Social security is intended to provide financial protection and support during times of need or vulnerability.
But many people living with severe mental illness have experienced harmful challenges within our social security system, with devastating consequences.
Our 'Set Up To Fail' report looks at the ways the social security system frequently fails to address the complexities of severe mental illness by focusing on the current Work Capability Assessment process, Personal Independence Payment, and the impact of conditionality and sanctions on people's lives.
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Your life is in their hands based on how they are feeling and based on one meeting. You cannot get the full picture from one meeting. Every individual is different, where one assessor may see it in one way and the other assessor views it in a different way there is no uniformity.
At the heart of this report is a simple but transformative idea:
Building policies around the experiences of those who rely on them makes welfare systems fairer, more effective, and easier to navigate. Listening to lived experience is key to fostering trust and delivering real, positive change.
And that's why the proposed ideas in 'Set Up to Fail' and how to address them have been identified by people with lived experience of mental illness. Ideas such as:
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- Co-designing assessment criteria with lived experience involvement
- Co-designing accessible forms with lived experience involvement
- A fair, efficient, and transparent evidence collection process
- Introducing choice, sensitivity, and flexibility in scheduling processes
- Introducing a multi-agency, panel-based approach
- Co-designing quality, official guidance with lived experience involvement
- Proactively facilitate access to specialised, designated support
- Exempt people severely affected by mental illness from sanctions and provide recovery-oriented pathways
- Build a stronger safety net to explore work
- Transform Jobcentres as gateways to specialist, wraparound support
By exploring the ideas for improvement outlined in this report, we know the WCA and PIP assessments and approaches to work could become fair, effective, and safer for people severely affected by mental illness.
At Rethink Mental Illness, we are committed to working with the government to not only highlight the problems within the current system but also to co-develop practical solutions.
We believe these solutions must be driven by the voices of those with lived experience, ensuring that policies and practices are shaped by the people who are most affected by them.