March 2006

What: In her paper, Dr Alison Ravetz highlights the lack of supporting evidence for claims made in the green paper (and related DWP research reports) and the disconnect between its proposals and the reality of disabled people’s lives. Ravetz concludes that:
“what might be expected is a slowly accumulating number of bad decisions and blatantly scandalous cases, eventually giving rise to a groundswell of unease… In the long run, this reform will stand or fall by the correctness of its belief that two thirds of all claimants are well enough to compete as jobseekers in the labour market. If this is wrong, the cost to society of a system that forces people into jobs they cannot sustain, on threat of penury, might well outweigh any financial savings; while the cost, in stress, to those people and their families will be incalculable”

Why significant: Through looking in detail at DWP research reports, Ravetz predicts the harm that will be caused by welfare reform.