No-One Written Off RNIB Response

"No one written off: reforming welfare to reward responsibility" (Department for Work and Pensions).

Royal National Institute of Blind People (RNIB) response

About RNIB

As the leading organisation of blind and partially sighted people in the UK, RNIB is pleased to have the opportunity to respond to this consultation.

We are a membership organisation with over 10,000 members who are blind, partially sighted or the friends and family of people with sight loss. Over 80 per cent of our Trustees and Assembly Members are blind or partially sighted. We encourage members to be involved in our work and regularly consult with them on government policy and their ideas for change.

As a campaigning organisation of blind and partially sighted people, we fight for the rights of people with sight loss of all ages in each of the UK’s countries. We work to:

• improve provision within health and social care services
• increase the amount and range of accessible information
• improve the lifelong learning opportunities for blind and partially sighted people
• tackle discrimination in employment and support more blind and partially sighted people into work
• ensure a secure income for blind and partially sighted people unable to work or who have retired.

We also provide expert knowledge to business and the public sector through consultancy on improving the accessibility of the built environment, technology, products and services.

Our employment work

RNIB has contracts or sub-contracts for Pathways to Work, Work Preparation, NDDP, Access to Work, contracts with Regional Development Agencies such as the LDA, various ESF co-financed projects with Jobcentre Plus, LSC and local authorities and IAG contracts with

Connexions. In 2007-8 our employment staff provided advice services to 2574 people, trained 361 employers and supported 906 blind and partially sighted people to gain or retain work.

We have two training centres (RNIB College Loughborough and the Employment and Learning Centre in Edinburgh) that support people with sight loss, many of whom have additional disabilities. Through this provision we support LSC funded students and also run residential training programmes for adults, funded through the Residential Training Unit (RTU).

Overview of our comments

We welcome many aspects of the Green Paper; the increase in the Access to Work budget, steps forward on employment retention, piloting of a Fit for Work Service and commitments to impairment specific support for disabled people in moving towards work, as well as rights to choice and control. However, we also have a number of serious concerns about the proposals, such as suggestions that disabled people could be required to apply for certain types of jobs and take offers of work. We are also concerned about the government's policy of migrating current IB claimants onto ESA. And finally, we have concerns about proposals for mandatory work experience for JSA claimants.

Below we outline these and some other issues in further detail.

1) Access to Work budget

We very much welcome the announcement of a doubling of the Access to Work budget, expanding assistance to 48,000 people by 2013-14. Having discussed this with Ministers, it is clear that this doubling will understandably take some time to achieve, with the budget reaching that higher level within 4-5 years. We would welcome figures from DWP on projected annual budget increases that will take place, as we are concerned that budget allocations match projected take-up through the introduction of ESA and movement into work.

However, we are concerned that DWP Ministers have linked this welcome increase in the budget with a statement that at this time they are unable to extend the Higher Rate Mobility Component of Disability Living Allowance to people with severe sight loss. We do not believe these issues should be linked.

2) Employment retention

The Green Paper offers a modest commitment to "…explore, with stakeholders, the effectiveness of Employment Retention Assessments in helping disabled people stay in work." We welcome this step, and now look to government for action to deliver, through its response to Dame Carol Black's 'Review of the Health of the Working Age Population". We also look to government to meet the commitment made in the Independent Living Strategy to establish a "cross governmental national strategy on employment retention", on which little activity seems to be taking place, which is of concern to us.

Our hope is that we are going to see significant work between DWP, DH and DBERR on this area, to ensure that rights to employment retention assessments and leave for rehabilitation and retraining purposes are fully realised for the thousands of disabled people who unnecessarily leave work each year and move on to benefits. We also look forward to the publication in 2009 of NICE's guidance on Management of Long term Sickness and Incapacity for Work, which was strongly supportive of the need for employment retention assessments.

3) Fit for Work Service

We welcome the piloting of Dame Carol Black's recommendation of a 'Fit for Work' service, to provide dedicated vocational rehabilitation support for small and medium sized businesses. We look forward to the government’s response to the report, which we hope will be positive and ambitious in providing greater support and advice to businesses to ensure they can retain people in work.

