Professor Peter Taylor-Gooby comments on the news the government will have to make backdated payments of over £1.5bn after major errors with the Employment and Support Allowance (ESA) were uncovered.
‘The government’s main sickness and disability benefit, Employment and Support Allowance is in chaos following the admission that repayments averaging £5,000 must be made in some 300,000 cases.
‘Following hard on the continued failure to roll out Universal Credit, this indicates that the strategy of cutting staff to the bone while introducing complex and far-reaching reforms simply does not work.
‘The government must either put large amounts of money into benefit management to restore staffing levels or abandon its reform programme.‘
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