A report examined support for people with disabilities under universal credit, arguing that it could decrease work incentives, and would leave some people who were not able to work worse off. The report made recommendations.
Source: Rebalancing Universal Credit: Making it work for disabled people, Citizens Advice
Links: Report
Date: 2014-Sep
A report examined what might help to address the poverty of people with disabilities, the level of which, it said, was consistently underestimated. It said that making society less disabling would reduce poverty, suggesting actions such as: improving affordability and accessibility of transport and housing; developing standards for consumer devices; stopping legal discrimination; better use of technology; and making markets for assistive technologies work more effectively. It said that people with disabilities were less likely to be working and more likely to be low paid, and made recommendations to address this, but said that work was not always the solution and the idea that 'work was the best route out of poverty' could not be applied in all cases.
Source: Tom MacInnes, Adam Tinson, Declan Gaffney, Goretti Horgan, and Ben Baumberg, Disability, Long Term Conditions and Poverty, New Policy Institute
Links: Report | NPI press release
Date: 2014-Jul
A report presented findings from a small-scale study intended to provide an early snapshot of the process for claiming personal independence payment (PIP, a new benefit that replaced disability living allowance for eligible working age people) and to identify potential areas for improvement. The department said that the research was not necessarily representative of PIP processes as a whole and that improvements had since been made, and it published a context note alongside the report to explain some of the improvements.
Source: Roy Sainsbury and Anne Corden, Early Process Evaluation of New Claims for Personal Independence Payment, Research Report 867, Department for Work and Pensions
Links: Report | Summary | Context note
Date: 2014-Jul
A report presented findings from a small-scale study intended to provide an early snapshot of the process for claiming personal independence payment (PIP, a new benefit that replaced disability living allowance for eligible working age people) and to identify potential areas for improvement. The department said that the research was not necessarily representative of PIP processes as a whole and that improvements had since been made, and it published a context note alongside the report to explain some of the improvements.
Source: Roy Sainsbury and Anne Corden, Early Process Evaluation of New Claims for Personal Independence Payment, Research Report 867, Department for Work and Pensions
Links: Report | Summary | Context note
Date: 2014-Jul
A report examined recent progress by the United Kingdom towards the realization of certain key rights under the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and the United Nations Convention on the Rights of People with Disabilities, seeking to assess the extent to which the United Kingdom was upholding these rights, and whether recent austerity policies had resulted in retrogression. In particular, the report examined the rights to independent living, work, social security, social protection, and an adequate standard of living, and it concluded that government policies were compromising enjoyment of these fundamental rights, causing significant hardship to people with disabilities.
Source: Jane Young, Dignity and Opportunity for All: Securing the rights of disabled people in the austerity era, Just Fair
Links: Report | Summary | Centre for Welfare Reform press release
Date: 2014-Jul
A report by a committee of MPs said that the process for employment and support allowance (ESA) required a 'fundamental redesign' to ensure that it was able to help claimants with health conditions and disabilities to move into employment where possible. The committee said changes should be completed before the new multi-provider contract was tendered (expected to be 2018) and, in the meantime, changes should be made to improve the service and ensure that outcomes for claimants were more appropriate. The committee also considered the impact of the introduction of mandatory reconsideration (MR) of ESA decisions, and the appeals process. It said that MR had the potential to be beneficial, if it led to fewer decisions being taken to appeal, but called on the government to set a reasonable timescale for completing reconsiderations and to allow claimants to claim ESA during the reconsideration period. The report urged the department and the assessment provider to learn from the Tribunals Service summaries of reasons for its decisions, to improve their own initial decisions.
Source: Employment and Support Allowance and Work Capability Assessments, First Report (Session 2014–15), HC 302, House of Commons Work and Pensions Select Committee, TSO
Links: Report | Committee press release | Citizens Advice press release | Guardian report
Date: 2014-Jul
A report by a committee of MPs said that the Department for Work and Pensions had rushed the introduction of personal independence payments and did not pilot the benefit process. It said that the department had misjudged the number of face-to-face assessments, and the time they would take, resulting in significant delays to benefit decisions and a growing backlog of claims that had created uncertainty, stress, and financial costs for claimants, and put additional financial and other pressures on disability organizations, and on other public services, that supported claimants. The report said that the department had not yet achieved the intended savings, and would need to seek compensatory savings elsewhere.
Source: Personal Independence Payment, First Report (Session 2014–15), HC 280, House of Commons Public Accounts Select Committee, TSO
Links: Report | Committee press release | BBC report | Guardian report
Date: 2014-Jun
A study examined the use of personal budgets for employment support for people with disabilities. The report said the research had confirmed that there was limited use of social care personal budgets to support people to gain or retain paid work, and there were four main factors that prevented or discouraged greater use: low demand from individuals or families; professional attitudes towards employment; the personal budget process; and availability of good, evidence-based employment support.