4) Specialist Disability Employment Provision

We welcome the commitment that government is "clear that the new specialist disability employment services must meet the specific needs of those furthest from the labour market", and provide a 'seamless service'. We look forward to the government's response to consultation on the Review of Specialist Disability Employment Services, expected soon.

5) Right to Bid

Government proposes that in future organisations can submit pro-active bids to deliver or improve current services. These will be considered and detailed feedback given if they are not adopted. We welcome this innovative proposal, which will provide an important means of challenging poor service provision and meeting the needs of disadvantaged groups.

6) A right to control for disabled people

The Green Paper sets out a number of proposals on giving disabled people greater rights to control the back to work support they get. We welcome this principle, but have a number of concerns. Firstly, disabled people must be given the appropriate advocacy and support services to enable them to use Individual Budgets effectively. Secondly, they must be given a budget that is realistic for them to procure sufficient services for them to meet their needs. Thirdly, there must be a range of services on offer in their locality in order to make sure that there is genuine choice and impairment specific support on offer. Lastly, it must be recognised that different budget holders will have preferred providers of services - e.g. a local authority for rehabilitation or mobility services and DWP for Access to Work funding.

7) Conditionality

The Green Paperraises the possibility that, after appropriate assessment, Employment and Support Allowance (ESA) claimants could be required to look for work in certain areas. We are extremely concerned by these proposals, which represent a further redrawing the contract between citizen and the state; pursuing further requirements on claimants, with potential sanctioning powers, whilst again insufficiently addressing the demand side (employers).

As the economy enters recession in the final two quarters of 2008, and unemployment moves towards two million, the labour market will become a tougher place for disabled people to enter or remain in. We have welcomed previous initiatives, such as Local Employment Partnerships and EmployAbility, which have sought to work with employers to create awareness of the potential of disabled people. However, engagement with employers will become even more important as labour market conditions deteriorate, yet employers are largely absent from the Green Paper.

The consultation seeks views on whether government should introduce a "system that makes an assessment of the types of work someone on ESA may be able to do on the advice of a doctor and asking people to look for work in these areas- recognising there will be limitations to the types of work considered, based on the nature of the health condition or disability."

The Welfare Reform Act, 2007, introduced new requirements for ESA claimants in the 'Work related Activity Group' to take part in work related activity. This, we felt, was a fair balance of rights and responsibilities- greater support through Pathways, with an obligation to engage. However, the proposal to require people to look for work moves into new territory.

Stephen Timms MP, Minister of State for Welfare Reform, visited RNIB the day after publication of the Green Paper, and characterised this as 'a push' to help people make the final step into work. However, this is a further re-writing of the contract between government and disabled people on IB/ESA. Seeing as ESA has not yet even been introduced we see no evidence that these proposals could be based on, leading us to believe they may be more about government positioning. It also undermines the previous case government made- that abolishing IB was not about forcing disabled people into work. This change in position is already causing severe anxiety and distress to claimants, who fear what will happen to them once migration begins.

The proposals give rise to a number of concerns, as the nature of how an assessment should be made of what is 'reasonable' in relation to work is highly complex. Firstly, the transport available from the person's locality to the potential place of work must be evaluated, as particularly in rural or outer urban areas, transport will be infrequent and potentially inaccessible. Secondly, the nature of the work itself must be evaluated; is it suitable for the person considering their impairment, or their own aspirations, taking into account previous career or work history and reasonable adjustments as defined by the DDA. Thirdly, is it financially advantageous for the person to take the job? JobCentre Plus advisers must be able to make accurate calculations about people's likely income once in work, and it would be clearly unreasonable to expect someone to take up a job which will lead to a fall in their family income. An accurate calculation would need to take account of DLA, tax credits (including disability amounts), housing costs, HB/CTB and support for dependant children.

Assessing types of work

Medical doctors are not labour market specialists and lack the tools to make the decision about what occupations are appropriate. We do not have a comprehensive system of occupational information in the UK that breaks occupations into tasks, as, for example, exists in the United States.

