Talk:Incapacity Benefit

Figures

I've looked at the citations for the pilots and the 2008-2010 period. The new version is an accurate reflection of what the sources say.--Dr Greg Wood (talk) 11:24, 17 December 2015 (UTC)

I've rejigged the article now. Happy to discuss. --Dr Greg Wood (talk) 11:54, 21 December 2015 (UTC)

Issues with the Article

There are a lot of problems with this article. I have tried to fix them, but the changes have been reverted. Editors need to remember that Wikipedia has rules about how articles should be written and what should and shouldn't be included.

• Much of the article isn't actually about Incapacity Benefit. For example, the history of Incapacity Benefit section goes right back to 1911 and much of the article is devoted to criticisms of the introduction of ESA. This is against WP:TOPIC. Also, the essay WP:Scope might also be helpful.
• The article is biased. In the introduction, it opens with a criticism of ESA. When editing, remember the saying "there are two sides two every story". Care should be taken with wording and formmating. Some phrases used in this article seem to be used to try and show doubt about what is being said. See WP:MOSWTW. Scare quoting, where quote marks are used around a phrase which isn't acually a quote, are also not permitted, per MOS:CONFORM. Also see MOS:SCAREQUOTES.
• It's not clear what was meant by save £7 billion. Admittedly, politicians often say things about figures that aren't very clear, so it's not necessarily the fault of any editors. But the phrase could mean that:

1. £7 billion save from what the budget was projected to be by 2018 (for example, if the budget in 2018 was projected to be £17 billion and instead it was £10 billion, then it could be considered to have saved £7 billion). Bear in mind that spending generally goes up anyway because of inflation. 2. The budget in 2018 should be £7 billion less than in the year ESA. (For example, if it was £17 billion in 2010, it should be £10 billion in 2018 to have met the objective). The government's data shows that as a proportion of GDP, spending on out-of-work sickness benefits went down quite a lot from 1996 onwards, and declined more steadily since the 2015/16 year. (see page 47 of [1]), so I'm not sure whether it's accurate to say ESA made no savings. However, the the OBR does say that the savings from ESA weren't as much as they had envisioned.

• Honorifics should not be used, per MOS:HONORIFIC. For example, Professor Malcolm Harrington should be Malcolm Harrington.

CircleGirl (talk) 16:31, 27 December 2018 (UTC)

I have moved the sections on the history of Incapacity Benefit to their relevent pages. I have also created an article on Invalidity Benefit.CircleGirl (talk) 17:39, 27 December 2018 (UTC)

I have realised my removal of content earlier today were in violation of WP:1RR. I apologise for any inconvenience this may have caused. However, I still maintain that the content is not appropriate for this article. I think that WP:RFC would be the best thing for this article.CircleGirl (talk) 18:19, 27 December 2018 (UTC)

Tags

Reading over the article, it is written more like an opinion piece or article than a neutral encyclopedia article. even the use of headings indicates a point of view on the topic which is not ok. For that reason, I have added two cleanup templates to the article, so it would be good for editors to discuss here the options for next steps to cleaning it up. Thanks, Melcous (talk) 22:14, 29 December 2018 (UTC)

Edits I am going to make

I am going to do the following on or shortly after the 6th January if nobody disagrees with me:

• Removal of the 1911-1941 section and the 1971 section.
• Removal of the Incapacity Benefit Reassessment section (this subject is already covered on Employment Support AllowanceWork Capability Assessmentand Criticism of Employment Support Allowance articles}.
• Shorten the 2011-2016 section so that there is more emphasis on Incapacity Benefit rather than Employment Support Allowance.
• Re-write the introduction so that it is in line with Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Lead section, which will involve shortening the section to remove referenced information.
• Add more factual information on Incapacity Benefit, such as who was eligible and how much claimants were paid.
• Reduce the criticism section
• Remove or rewrite any inappropriate synthisis, factual inaccuracies and information that appears to be sourced but actually isn't refered to in the reference.CircleGirl (talk) 23:47, 30 December 2018 (UTC)

Added Additional Reference Tag to Criticism Section

I have added the additional references required tag to the criticism section. Although the section has lots of references, there are some big sections with no references. For example "The number of claimants was out of control" section doesn't actually cite the studies it describes, or any other sources that refer to the studies. It only cites a source saying that the caseload began to fall in 2004. CircleGirl (talk) 04:01, 31 December 2018 (UTC)