Welfare Reform - long overdue

So the bleeding stumps and wheelchairs are being trailed around Westminster to try to garner sympathy and opposition to the long overdue reforms of UK welfare programmes, that are under discussion.  I think that these are entirely misplaced.  The genuinely disabled will not see their benefit cut.  Those abusing the title 'disabled' do need to fear the reforms.

When you read this you may think I want to abolish DLA and Incapacity Benefit and ESA - I don't.  I do want people to be rigorously assessed and then if they are found to be eligible for benefit, to be given it and if they are not eligible, then they don't get it. 

This gravy train needs to stop because we simply cannot afford it.   Money that is taken by those assessed as ineligible is money that can be spent on genuine needs, including that of the real disabled.

Disability Living Allowance (DLA) was introduced, by the Conservatives, in 1992.  At that time, around 1.1 million people were eligible for the allowance.  At May 2011, 3.2 million people were claiming the allowance.  An almost 200% increase.  Perhaps some of that increase, you decide how much, is due to an aging population (the pensioner population has increased by 10% or just over a million, in the last ten years)  and some to an increasing population (it grew by around 4.5 million or 8% in the period).

My suspicion though, is that the very significant part of this increase can be traced to the fact that until very recently, claimants for this allowance were not independently medically tested.  For some people, there has just been a paper based assessment  - Maybe you say on the claim form that you have a certain condition and the government takes your word for it!

Government statistics suggest that most claims were assessed based on checking with the claimant's GP (GP as in General Practitioner and certainly not a specialist!) 46%, information on the form (see above) 16%, ringing up a carer, an astonishing 32%.  This leaves around 6% where the claimant was assessed by by a specialist for the purpose of the claim. 

Yes, that's right - just 6% are assessed by a specialist in what is being claimed for!

DLA now costs the taxpayer more than  £12.3 BILLION a year

Fit for work tests for the 1.5 million people that claim Incapacity Benefit and its successor Employment and Support Allowance (ESA)  have been underway for some months.  Figures published in July 2011 showed that of those assessed, 39% were deemed fit for work, immediately and 17% could consider working, with the right help.

Indeed, of the more than 1.3 million people assessed, just 88,700 people were found to be completely unfit for work!

Interestingly, one in three of those due for assessment dropped out of the application process.

Incapacity Benefit and ESA costs the taxpayer around £8.7 BILLION a year.  This includes, based on Department of Work and Pensions figures, £24.2 million for sufferers of 'dizziness and giddiness' and around £2 million for those nursing haemorrhoids!

In ten years of Labour mis-rule the number of people receiving sickness handouts for more than 5 years rose 20 fold.  In May 1997, 68,000 claimants had been in receipt of incapacity benefit for five years or more.  By May 2006, the figure had soared to almost 1.5 million.