Sainsbury Centre for Mental Health

Welfare Reform

White paper and Welfare Reform Bill

In December 2008 the Government published the white paper on welfare reform, Raising expectations and increasing support: reforming welfare for the future. Based on the Gregg review on conditionality and the Freud report, the proposals in the white paper will form the basis of the Welfare Reform Bill.

The paper proposes:

• to use the 'invest to save' approach Freud proposed which enables private and voluntary sector organisations to pay for support to get people back to work from subsequent benefit savings.
• to implement first steps of Gregg's recommendations making people claiming ESA subject to the 'progression to work' conditionality and mandated to take steps to get back to work.
• to pilot conditionality for workless parents of children younger than currently planned.
• to publish a consultation paper on Housing Benefit reform in the New Year. We want a fair system - to people on low incomes and the taxpayer - which does not create barriers to work.
• to give disabled people greater choice and control over the support they use to meet their individual needs, with trailblazers in selected areas.

We responded to the white paper and Bill plans with the Royal College of Psychiatrists, Mind and Rethink.

We also responded to the preceding green paper (from July 2008) No One Written Off.

Download our response here (94 KB)

Pathways to Work

In 2002, the Government announced plans to provide "a new framework of help for those who through illness or disability have applied for incapacity benefit" to help them get back into work.

The proposals were set out in the consultation paper, Pathways to work: Helping people into employment. The Government responded and since then, several areas have been piloting the Pathways to Work scheme.

In Work, Better Off

We responded to the consultation in In Work, Better Off, which closed in October 2007. Although we support the document's stated objectives, we have serious concerns that the consultation paper further marginalises and excludes the majority of people with mental health problems.

All previous programmes for people on Incapacity Benefit have found it harder to help people with mental health problems to return to work than any other impairment group. In our view this is partly due to the stigma and discrimination this group experiences and partly due to the fact that the programmes do not address either the psychological needs of people with mental health problems, or the complexity of the barriers they face.

Additionally, much more needs to be done with employers to raise levels of awareness and understanding on mental health issues.

Download our response to In Work, Better Off (84 KB)