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Government dishonest in looking to reduce claimant numbers with harder test.

Disability Alliance is concerned that government proposals to apply the new Work Capability Assessment to all incapacity benefit claimants from 2010 is an attempt to simply reduce the numbers claiming benefit through imposing a harder test of entitlement. The introduction of the work capability assessment, as part of the new employment and support allowance from October 2008, was predicated on offering disabled people the opportunity to build confidence, regain skills and be supported in moving back towards the workplace if possible. We supported the change in emphasis from looking at what people could not do instead to an approach that looked at what they are capable of.

However, evaluation results of the new test of entitlement suggests that the rates of disallowance will increase by more than 10% which, if applied to the current population of 2.6million incapacity benefit claimants, could mean more than 250,000 people being denied benefit and forced onto jobseekers allowance instead. This is despite these people already having established their entitlement to incapacity benefit byway of the Personal Capability Assessment, which is recognised as being one of the most rigorous in all OECD countries. Further, official figures for incapacity benefit fraud indicate that current levels are lower than 0.5%. We feel that it is dishonest of the Government to look to reduce the numbers of incapacity benefit claimants in these circumstances.

Notes for editors

• Disability Alliance is a membership organisation of over 380 disability organisations, with a mission to break the link between disability and poverty.
• We publish an annual Disability Rights Handbook that provides information and advice on benefits, tax credits and services for disabled people, their families, carers and advisers.

For further information, please contact:

Paul Treloar
Director of Policy and Services
020 7247 8759
pault.da@dsl.pipex.com

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