Last Updated on March 19, 2025

New proposed welfare system reforms to help more people into jobs, who can and have the potential to work, have been unveiled by Government.

The new measures are designed to ensure a welfare system that is fit for purpose and available for future generations – opening up employment opportunities, boosting economic growth and tackling the spiralling benefits bill, while also ensuring those who cannot work get the support they need as part of Government’s Plan for Change.

According to the Department for Work and Pensions, since the pandemic, the number of working-age people receiving Personal Independence Payments (PIP) has more than doubled from 15,300 to 35,100 a month. The number of young people (16-24) receiving PIP per month has also increased from 2,967 to 7,857 a month. Over the next five years, if no action is taken, the number of working age people claiming PIP is expected to increase from two million in 2021 to 4.3 million, costing £34.1bn annually.

Work and Pensions Secretary, Liz Kendall, has announced a new package of reforms to overhaul the system, including:

• Ending reassessments for disabled people who will never be able to work and people with lifelong conditions to ensure they can live with dignity and security.
• Scrapping the Work Capability Assessment to end the process that Government claims drives people into dependency.
• Providing improved employment support backed by £1bn, including new tailored support conversations for people on health and disability benefits to remove barriers and unlock work.
• Legislating to protect those on health and disability benefits from reassessment or losing their payments if they take a chance on work.

To ensure the welfare system is available for those with the greatest needs, Government has made decisions to improve its sustainability and protect those who need it most, including:

• Reintroducing reassessments for people on incapacity benefits who have the capability to work to ensure they have the right support and are not indefinitely written off.
• Targeting PIP for those with higher needs by changing the eligibility requirement to a minimum score of four on at least one of the daily living activities to receive the daily living element of the benefit, in addition to the existing eligibility criteria.
• Rebalancing payment levels in Universal Credit to improve the Standard Allowance. Raising it above inflation by 2029/30, adding £775 annually in cash terms.
• Consulting on delaying access to the health element of Universal Credit until someone is aged 22 and reinvesting savings into work support and training opportunities through the Youth Guarantee.

Commenting on the announcement, Liz Jones, Policy Director at the National Care Forum (NCF), said, 'While we welcome Government’s ambition to support more people into work or to stay in work, the sheer scale of the envisioned £5bn of accompanying cuts is extremely concerning for everyone relying on PIP – a payment designed to help with the costs caused by a disability – and will lead to unintended consequences in terms of access to social care services.

'Many people use their PIP to help pay for adult social care support and social care charges from their local authorities. The Green Paper states that DHSC is planning to carry out research on the link between the adult social care system and PIP. This link must be fully understood before such far-reaching reforms are implemented. We must also recognise that there will always be people who need the support of a well-functioning social security system who cannot work for a variety of reasons.

'If Government’s ambition is to support more people with learning and physical disabilities into work, it must recognise the power of adult social care to maintain people’s health and wellbeing, as well as support people into work, to return to work and to remain in work. Government should consider how it can make sustained and significant investment in adult social care as a key part of the nation’s infrastructure to get Britain working and unlock growth.

'Cuts in social security support will not, in themselves, drive people into work but do risk driving people into poverty without providing the necessary help to support them into work and to enable employers to employ them.'

Government has published an open consultation seeking views on the approaches it should consider around reform of the health and disability benefits system and employment support.

In other news, a new Community Integrated Care report exposes a persistent pay gap between social care support workers and their NHS counterparts.