As mentioned above, there is a need to consider local labour market conditions - availability of vacancies in a 'reasonable' travel to work area. Such a requirement will clog the system, and there is a professional group (employment advisers) who spend their working life supporting disabled people with reasonable adjustments into specific vacancies. The Green Paper appears to ignore this expertise and suggest that medics are best placed to make the decision.

There are also issues around rights to appeal decisions and how a claimant could challenge an adviser or medical assessor who had, in their opinion unreasonably, judged that they should apply for jobs.

Lastly, we believe that these proposals would be completely counter productive. Pushing people will not create sustainable outcomes. Government’s aim is to secure sustainable employment- only an approach based on respect and consensus will create confidence and long term job outcomes.

8) JSA claimants

The Green Paper proposes that once a claimant has been on JSA for a year, they will then be required to take a community work placement of at least four weeks, with a private or voluntary sector provider, to enhance their skills and work experience. Once they have been on JSA for two years they will be required to undertake another placement, the length of which is not set. JCP Advisors will be able to direct claimants to community work at any point in the claim.

We have serious concerns about these proposals and the manner in which they have been outlined. The 10 per cent of claimants who remain on JSA after one year do so for a variety of reasons that have prevented them from entering the labour market. These could be to do with skills, an impairment, family issues or other factors. We do not believe that the way to help these claimants is to place them into compulsory work that could be compared to Community Service Orders for people convicted of offences.

The key focus has to be on how claimants are assisted to gain the skills and confidence to move towards work once they move into the Flexible New Deal. We have serious doubts as to whether sufficient work placements can be delivered, and also believe they should in no way undermine the position of people in or seeking paid employment.

We also believe that there are serious issues around the fact that government is expecting claimants to work for 30 hours a week in return for benefit of just over £60. This is an unacceptable low hourly wage and would in any other area of the economy be condemned as exploitation and a gross violation of minimum wage regulations.

When Stephen Timms visited RNIB we raised with him concerns about quality and accessibility of the voluntary placements for JSA claimants provided within FND. We pointed out that, for disabled claimants, placements would be of very limited value unless the necessary equipment and support was put in place, such as accessible computer equipment, or help with transport to get to the place of work. Therefore incentivising FND providers to make placements and provision accessible will be vital. This focus on support will need to include a wide range of areas, such as mobility and orientation support and mentoring to ensure individuals are supported during the crucial bedding in period.

9) Migration of Incapacity Benefit claimants to ESA

As we knew, government has set out in the Green Paper plans to migrate current IB claimants under the age of 50 to ESA after 2010, over a period of 3-4 years. The green paper sets out how the rates of IB and ESA will be aligned, to ensure "…no existing customers lose out in cash terms". However, the way in which this is to be done seems to indicate that current IB rates will be frozen for many claimants until the amount of ESA available to them reaches the same level as their current IB amount. This would mean they lose out on the annual uprating of benefits and therefore in real terms are worse off. We would welcome clarification on this issue.

The migration process will need to be managed effectively and sympathetically, to ensure claimants do not suffer unnecessary anxiety and insecurity. Our recent experiences with DWP's communication strategy over the successor to the cheque payments scheme for benefits does not give confidence that such transition processes will be managed effectively and in the best interests of claimants.

10) Annual uprating via ROSSI

Of concern is the proposal that incapacity benefits will in future be uprated annually through the ROSSI indexand not Retail Prices Index (RPI). ROSSI excludes housing costs, rent and council tax on the grounds that these costs are usually met by the State. It will therefore mean lower levels of uprating and potential loss of income for all IB/ESA claimants. Whilst ROSSI is currently higher than RPI this is likely to be a temporary situation, and we therefore do not support this proposal.

Conclusion

We welcome many of the positive measures in the Green Paper, which will give blind and partially sighted people greater impairment specific support and resources to enable them to move towards work. However, we are concerned at the degree of conditionality that is being proposed, with the potentially complex nature of assessing when it is 'reasonable' to expect a claimant to apply for jobs. We look forward to working with government as these proposals evolve and legislation makes its way through parliament in 2009.

For more information about RNIB's work or if you have any queries about this submission please contact:

Dan Scorer

UK Parliamentary Manager

Royal National Institute of Blind People

T: 020 7391 2382

E: