Reblogged from Work Test Whistleblower:
Make that three and a half years! The Coalition is 75% of the way through its
five year term. How much of a dent has it made in Incapacity Benefit/Employment
and Support Allowance spending?
Figures released by the DWP today say that,
between May 2010 and September 2013, the number of people claiming ESA or IB
fell by 156,000 from a starting total of 2,460,000.
That's 6.3%.
The
Coalition has always been coy about saying how many IB/ESA recipients it ever
expected to get off those benefits, and outside opinion on this varies hugely.
From the way the WCA process was set up, I suspect the DWP originally envisaged
as many as 70% of claimants coming off those benefits, either immediately after
a WCA or within 12 months of undergoing one.
So it's another DWP fail, this
time on its own terms!
What's 6% in real money?
We know that
hardly anyone coming off IB or ESA finds lasting work - only about 5% do - so
we can assume that they are almost all transferring to Jobseeker's Allowance.
Let's say that this constitutes a 'saving' of £200 per person per month, or
£2400 a year. Multiplied by 156,000, that's £374 million a year.
Sounds
impressive.
But wait. Those 156,000 people didn't come off IB all in one go
at the beginning, they came off it steadily over three years. So the average
annual saving since the Coalition came to power is probably about half that -
£187million each year, since 2010.
But Atos have been paid £112 million a
year and the Tribunals cost about £50 million a year on top.
So that leaves
an actual saving of more like £25 million per annum.
But we haven't finished
costing it yet. If there are about 1500 Atos assessors then there must be at
least that number of DWP Decision Makers, on about £25,000 a year. That adds at
least another £37 million a year to the overall bill.
So it looks like
the whole flawed project hasn't 'saved' any money at all, and has almost
certainly cost more than it 'saved' through fractionally reducing the
number of claimants.
And that's before you take into account
the human cost...
