The income of disability benefit claimants took a further battering yesterday, as the Chancellor announced that Employment and Support Allowance will only be paid for one year to those recipients who are thought able to work in future, but need support to do so.

This measure – among a number of others – is designed to help take another £7bn off the Government’s welfare bill. However, scrutiny shows that the Chancellor’s plan is a risky one.

As explained before on this blog, ESA claimants are (using an unsuitable test) designated to one of two groups, or are passed onto Jobseekers Allowance. Those who are assessed as being able to work in future with proper support are transferred to the Work-Related Activity Group.

The Government has been abundantly clear about its ambition to “improve incentives to work” and move disabled people off benefits and into employment. This in mind, the Chancellor’s decision to limit the amount of time in which disabled people can access the support enabling them to do this is perplexing. In effect, it assumes that disabled people – who are already at a far distance from the labour market, especially if they have been on Incapacity Benefit for two years of more (ESA replaced IB in 2008); and who are notably disadvantaged in terms of employment prospects – should all be able to secure work within 12 months.

Risky. And potentially very expensive. Presumably, disabled people who fail to find work after 12 months will then be moved to the more stringent JSA regime. As detailed in our recent report, Destination Unknown, disabled people are at a severe disadvantage when it comes to complying with JSA conditions – for example, signing in at a Jobcentre Plus office at anytime should advisers think they are not properly adhering to their Jobseeker’s Agreement. Nor does the JSA regime properly account for the additional costs and significant barriers that disabled people face when trying to find work: studies show that almost a quarter of disabled people pursuing work have had to refuse a job offer and a further 23 per cent had to decline a job interview because of inaccessible transport. Prejudicial and attitudinal barriers also go unaccounted for: surveys of disabled people show some 43 per cent to have reported being turned down for employment because of their disability or impairment.

Issues like these show that making the assumption that disabled people who need support to find work should be able to do so in a set amount of time risks homogenising a vast range of differentiating and often highly complex needs. In our report, we call for a personalised, co-produced regime of support that is properly tailored to each individual’s needs. Disabled people will have all different personal, social and employment needs. Travelling different distances back to work will require different systems of support. And you cannot put a time limit on that.

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