BETTER SUPPORT NEEDED TO HELP LONGER-TERM INCAPACITY BENEFITS CLAIMANTS BACK TO WORK

New research by the Institute for Employment Studies (IES) shows that increasing healthcare professionals’ involvement and engaging more effectively with employers are both key to helping people with longstanding health problems return to work.

IES’ report for the Improving Health, Increasing Employment Partnership in Birmingham and Solihull aims to help programme commissioners to improve support for longer-term incapacity benefits (IB) claimants. The analysis was based on national data and a survey of programmes from around the country.

The research identifies a number of key areas where there is little support to help longer-term IB claimants back to work:

• Health is perceived by unemployed people with health problems as the main barrier preventing them from working, yet health advice is not always an integral part of back-to-work support programmes for IB claimants. Healthcare professionals generally do not have the training and knowledge to advise on employment issues.
• Engaging with employers is another area where support programmes could do more. Some employers have negative attitudes to taking on longer-term IB claimants, particularly in areas of high unemployment where employers have a greater choice of job applicants.
• Back-to-work support programmes need to tackle employer stereotypes or prejudice and provide in-work support for employers and employees.
• Being out of work for a significant period of time means many IB claimants lack up-to-date workplace skills, yet existing programmes often do not include training opportunities that would help to get them back up to speed.
• Little help is available to support people into self-employment, although this is a common type of work among disabled people and those with health problems.

In addition, the research highlights some problematic issues in existing back-to-work support programmes:

• The involvement of primary care staff in support programmes can have a very positive impact on helping people back into work, but few existing programmes take advantage of this.
• New back-to-work support programmes may need to innovate to address the complex needs of longer-term IB claimants, as there are few existing programmes focusing specifically on this group.
• Older men are the largest single group of IB claimants, but there are few programmes to help older people on IB to return to work.
• There can be tension between tough programme targets to get people into employment and the complex needs of people in this group, who are often not work-ready. The Government and the voluntary and private sectors need to design back-to-work support programmes carefully so that they are flexible enough to meet the needs of longer-term IB claimants.

Ruth Francis, research fellow at the Institute for Employment Studies and one of the report’s authors, said: “This research comes at a critical time as the Government is focusing on how it can support longer-term IB claimants, who in the past have been somewhat neglected. In its welfare reform Green Paper in July, the Government pledged to work with the private and voluntary sectors to offer personalised back-to-work support programmes for longer-term IB claimants. IES’s research will make an important contribution to thinking about programme design.”

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