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| TX: 28.03.06 - Incapacity Benefit PRESENTER: PETER WHITE |
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| Downloaded from www.bbc.co.uk/radio4 THE ATTACHED TRANSCRIPT WAS TYPED FROM A RECORDING AND NOT COPIED FROM AN ORIGINAL SCRIPT. BECAUSE OF THE RISK OF MISHEARING AND THE DIFFICULTY IN SOME CASES OF IDENTIFYING INDIVIDUAL SPEAKERS, THE BBC CANNOT VOUCH FOR ITS COMPLETE ACCURACY. WHITE And on today's Call You and Yours the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, John Hutton, is with me to take your questions on the reform of incapacity benefit or IB. Proposals for changes to the benefit were announced at the January, the consultation about what's outline in the Welfare Reform Green Paper is still ongoing. Here's a reminder of what incapacity benefit is. READING Incapacity benefit or IB replaced sickness benefit and invalidity benefit in 1995. 7.4 per cent of the working age population are IB claimants, that represents about 2.7 million people, with 1.7 million receiving the benefit. The government estimates that it spends nearly £7 billion a year on incapacity benefit. If someone is considered to be incapable of working after 28 weeks off work, while receiving statutory sick pay, they may be able to receive IB from the state. To be eligible for incapacity benefit you must have made national insurance contributions in one of the two years leading up to being incapable of work. After filling in a form to apply for IB claimants may be asked to attend a personal capability assessment. Incapacity benefit currently ranges from about £57 a week to just over £76, depending on how long the benefit has been claimed. Current proposals for reform of IB aim to get one million people off incapacity benefit and into work within the next decade. Well the proposals for the reform of incapacity benefit include changing its name, dividing new applicants into those considered to be severely disabled and those who are able to undertake compulsory work based interviews and action plans and this will also apply to existing claimants further into the process. And a greater role for occupational health services and work advisors to be placed in GPs' surgeries. Well just some of the things that are planned. The Secretary of State, John Hutton, joins me. John Hutton, first of all, what is the key aim and vision of this, as far as these reforms you've outlined? HUTTON Well good afternoon Peter. I think first and foremost the reforms that we set out in the green paper are about giving to people who are claiming currently incapacity benefit and the new employment and support allowance from 2008 onwards an opportunity to get back into the labour market, to get back into paid employment at the earliest possible opportunity. And I think if there's one fundamental criticism that people can rightly make of the current system is that it's simply not geared up to deliver that sort of support and help for people who are currently sick or disabled and can't work - it doesn't provide them with that degree of support and engagement. And I think that is a fundamental failure in the current system and it's what we want to put right. So this is essentially a right to work strategy, it's designed to tackle poverty because we know there's an obvious link between large numbers of people in the community on incapacity benefit, like my own in Barrow-in-Furness, and poverty and deprivation, tackling that. And the best way out of poverty and benefit dependency, quite clearly, is the opportunity to work. WHITE So are you saying this is more about the opportunity to work than it is about lowering the benefits bill for the government, which it's always been very concerned about? HUTTON Well we're certainly not cutting benefits, let me be absolutely clear about that, there is no part of this strategy that involves cutting people's benefits. Because I think that would be entirely the wrong thing to do. I think you can be radical in reforming of the current system and my goodness me it needs radical reform, without being punitive, I don't think there's any point to be served and it would be quite wrong on all sorts of levels to say that failure in the system and that it has failed is down to the individuals who are claiming incapacity benefit. These people are sick and disabled and need help and support - financial, moral maybe and other forms of support - and we want to provide that. But yes for all us as taxpayers clearly it would be in the national economic interest if we reduced expenditure on this part of the benefit system but not, as I say, by cutting people's benefit ... WHITE There have been suggestions that you would reduce benefit for people who did not cooperate with these work focused interviews and that might include people who found these work focused interviews difficult and stressful I suppose. HUTTON Well look it is true in the green paper we do say that there should be more of a commitment to engage and work with Job Centre Plus to help people chart a route back to work and I think in all of these things you've got to strike a balance. I think we know from the New Deal and all the reforms that we've put in place in the last few years, that there is a role for conditionality in the benefit system. But obviously it's got to be applied sensibly and sensitively and I believe it can be done in that way. I mean we've been applying, if you like, this sort of element of a new requirement and obligations with the roll out of Pathways for the last couple of years