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‘Welfare to Work’ Plus ‘Potholed Road to Recovery’
July – 2008 |
Welfare to Work and the drug and alcohol field
The Government’s Welfare to Work green paper, ‘No one Written Off’, is in a period of consultation. We have pulled together links and basic information to help those people interested in engaging with the discussion. Also attached is Mike Ashton’s paper ‘Potholed to Recovery’:
“Recovery also provides a benevolent rationale for an entirely non-medical imperative — to save money by getting patients out of treatment, off welfare benefits, back to work, and paying taxes. In the credit crunch era, Britain can no longer afford for people not to recover. Where a few months ago retention remained the yardstick of effective treatment, now the new aim is to get rid of the patients we can no longer afford to retain." – Mike Ashton
Ian Wardle on ‘No one Written Off’
Despite a few controversial headlines the green paper has been well received by many, and has considerable political and public support. There are, however, a number of stakeholders expressing concern. Welfare to Work does not just affect drug and alcohol users, and there are other service user, professional and campaigning and charitable groups exploring the potential impact on the most vulnerable people.
The deadline for consultation on ‘No one written off: reforming welfare to reward responsibility’ Is 22nd October 2008
General information: The green paper has been shaped by David Freud, an investment banker who has been leading the privatisation of the welfare state (Welfare is a mess).
The paper has a lot of support in mainstream terms, including the general public in all kinds of spheres of community life. There is a need to anticipate the outcomes of the policy and develop those into clear and explicit negotiations while the consultation period is active. Commissioners, families, drug and alcohol users, providers, researchers and policy makers all have a role. Where cross -cutting, joint health and social care, and local area themes are relevant we should seek to make sense of those.
There are organisations in existence e.g. a4e who are and will be ‘prime contractors’, with whom voluntary and other smaller organisations will sub contract. Payment will be based on unit success and in arrears, and on significant sustained success. DWP is currently exploring how this will work, and is very committed to this model, as are private providers and larger employment operations competing with them.
The Green Paper is very clear about the use of benefit reviews as an incentive to generate employment related change and hit other targets such as reducing drug use and the bill to the treasury. The thinking on this has been underway for a considerable length of time. MIND, the mental health charity lobbied parliament in December 2006. MIND at that time were concerned, amongst other things, about the ‘fact that contractors will have the power to determine what work-related activities claimants must engage in to ensure full entitlement to benefit, vary these activities where they see fit and administer benefit sanctions’.
See ‘Welfare Reform Bill’.
See their page on ‘Incapacity Benefit’.
Critical questions:
- Information sharing: Who will be sharing information with the DWP about treatment status? How will that relationship work if it is to be treatment providers?
- Who will resource the work required if and when drug users no longer in receipt of benefits fall into deeper difficulty requiring greater support?
- To what extent does being ‘in treatment’ as described in the paper equate with ‘employability’.
- What experience do we have of working with prime contractors or similar around substance use? Are there lessons we can share?
- What evidence do we already have for ‘what works’ in respect of recovery and return to employment. Can we find ways to share and frame that experience in ways that bring us together to protect the most vulnerable?
Please see further information and links below:
DRUGSCOPE’S INITIATIVE
DWP email address – [email protected]
‘My death might be seen as a cost saving‘
In Work, Better Off: next steps to full employment
(Green Paper), DWP, July 2007
Ready for work: full employment in our generation
DWP, December 2007
Working for a Healthier Tomorrow
DH, DWP, March 2008
General links:
Community care article on the disability prime contracting via Pathways to Work
Enquiry run by ACEVO into the commissioning of the last lot of primes (out of 16 contracts only 2 went to TSOs).
http://www.thecompact.org.uk/shared_asp_files/GFSR.asp?NodeID=100949
Summary of key points in the green paper
SERCO
Paul Hayes urges people to respond: http://www.nta.nhs.uk/ ‘Drug users and their families should chip in and have their say on the Government’s new welfare reform proposals, according to Paul Hayes.
IAN WARDLE
Chief Executive
Lifeline Project
Comments from others on the Welfare to Work programme
I think many of the sanctions on problem drug users are similar to those that would face mentally ill people – and given that there are overlaps between drug use and mental illness (broadly defined) it is useful to consider the two together. Some of the issues that strike me immediately – and have been rehearsed by many commentators are the following:-
- when the job market is contracting the sense in compelling people to apply for available jobs is fanciful.
- people with social skills/ relating to people problems are not easily employable in today’s service economy.
- fact rarely mentioned is the way the world of work has become more pressured and demanding – there is little scope for work groups to ‘carry’ fragile colleagues or those who cannot keep up the pace now required – all that emphasis on productivity has removed the spare capacity and less stressful jobs there used to be.
- some of this is not new – there has been pressure on people on incapacity benefit to be assessed regularly and to participate in programmes designed to improve their attitude to work, physical abilities and mental capacity – some enthusiastically offered by quite well rewarded and well intentioned people sometimes through independent providers contracted by the state – but those with intractable problems cannot be easily fitted into available jobs through such programmes –
they can enjoy and benefit from the extra attention they get but this is not the same as saving money nor curing them nor finding them jobs.
- there is some evidence that those who do best in treatment are those who self refer and who are ‘motivated’ – pressure to seek treatment will overload treatment services and reduce the quality of treatment offered to those who are motivated and ready to change.
- work might well be suitable if it is high quality, part time, flexible, subsidised and sheltered – this is not being proposed.
- this agenda will be implemented most likely under a Conservative government -the interesting thing is to consider how it lays the ground for a personal responsibility/ new abstentionist policy.
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