plus resources and maintaining a sustainable balance between public, private and voluntary providers to allow proper competition and a good basis for comparing performance.
This document sets out the Government's response to the Work and Pensions Select Committee's report (HCP 616, session 2005-06; ISBN 0215028694) published in May 2006. The Committee's report examined the Government's proposals for welfare reform as detailed in its Green Paper 'A new deal for welfare: empowering people to work' (Cm 6730, ISBN 0101673027) published in January 2006. Issues discussed include: the aim to reduce the number of people claiming incapacity benefits by one million within a decade; the introduction of a new benefit called Employment and Support Allowance (ESA) to replace incapacity benefit from 2008; and the future rollout of the 'Pathways to Work' scheme. An analysis of consultation responses to the Green Paper is available separately (Cm 6859, ISBN 0101685920).
A workless household is defined as a household that includes at least one person of working-age (men aged 16-64 years and women aged 16-59 years) where no one in the household aged 16 or over is in employment. Currently, there are about three million households, containing 1.7 million children, who still have no-one in work. Evidence suggests that many adults in workless households would like to work, but that they face multiple barriers to work, such as low skills, disability, a lack of affordable and flexible childcare, or caring responsibilities and may have been on benefits for a long time. The NAO report examines the effectiveness of Department for Work and Pensions' employment programmes aimed at workless households in England, focusing on two programmes: the New Deal for Lone Parents and the New Deal for Partners. The report finds that these programmes are making a difference for those who take part, but more needs to be done to reach out to workless households and to increase awareness of the support available and help people to prepare for and find work.
This is the first book to challenge the idea that paid work should be seen as an essential means to independence and self-determination for the disabled. Writing in the wake of attempts in many countries to increase the employment rates of disabled people, the contributors show how such efforts have led to an overall erosion of financial support for the disabled and increasing stigmatization of those who are not able to work. Drawing on sociology and philosophy, and mounting a powerful case for the rights of the disabled, the book will be essential for activists, scholars, and policy makers.
This 2007 edition of OECD's periodic economic survey of the British economy finds that the UK has embraced globalisation and has been rewarded with strong growth and performance, but that the near-term outlook is more uncertain, given recent ...
The welfare state of the 20th century was designed to provide support from the cradle to the grave, but the changing demographic profile of Britain - longer life-spans mean that by 2007 the number of people over state pension age will exceed the number of children - presents a challenge to such a system of support. This plan sets out the Government's strategy of aiming for an 80 per cent employment rate as the best means of keeping people out of poverty, and allowing saving for a secure retirement. Such an aspiration requires the movement into work of a proportion of those people traditionally seen as outside the labour market and with complex barriers preventing entry into that market. Supporting these inactive people into employment will require carefully tailored support. The strategy outlines the approach in three major areas: (1) supporting children and families, including helping lone parents into gainful work; (2) helping those on incapacity benefits to return to work; (3) breaking down barriers to employment faced by disabled people, older workers and ethnic minorities.
This book uses previously unknown archive materials to explore the meaning of the term ‘incapable of work’ over a hundred years (1911–present). Nowadays, people claiming disability benefits must undergo medical tests to assess whether or not they are capable of work. Media reports and high profile campaigns highlight the problems with this system and question whether the process is fair. These debates are not new and, in this book, Jackie Gulland looks at similar questions about how to assess people’s capacity for work from the beginning of the welfare state in the early 20th century. Amongst many subject areas, she explores women’s roles in the domestic sphere and how these were used to consider their capacity for work in the labour market. The book concludes that incapacity benefit decision making is really about work: what work is, what it is not, who should do it, who should be compensated when work does not provide a sufficient income and who should be exempted from any requirement to look for it.
Too many workers leave the labour market permanently due to health problems, and yet too many people with a disabling condition are denied the opportunity to work. This report explores possible factors behind this paradox.