UK youth disability benefit reform under-25s Universal Credit health element, Digi Mart USA News (United Kingdom): Young people aged under 25 without severe disabilities could be offered employment support instead of £217 a month in Universal Credit under plans for a historic change to Britain’s benefits system. Youth employment chief Alan Milburn is due to publish his long-awaited report next week.
In the report, Milburn is expected to recommend that Prime Minister Andy Burnham design a completely new and targeted social security system for young people. The proposal is part of Labour’s ambition to put “work over welfare” for young people and make it harder for them to be signed off for health reasons.
Instead of the health element of Universal Credit (UCH), which is worth £217 a month to new claimants, young people without severe work-limiting disabilities could be offered education, training and employment support so that they do not end up signed off. According to the Resolution Foundation, there are currently 260,000 young people receiving UCH, and there is no requirement for them to engage with support to help them move closer to work, education or training.
The i Paper has reported that Burnham and Work and Pensions Secretary Pat McFadden are rumoured to be ready to accept Milburn’s 200-page report in full. Last week, while visiting Denmark to study its social security system, McFadden told The i Paper that he saw “merit” in the idea of a “distinct” system for young people, but said he was undecided and open to discussion about the age range it would cover.
Burnham, Milburn and McFadden have all emphasized “employment support” over unemployment benefits for young people, older job seekers and people with disabilities and health conditions. However, they have also suggested that a European-style system, in which people are supported through subsidized job schemes, could require spending on reform before Britain’s overall welfare bill can be reduced.
McFadden said he would seek more Treasury money for “investment” in reforms that give people “opportunities” instead of “an assessment, a cheque, and a goodbye.” Burnham has acknowledged that the reset of the welfare system will require “investment up front.”
Concern about the cost of Britain’s benefits bill is growing. Total welfare spending is forecast to rise from £353 billion this year to £431 billion in 2031/32.
Just under half of that figure is spent on the state pension, which the Prime Minister has pledged to remove the triple lock on.
The recommendations come as almost 1 million 16- to 24-year-olds are recorded as not in education, employment or training (NEET). That number was higher after the 2008 financial crisis, peaking at 1.25 million in late 2011, but McFadden and Milburn have both acknowledged that something has fundamentally changed in recent years.
According to the Resolution Foundation, there has been a sharp rise in the number of teenagers and people in their early 20s claiming disability benefits.
Over the summer, Milburn traveled to the Netherlands to observe its education and employment support systems for young people. The UK’s NEET rate is currently 13.6 per cent, while the Dutch figure is less than half that at 4.8 per cent, making the Netherlands a blueprint for where Britain may head under Milburn’s recommendations.
McFadden also visited the Dutch system on a separate trip with The i Paper.
Like Denmark, the Dutch social security system is devolved, and Milburn is expected to recommend a more locally targeted system for young people in Britain. He is said to believe areas with high NEET rates, such as Blackpool and Middlesbrough, have specific issues, including poor transport links and job markets in transition due to declines in tourism and manufacturing respectively.
It is thought Milburn will recommend giving regional mayors more power to support young people, an approach Burnham favored as Mayor of the Greater Manchester Combined Authority, where he set up the MBacc targeted education system.
The Netherlands and Denmark also take a more “tough love” approach to social security, with state support conditional on young people engaging with work, education and training programs. This is expected to become the case in Britain.
Milburn is expected to recommend moving young people out of the Universal Credit “health pathway,” which pays £217 a month and allows people to be signed off from work entirely through a work capability assessment (WCA), and designing a system that looks at what a young person can do. That could mean a subsidized job through McFadden’s Jobs Guarantee Scheme, which will be expanded to young disabled people next year, or a supported apprenticeship or training scheme.
Milburn’s report will precede another major report being compiled by Sir Stephen Timms, which aims to change the way disability benefits and assessments work. While Milburn may move some young people without severely work-limiting conditions onto a different pathway, certain “vulnerable” groups may receive more “priority support” in the new system than they do now.
These groups could include care leavers, young carers, teenage parents and young people leaving custody, who are considered the most vulnerable NEETs.
Milburn believes care leavers, who have some of the highest NEET rates of any group, should receive sustained, personalized support, including cash, so they are not pulled away from learning and work. This could take the form of an Education Maintenance Allowance (EMA)-style payment of £50 a week for six months for care leavers who are NEET or at serious risk of becoming so.
The support would be conditional on taking part in education, employment or training.
If Burnham and McFadden accept Milburn’s recommendations, they will need to convince Labour MPs to back the new system and secure funding from Chancellor John Healey. Resolution Foundation economists Alex Clegg and Nye Cominetti said that whatever happens next, Labour must not treat NEETs as “a homogenous group.”
“Some are actively looking for work; others aren’t. Some claim benefits; others don’t.
Some are in good health; others grapple with health conditions and disability. Some will be NEET only briefly; others face longer-term challenges,” they said.
A new system for young people will only succeed if it is designed with this in mind, but that is neither quick nor cheap.
