This snapshot taken on 07/04/2010, shows web content selected for preservation by The National Archives. External links, forms and search boxes may not work in archived websites.
Budget
17 March 1998
A radical package of measures to help people with disabilities and long-term illnesses who want to work was announced today by Chancellor Gordon Brown.
This package represents a new and inclusive approach. In the past,Governments' have been content to define people with disabilities by what they cannot do, rather than what they are able to do, condemning many people with disabilities to a life of low expectation and dependency. This package shows that the Government's philosophy of offering "employment opportunity to all" extends to everyone in society.
* Child credit for under 11's in DWA (and the DPTC) will be increased by 2.50 Pounds (to 15 Pounds) from November this year; * A new Personal Advisor service, offering advice and support to people with disabilities and long-term illness who want to find a job (including action plans, training, work placement and work trials). This will be the corner-stone of the New Deal for Disabled People, announced in the July 1997 Budget and financed with 195 million Pounds of windfall tax receipts. Pilots will begin in this autumn, with a view to a national roll-out from April; * A new linking rule to take the financial risk out of taking a job which may not work out. From October this year, former claimants of long-term incapacity benefits who lose a job within one year of taking it will be able to return to Incapacity Benefit at whatever rate they were previously being paid. This addresses a major disincentive to work in the benefits system, in which disabled people may lose as much as 40 Pounds in accrued benefit entitlement on taking a job;
* Lifting the 16 hour limit on voluntary work in Incapacity Benefit, to enable claimants to gain experience of working before taking a further step into paid employment. HM TREASURY PRESS OFFICE
