Conditional Rights, Benefit Reform, and Drug Users: Reducing Dependency?
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-6478.2010.00503.x |
| Date | 01 June 2010 |
| Published date | 01 June 2010 |
JOURNAL OF LAW AND SOCIETY
VOLUME 37, NUMBER 2, JUNE 2010
ISSN: 0263-323X, pp. 233±63
Conditional Rights, Benefit Reform, and Drug Users:
Reducing Dependency?
Neville Harris*
United Kingdom government policy to increase social security
claimants' entry to the labour market through conditions attached to
unemployed, sickness and incapacity benefits now includes additional
measures to activate particular groups such as lone parents and drug
users. The latter are a prime target because of their high level of
dependency on benefits and because social security rules are seen as
having the potential to modify the behaviour of individuals with a
lifestyle regarded as being at odds with the moral obligations of
citizenship and incompatible with the government's realization of its
wider economic and social goals. There are strict procedures for the
identification of drug-user claimants, enabling additional conditions to
be attached to their benefit rights. This article discusses the general
trend in benefit reform towards increased conditionality and evaluates
the reforms affecting drug users, considering human rights and other
implications. It concludes by reflecting on the status of conditional
rights to social security as social rights.
INTRODUCTION
It is well recognized that state provision of social security has aims which are
broader than the relief of poverty and the provision of economic security for
individuals. One of these aims, generally seen as integral to the `social
control' function of state welfare, involves changing the way that people
behave, through the `encouragement or enforcement of particular patters of
behaviour'.
1
The state has, for example, sought since the days of the
233
ß2010 The Author. Journal Compilation ß2010 Cardiff University Law School. Published by Blackwell Publishing Ltd,
9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA
*School of Law, University of Manchester, Oxford Road, Manchester M13
9PL, England
neville.harris@manchester.ac.uk
Iamgrateful to the journal's referees for their comments.
1P.Spicker, Poverty and Social Security (1993) 107±8.
Elizabethan Poor Law to prevent idleness and encourage self-support or
family support.
2
Attempts to influence behaviour can be seen today both in
the rules on substantive entitlement, as in the work-availability and job-
search conditions for benefits for the unemployed, and in the procedures and
administrative controls governing access to the system and the determination
of claims, for example, in the sanctions for failure to provide necessary
information to support a claim or to undergo medical assessment. The latest
reforms, under the Welfare Reform Act (WRA) 2009, relate to problem drug
users (PDUs), namely, those dependent on opiates and/or crack cocaine.
3
In
some respects they represent a high-water mark of conditionality and for this
reason warrant particular attention.
There are estimated to be 330,000 PDUs in England,
4
of whom around 80
per cent are unemployed.
5
The evidence, discussed below, suggests that a
majority receive social security benefits. The government's drug strategy in
2008 proposed the use of `opportunities provided by the benefits system to
provide support and create incentives to move towards treatment, training and
employment'.
6
In particular, a reciprocal arrangement was envisaged: `[i]n
return for benefit payments, claimants will have a responsibility to move
successfully through treatment and into employment'.
7
Subsequent proposals
8
presaged the regime now set out in 2009 Act, which is intended to be piloted
and evaluated prior to implementation throughout England and possibly Wales
and Scotland.
9
It applies to jobseeker's allowance (JSA), a benefit for people
who are unemployed
10
but available for and actively seeking employment;
11
234
2N.Harris, `Social Security Prior to Beveridge' in Social Security Law in Context,
eds. N. Harris et al. (2000) 69±86, at 70±5. But see L. Charlesworth, Welfare's
Forgotten Past. A socio-legal history of the poor law (2010) 30, stating that refusal
to work, rather than being an issue of poor law conditionality, rendered a person
liable to punishment as a vagrant.
3 Home Office, Drugs: Protecting families and communities. The 2008 drug strategy
(2008) 50. Opiates include heroin, morphine, and codeine. Methadone prescribed as
a substitute for heroin would also be within this definition.
4 Department for Work and Pensions (DWP), Impact Assessment of `Raising expecta-
tions and increasing support ± reforming welfare for the future' (2008) para. 255.
5J.Spencer, J. Deakin, T. Seddon, R. Ralphs, and J. Boyle, Getting Problem Drug
Users (Back) into Employment, Part 2 (2008):
Part_Two_Background_Research.pdf>.
6 Home Office, op. cit., n. 3, p. 27.
7 id., p. 6.
8 DWP, No one written off: reforming the welfare state to reward responsibility
(2008; Cm. 7363) paras. 2.37±2.39; DWP, Raising expectations and increasing
support: reforming welfare for the future (2008; Cm. 7505) paras. 6.39±6.46.
9 id. (Cm. 7505), para. 6.45.
10 That is, not in `remunerative' work: Jobseeker's Allowance Regulations (JSA Regs.)
1996 (S.I. 1996/107), reg. 51(1).
11 Jobseekers Act 1995, s. 1(2) and the JSA Regs. 1996, as amended. An adequate
National Insurance contributions record is needed for the contributory form of JSA,
payable for up to 182 days. Thereafter, or if contributions are inadequate, income-
based JSA is payable; about 80 per cent of all JSA recipients receive it.
ß2010 The Author. Journal Compilation ß2010 Cardiff University Law School
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