Independent Revenues and Benefits Monday Discussion Group • 5 October 2026

Helping young disabled people into work and finding savings in public services might sound like separate challenges. In the Monday Discussion Group, they quickly became part of the same argument: what happens when a policy promises to reduce spending without fully accounting for the support people need or the costs that fall elsewhere?

Chaired by Rachael Walker, the discussion brought together practical experience of benefits administration, employment support, council finances and service delivery. Participants questioned proposals affecting young people and Personal Independence Payment (PIP), debated whether councils have further efficiencies to find, and explored alternatives to cutting services or increasing council tax. Their views overlapped, but there were important disagreements about where savings remain possible and how they should be pursued.

Disability support and employment are different questions

Gareth began by challenging the way disability benefits and employment were being discussed. PIP, he stressed, addresses the additional costs of disability; support linked to someone’s capacity for work serves a different purpose. Blurring those distinctions risks designing policy around the wrong understanding of need.

That distinction ran through the debate. A person’s ability to work does not, in itself, settle the question of what support they need with the costs of disability. Gareth later argued that helping disabled people into employment should be judged by its contribution to their lives, including fulfilment and social participation. Some support might cost more than the immediate financial return from employment, while still delivering substantial social value.

Rachael welcomed the involvement of disabled people in the review being discussed. However, she questioned whether exchanging cash benefits for services could create unequal access: people with other income might be able to surrender some cash, while those depending on every pound could have much less room to choose.

Would placements lead to lasting employment

Sean O’Sullivan questioned whether employment placements would create additional jobs or displace people already doing them. Recalling earlier employment schemes, he warned that employers might benefit from subsidised labour without providing a lasting route into paid work.

He also drew a distinction between people choosing an opportunity and people attending to satisfy benefit conditions. In his view, compulsory participation could produce compliance without the engagement needed for a successful placement.

Tom Clark focused on young people with fluctuating conditions and those who struggle to explain how their disability affects them. He was concerned about their ability to navigate assessments and requirements, particularly where their difficulties do not fit a simple or consistent description.

For Kirsty Brooksmith, from Hammersmith and Fulham, the attraction of bringing young people into council employment had to be weighed against the practical demands of supporting them. Placements require supervision, patience and staff time. She welcomed the intention but questioned whether stretched teams could provide the support necessary to make it work, and shared Sean’s concern about displacing other workers.

Robert Fox took the argument beyond the placement itself. Drawing on experience of supporting young people with complex needs, including those for whom councils act as corporate parents, he described the difficulty of turning work experience into a permanent job. A placement could go well, only for a young person to encounter discrimination when applying for employment. Recruiter education, workplace adjustments and support beyond the placement period were essential, he argued.

Paul Howarth asked why so much of the debate seemed to revisit approaches tried by successive governments. After decades of employment programmes, he wanted policy to draw on evidence about what actually helps people into work. He questioned the assumption that withdrawing money or imposing sanctions would achieve that aim, favouring good quality support instead.

Bob Wagstaff added a more fundamental question: where would the jobs come from? He challenged the idea that unemployment could be addressed solely by changing claimants’ behaviour. Rachael agreed that regional differences mattered. A national employment policy would operate in very different local labour markets, with unequal opportunities for participants.

Cash support and the promise of services in kind

Michael Fisher saw potential in offering services that might improve people’s health, but questioned how exchanging cash for support would work in practice. Counselling can help some people and fail to help others. If someone surrendered income for an intervention that did not work, could they recover that income? For Michael, the apparent simplicity of the proposal concealed difficult questions about effectiveness and protection.

Ian Savigar brought personal experience to the discussion. Describing how PIP had helped his son through a period of anxiety and difficulty sustaining employment, he explained that financial support had provided some independence while he worked towards a settled job. His account illustrated how cash support could help someone move towards employment over time.

Ian also emphasised the difficulty of engaging with help. Support being available did not necessarily mean that a person experiencing anxiety could readily seek it out or use it. He reinforced Gareth’s point about keeping disability support distinct from funding related to capability for work.

Bob argued that the priority should be addressing mental ill health and anxiety rather than simply withdrawing financial help from people experiencing them. Reducing support did not resolve the underlying problem.

Rachael raised a related concern about procurement. Could replacing cash with equipment or services create a new layer of contracts, administration and supplier profits? Ian thought suppliers would seek to make the most of whatever arrangements emerged. Sean, meanwhile, warned that support provided in kind could become another focus for public resentment, citing controversy around vehicles available through Motability.

The exchange left several tests for any proposed reform: would people retain meaningful choice, would the support work for their individual circumstances, and what would happen if it failed?

