IDS & his beloved statistics

Reposted from Ilegal

Now, we all know how Iain Duncan Smith loves his statistics, no matter how inaccurate they may be.

However, the brilliant Nick at Ilegal proves (once again) that IDS has been, er how can I put this … economical with the truth when it comes to the statistics in relation to Employment Support Allowance.

Start with a figure of…..

4,128,310

This is the number of people who have claimed the dreaded Employment & Support Allowance between October 2008 & August 2013.  You can easily check the numbers here. 



Now check the number of people coming off the dreaded Employment & Support Allowance for exactly the same dateshere.  If you add them all up, the number you will come up with is this:

2,288,980 

No, I’ve not got them the wrong way round.  Thousands upon thousands more claimants have made a claim for Employment & Support Allowance than have ended a claim and that’s a fact.  Now, Iain ‘Incapacity Benefit Parking Attendant’ Duncan Smith would have you all believe he’s the best thing since sliced bread at getting thousands off the long term sick.  To which I’d ask him why in fact the number of Employment & Support Allowance claims being made is so much higher than have actually come off the wretched benefit.


In fact, the number of claims is this much higher……

1,839,330

To which I’d almost guarantee IDS would tell us all.  ‘You really haven’t got a clue have you. Of course, the figure is going to be higher because we’ve transferred something like 1.9 million claimants who have been languishing on the sick untested for the last ten years from older incapacity benefits on to a much stricter benefit.”  


But would this be true & if so what would it mean?  


Well actually it would not be true. Iain Duncan Smith’s department at the DWP can hardly refute their own figures. What these very clearly show is that as of August 2013 only 861,620 claimants had been ‘migrated’ from the older incapacity benefits since commencement of the process in March 2011 (shown in the May 2011 quarter) as can be checked here.  


So,to be clear the following number of claimants had by August 2013 been migrated from incapacity benefits:

861,620

So there are obvious flaws in any misguided contention that IDS may raise over the much greater take up of Employment & Support Allowance claims being attributable to older incapacity benefits.  The reality is that of 4,128,310 Employment & Support Allowance claims made since October 2008 up August 2013; only 861,620 (21%) are attributable to older incapacity benefit migrated claims. 

These DWP figures show only 21% of 
all ESA claims are migrated 
incapacity benefit claims 

It makes for a major flaw in IDS’s argument.  


The numbers on older incapacity benefits has indeed fallen since Employment & Support Allowance was introduced in October 2008 and August 2013.  If we look at the incapacity figures here we can see that the numbers have fallen from 2,593,010 in November 2008 to 602,350 by August 2013.  Whilst there was a reduction of 1,990,660, hardly any of it was as a result of testing for the much stricter Employment & Support Allowance.  What these figures very clearly show is well over one million incapacity benefit claims ended regardless of Employment & Support Allowance – it’s an irrefutable fact. 


So what became of the 861, 820 incapacity claims which were migrated?  


I hate to break it to any IDS fans, but most in fact qualified under the much stricter testing (meaning they were a lot more unwell than any Daily Mail headline would have you believe: 

From the figures here we can see:

322,800 ended up in the Work Related Activity group

90,300 appealed an ESA fit for work finding

441,780 ended up in the Support Group

From a separate set of DWP statistics called the ‘Work Capability Assessment’ outcome figures we can see that up to August 2013, 466,700 claimants had been placed in the Work Related Activity Group’, 500,800 in the Support Group and 247,900 had apparently been found fit for work.  the cumulative total of those qualifying for ESA would therefore be 967,500 – considerably above those shown in the figures relating to those actually on ESA in the migrated group in the previous set of statistics to which I have referred above.  


What is interesting is that the figures relating to how many claimants actually in receipt of the Support Group (441,780) is closest to the numbers ‘assessed’ in to the Support Group (500,800) – the difference is because some will have ended their claims due to moving on to other benefits such as Retirement Pension, some will have died (a higher probability in this group), some may have recovered, and others will have been moved to the Work Related Activity group.   


The biggest reductions are those in the Work Related Activity group from 466,700 assessed to 322,800 actually in receipt.  This is in all probability attributable to larger numbers having had their awards ended due to ‘time limiting’ where an award based on national insurance contributions runs out after one year unless the claimant qualifies for an income based award in this group.


Time limiting is almost certainly achieving more reductions than ESA assessment testing. 


The outcome figures also shows that in the migration group, 63,500 claimants were waiting for an assessment up to August 2013. 


As for those who appeal, the figures shown in the previous show a definite 90,300 had appealed the 247,900 fit for work decisions.  There would also be an undisclosed number who are placed in the Work Related Activity Group and appeal for the Support Group (these cannot be traced in the same way as those in the Assessment Phase appealing a Fit for Work finding).  


Overall the reduction in this group is far less than the misleading figures used by IDS,  indeed the most recent outcome figures for September 2013 are confirming 90% of migrated claimants qualify for ESA and that’s before appeals have been taken in to account.  One thing is for certain, the reduction of 1,990,660 in incapacity benefit claims between November 2008 and August 2013 has not occurred as a result of Employment & Support Allowance testing!


Oh and just to rub salt in to the wounds Mr Smith, I hate to break it to you but between November 2008 and May 2013 no less than 222,010 older Incapacity Benefit claims were subsequently re-instated; – completely negating the piffling reduction achieved through ESA testing!  

Only IDS could make this much of a mess of 
reassessing the long term sick!

There’s one solution IDS, it’s time you ended up 
with one of these….