Important Changes to Benefits System

ESA is due to be introduced on 27th October 2008. It will replace both incapacity benefit and income support for people who are incapable of work.

People already claiming incapacity benefit (IB) or income support (IS) or Severe Disablement Allowance (SDA) for incapacity for work will continue to receive their current benefits during 2008/2009 but will eventually transfer over to ESA between 2010 and 2013.

New claimants are being required to take part in a programme of work-focused interviews. This is already happening for new IB and IS claimants.

You will be called in to an initial interview 8 weeks after claiming during which a Work Action Plan must be agreed. The interview will take place in the Jobcentre offices nearest to your home.

Pathways to Work is to help people who claim IB and IS with extra support to find work. IT IS ADVISABLE TO TAKE SOMEONE WITH YOU TO THE INTERVIEWS - THIS IS YOUR RIGHT.

Interviews can last up to 1 hour. At the interview you will have a Personal Adviser who will:-

1. Explain the requirements to participate in the works focused interview
2. Offer advice on tax credits to top up earnings and other support such as the £40 per week return to work credit
3. Ask what your educational qualifications are if any
4. Ask about your employment history
5. Ask about any vocational training undertaken
6. Your work skills
7. Any paid or unpaid work you are currently doing
8. Ask about medical conditions which in you opinion restrict your ability to work or put you at a disadvantage in obtaining work
9. Any caring or childcare responsibilities

At this stage of the interview a decision will be made whether to complete the Work Action Plan and attend the 5 additional interviews at monthly intervals. which will be with a private or voluntary sector providor eg Working Links.

If yes the personal advisor will then help you complete a realistic, achievable work focused Action Plan. This will:-

• set out work goals
• include steps you agree to take to prepare to return to work
• include any activities the personal adviser agrees to undertake to support you

Completing this Work Action Plan is compulsory .

If no the personal advisor can waive or defer the requirement to attend the additional 5 monthly interviews.

A new test for fresh claims, the Work Capability Assessment, will be introduced in October 2008 for Employment and Support Allowance claims and will be applied to all those people claiming the new allowance. It will assess what an individual can do – rather than what they can’t do. The assessment will look at people’s physical and mental ability, including conditions such as learning disabilities and other similar conditions.

Following this assessment most individuals will be given support and employment advice to enable them to return to work where possible.

People whose condition causes very severe limitation of their ability, who are not able to engage in any work-related activity, will get a higher rate of benefit. They will still be able to volunteer to get support and employment advice if they want to.

From 2010, this new Work Capability Assessment will begin to be applied to existing incapacity benefits customers.

This measure is part of The Welfare Reform Act 2007. (see links list)

Further details on the support available to people on incapacity benefits can be found at Pathways to Work (see links list).

The Personal Capability Assessment (PCA) is the process used to assess individuals’ eligibility for incapacity benefits. As part of welfare reform proposals the assessment has been reviewed, to transform it into a more positive assessment of mental and physical capability and of the support an individual needs to help them work. The new process, called the Work Capability Assessments, will be applied to people who claim Employment and Support Allowance when it is introduced in Autumn 2008.

Healthcare professionals and representatives from Trade Unions, charities and disability organisations have worked with DWP on this review. The outcome is a revised assessment process that:

• re-focuses physical function descriptors and scores, to better reflect the activities and functional capability
• expands the mental function assessment to better reflect the problems of people with cognitive and intellectual impairment
• changes the scoring system for the mental health assessment to provide parity between the scoring for mental and physical function assessments
• improves evidence-gathering in support of the assessment
• develops the work-focused health-related assessment.