02/08/2011

The WCA is the test used to assess disabled people’s ‘fitness for work’. The Select Committee report states that the test needs to ‘accurately assesses claimant’s employability and needs in the workplace’ and that the government needs to strengthen the ‘link between the assessment process and employment support under the Work Programme’. The report also criticizes the service provided by the notorious Atos Healthcare, which carries out the WCA.

The report also points out that media coverage of the reassessment is ‘often irresponsible and inaccurate’ and condemned ‘pejorative language’ and the portrayal of the reassessment process ‘as some sort of scheme to weed out benefit cheats’.

The day after the report was published, the chair of the Select Committee, Anne Begg MP, wrote to Minister for Employment Chris Grayling expressing serious concerns at the misrepresentation of benefit claimants as ‘scroungers’ and ‘work shy’ by some sections of the media. The committee questioned whether the government was taking sufficient care in how it gave information to the media.

A coalition of 50 disability charities condemned the government’s use of dangerously misleading statistics saying they are fuelling stereotypes which contribute to hatred and violence against disabled people.

The report is available at:
www.publications.parliament.uk

The Select Committee Chair’s letter to the Minister for Employment is available at:

www.parliament.uk/business

The Disability Benefits Consortium letter is available at:

www.disabilityalliance.org