Disabled People, Work and Welfare

Is Employment Really the Answer?

Grover, Chris, Piggott, Linda, Chris Grover, Linda Piggott

• Publisher: Policy Press
• Year: 2015
• Print ISBN:
  9781447318323
• Edition: 1
• eBook ISBN:
  9781447318361
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Labour & Industrial Relations
• Index: Social Sciences

EPUB and EPDF available Open Access under CC-BY-NC-ND licence. This is the first book to challenge the concept of paid work for disabled people as a means to 'independence' and 'self determination'. Recent attempts in many countries to increase the employment rates of disabled people have actually led to an erosion of financial support for many workless disabled people and their increasing stigmatisation as 'scroungers'. Led by the disability movement's concern with the employment choices faced by disabled people, this controversial book uses sociological and philosophical approaches, as well as international examples, to critically engage with possible alternatives to paid work. Essential reading for students, practitioners, activists and anyone interested in relationships between work, welfare and disability.

Part One
Changing constructions of disability and welfare

TWO

Disabled people, conditionality and a civic minimum in Britain: reflections from qualitative research

Ruth Patrick and Deborah Fenney

Introduction

Across countries of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), there is now a marked reliance on measures that employ welfare conditionality in an effort to support and encourage people on out-of-work benefits to enter (or return to) paid employment (Gilbert and Besharov, 2011). Welfare conditionality refers to the attaching of behavioural conditions to benefit receipt, and has long been a marked feature of welfare state regimes (Deacon, 2002).

In Britain, under first New Labour governments and then the coalition government, the reach of conditionality has been considerably extended, with Dwyer (2008) characterising what has emerged as a ‘conditional welfare state’, where conditionality is accepted and embraced by all three main political parties. A particularly important policy development in this regard was the introduction of Employment and Support Allowance (ESA) in 2008. Following its introduction, many disabled people have been subject to work-related conditionality.

While the theoretical defences and government rhetoric around conditionality have been extensively interrogated from a number of standpoints (Dean, 2002; Deacon, 2004a; Dwyer, 2004; Wright, 2011), what has been lacking, with the notable exception of Dwyer (2000), is any consideration of how citizens themselves, and disabled people in particular, interpret conditionality. Drawing on qualitative research conducted with both disabled and non-disabled individuals, this chapter explores attitudes to the applicability of welfare conditionality to disabled people. The chapter starts with a review of the relevant policy and theoretical context, before outlining the methods employed to generate the qualitative data discussed in the chapter. Findings from the study are then outlined, with a focus on how far and in what ways various defences of conditionality for disabled people were utilised by the research participants. The chapter argues that, while enforcing work-related conditionality on disabled people is problematic, it could perhaps be justifiably applied in conjunction with Stuart White’s (2003) notion of a ‘civic minimum’. However, the chapter also argues that currently in Britain there is what might be described as a ‘civic minimum deficit’; a gap between the status quo and what would be needed for a ‘civic minimum’ to be in place, a vital precondition to conditionality being more justly employed.

Policy context: a ‘principle of conditionality’ and the Employment and Support Allowance

In Britain, the ‘principle of conditionality’ in welfare (Dwyer, 2004, p 266) was entrenched by New Labour governments’ (1997–2010) welfare reforms that were framed by a rhetoric of ‘no rights without responsibilities’ (Giddens, 1998, p 65). Defined as ‘the principle that entitlement to benefits should be conditional on satisfying certain conditions’ (Stanley and Lohde, 2004, p 1), theorists in the United States (US) such as Lawrence Mead (1992, 1997, 2011) have defended conditionality as a central issue of reciprocity, without which those in receipt of benefits cannot be seen as equal citizens. For disabled people, conditionality is most visible in the ESA regime. Introduced in 2008 as a replacement for Incapacity Benefit (IB), ESA is the latest earnings replacement benefit in Britain for those who are unable to work due to illness or disability (Burchardt, 1999).

There are two main ways in which disabled people face increased conditionality via ESA. First, some disabled people who would previously have been eligible for IB do not meet the stricter qualifying criteria for ESA and will now be receiving Jobseeker’s Allowance (JSA) – Britain’s primary benefit for unemployed people – and, therefore, face even greater conditionality than had their ESA application been successful (Piggott and Grover, 2009).

Second, applicants who meet eligibility thresholds for ESA are considered to have ‘limited capability for work’ and are placed in one of two groups – the ‘work-related activity group’ (WRAG) or the ‘support group’ (SG) – based on their adjudged capability to do paid work-related activity. Those who are assessed as having the capability of doing work-related activity to hasten their re-entry into employment are placed in the WRAG, while those deemed to not have such capability are placed in the SG. For our purposes, the most important of these two groups is the WRAG, as people in it are subject to work-related conditions (those in the SG are exempt from such conditions).

The Westminster coalition government, formed in 2010, has continued with ESA and has overseen the migration of existing IB claimants onto ESA. Iain Duncan Smith, the-then Conservative Work and Pensions Secretary, declared his support for conditionality, arguing that: ‘it is only right that if we are helping people to get back into work, then we also have a right to expect that those we support are ready and willing to take on work if it is offered’ (DWP, 2010). In its commitment to conditionality, coalition policy represents a clear continuation of New Labour’s approach to welfare reform (Deacon and Patrick, 2011). However, the coalition government has increased the conditionality that frames ESA, an extension of New Labour’s original plans (DWP, 2008; Patrick, 2012).