How much is left to cut

Turning to public spending, Rachael asked participants where they believed further reductions could realistically be made. Michael offered the perspective of working in a Reform-controlled council, where promises to identify waste had met the practical demands of statutory services. In his experience, there was no large reserve of easy savings waiting to be found. Social care and children’s services absorbed a substantial share of resources, while residents’ ability to absorb further council tax increases was limited.

Robert described services operating with little resilience, sometimes relying on a single person to perform a critical function. Cutting a salary could look like a saving while damaging the council’s ability to collect revenue. His warning was that a relatively modest reduction in staffing could expose the authority to a much larger financial loss.

He also described the tension between service expectations and willingness to pay. Residents wanted prompt access to a person, while resisting higher council tax. In one contracted service, he said, the provider was meeting its agreed targets, yet members now wanted a higher standard after accepting the savings associated with the contract.

Gareth widened the discussion to the purpose of borrowing. He was troubled by borrowing that primarily serviced existing debt, but supported borrowing for investment in infrastructure and services that could deliver lasting benefits. Drawing on the history of municipal investment, he argued for judging expenditure by what it builds and achieves.

Tom challenged the suggestion that financial pressure meant councils had exhausted opportunities to improve. He agreed about the scale of housing, welfare and social care pressures, but said he had also encountered inefficient processes and poor practice in local authorities. He cited intervention in councils such as Slough and Liverpool as examples discussed in support of his argument that improvement remained possible.

His emphasis was on changing how work is done, rather than assuming efficiency must mean fewer staff or less support. Rachael agreed that an external perspective could reveal practices that had become so familiar that nobody questioned them. However, she worried about the consequences of reducing local provision to a narrow minimum, with community facilities and activities losing out as budgets tightened.

Outsourcing and the price of lost capacity

Bob questioned how much financial pressure reflected the changing way councils deliver services. He recalled authorities employing their own enforcement staff, developing software and building council housing. Outsourcing, he argued, introduced the need to fund suppliers’ profits as well as the service itself. That additional cost could not simply be removed by asking council staff to work more efficiently.

Rachael supported his concern about public money flowing into private profits. Sean offered a qualification: having a small number of shared software platforms could be more sensible than every council developing its own system. His criticism was that councils did not negotiate collectively enough to use their combined purchasing power, leaving smaller authorities at a disadvantage.

He also warned that broad national cuts could miss the inefficiencies Tom had identified while removing capable staff. Targeted improvement and an across-the-board reduction were very different exercises.

Robert acknowledged the appeal of delivering services in-house, but described the immediate financial pressures that could make an outsourced saving difficult to refuse. Once a service had been outsourced, the local capacity needed to bring it back might no longer exist. His contribution exposed the gap between a preferred delivery model and the choices available to a council facing an urgent budget problem.

Council tax and a financial MOT

The final part of the discussion examined income. Kirsty said Hammersmith and Fulham faced difficult choices after years of low council tax. She recognised the financial case for an increase but stressed that residents had not budgeted for a sharp change. The borough’s wealth should not obscure the deprivation and financial pressure experienced by many households. She also pointed to other charging choices, including care, as part of the wider debate.

Sean challenged reliance on Band D comparisons. A low headline rate did not necessarily mean a low actual bill for households living in properties in higher valuation bands, including social housing. His point was that affordability should be assessed through what people pay and can manage, rather than a single comparative rate.

Rachael added that higher council tax could also increase the cost of council tax reduction. Raising more through bills would therefore have consequences for both household finances and the support budget.

Sean and Tom suggested examining parking income and the scope for changing the rules governing council revenue. These were proposals for further consideration, with Rachael arguing that any additional surplus could support local services.

Tom’s broader suggestion was a “financial MOT”: a structured review to help councils identify missed income, inconsistent charging, duplicated purchases and inefficient practice. He mentioned appointeeship and deputyship charging, parking and possible advertising income, while recognising that individual measures would not resolve the whole funding problem. He wanted a clearer way to collect and share evidence of what good practice looks like.

Rachael closed by connecting that idea to Bob’s argument about profit. If additional income were retained and reinvested locally, it could help sustain other services. Tom likened the principle to a community interest model.

Across both debates, participants repeatedly returned to the need to examine what happens after the headline saving. A withdrawn benefit might make employment harder to sustain; a deleted post might undermine collection; an outsourced contract might remove the capacity to change direction later. Tom’s challenge remained equally relevant: those risks should not prevent councils from questioning established practice and finding better ways to work. The task was to distinguish improvements that strengthen services from reductions that leave people and councils carrying greater costs.

The Recording can be found here

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Please note that the handout contains additional slides covering other items of interest in the news and job adverts, which are provided in partnership with Business Smart Solutions (https://www.businesssmartsolutions.co.uk/).