Employment And Support Allowance Research Articles

Developing a novel, systematic form of Media Framing Analysis to discursively examine the UK’s Employment and Support Allowance policy

ABSTRACT In 2008, the UK government introduced Employment and Support Allowance (ESA) as a welfare policy for individuals who are unable to work due to sickness or disability. Our research project examined the cultural landscape that has been made ‘available’ for those living with chronic health conditions whilst claiming welfare. To increase the transparency of a Foucauldian-inspired discursive analysis, PRISMA reporting guidelines were incorporated into a Media Framing Analysis. News articles and policy documents were collected as data corpora. This paper outlines how this innovative approach was developed; sharing samples of the analytical findings to illustrate what was achieved through a systematic compiling of a data set. A genealogical approach to health-based welfare shows how temporal and dualistic discourses of illness synonymise ‘health’ with a capability for employment. Methodological considerations are explored; illuminating how a systematic approach to data compilation can improve the transparency, rigour and potential transferability of discursive analyses.

Investigating sustainability in work after participating in a welfare-to-work initiative using a 2-year cohort study of Work Programme participants in Scotland

ObjectivesThis study investigated sustainability and multimorbidity alongside barriers to employment including health and policy to demonstrate intersectional impact on return-to-work success within a UK welfare-to-work programme.DesignCohort study design: The study...

United Kingdom’s Income Support Program for People With Disabilities: Redesign, Reform, and Policy Lessons for the United States

We reviewed the operational aspects of Employment and Support Allowance (ESA)—the income support program for people with disabilities in the United Kingdom—and its potential policy lessons for the United States’ Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) program. ESA has a five-step eligibility determination process, and eligible beneficiaries receive either an unconditional cash benefit or payments conditional on participating in return-to-work activities. The United Kingdom has reformed ESA to better meet policy objectives. Both ESA and SSDI collect medical documentation, but ESA also requires face-to-face eligibility assessments for almost all claimants. ESA eligibility is based on functional limitations exclusively, whereas SSDI assesses the ability to perform substantial work. With its focus on helping some beneficiaries return to work, ESA differs from SSDI, which requires no return-to-work efforts to receive benefits. ESA might offer policy lessons for SSDI with regard to pilot testing, program reform, and accurate decision making.

Beyond the script: On the inclusion of film within a discursive analysis and the immaculate construction of Daniel Blake

Modern UK welfare reforms, such as employment and support allowance (ESA), aim to provide financial support to individuals unable to work due to disability or chronic health conditions. As part of a media framing analysis, which explores the ways in which these welfare reforms have been reported by the UK press, Ken Loach’s 2016 film I, Daniel Blake was identified by the research team as an important discursive resource. Through a novel multimodal discourse analysis (which contains spoilers for the film), we examine the ‘immaculate construction’ of fictional ESA claimant Daniel Blake and consider the implications for ‘real life’ ESA claimants. We suggest that, whilst presenting a compassionate narrative which highlights the dehumanisation experienced by ESA claimants, the film raises questions that may further problematise notions of who (and who is not) able to be considered as ‘genuinely’ deserving of welfare.

Psychological tyranny prescribed by the DWP: preventable harm is government policy.

Influenced by corporate America, the commonly labelled ‘welfare reforms’ began in July 2006 with the introduction of the Welfare Reform Bill by the New Labour government, and guaranteed that claimants of long-term out-of-work sickness and disability benefit were to be coerced and intimidated by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) simply for committing the ‘crime’ of being too ill to work. In October 2018 it will be 10 years since the DWP replaced Incapacity Benefit with the Employment and Support Allowance (ESA), adopted the Work Capability Assessment (WCA) to be conducted by an unaccountable private contractor to resist funding the ESA, and guaranteed that GP opinion would be rendered meaningless for chronically ill patients in need of …

Age, health and other factors associated with return to work for those engaging with a welfare-to-work initiative: a cohort study of administrative data from the UK’s Work Programme

ObjectivesTo investigate the role of individual factors (including age, health and personal circumstances) and external factors associated with clients having a job start while engaging with the Work Programme and...

Shifting the Goalposts: A Longitudinal Mixed-Methods Study of the Health of Long-Term Incapacity Benefit Recipients during a Period of Substantial Change to the UK Social Security System

AbstractThe UK social security safety net for those who are out of work due to ill health or disability has experienced significant change, most notably the abolition of Incapacity Benefit (IB) and the introduction of Employment and Support Allowance (ESA). These changes have been underpinned by the assumption that many recipients are not sufficiently sick or disabled to ‘deserve’ welfare benefits – claims that have been made in the absence of empirical data on the health of recipients. Employing a unique longitudinal and mixed-methods approach, this paper explores the health of a cohort of 229 long-term IB recipients in the North East of England over an eighteen-month period, during a time of significant changes to the UK welfare state. In-depth interviews with twenty-five of the survey cohort are also presented to illustrate the lived experiences of recipients. Contributing to debates surrounding the conceptualisation of work-readiness for sick and disabled people, findings indicate IB recipients had significantly worse health than the general population, with little change in their health state over the eighteen-month study period. Qualitative data reinforced the constancy of ill health for IB recipients. Finally, the paper discusses the implications for social policy, noting how the changing nature of administrative definitions and redefinitions of illness and capacity to work can impact upon the lives of sick and disabled people.

Getting back to work? Claim trajectories and destinations of Employment and Support Allowance claimants

Individuals claiming Employment and Support Allowance (ESA), the replacement benefit for Incapacity Benefits, are increasingly being expected to prepare for a return to work. Drawing on a survey with claimants, this paper highlights the critical role which pre-claim experiences have on these outcomes. Those coming onto the benefit from a work background are likely to move off from ESA and into employment more quickly. The evidence presented, however, also demonstrates that health and health trajectories remain central determinants of future employment experiences. Overall, the analysis suggests that ESA is least effective at helping the most disadvantaged groups.

Lost or altered consciousness – an update

PurposeThis paper aims to update the recent two‐part review of UK Incapacity Benefit and Employment and Support Allowance (ESA) as they affect claimants suffering from impairments of consciousness.Design/methodology/approachThe paper reviews the changes in legislation and recent opinions and rulings of Upper Tribunal judges.FindingsAltered as well as totally lost consciousness must be considered in legislation. The yardstick is significant loss of awareness or concentration. If alcohol dependence has been diagnosed as an underlying cause then only the effects rather than the mechanism need be considered.Originality/valueClaimants, advocates and decision makers should use these criteria when applying for, or granting, benefit on these grounds.

The Welfare Reform Act: poverty and the impact on people

224 British Journal of Community Nursing Vol ?, No British Journal of Community Nursing Vol 17, No 5 The Welfare Reform Act received Royal Assent on 8 March 2012. The Act legislates for the biggest change to the welfare system for over 60 years, bringing with it a wide range of reforms that will deliver the commitment made in the Coalition Agreement to make the benefits and tax credits systems fairer and simpler. The intention is to create the right incentives to get more people into work by ensuring work always pays, protecting the most vulnerable in our society and delivering fairness to those claiming benefit and to the taxpayer. The Act has the potential to simplify the benefits system, and this should be welcomed – but only if this is done in a fair and consistent manner. The Government’s comprehensive spending review and their plans for welfare reform continue to gather speed. The impact of these reforms, and they are far and widereaching, will be felt by a number of people who have long-term health conditions and disability – the people that community nurses care for on daily basis. It is suggested that there are many people living with long-term conditions who report that the benefits assessments they receive are unfair, and do not recognise the impact that their condition has on their lives (National AIDS Trust and Terence Higgins Trust (AIDS Trust), 2010). In some cases benefits assessors have refused Employment and Support Allowance, and unfair assessments are carried out by people who do not understand the person’s condition, resulting in some grossly unfair refusals of benefit. Changes to the benefits system have to be done as fairly as possible for people living with a range of disabilities and medical conditions. It is essential that the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) ensures that assessors are provided with appropriate training and guidance for the conditions they are assessing, and that would include adequate awareness of a range of long-term conditions and an understanding of the impact that living with these conditions has on a person’s health and wellbeing. One in six people, for example, living with HIV has suffered severe poverty in the past three years (AIDS Trust, 2010). Living in poverty can have a detrimental impact on the health and wellbeing of those people living with a disability; disability and poverty go hand in hand. People with a disability are already in a position of vulnerability as a result of the attitudes of society coupled with the nature of their long-term condition, causing, for example, isolation and loneliness. The Government has announced further cuts to the Work and Pensions budget that could potentially have a severe effect on the lives of many people living with long-term conditions and claiming benefit. Recently the Government was defeated in its plans for restricting Employment and Support Allowance (ESA). It was calling for ESA to be means-tested for some people claiming the benefit for more than one year, but in the House of Lords peers rejected that part of the then bill, instead voting through an amendment to permit at least two years of ESA without means-testing it. The detail within the Act should be of interest and concern to all nurses and health professionals, as this would mean, for example, that someone living with a long-term health condition, who is unable to work, might not be entitled to ESA if they have savings or a partner who is employed. Nurses should be bothered about this. They offer care for the disenfranchised, and they see how people live: they experience the realities of people’s lives. Some of the people that nurses care for who need health and social support may be denied this as the ESA assessments may be carried out unfairly. Much of this is against a backdrop of the Government’s intention to reduce the DLA bill by 20%. The Chancellor of the Exchequer in the latest budget has warned that spending on state benefits is to be curbed in order to protect other departments from deeper cuts. He stated that welfare costs, if not reformed, would consume a third of all public spending. The impact of the Government’s plans will mean that the poverty crisis experienced by people living with long-term conditions will only get worse, exacerbating the vicious circle that is associated with poverty and poor health, clearly outlined in the Marmot Review (2010). The cycle of poverty is more than a socioeconomic issue; it has the ability to impact on health, wellbeing and quality of life for generations that knows no boundaries. If you are concerned with health then you also have to be concerned with fiscal policy such as that being considered and implemented by the present Government. BJCN

