Scope responds to Panorama expose on Work Programme
28 January 2013
On Monday BBC’s Panorama investigated the Work Programme’s failure to support disabled people. On Wednesday Scope is giving evidence to the Work and Pensions Select Committee on the Work Programme.
In response to Panorama, Scope Chief Executive Richard Hawkes said:
"The Government’s fitness for work test is utterly broken. Now we see the same toxic approach applied to disabled people in the Work Programme, the Governments flagship approach to moving disabled people off benefits and into work.
"Referring to disabled people as LTBs – lying, thieving bastards, is completely unacceptable, yet sadly demonstrates just how the benefit scrounger rhetoric has influenced attitudes towards disability, even amongst those employed to help them.
Speaking ahead of Scope’s evidence at the Work and Pensions Select Committee, he added:
"The Work Programme is failing to deliver for disabled people.
"We know disabled people want to work but face multiple barriers such as a lack of skills and experience, confidence and even negative attitudes from some employers.
"The group of disabled people who are furthest from a job – those claiming Employment and Support Allowance – are receiving the least support and therefore least likely to be referred to the disability specialists.
"Disabled people account for only one in five of the total number of people who’ve found work through the Work Programme.
"Disabled people need tailored and targeted support to find a job and the Work Programme just doesn't offer them this.
"We desperately need the Government to re-think its approach if we want to see more disabled people in work in the future."
Notes to the Editor:
For more information please contact the Scope press office on 020 7619 7200.
The impact of ‘benefits scrounger rhetoric’
Last year Scope looked into the worsening attitudes to disabled people and the issue of benefit scrounger rhetoric.
Scope and the Work Programme
See Scope’s written evidence on the Work Programme to the Work and Pensions Committee.
Scope’s recommendations for the Work Programme
1. A ‘Distance from Work’ test should be introduced as an extra module in the WCA so that disabled people’s actual readiness for work situations is given equal consideration to their functional limitation, and the real barriers to employment are recognised and supported.
2. The Government should implement greater links between Work Programme and other employment support schemes for disabled people by creating an ‘Employment Support Plan’, collaboratively produced by the claimant and JCP, which acts as a ‘gateway’ mechanism and provides disabled people with a roadmap for their welfare-to-work journey.
Background on Work Programme and WCA
In November 2012, the Government published figures of the number of disabled people on the Work Programme who had actually found a job.
In the Summer of 2012, both Panorama and Dispatches broadcast documentaries revealing the flaws in the Government’s fitness to work test, the Work Capability Assessment.
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