Sick and disabled to work ‘despite their health condition’

Yesterday’s update from Jobcentre Plus throws light on a disturbing development in the Government’s plans for sick and disabled people.

Many of us will remember the thousands of fit workers parked on invalidity benefits (now there’s a telling phrase) to hide the impact of the mass closures on unemployment in the early 1980s. Of course only those who are sick and disabled should receive this support and where conditions might improve, assessments should be made with an emphasis on rehabilitation and recovery.

The emphasis in assessing people for sickness and disability benefits has long been on tasks that would be beyond the individual’s capacities. During its final term, the last Labour Government started to move the focus to tasks that the individual could undertake. Disabled rights groups sensed that behind the suggestion of empowerment, was an intention to coerce individuals into inappropriate work or to dock their benefits. Plaid MPs played an honourable role in forcing a U-turn on the excesses of that policy.

Yesterday’s update goes much further. It states that in assessing for sickness and disability benefits, ‘the focus will be on what an individual can do despite their health condition rather than simply what they are prevented from doing’.

Government Agencies will then accept that an individual is sick or disabled but will nonetheless expect them to work. This changes a fundamental principle of supporting the sick and disabled.

On my previous blog in reacting to the Labour’s proposed plans to scrap Attendance Allowance and review Disability Living Allowance, I asked where these jobs were mean to come from. At that time in Whitney, David Cameron’s constituency, there were 11 people on disability benefits for each job advertised while in Merthyr, there were 67 and in Llanelli there were over 20.

How many vacancies are there now for each person on disability benefits in Bridgend, Port Talbot and Llanelli? How many of these will be coerced into applying for jobs ‘despite their condition’ only to be passed over by recruiters? This is a clear attempt to withdraw support from those that need and deserve it. A ‘big society’? A pitiless and senseless one if we let them have their way.