Social Firms UK

The Permitted Work Guide has been updated and is correct from October 2011

Benefit rules are very complex, but changes to Housing Benefit from 1st April 2010 brought a welcome change. Many people are now able to earn and keep up to £93 a week, as well as their incapacity-related benefits.

Who is this guide for? This guide is written for you if you get benefits because a health condition or disability makes it difficult to work but you would like to work part-time. You can use it to work out what you can earn before the “benefits trap” affects you.

Who else might use this guide? You might also want to discuss it with a friend, family member, support worker or employer.

It is possible to be self-employed while you are in receipt of incapacity benefits under certain conditions. In this leaflet, written in August 2007, Judy Scott explains how.

This information sheet outlines the Government's 'Access To Work' scheme and how it can provide support to organisations employing disabled people. Case studies are included.

This is a discussion paper for reforming Welfare To Work at both Scottish and UK level. It looks at the Benefits System and produced recommendations for improvement. The topic is similar to a report produced in October 2004 by Social Enterprise Partnership about the situation in England, called "Addressing disincentives to work associated with the welfare benefits system in the UK and abroad". Leona McDermid, author of Bridging The Gap therefore wrote another document to analyse the two approaches taken in these two reports.

In October 2005 Leona McDermid wrote a paper called "Bridging The Gap" (available through the Social Firms UK Resource Centre as a freely downloadable PDF). This discussed reforming Welfare To Work in the UK, looked at the Benefits System and produced recommendations for improvement. The topic was similar to a report produced in October 2004 by Social Enterprise Partnership about the situation in England, called "Addressing disincentives to work associated with the welfare benefits system in the UK and abroad" (also available in PDF format through the Social Firms UK Resource Centre). "Different routes, same destination" is Leona's analysis of the two approaches taken in these two reports.

Researchers have found that large numbers of people who could and should be working are refusing to take the risk of coming off benefits. This report aims to help solve the problem by suggesting ways of creating the conditions for people on benefits to feel safer about working. It highlights some of the most damaging and contradictory features of the system and suggests ways forward. (91 pages).