VAST numbers of Scots will be impoverished, with 115,000 people losing incapacity benefits because of Westminster reforms, a new report has warned.
It says “countless” households are facing “untold distress” as the current headline total of 275,000 men and women on incapacity benefits is cut by 115,000 by 2014.
The report, published today by Sheffield Hallam University, says that 65,000 people in Scotland will be pushed out of the benefits system altogether, forcing a big increase in reliance on other family members.
It also says the reforms will add 35,000 to the number of those seeking Jobseeker’s Allowance. Professor Steve Fothergill, who co-wrote the report, said: “The incapacity benefit numbers need to be brought down, but this is not the way.”
Under the new rules, claimants face a tougher medical test, existing claimants are being re-tested, there are new requirements to engage in work-related activity, and the entitlement to non-means tested benefit is time-limited.
The report says that by 2014 the reforms will cut incapacity claimant numbers across the UK by nearly one million, of which more than 800,000 will be existing claimants who will lose their entitlement. Mr Fothergill said the reduction in the numbers did not mean there is currently widespread fraud or that the health problems and disabilities were “anything less than real”.
The report said the biggest impact will be on the older industrial areas of Scotland, the north of England and Wales, where local economies have been struggling to cope with job losses and where the prospects of former claimants finding work are weakest.
In Scotland, Glasgow will be hit hardest. The report estimates that more than 22,000 people are likely to lose their incapacity benefits and more than 12,000 will be denied benefits entirely.
Other hard-hit areas have been identified as Inverclyde, West Dunbartonshire and Clackmannanshire, with more prosperous areas such as Edinburgh and Aberdeen escaping more lightly.
Mr Fothergill said: “The large numbers that will be pushed off incapacity benefits over the next two to three years are entirely the result of changes in benefit rules – the introduction of a new, tougher medical test and, in particular, the more widespread application of means-testing from next April onwards.”
He said the estimates were based on experience in areas where the scheme had been piloted and on the Department for Work and Pensions’ own assumptions about the impact on benefit claimants.
A Scottish Government spokeswoman said: “The Scottish Government believes that the welfare benefit system should help and support those who can work to move into employment. We recognise that the system is broken but we need to ensure that it is reformed in a fundamentally fair way.”
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