Following the Prime Minister’s recent remarks about doing away with “sick note culture”, Mark Simpson argues that if the proposed changes to the main UK-wide disability payment go ahead, this will challenge the devolved nations’ ability to shape their own social security policy.
Rishi Sunak’s “sick note culture” speech to the Centre for Social Justice has, predictably enough, created something of a stir. Attempts to appear tough on ‘welfare’, appealing to the “anti-welfare commonsense” that has characterised much of the narrative (both Conservative and Labour) on social security this century, are unsurprising in a pre-election period. Sunak clearly calculates that public scepticism as to whether working age social security is money well spent remains a vote-winner. One dimension however has gone relatively unremarked-upon: the likely impact of the changes the Prime Minister hinted at on the UK’s devolved social security settlement, especially in relation to the main UK disability payment.
The “shared space” of social security policy
From the dawn of the modern welfare state between 1911 and 1948 until around 2012, the UK Government had effective policy responsibility for almost all aspects of social security, for the UK in its entirety. The Government also had administrative responsibility, and Parliament had legislative responsibility, for almost all aspects of the system in Great Britain. From 2012 however this began to change. Parliament has delegated greater policy, legislative and administrative responsibility for social security and poverty relief to devolved government (particularly in Scotland) and local government (particularly in England). At the same time, Northern Ireland has discovered a new enthusiasm for using the devolved social security powers it has always held to cushion its citizens against the financial consequences of certain UK-level reforms.
The complexity and cost of social security mean that policy decisions at UK level are particularly likely to constrain the notional autonomy of the devolved countries.
As my research outlines, social security now exists in a “shared space,” where the functions and competences of tiers of government overlap and interact. This is particularly true of the various forms of support of which working-age disabled people may avail, and which were also the central focus of Sunak’s speech. Shared spaces, it has been previously argued by Corner and McEwen and Petersohn, are precisely where the UK’s devolution settlement performs poorly. The complexity and cost of social security mean that policy decisions at UK level are particularly likely to constrain the notional autonomy of the devolved countries.
The Prime Minister’s speech spanned disability benefits, low-income benefits and welfare-to-work measures, but my focus here is on the prospect of change to personal independence payment (PIP), the main UK disability benefit, which was first trailed in a 2021 Green Paper. Disability and carer benefits fall squarely within the shared space of social security. The UK Government is really the government of England and Wales for the purposes of this policy area, but the decisions it takes have profound implications for Scotland and Northern Ireland.
While Sunak insinuates that GPs collude with patients to help them access benefits and evade job-seeking requirements, the Scottish Government has a commitment to “start from a position of trust” when considering eligibility for support.
Scotland’s more humane approach to social security
In Scotland, PIP is currently being phased out in favour of the new adult disability payment (ADP). More than most of the devolved benefits introduced since 2018, ADP embodies the philosophical gulf on social security between the UK Government and the Scottish political elite. Where Sunak portrays support for all but the most unambiguously deserving as a burden on the taxpayer, the Social Security Scotland Act 2018 – passed unanimously by the Scottish Parliament, in which the Conservatives are the second largest party – identifies the system as “an investment in the people of Scotland.” While Sunak insinuates that GPs collude with patients to help them access benefits and evade jobseeking requirements, the Scottish Government has a commitment to “start from a position of trust” when considering eligibility for support, is increasing the weight afforded to evidence from an applicant’s health professional and has legislated to end private sector assessments of disability.
To date, the conditions of entitlement to ADP are almost identical to those for PIP, driven by the need to ensure the “safe and secure transfer” of 300,000 live claims from the Department for Work and Pensions to Social Security Scotland. Even once this process has been completed, significant divergence between the two benefits – whichever government instigates it – will be a challenge. Any reduction of eligibility on the UK side is a potential budgetary headache for the Scottish Government, whose block grant is partly composed of funds reflecting how much the UK Government would spend on disability and carer benefits in Scotland, had they not been devolved. These, though, are the democratic choices that devolution enables.
The bigger problem lies in the interaction of the UK and Scottish systems. PIP has a passporting function, unlocking extra payments within universal credit (the main low-income benefit, which is not devolved) for disabled people and, indirectly, carers. The new Green Paper accompanying Sunak’s speech envisages this continuing with the introduction of a new UC health element. The rules governing access to ADP and PIP might diverge in response to Scottish stakeholders’ desire for a “more person-centred approach” to determining entitlement or the UK Government’s apparent desire to move to an even more medicalised model – “linking… assessment more closely to a person’s actual condition and requiring greater medical evidence.” If this means people in Scotland are more likely to qualify for the existing universal credit premia or a future health element, then in principle the UK Government can calculate the extra expenditure and send the Scottish Government the bill. If this is too difficult in practice, though, the prospect of ADP losing its passporting function within universal credit cannot be discounted – a nightmare scenario for claimants and government alike.
The department responsible for social security in Northern Ireland has faced extreme budgetary pressures in recent times and it cannot be assumed that funds for further mitigation would be available.
Northern Ireland’s legacy of disability benefits
Northern Ireland’s political parties are too ideologically divided to identify a common position on social security. However, elected representatives are often less inclined than their UK counterparts to question the validity of disability claims, given how many of them are the legacy of injuries and trauma linked with the conflict of the 1960s to 1990s. Limited policymaking, budgetary and administrative capacity mean the chances of a Northern Ireland-specific disability benefit being introduced are vanishingly small, but post-2012 there is precedent for using supplementary payments to shield claimants from financial loss due to UK-level reforms.
Individuals who lost eligibility due to the introduction of PIP in place of the disability living allowance were one of the main groups to benefit from previous supplementary payments. Undoubtedly the Executive would face considerable pressure to make similar provision in the event of a further round of reform, if (as is clearly the intention) it looked like an exercise in rationing. However, the department responsible for social security in Northern Ireland has faced extreme budgetary pressures in recent times and it cannot be assumed that funds for further mitigation would be available.
Testing the limits of devolution
The New Labour architects of devolution might well have presumed that electorates in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland could be granted their own political processes and representation without any real impact on public policy. UK Governments today can be under no such illusions, but it remains to be seen whether the current Green Paper’s pledge to “work with the Devolved Administrations” is sincere; to date, the approach has often been to “devolve and forget.” In any event, reform of PIP is likely to test the limits of devolved institutions’ ability to exercise the social security autonomy they hold on paper. Elites in Northern Ireland have long been aware of their limitations in this area. For some in Scotland, a rude awakening may await.
This project has been funded by the Nuffield Foundation, but the views expressed are those of the authors and not necessarily the Foundation. Visit www.nuffieldfoundation.org
All articles posted on this blog give the views of the author(s), and not the position of LSE British Politics and Policy, nor of the London School of Economics and Political Science.
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