HR Industry News

New rules on trying out work

— 21 March 2007 —

As part of the government’s bid to get more people into work, it has introduced new rules to enable people to try out work without losing their benefit entitlements.

The new Employment and Support Allowance (ESA) scheme allows people claiming benefits to earn up to £86 per week for a year as a way to help them transfer off benefits and into work.

The Minister for Employment and Welfare Reform, Jim Murphy, said all the evidence gathered shows that allowing people to try out part-time job options provides a gateway into the world of work and helping them to build up their skills and confidence vastly improves the chances they have of getting off benefit altogether.

He added that this initiative is part of the government’s drive to end the legacy of benefit dependency, deprivation and low expectations. As such, refocusing the Personal Capability Assessment to an individual’s ability to work, not their eligibility for a benefit, can only be a good thing.

The government will bring forward the ‘Permitted Work’ rules in Incapacity Benefit (IB) into both elements of the new Employment and Support Allowance benefit, which replaces IB for people with a disability or incapacity for work from 2008.

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