or so. And fortunately, I'm glad to say, very few people ever have their benefits sanctioned because they want to cooperate and they want to work with us to get back to work. But I do think it's important to have that requirement - that reciprocity in the system, we're providing more help, we expect people to engage with us as part of that package and I think that's, I hope, where sensible people will say that the balance needs to be struck. WHITE So you've stressed this - that it is about getting people to work - and you've done it again this morning, how can this be done effectively when there have been such drastic cuts to the numbers of people at the Department of Work and Pensions who might be giving this help - 30,000 are going aren't they? HUTTON Yes, we are in a process of major change in the Department for Work and Pensions and I have to say bluntly rightly so. But we can do both of these things ... WHITE Can you? HUTTON Well we can and we are. Pathways has been going for the last couple of years and in those pilots that we have started we've already got twenty one and a half thousand people off incapacity benefit into work and that's just in a few parts of the United Kingdom, we're looking to apply this nationally and I think we can do it. And in particular with the latter stages now of the roll out of this new package of help and support for people on incapacity benefit, several Pathways to Work schemes, we're going to involve the private and the voluntarily sector much more extensively in providing these services and that is obviously I think important too. We are becoming a smaller organisation but we are using the skills and expertise of a variety of different providers as we roll these programmes out. WHITE How convinced are you that the jobs are actually in the right places to hit this target, this very ambitious target, of a million disabled people getting back to work? You mentioned your own constituency of Barrow and I went there for this programme a few weeks ago and what struck me and many people very forcibly was that you know jobs in Asdas and in call centres aren't really replacement jobs for people who've been - who've lost their jobs in heavy industry. HUTTON They're different jobs and I think that's absolutely true - they're not the same. And in my constituency and in many other parts of Britain we've suffered very significantly in the last 10 or 15 years as our traditional heavy industries have shrunk and the new jobs that have come in have been different jobs, by definition they are. But I think we've all got to work with that and to try and find and extract the maximum benefit from it. But I mean in my own constituency - just to make the point Peter - Alun Johnson and I opened a new contact centre that's just opened in Barrow recently where we've already got over a couple of hundred jobs, there's a potential for hundreds more. Now some of the people who are taking - who have been taken on recently to work in that context have been people who have been on long term incapacity benefit, it is possible. But obviously fundamentally the extent to which we can meet that ambitious target of getting a million people off IB and into jobs is going to be dependent on yes the economy, how we can engage secondly with employers so that we break down the stereotypes that many employers still have about people who are long term sick and disabled and we've got to succeed on both of those counts if we've got any chance at all of making progress on this target because we do need the economy to be strong, we need employers to be engaged and I think we've shown, certainly on the first of those two things, that we're doing well - the economy's booming, it's strong and we're creating new jobs. And I think more and more employers are beginning to engage with us now about finding jobs for people who've been on incapacity benefit, many big national employers, and that's really positive. WHITE Secretary of State, more later on all those issues, thank you for the time being. Now it's your turn to give your thoughts on the subject. Are you on incapacity benefit and worried about what the changes might mean to you? Are you working in a job centre where you may have to decide whether someone is capable of working? Perhaps you're a GP who advises or is being asked to advise patients on the role of work. Or an employer who wants a diverse workforce but is worried about the costs of adapting an office to make it accessible. Do call us - John Hutton is here, as you've heard. You can e-mail us via the website at bbc.co.uk/radio4/youandyours. Or call us on 08700 100 444, calls cost around 8 pence a minute. WHITE Today Secretary of State for Work and Pensions John Hutton is taking your calls on the reform of incapacity benefit. The government spends just under £7 billion a year and it wants to reduce the number of people receiving it by £1 million - sorry by one million people. I should say we've had a huge number of people from individual people who are on benefit, we'll never get round to you all but we will fit in as many as possible and we need, of course, as broad a sweep of calls as we can get. I want to go first of all to Anna Girling who's calling us from Colchester . Anna, good afternoon. GIRLING Hello, hi. WHITE What's the point you wanted to make to the Secretary of State? GIRLING I wanted to ask Mr Hutton if the reforms include changes to the medical assessment, that's carried out by the DWP. I suffer with ME or chronic fatigue syndrome and there are few outward displays of my symptoms, so