Source: Rich Watts, Naomi Harflett, Carol Robinson, and Rob Greig, The Use of Personal Budgets for Employment Support, National Development Team for Inclusion
Links: Report | Summary | NDTI press release
Date: 2014-Jun
A report examined the operation of employment and support allowance (ESA) for people placed in the work-related activity group (WRAG), a sub group of ESA claimants with health conditions or impairments who were expected to move towards employment with individualized support, and who were subject to conditionality, or 'activation'. It said that the performance target for this scheme had been missed, that experience of participation in the WRAG was neither personalized nor supportive, and that the regime of conditionality and sanctions had left participants in the WRAG fearful, demoralized, and more distanced from achieving work-related goals or participating in society than when they started. The report discussed reasons behind the findings, and made a range of recommendations, including: for a new, separate scheme for ESA claimants with a reformed assessment process that led to specialist disability employment support; for a more personalized assessment of support needs; for support for equipment and adaptations to be put in place while seeking employment, to demonstrate to employers that support was available; for employers to be more creative in widening job opportunities for people with disabilities, including the use of flexible working and job trials; for more localized commissioning of services and better integration with health services; and for a refocus of conditionality onto the service provider.
Source: Catherine Hale, Fulfilling Potential? ESA and the fate of the Work-Related Activity Group, Mind/Centre for Welfare Reform
Links: Report | Mind press release | CWR press release
Date: 2014-Jun
A report examined fuel poverty among people with disabilities in England. It concluded that disabled people, especially those on low income benefits and with high energy needs, may experience cold, damp housing, and/or energy debt, regardless of whether or not they were defined as fuel poor, and that official measures neglected the actual energy needs of some people, which often fluctuated over time. It said that the assumption that disability-related benefits could be used to meet fuel bills was flawed, and the use of prepayment meters was inappropriate for many people with disabilities. The report made recommendations for policymakers and practitioners.
Source: Carolyn Snell, Mark Bevan, and Harriet Thomson, Fuel Poverty and Disabled People: The impact of policy change, Centre for Housing Policy (University of York)
Links: Report | Summary | Annex A | Annex B | CHP press release
Date: 2014-Jun
A report by a committee of MPs said that the Department for Work and Pensions had rushed the introduction of personal independence payments and did not pilot the benefit process. It said that the department had misjudged the number of face-to-face assessments, and the time they would take, resulting in significant delays to benefit decisions and a growing backlog of claims that had created uncertainty, stress, and financial costs for claimants, and put additional financial and other pressures on disability organizations, and on other public services, that supported claimants. The report said that the department had not yet achieved the intended savings, and would need to seek compensatory savings elsewhere.
Source: Personal Independence Payment, First Report (Session 2014–15), HC 280, House of Commons Public Accounts Select Committee, TSO
Links: Report | Committee press release | BBC report | Guardian report
Date: 2014-Jun
A paper (by an official advisory body) discussed the cumulative impact assessment of the government's welfare reforms. It presented a descriptive overview of the changes and discussed some of the existing research and commentary on their impact. It said that some, largely negative, overall assessments of impact already existed, in particular for impacts across the income distribution or geographic areas, but that these focused on direct and immediate effects of reforms and did not assess any potentially positive effects of universal credit. The report said that, while some case study evidence existed, it did not yet reveal the full range of impacts. The report concluded that many of the welfare reforms were designed to have longer-term positive impacts, including changes in claimant behaviour, and that it was too soon to assess the consequential impact of work incentives on claimant behaviour. Recommendations were made to the government for: further secondary analysis to examine the impact of reform on vulnerable groups such as people with disabilities; case studies, based on model households, to examine the cumulative impact of reforms; the extension of the evaluation of universal credit, to include the impact of the wider programme of reform; and for specific reconsideration of the cumulative impact on vulnerable claimant groups, in light of this further analysis.
Source: The Cumulative Impact of Welfare Reform: A commentary, Occasional Paper 12, Social Security Advisory Committee
Links: Paper | Summary | SSAC press release
Date: 2014-May
A paper examined the relationship between disability and household wealth holdings in the United Kingdom. It said that people with disabilities had substantially lower household wealth, and components of wealth (property, financial, pension, physical), than non-disabled people. However, the average differences were found to mask important lifecycle patterns, such as the life stage at which disability occurred.
Source: Abigail McKnight, Disabled People's Financial Histories: Uncovering the disability wealth-penalty, CASE/181, Centre for Analysis of Social Exclusion (London School of Economics)
Links: Paper
Date: 2014-Apr
A report examined the additional costs incurred by people with disabilities, and the consequences of those costs. It said that the costs relating specifically to disability averaged £550 per month and, as a result, people were more likely to have unsecured debt totalling more than half of their household income, were three times more likely to use door step loans, and had far less savings and assets than non-disabled people. The report called on the government to take a range of actions, including to protect extra costs payments, to redesign personal independence payments, and to place a triple lock on the value of disability benefits, similar to that on state pensions.
