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I recently watched a television documentary about people claiming incapacity benefit. It had two main themes: first, that there has been an explosion in the number of people claiming the benefit; and second, that lots of them are on the fiddle - such as the "incapacitated" man up a ladder cleaning windows. In fairness, though, it did emphasise that not all those on incapacity benefit were committing fraud.
As I watched, annoyance and a sense of deja vu washed over me. Annoyance, because one of the programme's implications - that the past few years have seen a migration of the work-shy from jobseekers allowance to the more generous incapacity benefit - is not borne out by the figures.


True, there are more than 2.7 million people claiming incapacity benefit, but this includes more than 900,000 who receive national insurance credits, not cash, and more than 400,000 whose health is so bad they are exempt from the "personal capacity" test. It also includes those who in the past would have claimed severe disablement allowance, which has been abolished for new claimants. The 2.7 million does not show the steady drop in applications and does not mention that long-term incapacity benefit has become taxable, unlike its predecessor, invalidity benefit.

My deja vu came from many past stories which have tried to paint all claimants as fraudsters; the ones that often appear before any suspected rule change. I remember the stories of families having huge rents paid by housing benefit in advance of restrictions in the mid 1990s. I also recall the sudden references to older people living the life of Riley in care homes they didn't need to be in just before legislation passed responsibility for this to cash-limited local authorities.


Instead of blaming those who are not working, there should be more emphasis on occupational rehabilitation. The experience of other countries, including Australia, is that early positive intervention and individual work-based support are the way to get people with health problems back into the labour market. It would certainly be more humane and productive.

Andrew Young works with Hertfordshire Council's money advice unit