APPENDIX 5
Letter to the Committee from Rethink (EDP
08)
We are pleased to have the opportunity contributing
to this inquiry. Rethink, formerly known as the National Schizophrenia
Fellowship, is the charity for people who experience severe mental
illness and for those who care for them. We are both a campaigning
membership charity, with a network of mutual support groups around
the country, and a large voluntary sector provider in mental health,
helping 7,000 people each day. Through all its work, Rethink aims
to help people who experience severe mental illness to achieve
a meaningful and fulfilling life and to press for their families
and friends to obtain the support they need.
This is our response to particular questions
raised in the press notice:—
1. DO
THE HIGH
NUMBERS CLAIMING
INCAPACITY BENEFIT
REPRESENT HIDDEN
UNEMPLOYMENT?
For people with a severe mental illness, we
believe that is likely that there are more people receiving jobseeker's
allowance who would be entitled to incapacity benefit or income
support than vice versa because they are either trying to seek
work despite their condition or they do not recognise or accept
that they have a severe mental illness.
Most people with a severe mental illness approach
resumption of work tentatively. They fear losing their benefits
should things go wrong.
2. WHAT
IS OR
SHOULD BE
THE ROLE
OF JOBCENTRE
PLUS? ARE
THEY DOING
ENOUGH ACTIVELY
TO ENGAGE
PEOPLE WITH
DISABILITIES IN
FINDING SUITABLE
WORK? ARE
INITIATIVES SUCH
AS WORKSTEP
SUCCESSFUL?
We believe that these are early days for people
with a severe mental illness, who are unlikely to have participated
in the voluntary stage of the New Deal. We are aware that training
in understanding severe mental illness has been an unmet need
among JobCentrePlus staff. We are concerned that the interview
procedures may be operated inflexibly. While we welcome the help
provided to seek work, we are concerned about the compulsory nature
of the interview system and the timing.
Recovering from a severe mental illness calls
for the development of personal autonomy, including deciding the
pace and timing of progress towards paid work. It is counter-productive
to impose progress on such people and it needs to be recognised
that when a person is discharged from a psychiatric hospital they
are at high risk of committing suicide.
6. THE
TAX CREDIT
AND BENEFITS
SYSTEM: IS
IT TOO
COMPLEX FOR
THE CIRCUMSTANCES
FACED BY
PEOPLE WITH
DISABILITIES. SHOULD
IT BE
REFORMED TO
REDUCE FINANCIAL
DISINCENTIVES TO
FIND WORK?
We agree that the system is too complex both
in terms of entitlement rules and their administration. For example,
a person with a severe mental illness is likely to be in receipt
of the following benefits:—
— Incapacity benefit or income support
paid by a local DWP office.
— Housing benefits paid by a local
authority.
— Disability Living Allowance paid
by a DWP central office.
They will be exempt from prescription charges
if they receive income support but not if they receive incapacity
benefit.
Such people are unlikely to be able to move
straight from no work to full-time work. They need to take steps
towards full-time work, recognising that they may never achieve
this. The steps would have the following effects on benefits:
— Paid work and earning £20 a
week or less is unlikely to affect any of their benefits
— Earning £30 a week would reduce
any income support by £10, the excess above £20; it
would not affect incapacity benefit but would affect housing benefits
at the rate of 85 pence for each extra £1 earned above £20.
— Earning £50 a week would reduce
any income support by £30, the excess above £20; it
would still not affect incapacity benefit, but if income support
is not or no longer payable, this would affect housing benefits,
at the rate of 85 pence for each extra £1 earned above £20.
— Earning more than £67.50 a week
would result in incapacity benefit ending; any income support
would be reduced by the excess over £20 and any housing benefits
by the excess over £20 at the rate of 85 pence for each extra
£1 earned.
— Working more than 16 hours a week
brings such people into disabled person's tax credit, administered
by the Inland Revenue.
— People would lose entitlement to
free prescription charges as they lose income support.
— Entitlement to Disability Living
Allowance would be reviewed as a person starts work to see whether
this was a change of circumstances indicating an improvement in
their condition.
The above illustrates the complexity of the
rules.
We welcomed the replacement of the therapeutic
earnings rule by the permitted work rule for incapacity benefits
because claimants no longer have to prove that the work they were
undertaking was therapeutic. However, we were concerned that permitted
work is limited to 52 weeks, whereas therapeutic work was indefinite.
We believe that work is therapeutic and has an important part
to play in keeping people well in the community and out of expensive
hospital in-patient care; for people with a severe mental illness,
it is not necessarily a step back to paid work.
In the transition from benefits to work, we
support the concessions offered to jobseekers, eg job grants.
7. HOW
DOES DISCRIMINATION
HINDER THE
EMPLOYMENT OF
PEOPLE WITH
DISABILITIES?
The effects of stigma on people with a severe
mental illness can be very severe. They can become socially isolated,
be abused or socially harassed, lose their homes, be denied access
to jobs and fail to retain jobs and/or lose confidence and hope
and become depressed or suicidal.
We believe that stigma can be reduced through
increasing understanding of mental illness and its effects. This
can be tackled in employment, schools and colleges and through
awareness training generally. When people who have experienced
mental illness are involved in delivering that training, it can
be more effective.
8. WHAT
EFFECT DOES
THE DISABILITY
DISCRIMINATION ACT
HAVE?
We have found the Disability Discrimination
Act useful in some individual cases. A particular tension for
people with a severe mental illness is whether to disclose their
illness to take advantage of the Act. If they do disclose, they
risk losing opportunities for work because of the stigma attached
to their diagnosis. We do not believe that the provisions of the
act are sufficiently well-know amongst employers or employees.
Paul Farmer
Director of Public Affairs
December 2002
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