Scope responds to the Green Paper on Welfare Reform

Responding to the Green Paper on Welfare Reform published today, Jon Sparkes, Chief Executive of disability charity Scope, said:

“Scope supports measures to enable more disabled people to move into work. However, we have deep concerns about the tone of these reforms and the target-led ethos underpinning them. Disabled people face a myriad of barriers in finding employment, including negative attitudes from employers and inadequate social care support. Punitive measures against individual disabled claimants will do nothing to remove these barriers.

“We also have concerns about how the reforms will work in practice. A payment-by-results culture is likely to disadvantage disabled people with complex support needs who will take longer to make the transition to work and who may be more expensive to support. Also, if disabled people are expected to do voluntary work as a condition of claiming benefit then the Government must extend its Access to Work scheme to disabled volunteers.

“We are particularly concerned that there are plans to abolish Income Support and we want assurances that this will not increase, rather than decrease, levels of poverty for disabled people on the lowest incomes. “