DAVID REILLY

Last month the UK Government unveiled further plans to get people off incapacity benefit and back into work by introducing tests to determine whether claimants are entitled to payments.

I am sure that many disabled people, like me, will find this latest approach frustrating and would take issue with the approach on a number of fronts. I believe the approach is unfair and misguided. While the pitch is attractive - rate people on what they can do, rather than what they can't - it ignores the number and scale of the barriers that still hinder disabled people in securing employment opportunities.

According to the Scottish Government, only 39% of disabled people of working age are employed. Many want to work but can't because they face ongoing discrimination when they apply for jobs as well as physical barriers.

The new tests have been devised to address problems that have led the UK Government to call the country "sick note Britain" and are designed to assess whether an individual has the ability to work and assess the sorts of jobs they might be able to do. The test will for example, test an individual's ability to use a mouse or a computer related to the type of task they might be asked to do in a place of work. The test will assess criteria such as manual dexterity, hearing and vision and their ability to cope under pressure.

The Secretary of State for Work and Pensions Peter Hain is fronting the new initiative, which aims to cut the £12bn annual bill to the taxpayer for incapacity benefit alone. But Hain's and the UK Government's contention that focusing on what people can do will help cut that bill is insulting. Are they insinuating that disabled people just have the wrong attitude when it comes to working? Is he suggesting that, until now, no-one - neither employers nor disabled employees - has thought to look for things that people can do instead of things they can't?

Incapacity benefit is claimed by around 2.6 million people in the UK. The introduction of new tests, it is estimated, would cut the number of claimants by around 20,000. Many organisations representing the disabled community are uneasy and have raised a number of issues including questions about whether the proposed tests would take into account the fluctuations in disability. For example, an individual with arthritis may perform well in a test one day but, the next, perform badly due to the day-to-day changes in the way the condition manifests itself.

Other concerns include whether the legislation would force people to go back to work prematurely after a period of sickness or treatment.

The way ministers talk about people on incapacity benefit tends to give the impression that it is the benefit of skivers, scroungers and other parasites. This notion is not helped when ministers such as Hain use terms like "sick note Britain", which almost assumes that everybody on the benefit is a skiver.

Although I have never claimed the benefit myself, I have spent several years unemployed and can't put into words how difficult I found getting a job despite having good qualifications. I find being classed as a scrounger or a skiver very offensive. The UK Government clearly has no conception of how difficult it is for disabled people to get jobs.

Of course there needs to be tighter control over who is eligible to claim. However, there are thousands of disabled people who are dependent on this source of income and introducing tests such as those proposed will only cause unnecessary anxiety and torment to some of the most vulnerable people in our communities.

Calls to a local disability helpline have already increased. Many of the calls come from individuals worried about changes to incapacity benefit. Ministers appear to have no conception and appreciation for the turmoil and anxiety the tests have caused.

But the most fundamental flaw in the Government's approach remains, as it fails to address the number of disabled people who would like to work, but cannot.

Damningly, disabled people today are as likely to be unemployed as they were when the Labour Party came to office in 1997, a figure that is regularly highlighted by disability charities including Scope and the Shaw Trust. During the past 10 years, the UK Government has done little, if anything, to address inequalities in the workplace. Despite the 1995 Disability Discrimination Act, employers still seem to be able to discriminate fairly easily against disabled people. As a result, many disabled people remain on benefit or in fairly low-paid, unskilled jobs.

The Government can boast that it introduced the New Deal for Disabled People to help disabled job-seekers, but, in reality, the deal amounts to not much more than an unpaid training scheme with no guarantee of work at the end of it.

On completion of my masters degree at Manchester University's medical school, I returned to Scotland to work in research science in Edinburgh.

I took part in a New Deal Training for Work scheme, spending around three months in a cancer research laboratory.

I worked for a short time alongside other post-graduate and undergraduate students and at the end of the allotted period the professor assured me that he had no funding at all to employ me.

I found out only two months later that the professor had employed one of the less qualified undergraduate students shortly after I left. Unfortunately, although not for the want of trying, I never worked in science again.

Another problem facing disabled people in securing employment opportunities is access to buildings and services. How can the UK Government expect disabled people suddenly to come off benefits and find a job when it is not possible for them to go to the end of their road and jump on a bus to get to work?

Councils are as reluctant as ever to renovate many buildings to make them accessible to disabled people. For example, earlier this year, Penumbra, a Scottish organisation that provides support to people with mental health problems, wanted to renovate a B-listed building and make it accessible by putting in a lift at the rear of the building.

Edinburgh's council objected and planning permission was granted only after Penumbra appealed to the then Scottish Executive. Councils seem to place greater importance on the look or value of the building than on whether or not everybody can use it.

Before the Government starts labelling people and threatening to remove benefits, it should take a good look at what needs to be done to create an environment where disabled people really have the same opportunities as the able-bodied community. A look at unemployment rates both past and present illustrates that current laws are ineffective in protecting disabled people against discrimination.

Perhaps it is time to reintroduce the system, which was in place before 1995, obliging organisations by law to employ a certain proportion of disabled members of staff. That might be more effective than the current law, which relies on employers making reasonable adjustments but puts nobody under any obligation.