• Skip to main content
  • Skip to secondary menu
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer
  • About DNS
  • Subscribe to DNS
  • Advertise with DNS
  • Support DNS
  • Contact DNS

Disability News Service

the country's only news agency specialising in disability issues

  • Home
  • Independent Living
    • Arts, Culture and Sport
    • Crime
    • Education
    • Employment
    • Housing
    • Transport
  • Activism & Campaigning
  • Benefits & Poverty
  • Politics
  • Human Rights
You are here: Home / Benefits and Poverty / Reports show fall in number found ‘fit for work’

Reports show fall in number found ‘fit for work’

By John Pring on 24th January 2014 Category: Benefits and Poverty, News Archive

Listen

newslatestThe Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) has given a guarded welcome to new figures that show a sharp fall in the proportion of disabled people who are turned down for out-of-work disability benefits.

A second DWP report released on the same day this week shows the number of successful appeals against being found “fit for work” has also fallen sharply.

The statistics suggest that the much-criticised work capability assessment – which assesses eligibility for employment and support allowance (ESA) – and possibly also the way the test is being applied by the much-criticised Atos Healthcare, are gradually becoming fairer to disabled people.

A DWP spokesman said there had not been any “direct analysis” of the reasons for the “small increase” in the number of people claiming ESA, but he said there had been “significant improvements” to the WCA, which has become “fairer and more accurate”.

He added: “If it is more fair and accurate and people are moving onto the right groups then of course we would welcome that.”

Despite his comments, the figures are likely to prove embarrassing to Iain Duncan Smith, the Conservative work and pensions secretary.

Just a day after they were published, Duncan Smith gave a high-profile speech on social security reform, in which he talked about his efforts to prevent people “languishing on welfare”.

He claimed the social security system had become “distorted” under the previous Labour government and was too often an “entrapment – as it has been for a million people left on incapacity benefits for a decade or more”.

He spoke – in a speech described by Disability Rights UK as “more of the same old, same old” – of “a twilight world where life is dependent on what is given to you, rather than what you are able to create”, and pointed to the “falling numbers claiming the main out-of-work benefits”.

But the new figures show that – at least for disabled people – the number of people claiming out-of-work benefits is actually rising.

“Early estimates” included in the first DWP report suggest that by August 2013 there were 2,430,000 people claiming ESA and old-style incapacity benefit.

But by November 2013 this had risen to 2,465,000, an increase of 35,000 in three months.

It is not clear whether this figure will continue to increase, or if it is just a blip in the long-term downward trend, as the government tries to reduce the number of claimants to below two million.

The second DWP report shows the proportion of claimants who are found fit for work after a WCA continuing to fall, from a high of 65 per cent for those whose claims began in 2009 to 39 per cent for those whose claims started in the first quarter of 2013, itself a drop of four percentage points on the last quarter of 2012.

The figures show that, for claims that began in the first quarter of 2013, 39 per cent were placed in the support group, 23 per cent in the work-related activity group, while 39 per cent were found fit for work.

And they also show that the proportion of successful appeals against being found fit for work has now plunged from 41 per cent, for claims begun in early 2009, to just 23 per cent, for claims begun in the third quarter of 2012.

The report suggests that the changes could be due to improvements made to the WCA by the government in the wake of the independent reviews carried out by Professor Malcolm Harrington.

23 January 2014

Share this post:

Share on X (Twitter)Share on FacebookShare on WhatsAppShare on RedditShare on LinkedIn
A photograph shows an audience raising their hands in a BSL sign. The words say: 'BSL Conference 2025. The future starts with us. Leeds 17-18 July. Be part of shaping the future of Deaf cultures and identities. Get 10% off with BDA10'

Related

Disabled MP who quit government over benefit cuts tells DNS: ‘The consequences will be devastating’
26th June 2025
Minister finally admits that working-age benefits spending is stable, despite months of ‘spiralling’ claims
26th June 2025
Timms says cuts must go ahead, despite being reminded of risk that disabled claimants could die
26th June 2025

Primary Sidebar

On the left of the image are multiple heads of different colours - white, aqua, red, light brown, and dark green - all grouped together, then the words ‘Campaign for Disability Justice. Sign up to support. #OpportunitySecurityRespect’
A photograph shows an audience raising their hands in a BSL sign. The words say: 'BSL Conference 2025. The future starts with us. Leeds 17-18 July. Be part of shaping the future of Deaf cultures and identities. Get 10% off with BDA10'

Access

Latest Stories

Disabled MP who quit government over benefit cuts tells DNS: ‘The consequences will be devastating’

Disabled peers plan to ‘amend, amend, amend, amend, amend’ after assisted dying bill reaches Lords

Minister finally admits that working-age benefits spending is stable, despite months of ‘spiralling’ claims

This bill opens the door to scandal, abuse and injustice, disabled activists say after assisted dying bill vote

Timms says cuts must go ahead, despite being reminded of risk that disabled claimants could die

Absence of disabled people’s voices from assisted dying bill has been ‘astonishing’, says disabled MP

Timms misleads MPs on DWP transparency and cover-ups, as he gives evidence on PIP review

Ministers are considering further extension to disability hate crime laws, after pledge on ‘aggravated’ offences

Making all self-driving pilot schemes accessible would be ‘counter-productive’ and slow us down, says minister

Involve disabled people ‘meaningfully’ from the start when developing digital assistive tech, says report

Advice and Information

Readspeaker
A photograph shows an audience raising their hands in a BSL sign. The words say: 'BSL Conference 2025. The future starts with us. Leeds 17-18 July. Be part of shaping the future of Deaf cultures and identities. Get 10% off with BDA10'

Footer

The International Standard Serial Number for Disability News Service is: ISSN 2398-8924

  • Accessibility Statement
  • Privacy Policy
  • Site map
  • Bluesky
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • LinkedIn
  • Threads
  • Twitter

Copyright © 2025 Disability News Service

Site development by A Bright Clear Web