The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) has come under fierce criticism from business leaders for a new initiative aimed at helping sickness benefits claimants stay in work. The scheme, backed by the new Labour government, will fund occupational health training for 5,000 line managers in small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).
'Like emptying the ocean with a teaspoon'
Industry experts have lambasted the plan's scale, arguing it is woefully inadequate to tackle the nation's near-record levels of long-term sickness. Official figures show 2.8 million people are now classified as long-term sick, a staggering increase of 800,000 since 2019.
Rohit Parmar-Mistry, founder of Burton-on-Trent firm Pattrn Data, was scathing in his assessment. "Let's be honest: training 5,000 managers to tackle 2.8 million long-term sick is like emptying the ocean with a teaspoon," he said. "The maths simply doesn't stack up."
He accused the government of passing responsibility to overstretched SME managers, expecting them to act as "amateur therapists while drowning in operational chaos." Parmar-Mistry added that while a manager can be trained to spot signs of fatigue, they cannot treat chronic illness or fix systemic issues in public healthcare.
Funding branded 'spin politics'
Financial scrutiny of the scheme has further fuelled the backlash. Scott Gallacher, director at Leicester-based financial planners Rowley Turton, highlighted that the £800,000 in funding equates to roughly 29p per absentee.
"That suggests this initiative is little more than spin politics rather than policy," Gallacher stated. He also pointed out the initiative ignores a stark reality: 79% of SMEs currently provide no occupational health training to their managers, across a sector of approximately 5.7 million businesses.
Sarah Gatford of Derby-based Sarah Gatford Ltd echoed the sentiment of insignificance, suggesting that 5,000 managers across England's entire SME sector "feels like a drop in the ocean."
Managers 'panic and avoid' sickness issues
HR professionals argue the core challenges for SMEs are more practical. Kate Underwood, founder of Southampton-based Kate Underwood HR and Training, explained that most small businesses do not lose sick employees due to a lack of care, but because "managers panic, avoid it or act too late."
However, she cautioned that training alone is not a silver bullet. "The cost of absence, the time to manage it, and getting quick occupational health advice are what sink small teams," Underwood added, identifying the real pain points for business owners.
The initiative has also been criticised for being out of touch with SME priorities. Riz Malik, director at Southend-on-Sea wealth management firm R3 Wealth, called it "another initiative from a deluded Government who have no idea about the concerns of many SMEs," suggesting it would not feature on a Top 100 list of desired government actions for 2026.
The DWP's 'honest' update, therefore, has been met with a chorus of concern from the very sector it aims to help, raising serious questions about whether the policy can make a meaningful dent in the UK's growing long-term sickness crisis.