after my medical assessment I was in fact declared fit for work, despite the fact that I'm regularly too ill even to climb the stairs at home. I just think it's quite ironic that more authorities give in to the opinion of a medical assessor who's spent a maximum of 30 minutes with me than to the opinion of my GP or the specialist who diagnosed my condition. I just wondered what Mr Hutton plans to do about this. WHITE Well Secretary of State, first of all, are the ways in which people are going to be examined and assessed - are they going to change at all? HUTTON Well good afternoon Anna. Yes the procedures will change and the green paper what we said we wanted to do was completely redesign the personal capabilities assessment test, which is the key gateway into incapacity benefit. And we want to do that not as we have done in the past internally within the Department for Work and Pensions but in consultation with the voluntary sector and the medical experts and so on. WHITE What about the disabled people themselves? HUTTON And disabled people themselves, no absolutely, that's what I meant by the voluntary sector, Peter, because I think what is important to us is that as far as possible the new medical test leave people with a sense that they have been treated fairly and properly and that their needs have been accurately reflected in that test. And at the moment people are not feeling that, they do feel very sort of huffed off about often aspects of the system and if we can get consensus around this that will be really important. What I can't say, however, is that everyone is going to be satisfied with every test that's ever done. We're not going to get to a system I think where we're going to get a hundred per cent agreement on a hundred per cent of the test, there's always going to be room for argument and there is going to be a proper appeals process Anna and that we want to see reflected. But I think fluctuating conditions, like ME, are probably the hardest to measure and we're working very hard to try and find a better way of doing that. WHITE I just want to go back quickly to Anna, to say what was it about your examination that you thought was unfair and presumably that was done by somebody medically qualified? GIRLING Well I would certainly hope so. Basically I was asked to perform tasks like bend down, grip a pen, asked questions of whether I'm still making an effort with my appearance, which to me is totally irrelevant to my condition. I felt that my condition was not understood at all by the doctor and those sort of examinations and Mr Hutton is still talking about tests, ME is a process of elimination, there is no test, which is unfortunately why there are so many people who suffer from it and I don't - I don't really see how this situation can be rectified other than working with GPs and working with specialists. WHITE Okay, thank you very much for your call. I want to go to Ian Cheetham, from Bury in Lancashire , because in a way your call is related to that. Ian, just explain your own situation. CHEETHAM My problem is I have primary possessive MS... WHITE That's multiple sclerosis yeah? CHEETHAM It is yeah. That means I really am incapable of going to work and I honestly feel that the thrust of the green paper in terms of reducing the level of benefit and getting people back to work actually makes them feel guilty about being disabled and claiming benefit. WHITE Do you feel under pressure to work at the moment, as the rules currently stand? CHEETHAM No I don't because I am so aware that I am incapable of it. WHITE So your fear is that the new rules will put greater pressure on you and you're saying I'm not able to work? CHEETHAM That's right. WHITE Right, let me put that to you Secretary of State and I should say that's the burden of a lot of the calls that we're getting and indeed Ian there mentioned perhaps the level of benefit, we've already had an e-mail saying I did not push you hard enough on the issue of whether people actually will be losing benefit, so perhaps you could clarify that. HUTTON Well good afternoon Ian and look on this point about benefits, I know people are concerned about this, because I picked that up in what people are writing to me. We're not cutting anyone's incapacity benefit and I really don't think I can be more explicit than that. Whatever benefits you are currently on Ian that is going to be protected and preserved, we are not retrospectively going to hack away at your existing entitlement, absolutely not. WHITE But will he be under more pressure - a pressure he feels is unfair given his situation? HUTTON Well I think this also is a very, very important point. We're not going to put people under pressure to go back to work where they clearly cannot work, I mean that would be completely the wrong thing to do. And just as at the moment there is an exempt category in relation to incapacity benefit - exceptional circumstances group. We want to do the same broadly for the new employment and support allowance. So 90% of people when they come on to incapacity benefit, currently even, say to us look yeah I want to have a go at working again. And that's really where we're trying to get more help and support in, so they can realise that ambition they've got to get back to work. But for those who cannot work, look we're going to be sort of fair and decent to those people, we're not going to say to them we're going to drive you out to work again. That is completely preposterous. And in fact quite the opposite - if you want to take part in Pathways or any