Welfare rights. Disabled benefits In U.K - Essay Example

Welfare Rights A critical Review: Disabled Benefits in U.K A brief Outline of benefits: The step towards improving people's welfare is a step towards realization of welfare needs of people and how welfare policies relate to their situation. As a disabled person in United Kingdom there are certain benefits, which help you to survive in the society. These benefits depend on the circumstances put up by the government. These conditions can be: incapacity benefit; injured at work or injured while working in the armed forces. It is for people who have care needs and for people who are taking care of someone who is disabled. There are other benefits such as tax credit for disabled person; severe disablement allowance; attendance allowance; statuary sick pay and benefits for the extra costs of disability. As a disabled person, you may be entitled to other help apart from benefits and tax credits such as reduced cost public transport. A disabled person is also liable to get disability living allowance. All of these benefits are given to citizens of United Kingdom to assist them in the hour of need. The citizens claim these benefits and then government provide them the required facility. These facilities are given to the people provided that they stand eligible for it. History of Welfare State: "The aim of state welfare was to remove divisions in society. Ironically, the effect has been to make those divisions more visible"(Excerpts from la-articles.org.uk, 2004) As British government continued its effort to develop a Welfare State during the 20th century, people were not too much impressed with the efforts and they continued to disagree with their government. As a result the government efforts were put down. The history of the Welfare State is the history of the flight from the Welfare State. Development of a welfare state was continued despite of being deviated from the early hopes. There were many developments in the 20th century that included Rental control, State Pension, Private provision for healthcare and many more. In December 1942, British government published a report "Beveridge Report", named after its author, a journalist, academic and government advisor William Beveridge. The report focused on four important areas: Disease, ignorance, immorality, idleness and need. (Rotary Global History Fellow Ship, updated 2006) The report enlightens the government role, which guaranteed minimum standard of British people in times of sickness, unemployment and retirement. Therefore, the aim was to shape the British government social policy for the years to come. The need to strengthen the welfare state was not only necessary for the people of the country but for the country itself, as the rate of unemployment had deeply affected the economy (REFRESH, 1994). Why it was created There were various reasons that led to the creation of a welfare state in 1940. The prime focus was to improve the standardization of services, efficient utilization of resources and maintaining the minimum living standard for the people of Britain. The creation of welfare state was the struggle towards minimization of poverty. Howard Genitor, Professor of Social Policy, LSE stated," The idea that the Beveridge welfare state was built on a post-war consensus is a myth ". According to (Steve Schifferes, 2005), There was a growing social division in the cities between rich and poor, as numerous social investigators discovered. Meanwhile, skilled workers were creating organisations such as trade unions to lift themselves out of poverty - but their growing militancy worried the middle classes. With the welfare state concept, a new state was aimed free from the social divisions. The pressure that led to improve the social reform happened after the First World War, when the need to devise a solution for rental control arouse and as the Second World War ended the pressure was even higher. Beveridge wanted to tackle what he called the "five giants" - want, disease, squalor, ignorance, and idleness - through a universal welfare state which would not only provide a health service, but will improve public housing, education standard, and full employment. It favoured the benefits for the poor and family allowances. Full employment and the relative prosperity was the key to Beveridge's plan. "Beveridge had combined his long-standing commitment to contributory insurance - to build moral fibre and to prevent a new means test - with a new commitment to the state providing a national minimum," wrote Jose Harris, his biographer. Therefore, creation of a welfare state was to bring equality; eliminate the division of society and to build a state where a minimum standard of living was maintained. The idea revolved around building a state where no one would die of hunger or frustrated due to unemployment, where citizens will be looked after in the hour of sickness, unemployment and old age. Who is getting the benefit Sick and unable to work Government is responsible for providing the benefits to the right person when needed. It also educates on how one can claim for these benefits and who are not eligible for it. According to (dwp.gov.uk, 2005) if you were not working during your sickness or you were self-employed or you have been sick for more than 28 weeks you are eligible to get incapacity benefit. If you were working for an employer and earning enough to be relevant for National Insurance (NI) purposes (this is lower than the amount when you have to start paying NI contributions), you are eligible to get Statuary Sick Pay. Long-term ill or disabled If you are aged under 65 and need help looking after yourself or getting around, you are liable to get Disability Living Allowance and if you are aged 65 or over and need help looking after yourself, you will get Attendance Allowance .If you are aged 16 or over, disabled and working 16 hours a week or more, you will benefit from Working Tax Credit. If you or a member of your family is severely disabled as a result of a vaccination, government provide you with Vaccine Damage Payment. If you are sick or disabled as a result of service in HM Armed Forces or because of a war, you will get War Disablement Pension. If you or someone in your family are sick or disabled due to enemy action or combating the enemy as a civilian during World War II, government gives War Disablement Pension. If you are a war pensioner and need medical treatment or care due to your war disablement, you can get Medical treatment and care for War Pensioners .If you are a war pensioner there are additional allowances you may be entitled to, which includes other allowances paid with War Disablement Pension. Caring for others If you are caring for someone who is sick or disabled you can get any one of the following benefits: Disability Living Allowance, Attendance Allowance, War Pensions Constant Attendance Allowance, and Industrial Injuries Disablement Benefit Constant Attendance Allowance. If you are unable to pay National Insurance (NI) contributions