If the same ratio is present in the 2.2 million people currently in receipt of incapacity benefit, it would mean that almost 1.7 million of them should be at work.
The figure is extraordinarily high. Most observers had predicted that the new ‘fit to work’ test might be able to reduce the numbers by up to 30 percent – and that was borne out by the original pilot studies – but no one has had the courage to suggest that three-quarters of sickness benefit claims are bogus.
Last month the government appointed Professor Malcolm Harrington to carry out an independent review into the assessment scheme to ensure it was ‘fair and accurate.’
The ‘fit to work’ tests are being carried out by doctors and medical professionals working for a private contractor, Atos; but the Department for Work and Pensions has said that the firm does not receive any extra money for recommending that applicants be denied benefits.
From October, all existing incapacity benefit claimants will be required to undergo the new test.
But it was not just sickness benefits that were in the government’s sights this week. On Saturday it had emerged that housing benefit claimants steal more than £220 million of handouts every year, and that one in 10 are abusing the system.
The sickness figures were just the final nail in the benefit system’s coffin.
A command paper from the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) outlined a number of options today, one of which could see the end of housing benefit; income support; council tax benefit; working tax credit; and child tax credit. The benefits would be replaced by a 'universal benefit,' which would be tailored to ensure claimants are always better off returning to work.
’The key thing is getting people back to work and the reality is that more money will be saved, you save through fraud and bad overpayments,’ Work and Pensions secretary Iain Duncan Smith said.
’All these things go on in this terrible system left over to us from the Labour party which is complex and very expensive.’
According to the DWP, working more than 16 hours a week is financially disadvantageous for many claimants under the current system. Around 1.9 million lose 60p out of every £1 they earn, while 130,000 lose 90p out of every pound earned.
’The complexity of the system also creates risk and uncertainty for the people in society who most need stability. We want to simplify the system to make it clear that work will always pay,’ Mr Duncan Smith said.
’Our reforms should also ensure the system is easier for individuals to understand and will reduce the high costs of fraud and error.’
Many will need some convincing that the 75 percent bogus sickness benefit claims are true – although it may reflect the increasing trend of unemployed drug addicts to claim benefits. At present, they receive the same benefit as others who are jobless as a result of illness.
It is estimated that one in 15 of all those on benefits are drug users, compared to just one in 100 in the wider population.
The government has set its aims high; but none of the proposed measures address the problem of uneducated young women choosing to become pregnant as a means of securing state funded housing and having further children to increase their benefit income. Few, it seems, are even willing to recognise the scale of that problem, which disadvantages responsible young couples choosing to contribute to society and raise a family – but without the resources to buy their own property.
It does not sit comfortably to find the coalition government targeting the sick while failing to ensure that all social housing only be let to those who have contributed, or are contributing, to society.
There is nothing here to deter the likes of Peter and Mary.
Yes. You are right to bring attention to single mothers and their claims to free housing on the state. The problem did not exist when being a single mother was stigmatised and only couples or lone singles could obtain social housing. Now of course it is impossible for a single male to obtain a council flat and as you say reponsible young couples wishing to start a family are disadvantaged.
ReplyDeleteWe should not be pandering to those women who choose to have children outside a stable relationship and certainly not allow them to take up precious social housing space.
We need to return to a situation where irresponsibility is met by the families who choose to bring such children up and a situation where council housing is aimed solely at two parent families to ensure local government is not the willing catalyst for broken homes, druggies and those who contribute nothing to the community which sustains them.
But will the coalition be prepared to go that far? It certainly should in my opinion because it obviously has no compunction about worrying the genuinely sick.