THE PCS union, which represents JobCentre workers, yesterday denounced as ‘appalling’ planned savage cuts to social security for sick and disabled people.
It was commenting on a leaked Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) paper written before the general election in May, which reveals plans to axe the work-related activity element of Employment and Support Allowance (ESA).
PCS general secretary Mark Serwotka said: ‘This would be an appalling cut – targeting disabled people who, by the government’s own test, have been found not to be fit for work and who require additional financial support. It would do nothing to incentivise anyone, it would simply be a massive cut to the social security budget that the Tories refused to disclose just a few weeks ago during the election campaign.’
The leaked DWP paper complains that ESA is a ‘passive’ benefit which does not ‘incentivise’ people to find a job, and proposes abolishing the work-related activity group (WRAG) category. If scrapped, weekly payments would drop nearly £30 from £102.15, bringing it in line with Jobseeker’s Allowance.
About two million people in the UK receive ESA, in some form. It is paid out to disabled or sick people who are unable to work or need help getting back to work. Currently, people undergo a fit-for-work test to decide how their illness or disability affects their ability to work.
If eligible for the benefit, they are placed in either the WRAG category, and must prepare for employment, or a support group category and are not expected to work. Those who do not meet the criteria may be given Jobseeker’s Allowance of up to £73.10 a week instead. The DWP paper also proposes renaming the assessment tests ‘employment capability assessments’, rather than ‘work capability assessments’, in order to focus attention on job-seeking, not benefit-seeking.
The tests would identify claimants’ ‘strengths’, rather than focus on what they could not do, and would be carried out much sooner in the application process, the DWP paper says. Under the plans, the government could save hundreds of millions of pounds by the end of the decade, the paper adds.
