Evaluating Recent and Ongoing Reforms
- Authors:
- OECD
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Pages
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65–80
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DOI
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10.1787/9789264038165-4-en
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Abstract
All four countries have gone through comprehensive sickness and disability policy reform in the past decade. In the United Kingdom and Spain, employment and benefit policy reform went largely hand-in-hand. In Australia, employment policy change preceded the more recent reform of the benefit system, while Luxembourg went through the reverse sequence, with employment policies only being adjusted and expanded after significant changes in the benefit system. In Australia and Luxembourg, reform has primarily affected people with a partial reduction of their work capacity, who are now expected to remain in or enter the workforce and who are given more help to achieve this. In Australia and the United Kingdom, the array of employment and rehabilitation programmes was extended considerably and new funding mechanisms were introduced. The United Kingdom, in particular, is also instituting new rights and responsibilities for the government and for new disability benefit claimants. Reforms in Spain were largely about decentralisation and concentration of responsibilities to improve service delivery and benefit eligibility management.
