“We will support people with addictions to help them back into work.”
Chris Grayling, 21 April 2011

Cathy Newman checks it out:

David Cameron popped in to see party workers in Bedford today, armed with a message fit for their local election campaign leaflets: that the government is determined to get the long-term unemployed off benefits and into work.  It’s a theme the PM has warmed to time and again.  But today, his employment minister had supplied him with a range of new figures to galvanise the party faithful into action.  They showed more than 80,000 people with drug addiction, alcoholism or obesity are claiming incapacity benefit. And the government’s determined to stop them – and get them jobs. That’s all very laudable, and it’s something Labour had been trying to do too (though admittedly, they’d taken their time about it).  But are ministers providing the support benefits claimants need to get work?

The background

Employment Minister Chris Grayling bagged an impressive haul of headlines on Thursday after revealing some eye-catching statistics.

More than 80,000 people are claiming incapacity benefit for obesity and addiction to alcohol and drugs, the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) revealed.

And some 12,880 alcoholics and 9,200 drug abusers have been dependent on the benefit for more than ten years.

Shocking figures indeed. So what is the Government going to do about it?

The analysis

Those numbers come from figures for incapacity benefit (IB) claimants in August 2010, and are intended to show why the Government is overhauling the system.

Now it’s important to remember that just having a drink problem or drug habit doesn’t automatically entitle you to benefits. You would have to prove that you are incapacitated by health problems to claim any money.

But the Government says that, under Labour, it was too easy for people to get away with claiming the payment for years on end without undergoing regular medical checks.

So from February this year, no new IB claims have been accepted and existing claimants are now being tested using the controversial Work Capacity Assessment to see whether they are really unfit to work or just shirking.

If people are deemed capable of returning to employment, they’ll have to take part in the Work Progamme, which the Government says is the biggest initiative aimed at getting people off benefits in history. Companies will be paid by the government to get benefits claimants into work – and keep them there.

The work and pensions department had originally wanted the scheme to start at the beginning of June. But FactCheck has learnt that some of the companies hired by the government won’t be ready until several months after that. The services company Serco, which is running the Work Programme in South Yorkshire, won’t be up and running until July. And in the South West, Working Links says it won’t launch until mid to late June.

Given that the New Deal – which for 13 years has existed to help the unemployed seek work – came to an end in most parts of the country by the end of March, there are worries the jobless might not get the help they need. The DWP insists, however, that Job Centres will provide extra support until the Work Programme is ready to roll.

And the details of this flagship policy, including the fate of the addicts Mr Grayling seems so keen to help, remain hazy.

The DWP told us that people with drug and alcohol problems will get assistance from specialists as part of the Work Programme, which uses a range of providers from the private, public and voluntary sectors to try to get people out of the welfare system.

Ministers think that paying the providers by results – up to £14,000 for everyone who gets a job which they keep for two years – will provide enough of a financial incentive to help them overcome the obvious difficulties of finding work for thousands of people at a time of high unemployment.

But there are concerns that with the number of people claiming benefits forecast to rise by 70,000 this year alone, the companies involved in the Work Programme will face an uphill struggle.

Earlier this month, the government hailed the Work Programme as a “massive boost for the Big Society”, as many small groups in the voluntary sector currently help the unemployed find work. It said 289 of the subcontractors – the organisations who will actually deal with people on the ground – were from not-for-profit organisations.

But the programme appears to be dominated by behemoths like Serco and Ingeus Deloitte, whose UK CEO is a former Chief Operating Officer for IT at the Department for Work and Pensions.

Just two out of 18 “prime contractors” were from the voluntary sector.

FactCheck asked to see the list of those 289 voluntary sector bodies and we were told: “We don’t have a full list.”

The only thing the DWP could point us to was a list of “examples of organisations we expect to be involved in the Work Programme as subcontractors”, which named just 24 voluntary organisations.

All this raises the question of how confident Mr Grayling can be about the services that will be available to drug and alcohol addicts, if many of the contractual agreements are not in place yet.

Drugscope is one charity concerned about the size of the question mark over what will happen to addicts under the new scheme.

A spokesman said: “It has recently been confirmed that two support programmes for people with drug and alcohol problems are being discontinued, with no new referrals to the Progress to Work scheme after 1 June 2011 and no further funding for dedicated JobCentre drug co-ordinators. Both initiatives provided welcome and necessary tailored support for people with often multiple and complex problems associated with drug dependency.

“It is still unclear what specific support for this client group will be provided by the new Work Programme.”

The DWP assures FactCheck that the Work Programme will be up and running as planned by the summer and that the payment-by-results concept will work. We’ll be keeping a close eye.

Cathy Newman’s verdict:

The Work Programme is an ambitious scheme, which attracts a good deal of public support. Which is no doubt why David Cameron mentioned his benefits crackdown everywhere he went on the campaign trail today. But as Labour discovered, promises on welfare are very hard to keep. The companies hired by the government to get the long-term unemployed back to work aren’t all willing or able to move as fast as ministers would like. And with the claimant count predicted to rise by 70,000 this year alone, the benefits bill is likely to soar too, for the time being at least.

The analysis by Patrick Worrall