Anger and frustration after DWP’s latest jobcentre announcement and McFadden’s ‘incentives’ comment

Sick and disabled people have raised serious concerns about the latest Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) announcement on its strategy to persuade more claimants receiving out-of-work sickness and disability benefits to consider moving towards employment.

Many reacted angrily to DWP’s announcement that every jobcentre in England, Scotland and Wales now has “specialist” Pathways to Work advisers who will offer skills and employment support to claimants receiving out-of-work disability benefits.

DWP said it has redeployed 1,000 existing jobcentre staff to provide voluntary help to people on universal credit who have “no requirement to look for work or engage with job help because of their condition”.

Disabled people highlighted concerns this week about safeguarding and the lack of evidence for such a strategy, and they questioned why a Labour government did not do more to focus on cutting NHS waiting-lists and addressing barriers in the workplace.

Their anger and frustration only increased when new work and pensions secretary Pat McFadden claimed in an interview (pictured) that there were currently “incentives” in the system for people to declare themselves unfit for work so they can “double their money”, and also claimed that people were “declaring themselves long-term sick”.

McFadden will have been aware that claimants cannot declare themselves “long term sick” but instead must go through the harsh work capability assessment process in order to be found not fit for work, and he should also have been aware that this system has led to countless deaths.

Researcher and writer Sue Jones responded on X/Twitter: “Progressive, incurable illnesses are not ‘perverse incentives’ you vicious man, and no amount of lying about people and inventing ‘incentives’ and motives will change the fact that many of us can no longer work, simply because we are too ill and disabled.”

DWP said it hoped its Pathways to Work advisers would help 65,000 people found to have limited capability for work and work-related activity (LCWRA) by the end of 2025-26.

DWP claimed this kind of “additional work coach support” was “proven to help people into work” and that research had found LCWRA claimants who accepted this support were a third more likely to be in work a year later.

However, the research it referenced, published by DWP in March*, showed the proportion of those in the LCWRA group in work rose from just eight per cent to 11 per cent, a year after the provision of “additional work coach support”.

The department said more than 10,000 people had taken up the voluntary offer and had had at least one appointment since April 2025.

It said it would not contact claimants with “the most severe and lifelong health conditions” – which DWP later confirmed will match the “severe conditions criteria” described in schedule one of the new Universal Credit Act – or those who receive support through the “special rules” for those with less than 12 months to live.

But there was significant concern among sick and disabled people on social media after the announcement.

Disabled People Against Cuts said on its Facebook page: “The question that’s in the back of our minds is, how long before it’s mandatory?”

Many warned that even a voluntary approach would cause serious safeguarding issues.

The anti-cuts grassroots group Disability Rebellion said on X/Twitter: “Here we go again – DWP are now going to ask thousands of UC claimants with no requirement to look for work to attend ‘work conversations’.

“No thought given to safeguarding or how unwell this could make people.”

Another grassroots group, Recovery in the Bin, said: “We don’t need f*****g skills. We need healthcare, housing, enforceable legal rights.

“Want to improve disabled people’s access to work? Make legal aid more widely available for disability discrimination cases.”

Others pointed out that such initiatives “barely make a dent in employment rates”,  because the reasons sick and disabled people are not in work are not “lack of coaching, confidence, etc”.

Many suggested that the government would do better to focus on improving access to NHS services and investing in treatment for conditions such as long Covid and ME, and addressing discrimination by employers.

Similar points were raised by those who said the barriers they faced were not those that could be addressed by DWP Pathways to Work advisers.

One of those who responded to the announcement said: “I worked for Goldman Sachs, UBS, Deutsche Bank, Standard Chartered, etc over the course of my career.

“I do not need more skills or experience. I am TOO ILL to work.”

Another said: “I’m chronically ill and mostly bedbound. I’m a fully skilled plater/welder.

“I also have qualifications in carpentry, hedge laying, dry stone walling, and also have chainsaw licence to fell medium sized trees.

“My problem isn’t skills. It’s illness.”

*DWP did not provide a link to this research in its press release

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