Reform in reverse

Some quick and grumpy thoughts.

News has been filtering out this week about proposed cuts to disability benefits, with accompanying nonsense about how it’s too easy to claim these benefits, how people are using them to avoid employment, and how this is a national disgrace.

This is beyond frustrating. It’s only a few months since a very different message was coming out of DWP, that recognised that an adversarial approach to engaging with people out of work was entirely the wrong tack. What’s changed? Some think it’s pure ‘Treasury Brain’ i.e. the pressure to cut spending overrules everything else.

If that’s the case they are on a pointless mission. Many, many people who are out of work would like the chance to move towards employment, but the system as it stands doesn’t help them. If you try out a job and it doesn’t work out, trying to start your benefit claim again is a nightmare. There are no working age benefits that provide a comfortable standard of living; cutting them further won’t enable people to retrain, volunteer, go to job interviews, attend medical appointments, spend time with peers and community organisations, or any of the many things that might actually help. Being on the receiving end of suspicion, blame and coercion from the department that is allegedly there to help you find work won’t boost confidence or engagement, it will cause people to withdraw. Treasury might shave a bit off the benefits bill but the pressure on the NHS, homelessness services and third sector organisations that help people pick up the pieces will only increase.

This framing of ill health and ‘worklessness’ (a horribly loaded word by the way, which peaked in usage under the influence of Iain Duncan Smith) as the fault of the individual rather than the wider society and economy they live in is SO tired and disproven. A huge gap in the narrative is the role of employers. Where are the remote, flexible, well-paid and secure jobs for people that need them? What jobs do ministers actually anticipate all these people they are trying to kick off benefits are actually going to do?

This is all to say, please please can we stop political point-scoring via welfare reform. I had some hope last year that things were headed in a better direction, but this is a self-defeating and frustrating u-turn.