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Posted on 11/19/2007 4:52:11 AM PST by UKrepublican
HAIN AIMS TO END 'SICKNOTE CULTURE'
The Government has insisted that a new disability test aimed at ending Britain's "sicknote culture" is not about punishing people but aims to help them back into work.
Work and Pensions Secretary Peter Hain defended the test, which is expected to get 20,000 people a year off sickness benefits and into work.
He told BBC Breakfast: "Everybody's individual circumstances need to be looked at. We want to help people. This is the point."
He added: "It is not about punishing people. I think those from the disability lobby - who are entitled to put their point of view, and I welcome that - are wrong to think that we are doing this as a form of punishment, this is not about that.
"This is about giving people opportunities because you are better off in work, the evidence shows that."
The new medical test, to be introduced in October next year alongside the new Employment and Support Allowance, will assess what an individual can do - rather than cannot do.
Its unveiling comes as new figures revealed almost 2,000 people are on benefits because they are classed as too fat to work, at a cost to the taxpayer of £4.4 million every year.
Everyone applying for the new allowance will have to take the test, which will replace the current Personal Capability Assessment, and it is estimated half of those will not pass.
The current test is weighted more towards a person's physical disability and bases itself around assessing people's incapability for work.
But under the new Work Capability Assessment, you will no longer score points simply because you are unable to walk more than 400 metres, for example. Instead the new test will look at things like a person's ability to use a computer keyboard or a mouse
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Gubmint: Endorse a mentality that creates a problem, then spend money to fix it. Repeat ad infinitum. Never question the source, that would be judgemental.
Too fat to work?
I won’t say that I am shocked, in the US we have people in the same condition. But rather then say they are to fat, they have extreme cases of diabetes from all of the excess weight they are carrying.
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