14 October 2005
The system for awarding benefits to sick and disabled people is 'crackers', according to Work and Pensions Secretary David Blunkett, because it is too complicated and wide open to error and fraud.
Blunkett was speaking this week at a Whitehall symposium on welfare reform, convened by the Department for Work and Pensions.
The occasion was used to launch 'eight principles of welfare reform', ahead of this autumn's green paper. At its core will be proposals to get many of the 2.8 million people claiming incapacity benefit back into work.
The green paper is expected to propose replacing IB with a two-tier payment system. This will pay a higher rate for severely disabled claimants, and a lower one for those assessed as able to work. Top-up payments will be offered as incentives to claimants who take up training, rehabilitation or a job.
This 'something for something' approach is a much more effective way of curing stress and depression than 'sitting at home watching daytime television', said Blunkett.
Shadow work and pensions secretary Sir Malcolm Rifkind called the government's statement of principles 'vague and superficial'.
But they were broadly welcomed by Trades Union Congress general secretary Brendan Barber, with the rider that 'ministers resist the temptation to talk of sanctions against the workshy'.
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