of these back to work schemes, if you want to they're there for you and we're going to try and provide more generous financial support for those people who clearly, because of their level of disability or sickness, we know cannot work. And we're, again, just trying to strike the right balance. But no one's going to be forced out to work. WHITE So what would be interpreted as non cooperation with these work focused interviews in that case, because clearly Ian and one can hear the disability that he has and you're saying and you've repeated no one's going to be penalised, so what would non cooperation constitute? HUTTON Well there wouldn't be any requirement to attend a work focus interview for Ian. WHITE No but you're saying there will be people who could come into that category. HUTTON That will be decided by how - with - how the reform personal capabilities assessment works, it'll be at that point in the process where a judgement has to be made about whether someone has a capacity to work or does not and that is what we want to do. And remember the reforms that we're proposing are for new benefit claimants, I think it's very important not to lose sight of that - people after 2008, who come into the new system, we're not changing the position or the way people are treated in the current rules. WHITE So does that reassure you to any extent Ian? CHEETHAM Yes that does help, thank you. WHITE It does help, good, thank you very much indeed. That's part of the object of the programme. I want to go to Mary who works in a job centre, and that's all we're going to say about her identity. Mary, good afternoon. MARY Good afternoon. WHITE What's the point you wanted to make? MARY Incapacity benefit represents two thirds of working age benefit paid and we have fewer and fewer staff who are struggling to cope with reviews, let alone new claims, which are taking weeks and weeks to be processed. I don't know how we're going to carry on coping now, let alone with reforms. WHITE That does rather echo a point I did put to you John but it comes from the horse's mouth, if Mary will forgive me putting it that way, how on earth are you going to do this? HUTTON Well there is change going on in Job Centre Plus, we are trying to centralise benefit processing and we're centralising it in order to speed it up. And I don't know quite where Mary gets her figures from about weeks and weeks to process these claims, it's taking us 16 days to process an incapacity benefit claim at the moment and our target is 19 days ... MARY I totally disagree with that and I think the union would as well. HUTTON Well I suspect that's really who you're speaking for and that's not true. The facts are the facts in this matter and I've give you the facts, not propaganda. WHITE I do want to put one other point to Mary though and that is - because I understand you have some scepticism about the people who actually get the benefits. MARY Because we're not able to do the reviews, we're unable to check whether people are no longer incapable of work and there are a lot of people, I suspect, who could work and indeed who would benefit from working, particularly with depression. I can't see the point in paying them to sit at home and do nothing. WHITE So are you saying that they would be willing to work but you can't process their claims or are you saying there are some people who are swinging the lead basically? MARY That as well, yes. WHITE John Hutton? HUTTON Part of - Mary as you know - part of the reforms that are taking place in Job Centre Plus at the moment are to try and shift the focus and move people into the front office, as it were, of Job Centre Plus... MARY But we need the staff to do it. HUTTON And there will be 10,000 people moving from back office functions to front of office roles, so they have more direct contact with benefit claimants and I think that is the right things to do. Look, every organisation has to make sure that it's getting value for money out of its investment and that's what this reform programme is designed to do - yes for benefit claimants but for taxpayers as well. And it is difficult - we're in the middle of a very difficult reorganisation at Job Centre Plus but I think it's simply not true to say, as the unions have been saying, that the result of all of this change is a meltdown and no one's getting a proper service, that is simply not true. WHITE I would like to ask you a supplementary, sort of raised by Mary's second point about whether people are getting the benefit rightly or not. A lot of the publicity covering this has tended to focus on the scroungers and so forth, are you saying that this is not an influence in the policy that you've brought in, if people say that that's the case, the government repeatedly says it's less than half a percent of fraud I think on incapacity benefit, so how does this idea get about? HUTTON Well there is fraud in relation to incapacity benefit and I agree with Mary, there is fraud and we prosecute - we identify about six and a half thousand cases of fraud in relation to IB every year. WHITE So is part of this to identify that? HUTTON Of course. We've got to tackle this problem. For people who fraudulently claim benefits, they not only cheat the taxpayer but they undermine the legitimate claim of people who are sick and disabled and we've got to be absolutely clear about that and to take every measure that we possibly can to prevent people cheating the system because that's fundamentally wrong and of course it's illegal and our job is to preserve the law and make sure it's