REPOSICION DE CERTIFICADOS

Under New Labour, Incapacity Benefit (IB) was replaced in October 2008 with ESA. This reform was under consideration throughout successive Conservative administrations, although not implemented as thought to be too contentious.

2.8.1 The Work Capability Assessment

The stated intention of ESA was to provide financial support for those unable to work and provide practical ‘support’ for those who were deemed as able to work (Government, 2017). The move from IB to ESA followed the increasingly work- first trend to social security, which academics have argued often ‘advocates moving people into employment as quickly as possible, irrespective of the quality of the job or the barriers faced by the individual’ (Lindsay and Dutton, 2013, p.183). Eligibility for ESA was decided upon by using the WCA which

attempted to address whether an individual’s health or impairment would affect their ability to work. This was informed by the biopsychosocial model of

disability (Waddell and Aylward, 2010) which was contentious as the model neither fully adopted medical or social model thinking but still located the issue with the individual. The biopsychosocial model did not solely focus on a person’s impairment but instead the way the impairment is perceived and justified, leading to the re-assessment of those who had previously been deemed unable to work under previous policies. It is important to note that this model has been largely criticised as it was developed from a study with a limited evidence base

which focused on a specific type of impairment and therefore cannot be applied to understand the experiences of all disabled people (Jolly, 2012).

The WCA was implemented through The Welfare Reform Act (2007) to establish eligibility and distribution of ESA; this included the re-assessment of people who had been long-term IB claimants. The assessment was conducted by the Health Assessment Provider (HAP), ATOS healthcare, through both initial paper

assessments and face-to-face assessments. The diagram below illustrates the ‘typical’ process a claimant would go through to claim ESA (Fig. 2.1).

(Image Source: DWP, 2018)

The process was often described as much more complex than illustrated in this diagram (see chapter three). As discussed in chapter three, the nature and effectiveness of the WCA is contested. Roulstone and Yates (2013, p.463) stated that the transition from IB to ESA:

‘reconceptualised the disability welfare system as no longer grounded in broad-based support, but fundamentally concerned with individual capacities to ‘move towards work’ as decided by medical assessments of ability ‘to work beyond a certain level’.

The assessment procedure is based on a static points system, where assessors award points based on a person’s ability to carry out certain tasks. The amount of points then indicates which category a person falls into, either: Fit for Work (FfW); limited capacity for work or limited capacity for work-related activity. Those labelled as FfW are not entitled to ESA and are moved directly to mainstream JSA. Those perceived as having a limited capability to work are assigned to the work-related activity group (WRAG), in which carrying out work-

related activity is the condition for receiving benefits, with the hope of assisting persons in this category to move back into paid employment. Additionally, a lower financial rate is received, and sanctions may be imposed if conditions (such as attending regular work-focused interviews and completing an action plan) are not fulfilled (Roulstone and Prideaux, 2012; Dwyer et al., 2018).

The final group, the Support Group, is assigned for those assessed as having limited capability for work-related activity (Litchfield, 2013). This group of people are therefore deemed ‘deserving’ of unconditional welfare support. The principles of categorising and dictating who is considered disabled enough to be deemed as deserving of welfare support is problematic and link to Stone’s (1984) work on shifting disability categories. Stone (1984) suggests that often the

disability category is a restrictive mechanism with the purpose to ‘keep

everyone in the work-based distributive system except for the very neediest people’ (Stone, 1984, p.188). This was evident in the development and adoption

of the WCA to assess disabled people’s eligibility for ESA.

2.8.2 Paternalism and Supply-Side Policies

The further use of workfare ideologies, which underpinned New Labour policy, was evidenced in the former Work and Pensions Secretary’s White paper

‘Beveridge for the 21st century’, which put a clear emphasis on securing work for disabled people. Although, as noted previously, earlier attempts to promote employment for disabled people such as AtW (1994) initiatives were often concerned with targeting those closest to entering the labour market (Stafford, 2015).

Roulstone and Yates (2013, p.460) state that:

‘New Labour did produce policies attempting to account for and address ‘barriers’ to transition and long-term employment associated with disability. However, at the heart of their policy focus for disability, training and employment, in line with the trends outlined above, was a conceptualisation of the disabled individual as essentially responsible for their own employability, and of the central role of policy and services

being to support the development of such employability by individually responsible agents’.

New Labour’s approach draws parallels to paternalist approaches to welfare and elements of laissez-faire and piecemeal policy approaches, providing limited support from the state whilst asserting the importance of individual

responsibility. The approach also demonstrated a shift towards contractualist ideas behind welfare in which citizens are expected to fulfil responsibilities to gain rights. Griggs and Bennett (2009) suggest that there are numerous

explanations behind this policy shift including the importance of paid

employment within New Labour policy approaches, such as ‘work as a route out

of poverty’ (Griggs and Bennett, 2009, p.8) and the increasing focus of supply-

side approaches to employment.

The New Labour policy emphasis on the supply-side approach to employment is further evidenced by Peck and Theodore (2000) when suggesting that a ‘supply- side fundamentalism’ underpinned New Labour policy (in Roulstone and

Prideaux, 2012, p.91). Therefore, this meant that the government focused ‘on

improving access to “existing” employment opportunities rather than

addressing the nature of available employment’ (Hyde, 2000, p.338). Fletcher

(2011) reinforces this thinking and argues that the shift from welfare to workfare programmes ‘is signalled by the punitive nature of programmes which attempt

to recast ‘supply-side’ problems as the product of deficient work ethic’

(Fletcher, 2011, p.445). The lack of consideration to demand-side barriers to employment is particularly problematic when considering disabled people’s unequal opportunities in the labour market.

Peck (2001) states that ‘The boundary between welfare and work, is, socially constructed and perpetually reconstructed’ (Peck, 2001, p.49). This section has considered how the boundary between work and welfare was initially

reconstructed under the Labour Government (1997-2010). For disabled people, the WCA and engagement with work-related activity are key sites of this

reconstruction. The continued reconstructing of welfare and work was clearly evident from the election of New Labour and was developed further under the Coalition government that followed.

2.9 The UK Coalition (2010-2015) and Anti-Discrimination