For all ESA claimants, the Welfare Reform Act 2012 introduced a ‘claimant commitment’ clause as part of its basic eligibility criteria, although in practice those who qualify for the SG would not be subject to conditionality regarding its ‘work-related requirements’ (Dwyer and Wright, 2014). This entrenched the idea of individual responsibilities and conditionality. For those in the WRAG, conditionality has been further extended from New Labour’s original work-focused interviews and training to include the possibility of work experience and/or work placements. Sanctions have increased, while the amount of benefit income that can be withheld for deemed non-compliance has also risen (DWP, 2012). Over 19,000 adverse sanction decisions were made against ESA claimants between December 2012 and September 2013, the latest period for which statistics are currently available (DWP, 2014). As yet there is little research evidence available about the impact that these sanctions are having on disabled people. However, research into the effects of sanctions more generally suggests that they do not necessarily lead to improved employment outcomes and at the same time carry a real risk of destitution (Homeless Watch, 2013; Miscampbell, 2014; see also Chapter One, this volume). Despite this, the coalition government remains committed to welfare reforms premised upon welfare conditionality.

Justifying conditionality

Whether by government or by academics, the three justifications most often employed to justify conditionality are mutualism, paternalism and/or contractualism (Deacon, 2004a, 2004b, 2005). The mutualist justification is heavily influenced by the work of communitarians, such as Etzioni (1997), Selznick (2002) and Sacks (2008), and centres on the notion that individuals have obligations towards one another that arise independently from the actions of government (Deacon, 2004b, 2005). Thus, conditionality is simply upholding and instilling personal responsibility, an essential pillar of a functioning and well-ordered society.

The paternalist justification suggests that conditionality is an exercise of power and compulsion, which, where appropriately employed, actually operates to further the affected individual’s own interests (Mead, 1992, 1997; Driver, 2004). The paternalist standpoint is grounded in three central ideas:

• that poor people not in paid work lack competence;
• that paid work is good for the self;
• that compulsion is necessary to get those most demotivated and demoralised back into the folds of citizenship, through the world of paid work (Mead, 1992, 1997; Deacon, 2004b, 2005).

Contractualist arguments form the third justification of conditionality, whereby welfare benefits and services can be justly utilised to enforce the obligations of claimants within a broader framework of contractual duties, which fall on both the state and individual citizens (Deacon, 2004b, 2005). Contractualists construct conditionality as a policy tool for ensuring that citizens meet their reciprocal duties, but these are framed within, and are themselves made conditional on, governments’ own responsibilities. How embracive and egalitarian the duties of government are regarded varies according to the political persuasions of different academics within the contractualist tradition. Thus, the state’s obligations under White’s (2003) egalitarian form of contractualism are far more extensive than those advocated by the American democrat Ellwood (1988) or the more conservative Galston (2005).

Over the past 20 years, government ministers have, on occasions, employed all three justifications for increasing conditionality. However, both New Labour governments were, and the coalition government is, particularly keen on a contractual approach. New Labour subtitled its first ‘social security’ Green Paper, A new contract for welfare (DSS, 1998) and, more than 10 years later, the Conservative Party (2010) published its ideas for welfare reform measures under the tag line, A new welfare contract. While recent British governments’ articulations of contractualism have focused policy attention on the responsibilities of individuals, there is also scope to employ contractualist ideas to consider the duties and obligations of the state.

Stuart White, the civic minimum and conditionality

Operating from within a contractualist perspective, White attempts to develop an egalitarian and social democratic defence of welfare conditionality by stressing the importance of linking duty to equality through a principle of reciprocity. His egalitarian form of contractualism is based on the premise that true justice requires an element of reciprocity, which can best be ensured through welfare conditionality (White, 2003; Deacon, 2007; White and Cooke, 2007). White develops the idea of a civic minimum to describe the conditions that must first be met for welfare conditionality to be fairly imposed as part of the government–citizen contract. He makes a distinction between justice as fair reciprocity in its ideal and non-ideal form, recognising that its ideal form might be unachievable in practice. Therefore, he bases his arguments on what would be necessary to obtain justice as fair reciprocity in a pragmatic and feasible ‘non-ideal’ form (White, 2003).

The preconditions for the realisation of justice as fair reciprocity encompass fair opportunity, fair reward, universality and diversity (White, 2003; Deacon, 2007; White and Cooke, 2007). The basic work obligation can only be justly enforced via conditionality if each individual has a fair chance of finding a job that pays a sufficient income to enable them to escape poverty. Further, for conditionality to be defensible it must be applicable to all (and not just recipients of public welfare) and recognise a diverse range of contributions (White and Cooke, 2007). As White (2003) acknowledges, these conditions are not easily obtainable and few advanced capitalist societies provide such a civic minimum. Where these conditions are not met, those unjustly disadvantaged as a result should have a proportionately reduced obligation to contribute (White, 2004). This principle of proportionality, when tied to the notion of justice as fair reciprocity, illustrates the demands that the contract places on both the state and its citizens (White, 2003, 2005; White and Cooke, 2007). White’s work is important as it attempts to explore how and whether conditionality could be justly employed, with a particular focus on what would first be required from the state before demands could fairly be made of individual citizens. We will return to White’s civic minimum in the concluding discussion in this chapter.

While it is relatively easy to find examples of government ministers employing various justifications for increasing welfare conditionality, it is far less easy to find analyses of the ways individuals employ such arguments in their attitudes to welfare conditionality. In analysing both disabled and non-disabled people’s attitudes towards the appropriateness of applying welfare conditionality to disabled people, we have explored both the presence and absence of these ju...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• List of tables and figures
• List of abbreviations
• Notes on contributors
• Acknowledgements
• one Disabled people, work and welfare Chris Grover and Linda Piggott
• Part One Changing constructions of disability and welfare
• Part Two Social policy, work and disabled people
• Part Three Assistance and access to paid work
• Part Four Alternatives to, and validated lives beyond, paid work
• Part Five Conclusion