and about time too
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7516551.stm
Benefit shake-up 'revolutionary'
Benefit claimants could be forced to pick up litter and erase graffiti under plans to be unveiled by ministers.
The Welfare Green Paper is set to include proposals to force those unemployed for more than two years to work full-time in the community.
Incapacity benefit will be scrapped as part of a scheme to get more people claiming the benefit back to work.
Minister James Purnell says the plans will "transform lives". The Tories say many of the ideas are theirs.
This shake-up will apply to all 4.5 million people on out-of-work benefits, but is expected to impact most on those on Jobseekers Allowance.
Conservative support
Under plans laid out in the Green Paper, claimants will have to carry out four weeks' community work once they have been unemployed for more than a year.
After two years, they will be ordered to work full-time in the community.
Incapacity Benefit claimants will all move to the new Employment Support Allowance by 2013, which ministers hope will be regarded, for all but the most disabled people, as a temporary benefit.
People who have been signed off sick will have a new medical check with someone who is not their own GP.
Drug addicts are also being targeted, with the government expecting them to declare their problem and to embark on treatment in return for benefits.
The Conservatives say they will support many of the proposals, effectively neutralising any Labour backbench opposition.
The Liberal Democrats have welcomed some elements of the Green Paper, but are reserving their judgment on whether to support ministers.
Mr Purnell, the work and pensions secretary, said the welfare reforms being proposed were "revolutionary".
He told BBC Five Live Breakfast: "People have an obligation to work and the benefit system is not there to give you a choice between benefits and work; it's there to help you when you can't find work.
"If you can find work you should take it, if there isn't work there you should take steps to get back into work."
But people who do not take up the offer of support would lose benefits, said Mr Purnell.
He said the government wanted to get one million people off incapacity benefit by 2015.
But former welfare reform minister Frank Field told the BBC's Today programme he doubted the proposals would make any difference.
Tough choices
"The key fault in the old system is being brought into the new system, and that is if you can get through the employment capacity test... you'll get onto a higher rate of benefit," he said.
Mr Field said he had been arguing for 10 years that there should be a single rate of benefit for people of working age who were unable to work. They should be funded via the Disability Living Allowance, not benefits, he said.
"The whole emphasis here, naturally, will be for people not to get jobs but to get onto the higher rate of benefit," he added.
In February government welfare adviser David Freud suggested less than a third of the 2.7 million people claiming the benefit were doing so legitimately.
Conservative leader David Cameron said: "What (Mr Purnell) has done is very much taken the ideas we came up with in January, that are very clearly thought through and involve tough choices."
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7516551.stm
Benefit shake-up 'revolutionary'
Benefit claimants could be forced to pick up litter and erase graffiti under plans to be unveiled by ministers.
The Welfare Green Paper is set to include proposals to force those unemployed for more than two years to work full-time in the community.
Incapacity benefit will be scrapped as part of a scheme to get more people claiming the benefit back to work.
Minister James Purnell says the plans will "transform lives". The Tories say many of the ideas are theirs.
This shake-up will apply to all 4.5 million people on out-of-work benefits, but is expected to impact most on those on Jobseekers Allowance.
Conservative support
Under plans laid out in the Green Paper, claimants will have to carry out four weeks' community work once they have been unemployed for more than a year.
After two years, they will be ordered to work full-time in the community.
Incapacity Benefit claimants will all move to the new Employment Support Allowance by 2013, which ministers hope will be regarded, for all but the most disabled people, as a temporary benefit.
People who have been signed off sick will have a new medical check with someone who is not their own GP.
Drug addicts are also being targeted, with the government expecting them to declare their problem and to embark on treatment in return for benefits.
The Conservatives say they will support many of the proposals, effectively neutralising any Labour backbench opposition.
The Liberal Democrats have welcomed some elements of the Green Paper, but are reserving their judgment on whether to support ministers.
Mr Purnell, the work and pensions secretary, said the welfare reforms being proposed were "revolutionary".
He told BBC Five Live Breakfast: "People have an obligation to work and the benefit system is not there to give you a choice between benefits and work; it's there to help you when you can't find work.
"If you can find work you should take it, if there isn't work there you should take steps to get back into work."
But people who do not take up the offer of support would lose benefits, said Mr Purnell.
He said the government wanted to get one million people off incapacity benefit by 2015.
But former welfare reform minister Frank Field told the BBC's Today programme he doubted the proposals would make any difference.
Tough choices
"The key fault in the old system is being brought into the new system, and that is if you can get through the employment capacity test... you'll get onto a higher rate of benefit," he said.
Mr Field said he had been arguing for 10 years that there should be a single rate of benefit for people of working age who were unable to work. They should be funded via the Disability Living Allowance, not benefits, he said.
"The whole emphasis here, naturally, will be for people not to get jobs but to get onto the higher rate of benefit," he added.
In February government welfare adviser David Freud suggested less than a third of the 2.7 million people claiming the benefit were doing so legitimately.
Conservative leader David Cameron said: "What (Mr Purnell) has done is very much taken the ideas we came up with in January, that are very clearly thought through and involve tough choices."
