Scope
As of May 2011 there were 2.6m people of working age in Britain claiming Incapacity Benefit, at an annual cost to the tax payer of £12.5 billion. The total annual budget of the Department for Work and Pensions in 2011-12 is £151.6 billion, representing approximately 28% of total UK Government spending.
The 2.6m claimant count represents approximately 8.5% of the total adult workforce in the United Kingdom of around 30.1m individuals. Of those claiming Incapacity Benefit, around a quarter of a million were unable to work due to mental illness.
Read more about this topic: Incapacity Benefit
Famous quotes containing the word scope:
“A country survives its legislation. That truth should not comfort the conservative nor depress the radical. For it means that public policy can enlarge its scope and increase its audacity, can try big experiments without trembling too much over the result. This nation could enter upon the most radical experiments and could afford to fail in them.”
—Walter Lippmann (1889–1974)
“Each man must have his “I;” it is more necessary to him than bread; and if he does not find scope for it within the existing institutions he will be likely to make trouble.”
—Charles Horton Cooley (1864–1929)
“The scope of modern government in what it can and ought to accomplish for its people has been widened far beyond the principles laid down by the old “laissez faire” school of political rights, and the widening has met popular approval.”
—William Howard Taft (1857–1930)