Vision Statement: What we want the social security system to look like in England and Wales
Vision Statement: What we want the social security system to look like in England and Wales
A Vision Statement that shares what the
Voices Council
The Mencap Voices Council are a group of 12 people with a learning disability. They share their views and experiences to help Mencap's Board of Trustees make decisions.
's views are on social security.
This statement is a document that tells different people what they think and feel and what should the aim be about a topic. It is not a legal document.
The people that made this Vision Statement are people with a
learning disability
A learning disability is to do with the way someone's brain works. It makes it harder for someone to learn, understand or do things.
who
volunteer
A volunteer is someone who helps out by doing work for free.
to be on Mencap’s Voices
Council
A council is also called a local authority. They are a group of people who make decisions about some of the things in the area where you live. These include: schools, social care (support for people), parks and dustbin collection.
.
There is a glossary at the end of this Vision Statement which tells you what some words in this statement mean in an easier way. The glossary will help you with a word you might not understand.
The Mencap Voices Council
The Mencap Voices Council is a lived experience Experience is when you have learned or tried something before. advisory group which advises Royal Mencap Society’s Board of Trustees and Executive Team.
They all either have a personal experience or know other people that are a part of the social security system.
The Voices Council thought about what social security means to them.
It is difficult to define because there are many different meanings from other organisations Organisations are groups like companies and businesses. , charities, and the government The Government are the people who run the country. They decide how much tax people should pay for things and how things like the National Health Service should work. .
People need to know about the different experiences people have, the ways that the system works and help others to understand what needs to change.
This paper says what we want.
The Voices Council group define social security as: A
financial
Financial means anything that is to do with money. It is used to describe how people, businesses, or governments get money and how they use it
security net that is given by the government for if you are in work or out of work. This is available to all ages and includes pensions, universal credit and personal
independence
Independence means doing things on your own. Making your own choices.
payments.
5 areas that we think are important in social security
The Voices Council members have had lots of discussions. They have agreed that there are 5 areas that we think are important in social security:
- Living and coping with negative experiences and knockbacks
- What is the right support for individuals and how easy is it for families,
support workers
Support workers are people who are paid to give care and support to people who need it.
and other supporters to interact with the social security system - How do you find work opportunities
- How
accessible
Accessible means something is easy for people to use or join in with. For example: Accessible writing means the writing is easy to read and understand.
is the social security system - We are calling for more transparency of processes, lessons learnt, and decisions which are taken by the Department of Work and Pensions (Transparency means in a business setting, being open and honest).
What the right support looks like for people and what experiences our members have had.
One of our Voices Council members Kylie says: ‘Just because you can't see it, it doesn't mean it is not there. If you get assistance from PIP, the points system is harder for people with a hidden disability.’
We want the benefits system to be easier for people with hidden disabilities.
One of our Voices Council members Bryony says that she has had some setbacks because of the social security system. Social security is important to Bryony and her independence.
Bryony says: ‘I have extra costs for transport because I need someone to accompany me for support, so that’s an additional cost when I travel.’
‘Another extra cost for me are items of clothing and shoes. I can only wear certain Certain means you are sure about something. types of shoes, limiting my options. I have extra costs on medication, medical products, and personal assistance.’
‘I have additional food costs because of dietary requirements, higher water bills because of more frequent showers and I can’t drive so I have to pay for taxis. I also get Universal Credit and combine this with my benefits to cover my extra costs. Without PIP, I’d have to rely on my parents for everything. PIP gives me independence while keeping me safe in whatever I’m doing.’
Another one of our members, Sam, has said that having a personal
budget
A budget is a plan where you look at how much money you have and how you will spend it.
really helps him.
Sam says 'It needs to be more flexible on what you can spend it on. This would help with for example if you want to go on holiday. If you need support to have someone travel with you, you wouldn’t be able to do it if it isn’t in the support plan. It should be able to used on things that make you happy.’
How you find work opportunities
We believe passionately that finding work is important for people with a learning disability. If they want to do this then they need to have the right support to do so.
