As many as 9,000 people in Tayside and Fife will be stripped of benefits entirely because of government reforms, a new report claims.
Researchers from the Centre for Regional Economic and Social Research at Sheffield Hallam University estimate 65,000 Scots will lose incapacity benefit entirely, while another 115,00 will have their benefit reduced.
There will be an additional 36,000 Jobseeker’s allowance claimants as a result of the UK government plans to replace incapacity benefit with Employment and Support Allowance (ESA).
There are currently two million people in the UK in receipt of some form of incapacity benefit, and in an effort to reduce this total all current recipients of the benefit have to undergo new tests.
However, the tests used to determine whether someone should continue to receive ESA or Jobseeker’s Allowance have already had to be overhauled after criticism they were too rigid and mechanistic.
Citizens Advice Scotland say nearly 70% of people were told they would not get ESA after the test won the benefit appeal, although the Department of Work and Pensions say the true figure of successful appeals is 40%.
The researchers found that changes to the benefit system will have the largest impact on the older industrial areas of Scotland, Wales and the north of England.
In Dundee, they have calculated 2,400 people will lose all their benefits while 4,300 will have them reduced.
In Angus 1,100 people could their incapacity benefits over the next three years while 1,700 will receive less support.
In Fife, 4,300 people will lose all benefits and 7,700 will have them scaled back, while in Perth and Kinross 1,200 people will lose all benefits and another 1,00 will have them cut.
Professor Steve Fothergill, co-author of the report, said: ”The large numbers that will be pushed off incapacity benefits over the next two to three years are entirely the result of changes in benefit rules the introduction of a new tougher medical test and, in particular, the more widespread application of means-testing from next April onwards.
”The reduction does not mean that there is currently widespread fraud, or that the health problems and disabilities are anything less than real. The reforms to incapacity benefits that are under way are probably the most far-reaching changes to the benefits system for at least a generation.”
A Scottish Government spokeswoman said: ”The Scottish Government believes that the welfare benefit system should help and support those who can work to move into employment.”
SNP work and pensions spokeswoman Dr Eilidh Whiteford MP added: ”Withdrawal of incapacity benefit must be based on individual medical need, not some arbitrary target set by ministers in Whitehall.
”Return-to-work initiatives can benefit both the economy and the individual, but people should only return to the workplace when they are genuinely able and when correct support measures are available.”
Citizens Advice Scotland head of policy Susan McPhee said: ”This report shows the extent of the crisis we have been predicting for years. Hundreds of thousands of our most vulnerable people are having their lives devastated by a reform which is not fit for purpose.
”If the government wants to cut down on fraud and help people into work we support that, but with this system they are in fact targeting many people who are genuinely sick and unable to work. They are removing their income and plunging them into poverty.
”CAB benefits advisers at the moment are overwhelmed by people who have been found ‘fit for work’ by the ESA assessment when they are nothing of the kind 70% of these people who are helped by the CAB have their assessment overturned at appeal, which shows how poor the system is and how many people are wrongly caught out by it.”
Employment minister Chris Grayling said: ”Our changes will make sure those in genuine need get more support.”