ESA Is A Failure Admits DWP
And it gets better- the BBC have covered the story! Many thanks to Benefits And Work for the summary below.
The BBC has obtained DWP internal memos which says that employment and support allowance (ESA) is worse than incapacity benefit at helping people back into work and now poses one of the biggest financial risks faced by the government. The memos also imply that the jobseeker’s allowance (JSA) sanctions regime is partly to blame for the rising number of ESA claimants.
According to the BBC, the leaked memos say that the DWP is struggling to deliver ESA and that claimants now face an average nine month wait for assessment rather than the intended three months. Although one of the main aims of ESA is to move claimants back into work via work-related activities, the memos say that ESA is less effective at doing this than incapacity benefit was. In addition, the cost of ESA is expected to rise by £13bn by 2018/19.
The BBC says that the documents claim that one of the reasons for the rise in numbers is the restrictions placed on JSA. Whilst this comment is not clarified by the BBC, it seems likely that the implication is that the extraordinarily harsh sanctions regime is pushing people into making a claim for ESA when they would otherwise have remained on JSA.
The BBC says that:
“Too many people find themselves as long-term recipients of the benefit, the document says, and more people than expected are becoming eligible for it.”
Mike Penning, DWP minister for the disabled responded by claiming that the coalition had inherited the problem from Labour.
In fact, after a period of stability under Labour, the DWP’s own figures show that the proportion of claimants being put in the support group has increased almost sixfold – from 10% to 57% – under the coalition. Meanwhile, the percentage of claimants being found fit for work has more than halved. And this is not a recent phenomenon: the proportion of claimants going into the support group has risen every single quarter since the coalition came to power.
Moreover, Penning made no attempt to explain why, if they already knew there were unsolved problems with ESA, the government chose to introduce the massively complex new universal credit and attempted to replace most disability living allowance claims with personal independence payment.
Same Difference 
well that’s to be expected when you haven’t a clue what your doing
i have said till I’m blue in the face the only way to get this in order is to visit claimants in their own home to avoid any stress with a medical professional along with a DWP adviser and conduct both ESA and PIP at the same time
in this way you can be sure that the correct assessment is made and that the right level of benefits is paid out to the the correct claimant thus making sure no security errors are made
it’s so simple to undertake over a five year plan and will at the end of the term be as accurate as humanly possible and save money as there will be no contractors involved just the medical doctors and only a very few needing to appeal
LikeLike
My friend’s daughter (to condense a very-long story into a comment) was sanctioned the week her father died (for not looking for enough jobs that week), the JCP wouldn’t listen to reason. From Jan-april 2013, in the coldest winter for 50 years she had no money for anything and had a 12-yr-old daughter she had to keep. The loss of her father and the treatment by the JCP staff caused her to have a nervous breakdown.
So your comment above is right: sanctions are causing people to claim ESA, people that would normally get a job, the person mentioned above was laid off from her job, so she wasn’t the skiver the govt makes out all jobseekers are. Sanctions are creating such terror, I was at the bus stop a few weeks back and saw a woman in a very distressed state, she said she’d just been sanctioned, for not attending an appointment that she said she never received the letter to go to.
LikeLike
All too common. Where has our humanity and compassion as a nation gone to? We used to be renowned for British “fair play”; but politicians go on TV to demonize poor and sick people as the cause of all national problems, and tell the civil service to shaft them at every opportunity by any trick they can think up. We have moved far away from fair play.
LikeLike
Reblogged this on sdbast.
LikeLike
Reblogged this on Ramblings of a Fibro Fogged Mind and commented:
More good news…Dxxx
LikeLike
The admin of benefit has just left so many with the stress of not knowing if their benefit money will be lost, when they do not have a job and may indeed have no ability to work. This costs the taxpayers billions.
If Labour wants seriously to help the disabled and / or chronic sick and lose the tag of scrounger of those on benefit, then a universal non-means tested citizen wage for all would be a better alternative, either in or out of work and however long we live.
This is needed because in 2016 Pension Credit is abolished as well as the additional pensions of the State Earnings Related Pension and State Second Pension, so the annual rise for same is no longer guaranteed.
https://you.38degrees.org.uk/petitions/state-pension-at-60-now
It is funding neutral by the end of all the admin around benefits with the DWP and private firms and shutting down Jobcentres.
This could be clawed back from the rich by the rise of Income Tax to 50 per cent.
The poor spend all of their income unable to save a penny, so pay out more in stealth taxes than any other income group, of the total of around £500 billion a year.
Welfare admin costs around £100 billion a year.
How do we know that the rise in the cost of ESA is not around the costs of admin and assessments and annual re-assessments?
But in amongst the changes coming that are even worse than the Pension Bill, with the Flat Rate Penson, are many people being left forever without any state pension for life, and may also be out of the benefit system.
https://you.38degrees.org.uk/petitions/state-pension-at-60-now
The citizen wage also stops all the stress to the most vulnerable, as well as reduces the huge rise in requests to food banks. Some agencies will not give out vouchers to food banks to those not on benefit.
Now if Labour came up with this citizen wage and brought back the state pension at 60 (France did it and the EU government said nothing) for men and women (people at 60 are not listed on the unemployment statistics yet can lose disability / sick benefits and not be in work), then Labour would win a landslide victory and be a majority government in 2015.
Otherwise they are doomed, like all parties, to be a minority government, as 2015 will see the lowest voter turnout in UK history.
LikeLike
Reblogged this on HUMAN RIGHTS & THE SIEGE OF BRITAIN POLITICAL JOURNAL.
LikeLike
I would accept that I am one of those, who would normally be on JSA but are on ESA because of the horrendous way I was treated by JCP staff, after finishing on WP.
LikeLike
How many years?? How many lives lost??? yet the DWP do not keep records of people dying whilst either appealing or waiting for a decision now
LikeLike
the dwp do know how many people have died via their inhumane treatment of the disabled and mentally ill, they just wont release any figures, remember theres an election looming..
LikeLike
ooooooo what a suprise ,every one was telling them that from the get go,buT Ian duncan smith AS PER USUAL wouldnt have it,,,he just sat back and blamed labour,when in fact it all started when that pratt became minister for dwp.and wasted more money than was probably paid out to people on benefits two fold everything that idiot touches turns rottenhes lied lied & lied and still he gets to stay in power.no wonder there losing MPS left right & centre haahahaha,even they no the tories are lying grabbing rich toffs that are intrested in one thing,,,robbing the poor to give to the rich & there own bank accounts
LikeLike