properly applied and we intend to do that. WHITE So what you're saying is you're not taking any money from anyone who's justified in having it but you will be identifying - you will be trying to identify people who are genuinely not entitled to have it? HUTTON Well absolutely, I think everyone would say amen to that. WHITE Mary, thanks for your call. I want to go to Marilyn Howard, who's policy manager at the DRC - the Disability Rights Commission. Marilyn, you have a point you want to put to the Secretary of State. HOWARD Yes, thank you, good afternoon. I wanted to know how both the new benefit and the existing incapacity benefit claimants - how we can ensure that people who may not be able to do paid work could still nonetheless feel part of their community? So, for example, activities like being a school governor or advising their local hospital without actually facing the risk of losing their benefits. WHITE So you mean you're concerned that people will - that it will be interpreted - if you can do this then why can't you go out and do a job? HOWARD Yes exactly. WHITE John Hutton. HUTTON Well I don't want to see that situation arise and of course with incapacity benefit there is no restriction on sort of volunteering or support like that, that people want to give in their communities, quite the opposite. And we've just changed the, for example, the permitted hours rule to create more opportunities for people on incapacity benefit to find out whether they can work, what work they would like to do and for it not to impact negatively on their benefit entitlement. We try to be flexible. We do, Marilyn, absolutely agree with the thrust of what you're saying. For some people we need to try and find a proper bridge from where they are on benefit to where they might like to end up coming back into paid employment. And the sort of opportunities that you've just described I think are one way of doing that. WHITE But do you have evidence Marilyn that some people are frightened that this will happen? HOWARD Well yes and also part of the problem with the current system is that to receive benefit you have to be deemed to be incapable of all work. And actually undertaking some of the activities in public life, unless you're a local authority councillor, you can actually risk losing your benefit because you're taking part in something like that, so people do tend to be put off from doing so because of that. HUTTON I mean I think Peter that's a very, very strong argument for why the personal capabilities assessment needs to change, so it doesn't just measure what you can't do, increasingly it is able to say what you can do. And once we've got that process right I think a lot other things - bits of the jigsaw - will come together. WHITE Okay, Marilyn Howard thanks very much for putting that. A lot of e-mails coming in - Liz. BARCLAY There are indeed and I've picked out just three Peter. Henry Ashby contacted us to say: Lots of taxpayers' money is being wasted on reviews, pain clinics and consultant surgeries for disabled people to prove to the state that they're entitled to claim. When he attends his review, he says, he sees people in the waiting room who are blind or seriously mentally ill. He says: So if the Secretary of State wants to save money stop reviewing sick people who are never going to recover. Charles Gibbs has muscular dystrophy, he says: I've tried looking for work but prolonged sitting or standing worsens the overall way in which I'm affected by my disability. I'm always very worried that my incapacity benefit, which I depend on so much, is going to be taken away from me, I would like to see an exemption from review entitlement introduced to alleviate the concerns of sufferers who are genuinely better off health wise by not working and looking after themselves at home. And this last one came from someone who doesn't want to be named: I've been trying for 12 months to move from incapacity benefit by getting a job but despite 30 years of solid work history have found potential employers reject me, even before interview. The attitude of employers towards IB seems to make it virtually impossible, even with the help of organisations such as Work Directions for me to get back into work. Just a flavour. WHITE Yeah and John Hutton you might like to pick up that last point because a lot of people feel that there's a lot of emphasis on what people who are ill or disabled need to do and we may hear callers like this but people quite often say when I actually try and get a job it's the attitude I encounter that's the problem. HUTTON Well look I think that is a genuine problem, it would be pointless to brush that under the carpet. How do we deal with it, I think is the issue. I don't think we should sort of throw our hands up and say it can't be overcome. Now we are working with a network of employers, with the Disability Employers Coalition nearly a thousand companies have come together to work with Job Centre Plus on trying to tackle this fundamental problem. And I think many employers are willing to take people on IB and consider them for jobs. What we've got to do in Job Centre Plus is make sure that someone is job ready when we present them for an interview. There is very strong legal protection now for people with disabilities to safeguard them from overt and indirect discrimination and that ultimately may be something that we have to look at. But I think we are trying to tackle this problem, it's a process of engagement, there's no magic wand that I'm afraid I can wave over this to clear up all of these problems but I think we've got to engage - we are engaging and I think we're making some progress. And I've seen Peter my own trips around the country what a difference it can make when employers are willing to engage with us and it can happen and it does happen and Job Centre Plus I think are doing a good job on that. Peter's point about bringing people in for medical reassessments when quite clearly it seems to be pointless, well look Peter I agree with you, we've got to look at this as part of the review of the PCA process, this is part of the green paper's sort of thrust, it's out for consultation at the moment and people are coming in with very sensible ideas on all this and we've got to look at it. But I agree with you Peter I can see there's precious little point in hauling people in when their diagnosis or prognosis is particularly bleak and we've got to be careful and sensitive about how we behave in this area. WHITE So it is up for consultation, you've still got an opportunity to put your points directly to the Secretary of State, you're listening to Call You and Yours, the number is 08700 100 444. Michael has already called us from Ipswich , good afternoon Michael. MICHAEL Ah good afternoon. My concern here is that although Mr Hutton has actually said that this is not about cutting the income of incapacity benefit claimants I understand that with these work focused interview which as it's explained that most people on the benefit will have to attend, the concern there is that it's always going to be at the back of the mind of the person attending that interview that if they're actually held not to be sort of cooperating with these interviews they can actually be sanctioned and as I understand it their actual income can be cut. And I think that's absolutely outrageous for someone that has for a start has actually been found to be sick or disabled because the whole idea of being on that - on that benefit is to take the pressure off someone because they can't work. WHITE Are there any groups in particular who you feel are vulnerable to this kind of fear? MICHAEL I think - I think they are because I think people with - particularly with mental health problems, I know quite a number of those, are terrified by this because you see ... WHITE I'll tell you what Michael let me put this to the Secretary of State because it is very crucial and we know that somewhere in the region of almost 40% of the people who now receive incapacity benefit do have mental health problems. So clearly if you want to get that number down it follows that that is a group of people who you'd be concerned about why that number is so high. How can you do that without putting the sort of pressure on that's Michael's concerned about? HUTTON Well it's quite wrong to put unfair and undue pressure on people, particularly if they have a mental illness and we try to reflect that, Michael, in the way that the rules are currently applied and remember they are currently applying in the Pathways areas to all new claimants and I think we're finding a sensible way through on this. I mean, for example, if you suffer from a mental illness you're not going to have any sanction applied to your incapacity benefit unless there's been a proper home visit and we've taken all the circumstances into account, we've tried to build in some safeguards, particularly for people who have fluctuating illness where they could be okay one week and really bad the next. And we are trying very hard to get the balance right. But what I do think is really, really important here and I think this is one of the fundamental failures of the current system is that it is perfectly possible to be on benefit and really to have no contact whatsoever for very long periods of time with Job Centre Plus, now that simply can't be right because what we want to do is to provide more help and support to get people back into work. And I think there is a role for sort of reciprocity - for rights and responsibilities in this area. We are here to help but we must, I think, also require a response from people who are on benefit as well. And I think getting and establishing regular contact with Job Centre Plus I personally do not think is unreasonable or crossing this line that is there between being fair and being unfair. WHITE Can I bring in David Ranes who knows a little about this group of people, I think you're a cognitive psychotherapist, David good afternoon. RANES Good afternoon. WHITE Yeah, what was the point you wanted to make? RANES Well I've been working with the condition management programme, which is one of the pilot projects for the Pathways to Work programme which has led to this programme the minister's talking about. I understand and I heard there are some kind of anxieties expressed by many of the clients today from the clients that I have seen. Essentially in Derbyshire when somebody goes along for their review with the personal advisor at the Job Centre they are told about - people with mental health problems are told about the condition management programme but they also have separate areas in which people can access programmes for pain management, respiratory problems, cardiovascular. Now when the client talks to the person at the Job Centre they have to tell them more of the details but it's important to remember many of those people in the Job Centre are almost the first point of access for many of these people who've fallen out of contact with conventional health services. WHITE Can I ask you - one of the things that lies at the back of many of