Fiscal Case(7)
All pieces →Fiscal risks and sustainability – July 2025
The Office for Budget Responsibility's 2025 fiscal risks report (OBR, July 2025) flags health-related welfare as a key domestic risk to UK public finances. The working-age disability caseload rose from 2.1 to 3.2 million (Nov 2019–Nov 2024) and the incapacity caseload from 2.6 to 3.5 million, with onflows doubling since the pandemic; if current onflows persisted, welfare spending would be roughly £12 billion higher than forecast in 2029-30.
No workaround: Assessing the impact of the Spring 2025 disability and incapacity benefit reforms on employment
Resolution Foundation spotlight by Louise Murphy and Greg Thwaites (May 2025) on the employment effects of the UK's £4.8 billion package of disability and incapacity benefit cuts. It estimates the cuts lead to 38,000–57,000 more people in work by 2029-30, plus 23,000–48,000 from extra employment support, far too few to offset the income losses for affected families. The OBR later reported that the PIP changes in the package are no longer going ahead.
Spring Statement 2025 health and disability benefit reforms – Impacts
DWP's impact assessment (March 2025, updated October 2025) of the Spring Statement 2025 health and disability benefit reforms. Working-age sickness and disability spending had risen by £20 billion since the pandemic towards £70 billion a year; the package was expected to save £4.8 billion by 2029-30. It cites a £18,000 a year fiscal benefit per extra disabled person in full-time work. The OBR later reported that the PIP changes are no longer going ahead.
Welfare trends report – October 2024
The OBR's October 2024 Welfare trends report focuses on working-age incapacity benefits, tracing their history since the 1970s and flows on and off them since 2010. The UK spent £24.9 billion on incapacity benefits in 2023-24; caseload prevalence reached 7.0% of the working-age population and is forecast to hit an all-time high of 7.9% in 2028-29.
Business Case(8)
All pieces →Journeys to Access to Work
NatCen research for the UK DWP (June 2026) based on 90 interviews with Access to Work applicants and 26 with employers. Where cost-sharing applies the scheme refunds up to 80% of approved costs between a threshold and £10,000. Employers reported benefits such as a more inclusive workplace and equipment that improved productivity, but cost constraints, unclear cost-share rules and slow reimbursement deterred some.
Keep Britain Working Review: Final report
Sir Charlie Mayfield's independent review for DWP and the Department for Business and Trade (November 2025) on employers' role in tackling health-related inactivity. It estimates employers face £85 billion a year in lost output and costs linked to ill-health, and government about £47 billion in welfare and NHS demand; 2.8 million working-age people are inactive due to health, 800,000 more than in 2019.
DWP Employer Survey 2024: Health and disability in the workplace
UK Department for Work and Pensions survey of 8,006 employers in Great Britain (fieldwork Feb–Apr 2024, weighted to the business population). 25% of employers were not confident recruiting disabled people or people with long-term health conditions; only 26% said they employ any. 59% agreed the financial benefits of spending on staff health outweigh the costs. Lack of capital was the most cited barrier to supporting disabled staff.
2024 Neurodiversity in Business and work report: The perspective of workers, colleagues and employers
Birkbeck, University of London researchers for Neurodiversity in Business (2024). Self-selected online survey (Dec 2023–Mar 2024) of 1,436 neurodivergent workers, 123 neurotypical colleagues and 132 employer representatives. Neurodivergent staff reported higher intention to leave than colleagues (2.91 vs 2.28 on a 1–5 scale); career satisfaction was the strongest predictor. Not a representative sample.
Social Return on Investment(5)
All pieces →30 July 2026: Connect to Work - Programme Business Case 2 Summary
DWP's updated Green Book business case summary (July 2026) for Connect to Work, a locally delivered supported-employment programme for disabled people and people with health conditions. Using DWP's social cost-benefit model, it expects £2.6bn of benefits for £1.2bn of cost (NPV £1.3bn incl. societal benefits) and a central benefit–cost ratio of 2.28, assuming 7 percentage points of employment additionality.
Investing in Potential: The Impact and Value of Somerset's Supported Internships
Report by the National Development for Inclusion (NDTi; Victoria Mason-Angelow, May 2025), funded through Department for Education supported-internship development funding secured by Somerset. An indicative SROI built from four interns' case studies estimates £9.35 of social and economic value per £1 invested, counting wellbeing, reduced support costs and earnings-related tax; the very small sample limits generalisation.
Addressing employment inequity for young people with learning disabilities and autism through coaching
Research report (March 2025) by the youth charity ThinkForward on its DFN-MoveForward coaching programme (2018–2023) for young people with learning disabilities and autism, run as a social impact bond. An SROI model by consultancy Envoy Partnership estimates £12m of social value (£5m attributable to the programme), a ratio of 3.22:1, from income, wellbeing and fiscal gains of sustained work. No external assurance is stated.
Individual Placement and Support: Impact beyond jobs
Provider impact report by Shaw Trust, the UK's largest IPS provider, which has supported 19,116 people on IPS programmes since 2019. Using the IPS Cost-Benefit and Outcomes Model, it estimates £9.22 of benefits over three years for every £1 spent on IPS Primary Care, and £20.5m in exchequer gains from 2024 outcomes. Self-reported by the provider, not an independent evaluation.
Labour Market(2)
All pieces →Rising ill-health and economic inactivity because of long-term sickness, UK: 2019 to 2023
Office for National Statistics analysis (July 2023). People economically inactive because of long-term sickness rose to over 2.5 million, up over 400,000 since the start of the pandemic. 38% of them reported five or more health conditions, and 53% reported depression, bad nerves or anxiety.
Left behind: Exploring the prevalence of youth worklessness due to ill health in different parts of the UK
Resolution Foundation report by Louise Murphy (June 2023). The number of 18-24-year-olds not working because of ill health near-doubled from 94,000 in 2012 to 185,000 in 2022; 23% of workless young people are out of work due to ill health, and 79% of them have qualifications at GCSE level or below.
Policy & Incentives(4)
All pieces →Individual Placement and Support in Primary Care (IPSPC) Evaluation
Final DWP-commissioned evaluation by Ipsos and the Institute for Employment Studies (June 2026) of IPS employment support delivered through primary care. Participants' employment rate rose from 28% at baseline to 39% at the final survey, but similar gains among people who disengaged mean the change cannot be attributed solely to the programme; gains were larger for those with lower support needs.
Pathways to Work: Reforming Benefits and Support to Get Britain Working Green Paper
DWP Green Paper (March 2025) proposing to scrap the Work Capability Assessment, so that extra financial support for health conditions in Universal Credit is assessed via a single assessment, the PIP assessment; to add a new PIP eligibility requirement of a minimum of four points on one daily living activity; and to provide an additional £1 billion a year by 2029/30 for employment, health and skills support.
The benefit trap: Better support for disabled people and people with long-term health conditions
Stephen Evans (Learning and Work Institute, February 2025) finds 3.5 million people receive incapacity benefits, up 37% since the pandemic, with disability and incapacity benefit costs set to reach £100 billion by 2029-30. Spending an extra £450 million a year on Work Support Conversations and employment support could mean 500,000 more people in work over ten years, boosting the economy by £8 billion.
Get Britain Working White Paper
UK government White Paper (DWP, HM Treasury and Department for Education, November 2024) setting out reforms to employment, health and skills support to tackle rising economic inactivity, with 2.8 million people locked out of work due to long-term sickness. It details a plan for £240 million of investment, including Connect to Work, a new supported employment programme to support up to 100,000 people a year at full rollout, and expanded Individual Placement and Support for severe mental illness, reaching 140,000 more people by 2028/29.
Cost of Exclusion(8)
All pieces →The cost of working age ill-health and disability that prevents work in Wales
Public Health Wales applies the DWP method to Wales and estimates that working-age ill-health and disability that prevents work cost about £19.4 billion in 2022. This includes lost output from economic inactivity (£8.2bn), sickness absence and informal care, lost tax revenue (£3.4bn), NHS costs and benefit payments (£2.4bn); productivity loss among people in work is not included.
Disability Price Tag 2025
Scope's 2025 annual analysis of Family Resources Survey data (with a technical report) finds disabled households need an extra £1,095 a month on average to reach the same standard of living as non-disabled households, projected to reach £1,224 by 2029–30. The average PIP payment of £465 leaves a £630 monthly shortfall. Not directly comparable with earlier editions due to method changes.
The cost of working age ill-health and disability that prevents work
DWP official statistics (March 2025) estimating that working-age ill-health and disability that prevents work cost the UK £240–330 billion in 2022. Counted: lost output from economic inactivity (central estimate £132bn), sickness absence, informal caring, extra NHS costs and health-related benefits; tax and National Insurance foregone is £57bn. The 2016 estimate was £114–149bn.
The economic case for prioritising autism in policy and reform
Report by LSE's Care Policy and Evaluation Centre (Knapp et al., December 2024), funded by Autism Alliance UK, Autistica and CPEC, reviewing the economic case for services for autistic people, including Individual Placement and Support. Citing Pro Bono Economics modelling, it estimates that doubling the 30% employment rate of autistic adults could yield societal benefits of £900m–£1.5bn a year.