It has been announced by the new coalition government that current incapacity benefit claimants are to be reassessed for eligibility of their support from the state.
This aligns with the prior Labour Governments programme to reduce the numbers claiming employment and support allowance (ESA). With the introduction of work capability assessments introduced during the Labour Government has found only 5% of claimants incapable of working.
The welfare reform could well place more responsibility with individuals employer helping to remove the dependency on the government. A spokesperson for Group Risk Development (GRiD) suggested that the government should consider incentivizing employers to invest in group income protection which would include support for returning to work, placing the responsibility of assessing an employees level of incapacity on the employer and the insurer.
Throughout the UK there are currently over two and a half million people on incapacity benefits, even more interesting are the statistics showing that there are 1.4 million people in the UK who have been out of work on benefits for nine or more of the last 10 years.
As it standards the UK government currently spends £87bn on social security benefits although expected to rise with an increasing population and inflation the spend was at £62bn when Labour first came in to power.
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