the calls we're getting is that people wonder whether the people conducting these job focused interviews really know enough about mental illness and that's what's scaring people. RANES Well in the Derbyshire programme we run a training programme for the incapacity benefits personal advisors where we help to take them through issues about mental health, we gave them information about understanding key elements of handling emotion because when people come along they are very upset which is obviously stressful for the staff there. But it's obviously hugely distressing and worrying for clients who come along with these anxieties. What I'd say is what I say to really to all of my clients is that the very last thing that we want to do is to push anybody back to work if they're not ready. WHITE So you're saying people haven't got anything to fear, although a lot of the calls we're getting ...? RANES ... the kind of project in Derbyshire is that people don't. All of the service involved in the programme literally do say and we say it to the people in the job centres, look we don't want people to come along and sit and to feel they have to sit in therapy, that would be unethical for us to treat them. What we say to them is that the reality is for most people who have health problems work is one of the ways that helps us to manage that. The reality is that as you say 40% of the people coming on to incapacity benefit have mental health problems. I don't know about you but in my own life the times when I'm having difficulty is often when I'm out at work and I'm engaging with people that I forget about those things. WHITE David, thanks very much. I want to fit in Tom who's a GP, who's called us. Tom, good afternoon. TOM Hello. WHITE Yeah, what would - GPs of course are being asked to take a more active role in this, what's your ...? TOM Well that was really one of the reasons I was phoning. The problem for us is we have a dual role here with our patients. First of all we're meant to be looking after their health and welfare, we have to build up a relationships with them, they have to trust us, they have to believe in us and we have to believe in them. Yet when it comes to the financial situation we're being asked to say yes you're fit, well no you're not fit. And if we say yes you're fit we know there's a financial penalty involved, as they perceive it. So in fact we're being asked to do two separate roles which I think is very difficult. I mean we all know that people are swinging the lead, getting incapacity, all the rest of it and working five days a week at the same time. But by the same token we also know people who are genuine who struggle on and may be more deserving. I think my question is really is there going to be a good separation of roles? WHITE Let me put that to the Secretary of State, bearing in mind I want to get one more call in if I can. HUTTON Well I think Tom's got a very fair point and it is one that the green paper has addressed. Tom, I think what we're saying in the green paper is that really gateway into the new employment and support allowance should be determined by the new personal capabilities assessment, in other words by independent medical practitioners, not as sometimes happens now essentially through the recommendations of local GPs, so I think we do need a clear separation there. I was very glad to hear what David had to say, as well Peter, about the benefits of some of these health and support programmes that we're providing. I mean it can really make a difference and in some cases work is good for your health and not bad for your health and our job is to try and identify those people who can benefit and get them into jobs. WHITE Let's try and squeeze in Alex from Caerphilly. Alex, good afternoon. ALEX Yeah good afternoon. WHITE Yeah, what was your point? ALEX I think - I'm actually one of the people being targeted by this programme. I'm currently suffering from depression, I've been through the work focused interview. I've got to say the advisor was fantastic. Now it has helped me, I am now doing some voluntary work for one of the organisations that John Hutton has mentioned. But my problem is while I'm getting the confidence back to go out into a work based scenario where are the real jobs? In the South Wales valleys the only things around here are call centres, which pay minimum salary and are incredibly stressful. WHITE Okay, John Hutton, Alex he's complementary about the system, it's not bullied him, it's not failed him but the jobs aren't there. HUTTON Alex where are you living? ALEX Caerphilly. HUTTON Caerphilly. Look I mean I think - at the end of the day this programme will succeed or fail on the basis of both the help and support we provide people but also the strength and dynamism of the local economy. And obviously the availability of jobs is crucial to all of this. But I think what I would say to you is that in the South Wales Pathways to Work project we have been very successful in helping people get back into jobs and a variety of different jobs. I don't know quite what sort of work that you yourself Alex are looking to do but it is the job of Job Centre Plus to do everything possible to match your expectation - your ambition - with the jobs that are available locally. WHITE I'm going to have to stop you both there and wish Alex good luck. Thanks for all of you who've called and our thanks to the Secretary of State. Back to the You and Yours homepage The BBC is not responsible for external websites |
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