ESA sanctions - learning disability and mental illness
- By Lisa Jones
-
Tue 28 Apr 2009 09:22
Carerwatch welcome this report by the Select Committee on Human Rights which draws attention to the inappropriate use of threats, sanctions and conditionality in the new Welfare Reform Bill if used against people with learning disability or severe mental illness.
Carerwatch welcome the fight against this in the Lords this week
If you know any Lords please ask them to help.
1.25 The CAB consider that sanctions in relation to JSA are currently administered in a
way which does not take into account individual claimants with mental health problems or
learning disabilities. They consider that further conditionality in respect of JSA and ESA
may exacerbate these problems:
Government indicates that sanctions are a last resort, but CAB advisers report seeing
clients who have been sanctioned several times. They are often vulnerable clients
with learning disabilities who have failed to understand what is required of them or
who haven’t attended courses or applied for jobs because the options have been
inappropriate to their disabilities or levels of literacy. Without proper probing of
claimants’ failure to attend and without sufficient Disability Employment Advisers,
there is a serious risk that vulnerable claimants will be unfairly and inappropriately
sanctioned.40
pg 11 / 12 herewww.publications.parliament.uk