People do not move into new jobs when they are applying using an
application form
An application form is a form you have to fill in to try to get something.
if they have a disability. People will need additional support to apply in this way. There are lots of challenges for people. We would like there to be more people with a disability advising others on how best to employ disabled people.
People with a learning disability in England who have an
education
Education is when you learn things. When you fill in a form to get a job, education means you write where you went to school, college or university.
, health and care plan can make a
transition
Transition means changing from one thing to another. Transition sometimes means things like when you change from having children's social care to adult social care.
to get genuine
work experience
Work experience is when you try out a job to help you learn new skills.
and thrive in an office environment.
We need to think about each disabled person. They may struggle to work full time hours. The government should support people into work, and they may need a universal credit top up if they want to try working part time. The work should be at the right hours for them.
We think that the work capability
assessment
An assessment is a way of finding out what help a person needs. When you have an assessment, you might have to go to a meeting or fill in a form.
needs to make it easier for people to try work especially if they are not in work already and give advice on what work that person can do.
The environment for the employees needs to be right and it needs to be a supportive work culture.
A supportive culture might look like talking openly about disability and using lived experience. Employers should have a strong reasonable adjustments process which is encouraged by the employer.
A bad experience at work has a negative effect on the person with the learning disability feeling like they do not want to carry on looking for work.
We need to make sure that those experiences happen rarely.
There are lots of assumptions about what work is and being work ready.
People need the support to be ‘work ready’. This might come from a family member or their line
manager
A manager is a boss at work. They tell you what you need to do and give you support if you need it.
.
This may be office culture, how to dress, how to behave and what feeling comfortable and supported looks like.
We want to encourage people to think about people with a learning disability. We need to build a system that means that they are not disadvantaged. In the government’s Back to Work
strategy
A strategy is a plan to show what an organisation, or a person, wants to do and how they are going to do it.
, we want to encourage employers to have an accessible recruitment process.
An employer can put things in place to help someone to be in work. This could be not having any possible bias at
interview
An interview is a meeting where you talk to someone or a group of people about something. When you have an interview for a job, you have to answer questions and say why you would be good at the job. The person who gives the best answers is offered the job.
. Bias is supporting a view which may be unfair or not balanced.
An employer can use plain English when writing and speaking with different people. Easy Read Easy Read is a way of making written information easier to understand. Pictures are usually added next to the writing. should be there as a reasonable adjustment.
There have been lots of problems with the access to work process recently.
We have heard that some people can wait over a year for an access to work application to be accepted. If you need to change your access to work it can take months to do this and get a reply.
If someone has a change of access to work provider, this is very difficult for people. We are not sure that there is the right support for filling in the form. Many of the forms that need to be filled in are not in Easy Read.
Families and supporters of the person who is claiming access to work will need additional support to support the claimant to apply.
If someone does not have a supporter or family member to help them, the Department needs to provide
advocates
Advocates means supporting or speaking up for someone or something.
to people with a learning disability to ensure that they are able to apply.
An advocate is someone who speaks on behalf of another.
Advocacy
Advocacy is when you get support to have your say.
support can help to give a person with a learning disability the confidence and ability to speak up about things that are important in a person’s life.
If somebody does not have entitlement to support, what would this person do? There are limited resources for this. Disabled people can go to the Citizens Advice Bureau,
local authority
A local authority is also called a council. They are a group of people who make decisions about some of the things in the area where you live like schools, social care (support for people), parks and dustbin collection.
or an advocacy group.
We are concerned about how accessible the system and the Department for Work and Pensions is.
Communication with the department is very difficult for many people with a learning disability and their families. Lots of the services are online only which excludes people with a learning disability, their families and carers.
This will be difficult for people who may need more support to use these services online or who do not have access to the internet.
It is important that people have access to digital support to apply for the benefits that they are entitled to.
If someone gets a call from the Department of Work and Pensions this sometimes comes through as a spam call. It will have no caller ID. This means that the person receiving the call does not know if it is the Department calling or not. There is no way to call back the Department of Work and Pensions.
