So today Professor Harrington delivered his report on the nefarious Work Capability Assessment (WCA) test. In case any one doesn’t know – this is the test that decides whether a person with ill health or a person with disability is allocated to the support group of Employment Support Allowance (ESA), ( this is only for a very few people with no hope of ever working) or the work related activity group of ESA (WRAG where you suffer under the threats of conditionality) or goes straight to JSA without passing GO.
If you want to read the Harrington Report report you can read it here
If you want to read the response from MIND (Paul Farmer the MIND CEO was a member of the Harrington Commission) you can read it here
Read what Rhydian fon James form Broken of Britain says about Harrrington in the Guardian here
It’s packed full of excellent suggestions. And it isn’t really Professor Harrington’s fault that it completely misses the point. Professor Harrington was only asked to look at WCA and that was the extent of his brief.
It isn’t Professor Harrington’s fault that ESA isn’t fit for purpose and that the ESA groups are flawed and that there isn’t a safe group for people with severe and enduring illness or disability. It isn’t his fault that the dreaded ‘conditionality’ that is terrorising people with disability runs right through the WRAG and makes it unfit for people with severe disability. It really isn’t his fault that ESA in unfit for purpose.
Until a safe place is made under ESA for people with long term disability free of conditionality - no matter what you do to the WCA – it has nowhere safe to allocate them.
ESA isn’t fit for purpose
No threats and conditionality on people with severe and enduring disability
When is someone going to sort this out.
