Welfare Reform Bill

One of my correspondents told me of an individual who is currently in receipt of incapacity benefit but is able to volunteer for occasional days advising her local primary care trust. So it is not necessarily charities with which we are concerned here; it can be any public service of the state or charity or anything else. All other members of her advisory group receive one-off payments for this work but, as this one-off payment is higher than allowed under permitted work rules, she is unableto receive any payment for performing this public service, which seems to me to be a bit silly. I accept that in many cases there will be a very fine line between work that is therapeutic and work that is done simply as a job. One of the case studies in the not-so-little red book mentioned a part-time job in a gift shop that would be allowed under the earnings rules for income-related ESA. A similar job possibly involving more hours a week could be very useful in helping a disabled person to gain confidence before returning to full-time work. That prompts me to ask how the Government intend to distinguish between regular work and therapeutic work, because it is hoped that both will eventually lead into full-time employment, which is what we are all after.