The UK Government has announced significant changes to the UK benefits system to address two main issues: the rising number of working-age people leaving the workforce due to ill health and a consequential increase in the social security bill. This joint paper from Scottish Hazards and the Jimmy Reid Foundation examines the factors driving this policy, focusing on its causes rather than its symptoms. There is no evidence that cutting benefits will address the underlying causes of ill health, so we argue that governments should first focus on what is making the UK workforce ill.
While the increase in ill-health is a concern, the proportion of British working people remains high by international standards. The UK is not an economy whose failure is that too few people work. The protective elements of work are undeniable, but only if good quality work is delivered. Benefit levels in the UK are not high by international standards—the UK spends less on welfare as a share of GDP than the average for developed nations. Cutting benefits may result in short-term savings in public finances, but there is little evidence that it will help people get back to work.
The starting point for solutions has to be workplace ill health. The increasing state pension age means more people are working for longer and becoming sicker. Long hours, shift work and work-related stress all contribute to ill health, with half of all UK work-related ill health due to stress, anxiety or depression. Ultimately, a bad job can be worse for health than no job, and the UK has been slower to act than many European countries. Job-related ill health is costing UK businesses up to £41 billion a year, with 1.77 million workers suffering due to poor job quality. Very few employers (as low as 3%) invest in the wider range of services that occupational health professionals can provide. For too many employers, the solution to ill health at work is increasingly punitive absence management systems and dismissal.
• This paper sets out a range of actions governments should take, including:
Meaningful support to help people get back to work, ditching the ‘any job’ approach.
Strengthening NHS mental health services with a focus on improving preventative services for children and young people. Create proper care pathways for long-Covid.
Changing the employment culture, enforcing employers’ legal obligations under the Equality Act to support access to work, and mandating organisations to undertake proactive assessments of potential health risks.
Stronger employment rights, extending the duty of care for employers, subsidising the cost of long-term sickness absence, and incentivising vocational rehabilitation.
A fully funded and comprehensive Youth Guarantee to give all young people the best possible start to their working lives.
An integrated approach to working-age health, underpinned by including occupational health and vocational rehabilitation in mainstream health care, which no longer relies on inadequate private sector providers.
Repair the damage done by cuts to the Health and Safety Executive and the Employment Medical Advisory Service. Expand the trade union health and safety representatives’ role in delivering safe and healthy work, including roving safety representatives and union enforcement notices.
Incorporate health and safety more explicitly in Fair Work principles and in Fair Work First, focusing on mental health risks. While the Scottish Government could do much more under existing powers, there is a strong case for devolving employment law, including health and safety, to Scotland.
Scottish Hazards Director Ian Tasker said,
‘Scottish Hazards believes investment in occupational health is crucial if economic inactivity is to be challenged. The DWP should collaborate with devolved administrations, trade unions, employers, and other stakeholders to develop comprehensive services that address ill health in the workplace. Keeping people healthy at work and creating healthy work is being ignored in the Scottish Government’s Fair Work agenda and this needs to be addressed by investing in, and developing, services such as Healthy Working Lives and Working Health Services Scotland.’
Jimmy Reid Foundation Director, Dave Watson said,
‘In this paper, we conclude that there is an urgent need to promote healthy, sustainable work, arising from the steady stream of workers leaving the workplace due to insufficient protections and insecurity. Cutting benefits now will affect hundreds of thousands of people who are out of work for health reasons and do not have a viable alternative. Governments should focus on addressing the causes of ill health in the workplace and the broader health inequalities in society.’