General practitioners and fitness for work.

General practitioners (GPs) along with other health and support workers have been assigned an ambiguous, but often crucial, role in decision-making for Employment and Support Allowance (ESA), the replacement for Incapacity Benefit (IB). It is important that GPs understand how ESA works and the help claimant–patients may need.

“Lost and altered consciousness” – a headache for many

PurposeThis is the second instalment of a two‐part paper that aims to consider the assessment criteria for incapacity benefit (IB) and employment and support allowance (ESA) and to analyse how this benefit applies to claimants who are unable to work because they experience episodes of lost or altered consciousness.Design/methodology/approachIn the first part of the paper, which featured in Social Care and Neurodisability, Vol. 2 No. 1, the authors considered the legal meaning of lost or altered consciousness and explained how the IB/ESA appraisal and appeals system operates. This second instalment gives practical guidance to advisers who are assisting their clients in applying for ESA and appealing negative decisions to the tribunal (given its ever increasing importance, this paper focuses on ESA; however, the same considerations apply to IB cases).FindingsThe paper highlights the complexities and limitations of the benefit system for those suffering with lost and altered consciousness.Practical implicationsAdvisers need to think laterally when assisting their clients.Originality/valueThe paper should provide a useful reference point for advisers.

Lost and altered consciousness ‐ a headache for many

This is the first part of a two‐part paper that considers the assessment criteria for incapacity benefit (IB) and employment and support allowance (ESA) and how these benefits apply to claimants who are unable to work because they experience episodes of lost or altered consciousness.Part one considers how the IB/ESA appraisal system works in practice and looks specifically at the legal interpretation of lost and altered consciousness. Part two, which will be published in a future issue, will give practical guidance to advisers.

From Incapacity Benefit to Employment and Support Allowance: social sorting, sickness and impairment, and social security

This article focuses upon the introduction of Employment and Support Allowance (ESA) as a replacement for the main income replacement benefit, Incapacity Benefit (IB), for sick and/or disabled people in Britain. The article argues that the process of claiming ESA, a process that is dependent upon medicalised perceptions of capability to work and which is aimed at managing the perceived economic and social costs of sick and impaired people, is a means of sorting sick and/or disabled people into subgroups of claimants. The article goes on to discuss the implications of this observation with regard to explanations of the disadvantages that sick and/or disabled people face and their implications for the income of such people. The article concludes that because the shift from IB to ESA is premised upon a number of mistaken assumptions, it represents a retrograde development for people who are sick and/or who have impairments.

Employability trajectories among new claimants of Incapacity Benefit

The Employment and Support Allowance (ESA), which replaced incapacity-related benefits in the UK in October 2008, is predicated on the assumption that it will be a temporary benefit for the majority of people who claim it. Following an initial medical assessment, new ESA claimants are allocated to one of two groups. Those judged to have less severe or temporary conditions are allocated to the Work-related Activity Group and are required to take active steps to prepare for a return to employment. Meanwhile, people considered to be severely disabled are allocated to the Support Group and are not expected to undertake work-related activities. This article examines the implications of this new distinction between those claimants who potentially could do paid work and those for whom that outcome is much less likely. Drawing on baseline and follow-up surveys, the article examines the employment status trajectories of a cohort of new Incapacity Benefit (IB) claimants in the year following their claim. It examines three questions. First, who returns to work and what factors are associated with that outcome? Second, how employable are the people who do not return to work and does their employability change during the first year of their claim? And third, among those who remained on IB after a year, what distinguishes people who classify themselves as permanently unable to work from those who do not? The article concludes with a discussion of the main findings and their implications for policy.

