WCA/PIP assessments – IL/DPAC position statement

The document sets out the principles and basic tenets on which the assessment should be based.

WCA/PIP assessments – DPAC/Inclusion London position statement

Introduction

The motion passed at the Trades Union Congress 2013 that included the “scrapping” (NOT the reform of but scrapping of) the Work Capability Assessment is composite 13 on campaigning for social security. https://www.tuc.org.uk/sites/default/files/GPCandComposite2013.pdf

The Principles

All assessment processes / eligibility criteria and benefits system must be based on the UN CRPD and social model of disability and upon the following tenets:

1. That it is the economic, social, cultural and physical barriers and discrimination operating in society that are the cause of poverty and unemployment amongst disabled people and the reason many disabled people require social security, benefits and support from the state.
2. That it is the role of the state to remove these barriers. We (disabled people) are not the causes of these barriers nor do we cause our own poverty or exclusion from the workplace. We must be trusted as individuals and as a community that want to participate and contribute to society. Many of us want to work but cannot because of ill heath and impairment alongside exclusion and discrimination we experience in the workplace.
3. We (disabled people) can and must be trusted as experts on our lives and needs and as result all assessment processes must be user-led: a self-assessment process (with external verification).
4. Universal Credit, conditionality, sanctions, WCA/PIP assessments and the biopsychosocial model of disability are incompatible with the UN CRPD and the social model of disability and must be scrapped and replaced based on the points below.
5. There needs to be a move away from work being viewed as a health outcome.
6. Concepts of malingering/illness deception and target numbers for maximum numbers on benefits/numbers to be got off out of work benefits are incompatible with a human rights approach.

Key characteristics of a social model assessment process/ system based on the above tenets :

1. The assessment / benefit process must be must user-led: a self assessment process (with external verification) delivered through peer-led DPOs
2. It must be based around the following three questions (drawn from personal budgets):
   a) How do you want to live and what do you want to achieve?
   b) What stops you living that life?
   c) What would help you live that life?
3. The assessment/benefit process must express and reflect the UNCRPD – it must explicitly support disabled people to live independently with choice and control
4. There must be independent information, advice and advocacy available to disabled people, delivered by DPOs, going through the assessment process
5. Services and support must be free at the point of need and paid for from general taxation delivered by user-led, public sector organisations.
6. That social security payments / income must enable people to live with dignity and equality of opportunity and participation.
7. That social security payments / income must meet the additional costs of disability and impairment. Local Authorities must not be able to take this additional funding to meet the extra cost of being disabled from disabled people to pay for their care charges (currently some local authorities are taking into account the care component of DLA/PIP when charging for social care). However, if social care was free at the point of use it wouldn’t be relevant.
8. This can be achieved by repealing the Health and Social Care Act and replacing it with a Right to Independent Living Act
9. The restoration of the principle of social security – recognition that people have a right to an income replacement payment in order to not live in poverty when they are too ill and/or experience too many barriers to engage in paid employment.
10. There needs to be a single and joined up assessment process whilst retaining separate payments for income replacement when someone cannot work plus an additional costs of disability payment.
11. Ensure that the focus is not just on the individual but also encompasses structural and societal level barriers. This would need to include the availability of suitable local employment, as well as a wider look at working conditions and what employers can do to change the culture of work to make it more flexible and accommodating (this would arguably be of benefit for everyone, not just disabled people).
12. The assessment should also be of what additional support a person might need in order to take up suitable employment, again taking account of a specific job environment as well as any relevant wider issues around the pillars of independent living, such as access to transport, access to personal assistance, etc. Work however must never be seen as a ‘health outcome’
13. All sanctions and conditionality must be removed from the social security system with immediate effect.
14. If appropriate for each individual continuing support to increase someone’s chances of finding and then maintaining employment should be available.
15. Ensuring meaningful and speedy access to redress if a person is unhappy with the result of their assessment.
16. Ensure that employers and workforces reflect the diversity of the population and that disabled people are represented in the workforce in line with the percentage in the working population.
17. Improve working practice, strengthen workers’ rights, enforce employer duties and provide high quality pre-employment support and on-going in-work support to both Disabled people and employers.
18. Invest in an expanded Access to Work service, delivered by user-led DPOs and extend it to volunteering and work experience.
19. Integrate into and delivered by a new National Independent Living Service, based alongside the NHS and delivered locally through user-led DPOs and Co-ops.
20. Self-assessment applications will only be processed within the DWP (or equivalent government department) and there will be no role for private contractors.