Making Welfare Work

Overview

This document sets out a package of welfare changes proposed by Reform UK intended to reduce benefit spending and increase work among British nationals. It identifies rising disability claims, a large Universal Credit caseload, and fraud and error as the core problems, and links them to pressures on taxpayers. The paper proposes a mix of behavioural requirements, entitlement restrictions, administrative redesign and enforcement measures to address those issues. The main practical changes are: mandatory half-time, council-assigned placements for claimants who have been on benefits for more than a year; a new citizenship test that would exclude most non-British adults from non-contributory benefits; a restructured disability system that introduces an employer-funded two-year Return to Work Cover, a single Disability Needs Assessment, a new Personal Independence Payment / Health Security Allowance for severe cases, and local Disability Support Accounts for verified additional costs; and a scaled-up anti-fraud programme. The document also proposes changes to indexation and the reinstatement of a two‑child benefit cap. If implemented as presented, the package would be introduced through primary legislation early in a Reform Government’s term, overseen in rollout by a Policy Delivery Group, and administered by local authorities, the Department for Work and Pensions, employers and insurers as appropriate. The paper presents quantified fiscal impacts and employment effects, and forecasts large net savings and increased employment among British nationals. Several elements are phased, for example, reassessment of certain disability claimants over three years and a gradual roll-out of placements over four years, so the changes would be implemented over several parliamentary terms rather than instantly.

Key commitments

• Require work-capable claimants who have claimed benefits for more than 12 months to undertake 20 hours per week in placements assigned by local councils, with placements supervised by councils or approved charities and participants receiving up to £30 per completed week for expenses. Our Welfare to Work plan would require work-capable welfare claimants who have claimed benefits for more than a year to work 20 hours a week in placements assigned by local councils. (page 10)
• Make British citizenship a condition of entitlement for almost all non-contributory benefits, applying to both new and existing adult claimants while exempting certain payments and children’s school-meal eligibility. Under Reform, only British citizens will be entitled to almost all benefits. (page 14)
• Introduce Return to Work Cover requiring employers or their insurers to meet benefit costs for the first two years of an employee’s sickness absence after Statutory Sick Pay ends, accompanied by an initial 0.2 percentage-point cut in employer National Insurance and exemptions for very small employers. A new system of ‘Return to Work Cover’ will cover the first two years after an employee signs off sick (after Statutory Sick Pay expires). During this period, employers or their insurers will be responsible for their employees’ benefits. Employer NICs will be cut (by 0.2pp, in the first instance)... (page 21)
• Replace separate PIP and Universal Credit health assessments with a single Disability Needs Assessment to determine eligibility for higher cash support (PIP/HSA), Disability Support Accounts, and Universal Credit conditionality, and reassess 2.89 million existing affected claimants over time, prioritising mental-health and low-severity claims in the first three years. Reform will require all prospective claimants of incapacity-related benefits to undergo a single Disability Needs Assessment. This will replace both assessment against PIP’s ‘daily living and mobility descriptors’ and the Work Capability Assessment for Universal Credit in the current system. (page 21)
• Reserve unconditional cash support above standard Universal Credit rates for severe and enduring cases via a new Personal Independence Payment / Health Security Allowance, set at £429.80 a month at 2026/27 rates for new claimants, while milder needs are met through locally administered Disability Support Accounts. Under the reformed system, cash support above standard Universal Credit rates would be reserved for severe cases and delivered through a new Personal Independence Payment and Health Security Allowance (PIP/HSA). ... The initial rate would be £429.80 a month at 2026/27 rates... (page 22)
• Substantially expand anti‑fraud and error activity by widening the Targeted Case Review beyond Universal Credit and increasing frontline counter‑fraud staff to 9,000 in total, with the aim of recovering large sums from overpayments and fraud. Reform would substantially expand the anti-fraud and error effort. First, we would reset the Targeted Case Review (TCR) back to the previous Government’s timetable and widen it from Universal Credit to all benefits. Second, we would increase the frontline counter-fraud headcount to 9,000 above its c... (page 33)
• Change indexation for uprating working-age benefits by applying a revised CPI measure that the paper assumes would grow about 0.6 percentage points less per year, producing an approximate first-year reduction of 0.53% across the working‑age welfare envelope. Our central assumption is that a revised measure would grow at 0.6 percentage points less each year... The 0.6-point correction therefore translates into an effective first-year reduction of about 0.53% across the whole working-age envelope. (page 35)
• Reinstate the Two‑Child Benefit Cap, returning to the previously announced policy to reduce child-related benefit expenditure. As previously announced, we will also reintroduce the Two-Child Benefit Cap. (page 4)

