We set out in the White Paper “Raising expectations and increasing support: reforming welfare for the future” published in December 2008, a range of measures to help long-term incapacity benefit claimants into work.
Pathways to Work was rolled out nationally on 28 April 2008 and is now available to everyone receiving incapacity benefits and employment and support allowance in Great Britain. Later this year we will be introducing mandatory work-focused interviews for existing incapacity benefits customers under the age of 25 in Jobcentre Plus Pathways to Work areas.
We intend to migrate existing incapacity benefits customers to employment and support allowance and, in the light of Pathways to Work evaluation evidence, plan to introduce a new system of three work-focused interviews for customers aged under 50 once migrated. They will be able to take up further support on a voluntary basis. It is intended that customers aged 50 and over will receive one mandatory work-focused interview, again with the option of further voluntary support. We also plan to run pilots to test new ways of delivering employment support to existing customers aged 50 and over, to establish what works best for this group.
In addition, five Invest to Save pilots are planned to test the innovative funding model proposed by David Freud, alongside Professor Gregg's vision of conditionality for existing long-term customers.