Means test sets 'personal assistance trap' for disabled people wanting to work

Severely disabled people who choose to work can find they are better off on benefits because of means testing that reduces public funding for their personal care as their earnings increase. This 'personal assistance trap' creates a major disincentive for those hoping to take advantage of the Government's 'New Deal', according to research funded by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation.

The study, carried out for the Disablement Income Group (DIG), involved in-depth interviews with more than 40 severely disabled people who either held jobs or had foregone opportunities to work. Its findings challenge the assumption that people with severe impairments are incapable of work or always prefer to stay at home.

However, few disabled people who need a high level of personal assistance are earning enough to cover bills that may reach £400 a week or more. Many rely on support from local authority Social Services, the Government-funded Independent Living Fund (ILF) or the Employment Service's Access to Work scheme.

Examining the means tests applied by the ILF - and increasingly used by social services - the study found that:

• Personal assistance users receiving ILF support were required to contribute all income which took them more than £30 a week above Income Support level towards their care costs.
• Most social services did not expect disabled people to make such large contributions, but local authority charging policies were becoming more stringent. It was unusual for authorities to fund care costing more than £200 a week without insisting that disabled people of working age applied to the ILF for the additional costs.

The report also highlights wide variations in the charging rules applied by local authorities.

Different regimes not only meant inequity in the way that working disabled people were treated in different places, but could also create problems if the opportunity arose to move to a job in another part of the country.

The number of agencies with which personal assistance users were obliged to negotiate emerged as a further difficulty. Taking a job and arranging appropriate assistance at home and at work could require dealings with social services, the ILF, a brokerage agent and the Employment Service's Personal Assessment and Counselling Team (PACT).

The Employment Service's Access to Work scheme, which helps fund the cost of special equipment and personal support in the workplace itself, was felt to be poorly publicised, and there was confusion over the range of personal assistance that it would cover.

Ann Kestenbaum, author of the report, argues for reconsideration of the ways in which working disabled people are required to contribute towards their care. Policy options for change would include the introduction of standardised charges, an earnings 'disregard' that allowed workers to keep more of their earnings and changes to tax allowances.

She said: "Severely disabled people who want to work are caught between strands of social policy that are pulling in different directions. On the one hand, there is pressure to reduce public costs through means testing. On the other, there is anti-discrimination legislation, Access to Work and the New Deal, which are meant to promote employment for disabled people."

She added: "Managing personal assistance as well as holding down a job is very demanding. Yet many of the disabled people interviewed for this study were prepared to accept those demands provided more was done to remove the financial disincentives."