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121 TEN Beliefs about disability Summary The introduction of new benefits in the 1970s reflected a shift in social attitudes to disabled people and recognition that society had a role in responding to their financial needs. Policy since then has, with rare exceptions, been a response to fears that the changed attitudes and benefit provisions may have created excessive, or indeed illicit, demand for benefits. Survey evidence on the extent of disability has proved influential, increasing the climate for policy reform, although the definition and measurement of
165 THIRTEEN The economy and disability Summary The link between the economy and caseloads is likely to be most direct in the case of Incapacity Benefit. Incapacity Benefit caseloads rose at a constant rate throughout most of the period to 1999. The growth was primarily the result of fewer people leaving benefit, resulting in an increase in the length of spells that people spent on benefit. Benefit claims increased as a direct result of more women working, who, when they became disabled, were entitled to benefit on account of their contribution record. Increased
51 5 Social policy and disability Colin Cameron In this chapter I will explore the relationship between social policy and the experience of disability, drawing on perspectives developed by disabled people and using the UK as a case study. I will look at contested meanings of both terms, social policy and disability, and develop an argument suggesting that social policy has largely constructed disability as dependency. I conclude that the aspiration to equality for disabled people remains one which requires continued struggle and that progressive intentions
163 Chapter 16 Benefits for people with disabilities Disability is a complex set of issues, and benefits are given on a wide range of principles, including, for example, need, compensation, rehabilitation, the needs of carers, and desert. The main benefits for people with disabilities are Income Support or Employment and Support Allowance, Disability Living Allowance, Attendance Allowance and the Working Tax Credit. The system has been complicated by attempts to offer distinct benefits while trying at the same time to save money, often by excluding
137 ELEVEN Institutional factors and disability benefits Summary Aspects of the benefit regime and its implementation are implicated in the growth of disability benefit caseloads. This applies to both Disability Living Allowance and Incapacity Benefit. Until recently Disability Living Allowance was payable for ‘life’, the effect of which has been to set caseloads on a trajectory of sustained growth. The introduction of self-assessment for Disability Living Allowance may have helped to increase benefit up-take, while the appeals system and welfare rights activity
69 5 Learning disabilities and social work Jan Walmsley Introduction Despite considerable policy and legislative changes over the past century, society continues to exclude, neglect and frequently damage people with learning disabilities. Hence the need for families to advocate on behalf of their relatives. How might social work respond? At the time this chapter was written an initiative from the English government was launched to pilot a named social worker for people with learning disabilities (SCIE 2017). The fact that such an initiative was perceived to
98 Benefits Number 43 • Volume 13 • Issue 2 Disability: rights, work and security Marilyn Howard Disability is a complex and contested issue, often with tensions between policy approaches of ‘benefits’ and ‘rights’, that is, benefits as compensation for exclusion rather than civil rights to enable inclusion (Daniel, 1998). These intersect with different models of disability (medical, social and transactional: Howard, 2003). Traditionally, the medical model has been the ‘moral basis’ for benefits (SSAC, 1997), although increasingly the social model is accepted
41 THREE Sickness and disability reform in the Netherlands In their original design, welfare states were set up to protect workers of the industrial age by providing risk-pooling social insurances for risks encountered in the social system of production: unemployment, disability and the need for a pension during old age. European welfare states, after recovering from the Great Depression and World War II, expanded these policies as their economies thrived and employment expanded, allowing a generous welfare state response to social risks. But generous
179 FOURTEEN Understanding the growth in disability benefits Summary Increasing recognition of the financial and opportunity costs of disability, and public perceptions that views of disabled people were ‘legitimate’ long- term welfare recipients, were important factors in the growth in benefit caseloads. They led to the introduction of new benefits, and possibly higher up-take. The changing economy and labour market may have contributed to increasing benefit caseloads, especially to longer periods on benefit. Market- led requirements for firms to be more
The rights-based perspective on disability is a relatively new approach that moves away from medical and charity-based approaches (Stein, 2007 : 75–122). It is estimated that 15 per cent of the world’s population live with a disability. Persons with disability have been described by the United Nations (UN) as the world’s largest minority, the majority of whom live in developing countries. Women and persons with lower educational attainment are more likely to live with a disability. The UN has recently collated research on people with disabilities which