We want the Department to be more understanding and to tell people when they are calling. This will help to reduce the anxiety someone feels when they get a call.
We know that people have been sanctioned for not responding to the DWP DWP stands for the government Department for Work and Pensions. . For example, if someone misses an appointment, public transport problems getting to an appointment or does not have the support to get to appointments.
We believe that benefit sanctions should be seen as a last resort for someone.
What we are asking the government to do something about and what we are asking for:
We want Ministers and DWP staff to speak to more people with a learning disability and their families and carers when they make decisions.
We think that the work capability assessment needs to be easier for people to be able to try work if they want to.
Mencap hosted a listening event recently. The event told us that people with a learning disability say that there is real negative impact of the language being used around benefits. It is upsetting. It makes people feel like they do not want to apply. We need to change the language so that it speaks about people with dignity Dignity means you treat yourself and others well and with respect. and respect Respect means showing someone you think about someone's feelings, wishes or rights. .
The Voices Council calls for more links between the different benefits systems to make it much easier for people with a learning disability to apply.
We want the government to check whether PIP payments are enough money for people and whether they meet the needs that people with a learning disability have.
For a disabled person there is an extra cost for in going to work. This includes clothing, transport. There is a much greater cost that needs to be factored into how much PIP payments amount to.
We would propose that people with a learning disability are to be exempt from any benefit related sanctions.
It is much better to have more lifetime awards for benefits such as PIP. We want to call for a longer entitlement based on conditions and/or needs rather than 2 years having to reapply. This has less impact on the person and their family carers.
We think that people with a learning disability should have fewer reassessments because a learning disability is lifelong and it will not change.
We want to know how many assessors at the Department of Work and Pensions have training in learning disability. We don’t know how many disability specialist job centres we have.
Is the government’s back to work programme going to support employers to gain disability confident status?
How many people have people have switched from Disabled Living Allowance to Personal Independence Payments already? From those people did anyone choose not to switch? If they did not apply we think is not good as the switch hasn’t been communicated and supported.
We would like to know how many people receive digital support and training from the government and how many people have the assistance they need to access their benefits.
Most support for people comes from voluntary organisations. We do not think that this is right. It needs to be mixed as not all voluntary organisations may have the right skills. People might lose out on getting the right benefits.
Where to find more information about this Charter
If you have any questions about our
charter
A charter is a piece of paper that says how things should be done.
, you can phone or email the Voices Council by:
Email - [email protected]
Phone - 020 7454 0454
If you have a media enquiry you can phone or email the Mencap media team by:
Email – [email protected]
Phone – 020 7696 5414
Glossary
Advocacy - Advocacy support can help to give a people with a learning disability the confidence and ability to speak up about things that are important in your life.
Assumptions – things someone might think are true without checking or proving them.
Bias – favouring a view which may be unfair or not balanced.
Disability living allowance
Disability Living Allowance (DLA) is the name of a benefit that some people with a disability get. The money is to pay for extra help you might need to look after yourself and to get around. Disability Living Allowance is being replaced by a benefit called Personal Independence Payment (PIP).
– the money the government gives to people who have a disability and need extra help with everyday activities or getting around. It is often short to DLA.
Exempt – not having to do something or not being affected by something that usually applies to others.
Independence – enabling individuals to make their own choices and do as much for themselves as possible, while supporting them when they need help.
Benefit Sanctions – when the government lessens or stops a person's benefits (money they get from the government to help with living costs) because they haven't met certain rules, like not going to a meeting at the job centre or not looking for work properly.
Social security – A financial security net that is given by the government for if you are in work or out of work. This is available to all ages and includes pensions, universal credit and personal independence payments.
This Vision Statement was first produced September 2025. Last updated 25/09/2025.
This Vision Statement was written by Mencap’s Voices Council and is the group’s view and opinion from its 10 members.
With thanks to the Mencap Policy Team and Research Research is a way of finding out information which could come from books, or asking people what they think. Team respectively, Mencap Cymru, and the Include Me Colleague Inclusion Group for their feedback and support.
Inspired by: Social Security Scotland – Our Charter
