Equality North East

How can we best help Incapacity claimants?

Incapacity Benefit (IB) claimants are by far the largest group of non-employed
benefit claimants of working age. Across Britain as a whole, there are more than 2.6 million IB claimants - up nearly two million on a generation ago. IB claimants outnumber the unemployed on Jobseeker’s Allowance by more than three-to-one.

Britain’s traditional industrial areas are the epicentre of the IB phenomenon. In most of the towns and cities where coal, steel, shipbuilding and other manufacturing once dominated, more than 10 per cent of all adults of working age now claim IB. The Government has made a commitment to reduce the number claiming IB by one million by 2016. To hit this target the big reductions will have to happen in the areas where IB claimants are concentrated - above all in the industrial parts of the Midlands, the North, Scotland and Wales. Major reforms to IB are underway. IB itself will be replaced by Employment and Support Allowance in October this year. A new ‘Work Capability’ test is being introduced.
The Pathways to Work initiative, targeted at sick and disabled claimants, is being rolled out across the country.
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