Disability (Hansard, 24 January 1991)

§ Mr. Meacher
To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security if he will make a statement on the purpose of the functional test of disability that claimants of the disability working allowance will be expected to undergo; and whether any duplication, in the evidence of disability required to be provided, will result from the new test.

§ Mr. Scott
In almost all first claims for disability working allowance (DWA) and about 60 per cent. of repeat claims the claimant's declaration that he has a308W disability which puts him at a disadvantage in getting a job will be accepted. The test of functional disability will be applied in other cases to provide evidence that the claimant still has a disability.

§ Mr. Meacher
To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security if he will provide details of the functional test of disability that claimants of the disability working allowance will be expected to undergo in order to ascertain whether they are at a disadvantage in getting a job on account of a physical or mental disability where their own declaration is not accepted as sufficient proof; in what percentage of cases his Department envisages the need for an additional test to provide proof of disadvantage; and what are his Department's estimates of the additional cost this test will entail.

§ Mr. Scott
In almost all first claims for disability working allowance (DWA) the claimant's own declaration will be accepted. In addition, we estimate that about 60 per cent. of second and subsequent claims will be by people whose declaration will generally be accepted without further confirmation; that is, those getting one of the higher rates of disability living allowance (the rates which are equivalent to the present attendance allowance and mobility allowance) or an analogous benefit or who were getting severe disablement allowance before claiming.
In other cases where the claimant is applying for a repeat award of disability working allowance, the claimant will be asked to complete a questionnaire about their functional disabilities. We estimate that the cost of administering the test for these claimants will be about £0.5 million per annum.