n/a
Home / work capability assessment

work capability assessment

  • November 18, 2012
    Workhouse, welfare and WCA: Dickens’ day and now

    After a walk through “the little world of poverty enclosed within the workhouse walls”, Charles Dickens concluded that “We have come to this absurd, this dangerous, this monstrous pass, that the dishonest felon is, in respect of cleanliness, order, diet, and accommodation, better provided for, and taken care of, than the honest pauper.”

  • November 17, 2012
    Time for the 'comfortable' to rise up

    This week, when a desperate Spanish woman Amaia Egana committed suicide as her home was about to be repossessed, her outraged neighbours took to the streets, and the Spanish government is now going to change the law to try to prevent a repeat of this tragedy.

  • November 16, 2012
    Celebrities join activists to back action on disability work tests

    Actor and broadcaster Stephen Fry and political activist and media personality Sally Bercow are backing a major social media disability campaign.

  • November 14, 2012
    Official policy on disability work tests is to deny reality

    The former UK minister for employment Chris Grayling was adamant that he was "unreservedly and implacably opposed to a real world test" when it comes to assessing people with disabilities and serious illnesses in terms of their fitness for work and eligibility for benefits. That position remains unchanged.

  • November 13, 2012
    How many more seriously ill people must suffer before the government acts?

    Since the Work Capability Assessment fit-for-work test (which in large part determines eligibility for Employment and Support Allowance) was introduced in October 2008, more than 400,000 people with serious illnesses and profound disabilities have appealed against the decision to strip them of state support.

  • November 12, 2012
    People's Review of the Work Capability Assessment (#realWCA) published

    As we report elsewhere today (12 November 2012), the WeAreSpartacus network of disabled people have today published a detailed and compelling 70-page People's Review of the Work Capability Assessment, which has taken some months of hard work under difficult circumstances to research and compile.

  • November 12, 2012
    Spartacus launches new disability rights campaign on social media

    The 'We are Spartacus' (http://wearespartacus.org.uk/) network promoting disabled people's views on welfare reform, is launching a major campaign today (Monday 12 November 2012), and aims to make a big social media splash from 8am onwards.

  • November 12, 2012
    Work Capability Assessment not fit for purpose, says new report

    A damning new report published by disabled people today shows that the government’s Work Capability Assessment (WCA) is not fit for purpose.

  • September 5, 2012
    Work-or-starve plans for seriously ill welfare claimants might backfire

    The UK government’s ‘work capability assessment’ for sick and disabled people has been revealed to be blatantly unfair, and decisions are frequently overturned on appeal.

  • January 30, 2012
    Slashing welfare benefits: scolding and false sympathy

    Successive UK governments, and their media allies, have been vigorous in smearing benefit claimants. To achieve this, politicians and their propagandists have played on popular stereotypes, stoking up prejudice against ‘scroungers’ while lavishly rewarding members of their own class at taxpayers’ expense. Savi Hensman looks at the reality behind the rhetoric, especially in relation to assessment.