The first Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) report shows that about 79,000 ESA claimants passed through the Work Programme between its launch in June 2011 and July this year, giving a success rate of just over one per cent.

To be counted in the figures, a disabled benefits claimant needed to stay in a job for only three months, compared with six months for non-disabled job-seekers.

The success rate is slightly higher for former incapacity benefit claimants who had been assessed and found “fit for work”, with just over two per cent of them finding work for at least three months.

The overall figures – which include non-disabled job-seekers – show about 3.5 per cent of those on the scheme found some work.

Margaret Hodge, the Labour MP and chair of the Commons public accounts committee, described the overall figures as “shocking” and said the Work Programme – which is aimed at jobseekers who are long-term unemployed or at risk of becoming long-term unemployed – was “falling woefully short of expectations”.

The second DWP report provides possible explanations for the low number of disabled people helped into work, and suggests that the government has underestimated the significant barriers to work faced by many of those forced onto the programme, including those on employment and support allowance (ESA), the new out-of-work disability benefit.

The report suggests that the Work Programme has failed to help many of those with the most significant barriers, such as people with mental health conditions.

Some Work Programme advisers told researchers that the scheme’s model of “conditionality” and “sanctioning” had proved to be “not appropriate for individuals with the most significant and complex barriers to employment”.

They reported that some of these participants were “almost unable” to avoid being sanctioned – having their benefits withdrawn for increasing periods of time – because they could not comply with the conditions they had to meet.

The report also suggests that the main Work Programme contractors – most of which are from the private sector – have been overwhelmed by the large numbers of people they are dealing with, and instead of giving those with higher support needs more attention, have given them less, while there has been a lack of funding to address the barriers these clients face.

The Work Programme was designed to deal with this problem by offering higher payments to contractors who found jobs for those who were furthest away from the job market, such as disabled people claiming ESA.

But despite these higher payments, contractors appear instead to have prioritised those who were more “job ready”.

Steve Harry, an employment adviser and a board member of Disability Cornwall, who has 15 years’ experience of helping disabled people into work, said he was not surprised by the conclusions of the two reports.

He said he believed the Work Programme was doomed to fail disabled people and other job-seekers.

Harry said the payment-by-results model meant providers focused on how cheaply they could deliver support and “getting results and getting job outcomes as quickly as possible”.

He said: “The Work Programme does an awful lot if what you need is a CV and how to apply for jobs. If you need more than that it doesn’t really meet your needs.”

He added: “It is not really a serious attempt to help people with significant disabilities back into work.”

A spokesman for the Employment Related Services Association (ERSA), the trade body for the welfare-to-work industry, said: “The industry does accept that the performance [in finding work] for people on ESA is behind par and more must be done to help these job-seekers find sustainable employment.”

29 November 2012

News provided by John Pring at www.disabilitynewsservice.com

The mental health (discrimination) bill would overturn discriminatory mental health legislation affecting MPs, school governors, company directors and would-be jury members.

The bill received its second Commons reading on Friday (14 September), after being introduced as a private member’s bill by the Conservative MP Gavin Barwell.

Barwell said he had decided to introduce the bill partly because two of his closest friends had mental health conditions, while numerous constituents had come to him for help with mental health issues, including some who were “distressed and struggling with Atos work capability assessments”.

He said his bill – first introduced in the Lords by the crossbench peer Lord Stevenson of Coddenham, who spoke publicly this summer about his own depression – would “tackle the last legal form of discrimination in our society”.

He said: “A member of parliament or company director can be removed from their job because of mental ill-health, even if they go on to make a full recovery, and many people who are perfectly capable of performing jury service are ineligible to do so.

“As it stands, the law sends out a clear message that if someone has a mental health condition, their contribution to public life is not welcome, and that is an affront to a decent, civilised society.”

Dame Anne Begg, the Labour MP, who uses a wheelchair, said there had been those previously who had said a deaf person could not become an MP, until Labour’s Jack Ashley proved them wrong, and that a blind person could not cope with parliament, until her party colleague David Blunkett.

Then there were those who believed that someone who used a wheelchair “would not have the stamina and the strength” to be an MP, until she herself was elected, and those who thought that someone with cerebral palsy and a speech impediment would not be understood, until the election of the Conservative MP Paul Maynard in 2010.

She said the Commons authorities had made the necessary adjustments in each case, “and so it should be for people who might have problems with their mental health”.

Charles Walker, the Conservative MP who spoke about his own mental health condition in the Commons in June, said the debate meant it was “a day of celebration” and “possibly the greatest day of my life”.

Kevan Jones, the Labour MP who also spoke out in June about his mental health condition, said: “This is about trying to lift the stigma that, unfortunately, even in 2012, still attaches to mental health, and about helping people to come forward to get the support that they need.”

Diane Abbott, Labour’s shadow health minister, said: “In having this debate, we signify that attitudes have changed, but we are also helping to move those attitudes on.”

She added: “This is an important bill and I am glad to support it on behalf of my party and our entire health team.”

Chloe Smith, the Conservative parliamentary secretary to the Cabinet Office, said the bill had the “full backing” of the government, and that “tackling stigma and discrimination is at the heart of the government’s mental health strategy”.

The bill would mean MPs would no longer automatically lose their seat if they were detained under the Mental Health Act for longer than six months, while people with mental health conditions would no longer be disqualified from serving as school governors if they had been detained under the act.

And anyone with a mental health condition would no longer be automatically ineligible for jury service – which applies only to England and Wales – or to act as a company director.

The government has already dealt with the school governor ban by changing regulations.

News provided by John Pring at www.disabilitynewsservice.com