By Judith Ugwumadu | 23 July 2014
MPs have called for a fundamental redesign of benefits designed to help people with health problems and disabilities back into work, warning that flaws in the current system ‘grave’.
In a damning report on the Employment and Support Allowance, the Common work and pensions committee said that merely rebranding eligibility tests and replacing Atos – the private contractor who until March assessed whether people were fit-for-work – would not solve the problems.
A settlement earlier this year was reached for Atos to exit the contract before it was due to end in August 2015. The company had become a ‘lightning rod’ for all negativity, said committee chair Anne Begg today, although she noted that it was the Department for Works and Pensions that made the decisions about a claimant’s eligibility for ESA.
‘Just putting a new private provider in place will not address the problems with the Employment and Support Allowance and working capability assessments on its own,’ she said.
‘We are therefore calling for a number of changes which can be made to improve ESA in the short term, while also recommending a longer-term, fundamental redesign of the whole process.’
Over the shorter term to ensure better outcomes and improved services the committee suggested that the DWP takes the overall responsibility for the end-to-end ESA claims process, including taking decisions on whether claimants need face-to-face assessment.
The committee also suggested that the DWP ‘proactively’ seek supporting evidence on the impact of a claimant’s condition or disability. This should not be left for the claimant to do as they often had to pay for it.
And Begg called on the DWP to ‘rigorously monitor’ service standards to ensure they are being met and take immediate action, including imposing penalties, if they are not. ‘This has not always happened with the Atos contract,’ she said.
Minister for disabled people Mark Harper said a new provider and a new contract for working capability assessments would increase the number of assessments and reduce waiting times.
He said: ‘More than 700,000 people who were on Incapacity Benefit are now looking for, or making steps to return to work after a WCA – it is crucial that we continue this important process to ensure that people are not written off and we get a fair deal for the taxpayer.
‘Since its introduction in 2008 by the previous government, there have been four independent reviews of the WCA and a fifth is underway. We have accepted most of the recommendations and made numerous improvements.’