Source: Ellie Brawn, Priced Out: Ending the financial penalty of disability by 2020, Scope
Links: Report | Inside Housing report
Date: 2014-Apr
A report said that that under universal credit many working parents would not gain financially (and might be worse off) if they increased their hours of work, owing to additional costs, reduced financial support, having to pay for school meals, and their contribution to childcare costs. The report proposed a range of measures, including that: all children in households receiving universal credit should qualify for free school meals; that the childcare subsidy should be increased to 90 per cent of costs; that a second earner in a household be able to earn an additional £50 before their income from universal credit was reduced; and an increase in overall funding in universal credit for disabled people. It proposed increasing the benefit taper (the amount of benefit reduced per £1 earned) from 65 per cent to 70 per cent, to help fund the proposed changes.
Source: Pop Goes the Payslip: Making universal credit work for families, Citizens Advice
Links: Report | Summary | Citizens Advice press release
Date: 2014-Apr
A paper examined to what extent differences in employment rates among people in better and worse health in the United Kingdom could be explained by the availability of publicly-funded disability benefits and by retirement income schemes.
Source: James Banks, Carl Emmerson, and Gemma Tetlow, Effect of Pensions and Disability Benefits on Retirement in the UK, Working Paper 19907, National Bureau of Economic Research
Links: Paper
Date: 2014-Mar
A government report reviewed the closure of the independent living fund, under the public service equality duty. The report was published following a ruling by the Court of Appeal that required the government to produce documentary evidence to demonstrate its awareness of the extent of the impact of the closure of the fund, which made cash payments to people with disabilities to enable them to purchase support and care services. The government concluded that the fund would close on 30 June 2015.
Source: Closure of the Independent Living Fund (ILF), Department for Work and Pensions
Links: Report | Written ministerial statement | DWP press release
Date: 2014-Mar
An article examined the health of long-term recipients of incapacity benefit (IB) in the north east of England, during a time of significant changes to the United Kingdom welfare system that included a questioning of claimants' capacity for work. Drawing on longitudinal data and in-depth interviews, it said that IB recipients had significantly worse health than the general population, and that their health was consistently poor over the study period. The article discussed the implications for social policy, and the impact of the ongoing redefinition of ill-health and entitlement on the lives of benefits claimants.
Source: Kayleigh Garthwaite, Clare Bambra, Jonathan Warren, Adetayo Kasim, and Graeme Greig, 'Shifting the goalposts: a longitudinal mixed-methods study of the health of long-term incapacity benefit recipients during a period of substantial change to the UK social security system', Journal of Social Policy, Volume 43 Issue 2
Links: Abstract
Date: 2014-Mar
A report examined the achievements of the independent living fund, a United Kingdom benefit to support people with disabilities to live independently, which was due to be closed in June 2015. The paper argued that the ILF was consistent with the principles of asset based citizenship, and that there was still an opportunity for its provisions to be protected in Scotland. It called for the creation of a new trust/partnership to promote independent living through positive partnership with local government.
Source: Jim Elder-Woodward, A Future Without the ILF: The case for asset based citizenship, Centre for Welfare Reform
Links: Report
Date: 2014-Mar
An audit report said that the introduction of the assessments process for personal independence payments had resulted in far fewer claim decisions than it expected, despite the number of new claims being in line with expectations. It said that, by October 2013, over 166,000 people had started new claims, but 92,000 had still to be assessed and the Department for Work and Pensions was unable to tell claimants how long they were likely to wait. The DWP had postponed the reassessment of most existing disability living allowance claims. The report recommended that the DWP should: set out a clear plan for informing claimants about the likely delays; ensure that assessment providers' plans were realistic; test its operating assumptions across the whole claim process to identify and prevent future bottlenecks; identify any outstanding commercial risks in its relationship with contracted assessment providers that might affect operational recovery; and revise their estimates of expected benefit savings and longer-term risks to the programme.
Source: Personal Independence Payment: Early progress, HC 1070 (Session 2013–14), National Audit Office, TSO
Links: Report | Summary | NAO press release | Citizens Advice press release | CSP press release | Guardian report | Inside Housing report
Date: 2014-Feb
An article examined the effect of proposed reforms involving the withdrawal of attendance allowance and disability living allowance. Despite the fact that the allowances were not means-tested, withdrawal would affect mainly low-income people, whose losses could be mitigated if the severe disability premium were retained at its existing or a higher level. The article also said that the use of inappropriate income definitions in official reports had overstated recipients' capacity to absorb the loss of these benefits.
Source: Ruth Hancock and Stephen Pudney, 'Assessing the distributional impact of reforms to disability benefits for older people in the UK: implications of alternative measures of income and disability costs', Ageing and Society, Volume 34 Issue 2 publication
Links: Abstract
Date: 2014-Feb
An article examined the impact of personalization on people with learning disabilities, and the supporting role of social workers. A scoping review found that recent literature emphasized the need for choice, control, and autonomy in personalization, but more research needed to be carried out into how professional roles fitted into and could support this process.
Source: David Sims and Sandra Gulyurtlu, 'A scoping review of personalisation in the UK: approaches to social work and people with learning disabilities', Health and Social Care in the Community, Volume 22 Issue 1
Links: Abstract
Date: 2014-Jan