Incapacity Benefit Reform: just half the story

Mental Health charity Rethink today gave a cautious welcome to government plans to support people with mental health problems back to work.

The plans:
- Recognise the unacceptable fact that over 80 per cent of people with severe mental illness are not working, despite many wanting to

- Put in place new support to help people back to work with targeted programmes, as piloted by Rethink

- Introduce a notion of ìsomething for somethingî where claimants have a new duty to take advantage of support and training schemes to help them get back to work

- Pledge an investment of 360m over the next two years to extend the Pathways to Work Scheme across the UK

However, the plans:
- Fail to recognise the high levels of employer discrimination faced by people with severe mental illness who want to return to work

- Threaten people with unacceptable penalties such as benefit reduction if they are not yet ready to return to work.

Rethink operates over 400 support services, many with an employment focus, including the ground-breaking condition management programme in Derbyshire, part of the governmentís pilot programmes for getting people off Incapacity Benefit and back to work

Rethink chief executive Cliff Prior said: ìThe plans will give hope to hundreds of thousands of people who want to work but need specialist support to do so. But they will also strike fear into people struggling to survive on benefits who will fear that financial support is going to be withdrawn.

ìThere are a handful of excellent employers who recognise the value of employing people who have mental health problems ñ but mental health discrimination is widespread in the workplace.

ìThese plans would be greatly strengthened by government action to end labour market discrimination by employers.î

ìWe know from our own experience that many people with severe mental illness want to work and can work successfully. The barriers to people working consist of employer discrimination, labour market inflexibility and diminished personal aspirations.

ìThe government has announced a package that will go a little way to addressing some of these barriers, but it is only half the story.î