because you are caring for someone you can get Home Responsibilities Protection. If you or your family is working but have a low income, you may be able to get Working Tax Credit. If you are responsible for at least one child or young person, you may be able to get Child Tax Credit. Bringing up children with special needs If you are caring for a child who is ill or disabled you may be able to get Carer's Allowance. If you are bringing up a child who is ill or disabled you may get Disability Living Allowance for children under age 16. Illness or accidents caused by work If you became disabled as a result of an accident at work or if you became ill or disabled as a result of a disease or deafness caused by a job you have done, you can get Industrial Injuries Disablement Benefit (accidents). If you cannot return to your usual work or work with similar pay because of an accident or disease caused by work, you can get Reduced Earnings Allowance. Data and Facts: The data related to the cost and claimants of the disabled benefits is shown in appendix A. (Shaw, J and Sibieta L, 2005). Issue and Problems: With regard to the disabled or any other benefits people claiming, must be assessed at a certain level for the government to decide whether to give the benefits or not. The assessment includes listening to the views and wishes, making them the central part of the assessment process. It makes sure you only have to give your personal details once, so that different professionals and organisations do not ask you for the same information. It asks your consent to share information when it would help us to arrange the right care and services at the right time for you. Well the part of the assessment let you through the benefit, but issue arises when you work for this assessment your way. Certain group of people make themselves eligible for these benefits forcefully. Evidence shows that the procedures are not efficient than those applied to other benefits. There is a need for these assessments to be more detailed, so that assessment of claimants becomes more vigilant and efficient. The revision should target on giving the benefits to the appropriate person rather to limit the cost .It might also be considered whether to continue with the current assessment, based on care and mobility needs, or to move to a more general test of impairment Another problem figured out by Richard Berthoud (www.jrf.org.uk,1998) is "the cost of disability benefits has increased fourfold in 18 years. This has been caused more by a rise in the number of disabled claimants than by any improvement in the generosity of the available benefits". He points out further "Disabled people may have been affected by a much wider and systematic shift in employment patterns. As the supply of labour has expanded faster than demand, employers have become more selective in their choice of staff. Marginal workers, such as disabled people, have been excluded". One major issue is that it is not necessary to jump into conclusion and based on just the assessment level give the benefits, as this will definitely invite more number of claimants. Moreover, this might affect the actual severely disabled people. A tougher test would not only decrease the number of claimants but it will also benefit severely disabled people. Moreover, it will help in lowering down the expenditure. Latest Government proposals: The Green paper proposals for reforming incapacity benefit and helping people who are sick or disabled includes (Peter Tihanyi, 2006) 1. Replace Incapacity Benefit (and Income Support paid on the grounds of incapacity) with a new Employment and Support Allowance "for new claimants" by 2008. This will have an enhanced employment support component. 2. Offering an enhanced support component for those who cannot engage in any activity because of the severity of their condition although they will be given help and support to find work should they wish People in this group will not necessarily be those from the current exempt categories Personal Capability Assessment Exemptions: The first three, including receipt of the highest rate care component of Disability Living Allowance, are assessed as 80% disabled (for war pension, industrial injury or Severe Disablement Allowance purposes) or terminally ill i.e. with six months or less to live. A longer list of exemptions can be found on the Disability Alliance http://www.disabilityalliance.org/ 3. Introduce mandatory work-focused interviews supported by a statutory action plan of return-to-work activity for new and existing claimants. There will be benefit sanctions for those who do not comply. These sanctions would reduce the benefit paid in slices up to and including the level of Jobseeker's Allowance. 4. Revise the medical assessment (personal capability assessment) focusing upon ability and support needs (capability and capacity) rather than incapacity. 5. Ensuring the new medical assessments will be completed in twelve weeks in the majority of cases. No one will be able to receive more than the level of Jobseeker's Allowance before their personal capacity assessment has been carried out. 6. Provide in-work support to ensure people continue working with a return-to-work credit to ensure that people really are better off in work. 7. Simplify Statutory Sick Pay (SSP) to enable employers to better manage sickness and to address the flow of people from SSP to incapacity benefits. 8. Change the rules for Jobseekers Allowance and increase contact with lone parents to limit the flow of people from other benefits to Incapacity Benefit. (This may affect new carers in the future) 9. Take steps to increase awareness of the opportunities on offer i.e. through providing information at medical examination centres when claimants attend a review. 10. Place employment advisers in GP surgeries. 11. Financial incentives for local authorities to engage with the private and voluntary sectors to establish local back-to-work schemes, for people claiming benefit on the basis of incapacity. References Beveridge Report, Rotary Global History Fellow Ship updated 2006. Disabled people Benefits, Retrieved 2005, from www.dwp.gov.uk Jonathan Shaw Luke Sibieta A SURVEY OF THE UK BENEFIT SYSTEM Lowe, REFRESH, Recent Findings of Research in Economic & Social History 1994 Peter Thayne, "Welfare Reform Green Paper, A New Deal for Welfare: Empowering People to Work" , 27th February 2006 Richard Berthoud of the University of Essex, Disability benefits. Retrieved May 1998, from www.jrf.org.uk Steve Schifferes, Britain's long road to the welfare state. Retrieved 2005, from http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/4696391.stm . Appendix A Claimants as at Expenditure (04-05) November 2005 Statutory sick pay Not available 67 Incapacity benefit 1,457,000 6,679 Disability living allowance 2,658,400 8,080 Attendance allowance 1,418,900 3,680 Carer's allowance 433,185 1,102 War pensions 238,500 1,151 Industrial injuries benefits 340,995 751 Independent Living Funds 16,941 206 Motability 400,000 8 Read More