Yes this is a history Gareth Millward Centre for History in Public Health GarethMillwardlshtmacuk Supervisor Martin Gorsky Centre for History in Public Health Improving health worldwide ID: 302985
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50 years of defining disability – Social Security 1965 - 2015
Yes, this is a history…Gareth Millward - Centre for History in Public HealthGareth.Millward@lshtm.ac.uk Supervisor: Martin Gorsky
Centre for History in Public Health
Improving health
worldwide
www.lshtm.ac.ukSlide2
D.I.G. Campaign
Pre-1965 : No specific benefitNational Assistance Board or Sickness BenefitWar Pensions and Industrial InjuriesDIG’s Comprehensive disability income to cover:The loss of earnings power
The ‘extra costs of disablement’Lobbied government extensivelyGained some concessionsSlide3
The discrepancy...
* - providing he has an adequate contribution record** - based on degree of injury, not on the actual financial/social effects of that injuryMRC: MSS 108/4/2, DIG, What John and Mary Need and Don’t Get (July, 1972)
On holidayIndustrialInvalidity Pension*£6.75100% Disablement Pension**£11.20Invalidity Allowance£0.70Unemployability Supplement£6.75Wife
£4.15Invalidity Allowance
£0.701st child£3.30Dependent Wife£4.152nd child£2.401st child£3.30Family allowance£0.902nd child
£2.40
Attendance Allowance
£5.40
Family allowance
£0.90
Constant attendance
allowance (high rate)£9.00Exceptionally severe disablement allowance£4.50TOTAL (tax free)£23.60TOTAL (tax free)£42.90
D.I.G. CampaignSlide4
1972 - 1993
1972 – Invalidity Benefit1972 – Attendance Allowance1975 – Mobility Allowance1975 – Non-Contributory Invalidity Pension1977 – Housewives’ Non-Contributory Invalidity Pension1977 – Invalid Care Allowance1984 – Severe Disablement Allowance1988 – Independent Living Fund (reformed 1991)
1993 – Disability Living Allowance1993 – Disability Working AllowanceSlide5
Thalidomide
1962 onwardsMajor breakthrough in 1974Payments awarded to thalidomide affected childrenWhy this case and not others?What about those who could not sue?Slide6
Welcome as they may be for the few who will benefit, the measures recently announced for thalidomide children and congenitally disabled children highlight the anomalies of the current provisions and unfortunately heighten the sense of injustice harboured by disabled people with equal or more severe disabilities. This feeling of injustice will remain so long as the help offered to disabled people depends on the financial effects of their disabilities imposed on them and their families but on whether they were fortunate enough to sue for compensation.
Betty Veal, Chair of DIG. Press Release 24 October 1974Slide7
Incapacity Benefit
1995Introduced a new ‘objective’ medical test called the “All Work Test”AWT replaced by the “Personal Capability Assessment” in 2000.Designed to be more restrictive due to escalating costs of Invalidity BenefitAlso supposedly to focus on what people CAN rather than CANNOT do – and to encourage people into workSlide8
Mental health descriptors
b
Often sits for hours doing nothing2gAgitation, confusion or forgetfulness has resulted in mishaps or accidents in the 3 months before the test is applied
1
hConcentration can only be sustained by prompting1d
Does not care about his appearance or
living conditions
1
e
Frequently
feels that there are so many things to do that he gives up because of fatigue, apathy or disinterest
1
e
Prefers to be left alone for six hours or more each day
1
The New All Work Test, Leaflet IB124, DSS, April 1995, pp. 29-31.Slide9
E.S.A.
2008In 2010 a new “Work Capability Assessment” replaced PCA.“Tougher” medical test.Contained a new group within – Work Related Activity GroupRadical in that it accepts disabled people can be capable of work but still discriminated against in the work placeStill
contributorySlide10
“Whose Benefit?”Slide11
Today
Government has made the WCA more restrictive.WRAG claims limited to 365 days.DLA to be replaced with Personal Independence Payment and a new stringent medical test will be applied.Claimants of incapacity benefit to be “migrated” to ESA by end of 2013.Reforms designed to:Reduce expenditure on welfareReduce fraud
Encourage people “put on the scrap heap” into workConcentrate resources on those “most in need”Slide12
Conclusions
Since 1960s, government has accepted that disabled people deserve coverage in the social security system.Expansion to “cover loss of earnings” and “extra costs” up to mid-1970s.Since mid-1970s, attempts to cut costs have dominated, reaching their high points in early-1990s and early-2010s.Reforms would suggest that the “social model” of disability has not been understood or ignored.All governments believe that there is a medical standard – a line – which can be applied to individuals to see if they are “really” disabled.