The Government's failed policy to 'get disabled people into work' by a mixture of sanctions, enforced training and benefit cuts (sometimes known as the Employment & Support Allowance) is now being reviewed with the intention of introducing new reforms and creating closer links between the DWP and the NHS.
You can read the Government's intentions in their Green Paper here:
https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/work-health-and-disability-improving-lives/work-health-and-disability-green-paper-improving-lives
Sadly disabled people and independent advocates have found that policy in this field very poor. Often negative assumptions about disabled people seem to driving policy-makers into establishing very harmful systems. The Centre for Welfare Reform has itself published many different reports outlining:
The dodgy research behind the so-called biopsychosocial model of disability
The ineffectiveness of the Work Programme
The dangerous assessment processes which seem to encourage suicide
The underhand cuts in income that target people already on low incomes
It is not surprising therefore that many are dubious about the next round of reforms. The Spartacus Network, the leading research group powered by disabled people, have consistently provided some of the best ongoing analysis and criticism of Government policy. The Network has now turned its attention to the Government's latest thinking. Sadly they find:
"No-one is ignored in this Green Paper; the elderly, the unemployed, the sick and carers are all potential units of productivity."
"What we found was truly shocking. In a Green Paper, touted as being mitigation for the cuts to the sickness benefit ESA, there was very little evidence that the cuts would be mitigated at all. Instead the Green Paper outlines yet another series of Work Programmes, using many of the familiar Prime Work Programme providers, supported by many of the same community and charity organisations as sub-primes."
You can read the full Spartacus Network report at:
https://spartacusnetwork.wordpress.com/2017/02/15/smokescreen-response-to-green-paper/
