Welfare, Work and Disability

1
Welfare, Work and Disability

• A Research Update
• Greg Marston, g.marston_at_uq.edu.au(Dr Jeremy
  Moss, The University of Melbourne and
• Dr Sarah Lantz, UQ and David Swift)
• Research funded by ACE National and the
  Australian Research Council
• With valuable in-kind assistance from a range of
  DEN providers.

2
Overview of the study

• A qualitative study, involving in-depth
  interviews with clients and workers over a three
  year period (2007-2009)
• We recruited 80 participants on either
  DSP/Newstart 15 employment consultants/managers
  DEN
• Study covers four states with a regional-metro
  focus (Northern NSW Brisbane, Qld
  Albany/Bunbury, WA Melbourne, Vic)

3
Research Aims

• Provide a qualitative and independent evaluation
  of how the W2W policy changes are impacting on
  clients and services.
• Capture work life transitions. 2 rounds of
  interviews, spaced 12-18 months apart.
• Assess the implementation of the 2006 W2W changes
  in terms of barriers and challenges in
  transitions between income support payments and
  work/training.
• Analyse the major conceptual and ethical issues
  associated with extending mutual obligation
  policies to greater numbers of people with a
  disability

4
The Context of the Study

• Number of DSP recipients having doubled from
  1986-2006 (280,000 to 600,000 recipients) former
  government aim was to increase labour force
  participation rates.
• Former Govts evaluation framework for W2W
  changes based on three questions
• Has WtW increased paid employment?
• Has WtW increased job related participation?
• Has WtW decreased income support reliance? (DEWR,
  2006)

5
Demographic profile of participants

• Gender Male (48) Female (32)
• Age18-25 (10) 26-30 (10) 31-40 (35) 41-50 (13)
  51-60 (10) 61 (3)
• Primary Disability (self-reported)
• Physical Disability (39)Visual impairment
  (2)Hearing impairment (1) Mental Health (29)
  Intellectual Disability (10)
• 55 of participants identified having multiple
  disabilities.
• Employment status - Some form of paid work (50)
• Centrelink benefit (DSP 56 Newstart 24)

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Preliminary themes

• Stigma of receiving welfare high among
  participants (some participants attempt to hide
  both disability and income support status)
• Motivated to work 3/4 of the sample expressed
  strong desire for suitable paid work (reasons
  include social contact, extra money, avoid
  Centrelink hassle)

7
Impact of W2W changes

• New system has introduced a disincentive to seek
  employment assistance (perceived fear of losing
  pension).
• Almost half of the sample (36) were not aware
  that they had been subject to a Job Capacity
  Assessment.
• Some could remember attending a meeting
• Others said they had not attended a JCA, despite
  the DEN provider indicating a JCA had been
  undertaken
• Informal and formal advocates have very important
  in terms of accuracy of assessment processes.

8
Impact of activity requirements

• The overwhelming majority of participants
  continued to be satisfied with the service they
  received from their DEN provider.
• Majority were less than satisfied with new
  Centrelink rules and regulations
• Lots of paper work and assessments. Its also
  the assumptions they make. They assume the person
  getting a pension isnt being truthful about
  whats happened in their life. They make me bring
  in medical certificates every three months even
  though I have the later stages of HIV. Someone
  should tell them there is no cure because soon I
  wont have the strength to bring in anymore
  medical medical certificates. Its just
  demeaning (Rod, 35 years of age, Brisbane).

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Other issues identified

• Discrimination in the workforce is alive and
  well
• Employers unwilling to make workplace
  modifications (also examples of good practice)
• Some highly qualified and skilled clients believe
  that their DEN provider was unable to meet their
  employment needs and goals
• Adequacy of income support payments reported to
  be an issue for almost all participants (in terms
  of meeting living expenses).

10
Interviews with DEN workers on implementation of
W2W

• Concern about turning human service professionals
  into administrators, data-entry people and
  cops.
• For me now the administrative side of my role is
  probably 50 to 70 percent, and probably used to
  be probably maybe about 30 percent (employment
  consultant, Lismore).
• Negotiating the new system successfully depends
  on the quality of the relationship between DEN
  and JCA assessors/local Centrelink office and
  employers.
• Concern from managers that experienced staff have
  left or considering leaving because job
  satisfaction has decreased (working with
  involuntary clients/ mounds of paperwork).
• Inappropriate referrals is a big issue, partly
  reflecting time pressures (outputs) and growing
  waitlist for PSP.

11
Impact of competition/compliance

• All workers had concerns about introduction of
  competition/contracting for what it means in
  terms of their employment conditions and the
  rights of their clients.
• Compliance hard to work with people who are
  told they have to be there
• Concern about impact of star ratings.
  Relationship with DEWR at national level was
  strained. (less the case at the regional level)
• DEWR seem to me to be secret squirrel stuff, all
  about we can't tell you anything, we can't
  disclose anything. I think they just need to
  chill out a bit and open up a bit and let us know
  what's going on. It just seems so secretive and
  by doing that nobody wants to deal with them. We
  are lucky because we have a pretty good
  relationship with our Manager of our service here
  but certainly DEWR just need to chill.

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Next steps

• A progress report will be sent to ACE National
  and agencies involved in the study in late
  June/July. All participants will also be sent a
  report on research themes from 1st round of
  interviews.
• Round 2 of interviews will take place in the four
  sites from August-December 08.
• Interested to hear your views about what we
  should focus on in the second round of interviews
  (First round of interviews looked at employment
  history/work/education and the initial impact of
  W2W).