Day 27 · Proposal 26 · Part XI · Policy 29
Assessing what people can do — safely, reliably and sustainably.
Too often, sickness and disability assessments are experienced as a catalogue of limitations. A decision that someone has limited capability can then become a long-term label, even where their health, skills or circumstances might allow some suitable work with the right support.
Proposal 26 would develop a capability-led framework. It would examine functional capacity, adaptability, transferable skills, realistic hours, reasonable workplace adjustments and the types of work a person might safely and reliably undertake. A diagnosis alone would not determine employment status.
The aim is to help more people move towards suitable work, reduce avoidable long-term economic inactivity and support higher employment, growth, productivity and tax revenue. Those outcomes are aims to be tested, not guaranteed savings. Nobody should lose protection merely because an assessment identifies a theoretical ability that does not translate into a real, sustainable job.
Assess capability, support possibility, protect health.
This assessment concerns capability for work and work-related activity. Reform should produce a practical capability profile, while retaining clear protection where work or preparation would create a substantial health risk.
PIP helps with the extra impact of difficulties in daily living and mobility. It can be paid while a person works. It should not be converted into an employability test or removed solely because someone can do a job.
What activities can be carried out safely, to an acceptable standard, repeatedly and within a reasonable time?
Could work or preparation worsen the condition, create a substantial risk of harm or disrupt essential treatment?
Could different methods, equipment, training or technology make a task realistic?
What changes to duties, hours, location, communication or the working environment are required?
Which job families or tasks fit the person’s capacity, and which are clearly unsuitable?
What pattern is sustainable, including phased, part-time, flexible, remote or hybrid work?
Which experience, qualifications and personal strengths could support a new role?
How do good days, bad days, relapses, fatigue, treatment and recovery affect dependable participation?
Where work or preparation is not safe or realistic, support continues without inappropriate conditionality.
Where future work may be possible, offer voluntary or carefully tailored treatment-compatible preparation and skills support.
Where work is realistically possible, link the profile to named support, training, adjustments and genuine vacancies.
Use proportionate review periods based on prognosis and evidence, avoiding repeated assessment where improvement is not expected.
A capability on paper must connect to real work that is available, suitable and sustainable.
A more positive assessment must not become a softer-sounding route to removing support. Decisions should be evidence-led, independently challengeable and connected to the protections in Policies 28 and 30.
Consider the individual impact of all physical, sensory, mental, intellectual and cognitive conditions.
An activity counts only where it can be done safely, repeatedly, to an acceptable standard and in a reasonable time.
Assess capacity across time, including bad days, episodic illness, fatigue, pain and the after-effects of activity.
Do not impose work or preparation where it could cause deterioration, relapse, self-harm or other serious harm.
Accept relevant evidence from clinicians, occupational therapists, support workers, carers and the claimant.
Provide clear reasons, access to the evidence used, advocacy and a timely independent reconsideration or appeal.
Do not declare capability solely by naming a theoretical task that is unavailable or incompatible with the person’s needs.
Daily-living and mobility support must not be withdrawn simply because a person works or has some work capability.
Manifesto 1.0 proposed that every person receiving PIP and LCWRA support would ultimately be reassessed under a new framework. That universal-reassessment commitment was not included in the supplied Manifesto 1.1 master and is not silently reinstated here.
The better approach should be decided through scrutiny: targeted transition, natural reassessment points and evidence-based exemptions may be fairer and less costly than a compulsory reassessment of every existing claimant.
No reform should create a mass reassessment exercise without evidence that it is necessary, workable, humane and better than the system it replaces.
This proposal should be co-designed and tested with disabled people, benefit claimants, clinicians, occupational-health specialists, employers, welfare advisers, tribunals and employment-support organisations.
Replace a deficit-only system with a fair capability profile — linked to real support, real jobs and strong health protections.
People should not be written off when suitable work may be possible. Equally, identifying a limited capability must never be confused with proving that a person can sustain any job, at any hours, without support.
Reform should proceed through co-design, pilots, independent evaluation and published evidence before national implementation.
Source basis: Manifesto 1.1, Part XI, Policy 29 / Major Promise 26 — Assess Capability, Not Merely Diagnosis. Current-system distinction checked against GOV.UK: “Health conditions, disability and Universal Credit”; “Personal Independence Payment (PIP): Eligibility”; and DWP, “PIP assessment guide part 2: the assessment criteria” (updated 31 August 2026). Read alongside Policy 28 on Work and Independence and Policy 30 on hardship protection. This citizen-led proposal is published for scrutiny; assessment criteria, transition arrangements, costs, savings and timetable are not settled.