Benefits chief outlines back-to-work plan
Date published: 21 August 2008
THE benefits system is set for a major shake up in a bid to get more claimants into work.
Department for Work and Pensions Minister for Disabled People Anne McGuire took a whistle-stop tour of Oldham to explain how the changes will affect the borough.
Ms McGuire visited the Highway to Opportunities project and the Asian Women’s Bus in Glodwick as well the Turning Point Centre for those with drug and alcohol addictions at Werneth and Chadderton Court Social Inclusion Unit.
She also visited the council offices to sign a Local Employment Partnership Agreement between the Jobcentre Plus, Oldham Council, Oldham Primary Care Trust and Oldham College.
As part of the green paper announced by James Purnell, Secretary of State for Works and Pensions, incapacity benefits will be scrapped by 2013 and the income support system will be radically overhauled.
They will be replaced by the Employment Support Allowance and the Jobseekers Allowance. The proposals, which will now be subject to a consultation process, are based on more support in turn for greater responsibility. The new system will reward responsibility and give people an incentive to get back into work wherever possible.
Anyone currently claiming incapacity benefit and new claimants will go through a detailed medical to determine what they can and can’t do.
Doctors will be asked to give an estimate of when the claimant will be fit for work.
Single parents with children under seven will be supported along the path back to work and given financial incentives if they acquire skills that make them employable. Anyone found to be abusing the system will be made to do full-time community work and drug users will be required to seek treatment or lose their benefits.
Ms McGuire said: “Oldham has a high level of people who are economically inactive and on incapacity benefits and the green paper is about supporting these individuals.
“There are jobs out there but some people have greater barriers to overcome. We want to see those barriers broken down.”
