Evidence Suggests Fraud

Benefits system is in danger of creating its own miscarriages of justice, says Edward Lawrence.

Benefits system is in danger of creating its own miscarriages of justice, says Edward Lawrence.

Employment and support allowance (ESA) replaced incapacity benefit and income support for new claimants in October 2008, accompanied by a work capability assessment, a controversial computer-based test that judges a claimant's suitability to work. The assessment has been denounced in some quarters as finding disabled people fit for work, but for some others it has provided conclusive evidence of widespread fraud within the benefits system. Chris Grayling, the employment minister, is recorded as saying: 'Once again, we have clear evidence of the need for change in our welfare system.'

The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) figures, which cover the period from 27 October 2008 to 31 August 2010, show that 887,300 of the 1,175,700 applicants for ESA failed to qualify for any assistance. Of those, 458,500 (39%) were judged fit to work, while 428,800 (36%) ditched their claim. A further 16% were placed in the 'work-related activity group', in which individuals are deemed able to take on some level of work but still receive a level of ESA support. Over a third (36%) of people who made a claim for ESA between October 2008 and February 2010 and who were found to fit to work at assessment have appealed, with the original decision overturned in almost four in 10 cases (39%).

This appeal process, in which four out of 10 appeals are successful, should ring alarm bells with the government, as it seeks to criminalise disabled people who are claiming their legal entitlement.

Because, just like the bad old days of the miscarriages of justice in the 1970s (the Guildford Four, the Maguire Seven and the Birmingham Six come to mind), so the benefits system is in danger of creating its own miscarriages of justice. The new workplace capability assessment will find disabled people fit to work when they are manifestly unable to do so. It will penalise them financially and so curtail their independence.

I am not suggesting that the treatment meted out to innocent victims of miscarriages of justice is in any way comparable to this government's treatment of disabled people, but there are similarities.

First, there is the overlooking of evidence that doesn't support the official view, and consequently making the evidence fit the charge, rather than the charge fitting the evidence. Then, there is the issue of judgments, which deny rights and are held up to be lawful, but which are subsequently overturned on successful appeal, in a campaign led by dedicated believers in the face of official pronouncements that the original verdicts were safe.

The new medical assessment is part of the popular view (denied by officials) that tests and examinations are getting easier – think of the hysteria surrounding declining standards because of apparently easier A-levels. So, if too many people are passing the test, and the capabilities of the people taking the tests have not changed, then redesign the test. Make it harder to pass!