Disabling or Enabling: The Extension of Work-Related Conditionality to Disabled People

Abstract

This article considers the defensibility of the extension of conditionality to disabled people through a qualitative investigation of welfare service users’ opinions on the applicability of conditionality for disabled people. Three focus groups took place, with participants segmented according to whether or not they were disabled, to enable a comparison between the attitudes of those who would and would not be directly affected by the extension of conditionality analysed. The qualitative research undertaken demonstrates how much more the government must do before it can justifiably make disability benefit receipt conditional on participating in work-related activities.

Neoliberal restructuring, disabled people and social (in)security in Australia and Britain

“…Those analyses that emphasise the nature of challenges that nation states face as an explanation for developments in policy are essentially liberal in character and define the state and its agencies as essentially benign and working towards (albeit undefined or hazily defined) concepts of the social 'good'. However, as has been pointed out in the case of Australia (for example, Galvin 2004;Humpage 2007;Soladatic and Pini 2012) and the UK (Roulstone 2000;Piggott and Grover 2009;Grover and Piggott 2010;Patrick 2011aPatrick , 2011b what is often described in positive termsÁas, for example, 'enabling' and 'inclusionary' for disabled people in our caseÁis often wrapped in authoritarian discourses, and has detrimental impacts upon the material well-being of disabled people and is felt as exclusionary (see, for example, Campbell et al 2011 (Spartacus Report);Briant, Watson, and Philo 2011;Soldatic and Meekosha forthcoming;Morris 2006). In other words, there is little that is benign about such developments.…”

“…290). While people in the WRAG cannot be mandated to apply for or take a particular job, it is clear that the ESA is part of a trend towards defining disabled people as being capable of working at some point in the future on the threat of benefit sanctions (Patrick 2011a(Patrick , 2011b.…”

‘If this wasn’t here I probably wouldn’t be’: disabled workers’ views of employment support

“…Recognising the growing fiscal problem of disabled people's unemployment (the number of Incapacity Benefit claimants increased from 0.74 million in 1979 to 2.63 million in 2010, at an annual cost of nearly £13 billion; National Audit Office 2010) and the limitations on their life-chances as a result of exclusion from the workplace, New Labour aimed to reduce the numbers of people receiving incapacity benefit by one million between 2005 and 2015 (see Fothergill and Wilson [2007] for a critique of the feasibility of this aim). These reforms included increased assessment via the much-criticised Work Capability Assessment to provide a tougher gateway to the Employment and Support Allowance (which replaced Incapacity Benefit), increased 'conditionality' (conditions they must fulfil to receive their benefits) and a stricter sanction regime for failure to fulfil those conditions (Grover and Piggott 2005;Sainsbury and Stanley 2007;Piggott and Grover 2009;Patrick 2011). Alongside these developments, under New Labour the DWP engaged in a dizzying set of activities to modify, rebrand and introduce initiatives for disabled people (for a summary, see National Audit Office 2005).…”

“…Premised on the belief that some unemployed people are choosing not to find employment, plans for welfare reform consist of increased conditionality and sanctions (Patrick 2011) as well as narrower eligibility to benefits -it is estimated that eligibility for the new Personal Independence Payments will be more limited than for the Disability Living Allowance that they will replace (Disability Rights UK 2013), and the Welfare Reform Act 2012 introduced a time limit of 1 year for eligibility for Employment and Support Allowance for some. Moreover, the Coalition Government is committed to interventions focused on the individual disabled worker or job-seeker, rather than on the workplace .…”

Does sanctioning disabled claimants of unemployment insurance increase labour market inactivity? An analysis of 346 British local authorities between 2009 and 2014

“…Similarly, increasing claimant-demands may have led to even greater economic inactivity. Sanctions, then, may have the opposite of their intended effect among people living with a disability, pushing them further away from the labour market and deeper into poverty (Patrick 2011).…”