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Disabled 'let down by government'

16/01/2007

Efforts to help disabled people into work are being hindered by overlapping government programmes, a report claims.

The public accounts committee (PAC) report states that there is very little way of knowing whether the £320 million spent by the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) on disabled employment initiatives has been value for money.

This lack of accountability is caused by the unnecessarily large number of agencies dealing with the problem, the report claims; some of these date back to the second world war.

"As so often with government initiatives, the management data about costs and outcomes is patchy and unreliable," Edward Leigh, PAC chairman, said.

"That means the department is not properly managing its support programmes, a conclusion supported by the fact that the quality of services provided around the country and what the DWP pays providers vary widely."

Approximately one million of the 2.7 million people on incapacity benefits say they want to work, according to the PAC report. Only 160,000 received help from the government's many schemes, however.

Liberal Democrat disability spokesperson Danny Alexander said that the report showed the government's efforts to help disabled people back into work were failing.

"Too few people are being helped, and too little emphasis is put on keeping people in work when they become disabled," he said.

"Support for disabled people needs to be better funded and better directed if the target of getting one million people off incapacity benefit is to be met."

A review of the existing programmes helping disabled people back into work, set to report later this year, is currently underway. The DWP did not comment prior to the PAC report's publication.

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