What it would cost

The document provides multiple quantified figures. It projects net fiscal savings of around £50 billion a year by 2030, and states a £53 billion per year figure by 2030/31 in an appendix. It forecasts 241,000 additional British nationals in work by 2029/30. Specific cost and saving lines include a £3,200 annual grant per claimant for council delivery of placements, a £30 weekly expense payment to participants, a £500 million contingency for possible costs of returning British citizens in the EU, and an initial PIP/HSA rate of £429.80 per month at 2026/27 rates. For the reformed disability programme it specifies recurring provision costs of £4.44 billion a year at full rollout, and one‑off reassessment and IT costs of £3.11 billion spread over three years. The paper also gives estimated savings from restricting benefits to citizens (£21 billion by 2029/30, including £13 billion from Universal Credit) and from reinstating the two‑child cap (£2.9 billion a year on average over eight years). Those figures are presented as central outcomes; the document attributes some projections to OBR forecasts and its internal costing, and indicates that employer NIC cuts (0.2 percentage points) and behavioural responses feed into net impacts. Several operational costs and some legal and administrative transition costs are not quantified in detail in the main text, and funding for implementation is largely framed as coming from the projected savings rather than from a separately identified implementation budget.

How it would be delivered

The paper assigns delivery roles to named bodies. Primary legislation is proposed early in a Reform Government’s term, with the party seeking to begin legislating within the first 100 days and a Policy Delivery Group (PDG) chaired by Robert Jenrick MP specified to develop guidance for local authorities. Local councils are the principal delivery agents for the Welfare to Work placements and for administering Disability Support Accounts, with registered charities eligible to manage participants. The Department for Work and Pensions is named as the default provider of Return to Work Cover for the self‑employed and those employed by very small firms. Employers and insurers are assigned liability under Return to Work Cover for employees’ first two years of sickness absence, with the Office for Budget Responsibility tasked to monitor the programme’s cost. The document sets phased timetables: placements to be gradually rolled out so two‑thirds of eligible claimants participate by year four, reassessment of specified disability claimants to occur over three years, and a three‑year reassessment/IT implementation cost profile. Several delivery details are set as future steps or delegated to bodies in the paper: the PDG is to develop further practical guidance; central government will set national rules for DSAs while local authorities administer them; and the OBR is to monitor Return to Work Cover. The document specifies penalties for councils that refuse to implement placements in the form of reduced central funding and proposes to legislate to make implementation a legal duty.

What isn't specified

The document leaves significant implementation and legal details unspecified. It does not set out the precise legislative language or statutory tests that would enforce citizenship‑based entitlement limits, nor the process for renegotiating international treaty provisions it identifies as binding. The sanctions regime for non‑participation in placements is described as potentially including immediate, non‑time‑limited benefit revocation, but procedural safeguards, appeal routes and hardship protections are not detailed. While the single Disability Needs Assessment is described, the text provides general criteria but not an exhaustive ruleset or the operational workflow for carrying out millions of reassessments. The paper assigns penalties to councils that do not implement placements but does not specify which central funding streams would be reduced or the process for resolving disputes. Financially, many of the projected savings depend on behavioural responses and phased reassessments; the document gives headline amounts but does not itemise all transition costs such as legal challenges or additional tribunal capacity. Devolution consequences are sketched, notably for Scotland and Northern Ireland, but the mechanisms for aligning reserved and devolved systems are not fully specified. Finally, the interaction of the employer liability for Return to Work Cover with small‑firm exemptions and existing insurance markets is described in principle, but detailed regulatory and contractual arrangements are left for consultation.

Language and firmness

The document uses both mandatory language and conditional formulations. It frequently uses the firm future tense “will” for headline commitments, for example “We will: Require all work‑capable long‑term claimants to contribute” and “We will also legislate to make its implementation a legal duty for councils.” It also uses “would” when describing how measures would operate in practice, as in “Our Welfare to Work plan would require…” and “This plan would require work‑capable welfare claimants…”. For projected outcomes the paper uses “would” and “estimate”, for example “By 2030, Reform’s welfare reforms, if implemented today, would get 241,000 British nationals back into work.” The mix of “will” for policy intentions and “would” for modeled effects and implementation scenarios signals commitments to legislate alongside contingency about outcomes.