Falling Incapacity Benefit claims in a former industrial city: policy impacts or labour market improvement?

This article provides an in-depth study of Incapacity Benefit (IB) claims in a major city and of the factors behind their changing level. It relates to the regime prior to the introduction of the Employment and Support Allowance (ESA) in 2008. Glasgow has had one of the highest levels of IB in Britain with a peak of almost one fifth of the working age population on IB or Severe Disablement Allowance (SDA). However, over the past decade the number of IB claimants in Glasgow, as in other high claiming areas, has fallen at a faster rate than elsewhere, and Glasgow now has twice the national proportion of working-age people on IB/SDA rather than its peak of three times. The rise in IB in Glasgow can be attributed primarily to deindustrialisation; between 1971 and 1991, over 100,000 manufacturing jobs were lost in the city. Policy response was belated. Lack of local statistics on IB led to a lengthy delay in official recognition of the scale of the issue, and targeted programmes to divert or return IB claimants to work did not begin on any scale until around 2004. Evidence presented in the article suggests that the reduction in claims, which has mainly occurred since about 2003, has been due more to a strengthening labour market than to national policy changes or local programmes. This gives strong support to the view that excess IB claims are a form of disguised unemployment. Further detailed evaluation of ongoing programmes is required to develop the evidence base for this complex area. However, the study casts some doubt on the need for the post-2006 round of IB reforms in high-claim areas, since rapid decline in the number of claimants was already occurring in these areas. The article also indicates the importance of close joint working between national and local agencies, and further development of local level statistics on IB claimants.

Retrenching Incapacity Benefit: Employment Support Allowance and Paid Work

In October 2008 in the UK Incapacity Benefit (IB) (the main income replacement benefit for sick and disabled claimants) was replaced by the Employment and Support Allowance (ESA) for new claimants. Drawing upon recent work on the retrenchment of welfare benefits and services this paper examines the context for the changes, the marketisation of the job placement services for ESA claimants and the extension of conditionality to sick and disabled benefit claimants. The paper argues that the introduction of ESA is a good example of the retrenchment of benefits for the majority of sick and disabled people. The paper concludes that ESA can be interpreted as creating a group of disadvantaged people through which the private sector can profit.

Permitted work, ‘passporting’ and Employment and Support Allowance: a fundamental flaw

The Employment and Support Allowance (ESA), introduced in October 2008, replaces Incapacity Benefit, and Income Support through illness or disability, for new claimants. This article explores a key problem with the new benefit: changes in the permitted work rules between Income Support and income-related ESA mean that a single person with no other income or savings who has paid National Insurance contributions could be more than £60 per week worse off than someone in a similar position who has not paid contributions. The problem is outlined below, and potential solutions are proposed.

Empowering the Incapacitated Worker? The Employment and Support Allowance and Pathways to Work

The article offers a critical discussion of the welfare-to-work regime and developments since the Welfare Reform Act 2007 was enacted, with a particular focus on policies towards those who are incapacitated from work. It considers a new measure, the Employment and Support Allowance (ESA) which is replacing both Incapacity Benefit and other forms of support such as the ‘incapacitated from work’ and ‘disabled worker’ categories of Income Support. As the article considers, this is just one of the strands in the government's evolving ‘empowerment’ agenda unveiled in A New Deal for Welfare: Empowering People to Work (2006, Cm 6730). This has the declared aim of increasing the labour market participation rates of sizeable groups such as those in receipt of Incapacity Benefit and those who are disabled, as well as lone parents, carers, older workers, and unemployed people in the ethnic minority communities. A critical assessment is made of wider reform objectives such as achievement of an overall national 'employment rate' of 80% - an increase of nearly 7% on the latest figures for the UK issued by the OECD's Economic, Environmental and Social Statistics, and the Office for National Statistics Labour Force Survey figures. Much of the article's attention is focused on the kind of interventions described in 'Reducing Dependency, Increasing Opportunity: Options for the Future of Welfare to Work' (David Freud: Department of Work and Pensions, March 2007).