I’ve just read your article here (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/jobs/9106618/Fewer-sickness-benefit-claima..., and you seem to have got yourself into something of a muddle about the differences between JSA, the two ESA categories, who’s appealing what, and what “fit for work” means. Let me explain:

• Nobody awarded ESA, in either the work-related activity group (WRAG) or the support group (SG) is classified as “fit for work” or “able to work”. Those placed in the WRAG are considered to be those who, with the right level of support, might only be able to consider returning to a suitable position one day. This is actually supported by the rather lower incidence of people being referred from the ESA WRAG to the Work Programme; most ESA claimants are simply not in a position where they could even consider it.

  (However, if you read the publicly available criteria for the claiming of ESA (available from this page: http://www.dwp.gov.uk/employment-and-support/ – click the link for the ESA214 document), you will see that many people who are placed in the WRAG will never be able to return to work, practically speaking. I am sure that if you were to ask your contacts in the HR field, you would find that most of them would run a mile from employing almost anyone exhibiting conditions qualifying for ESA.)

• Those people who are found “fit for work” are no longer eligible for ESA. They must make a separate claim for Jobseekers' Allowance – and a considerable number of them are refused because they are patently too ill to work. These are the people who are appealing their decisions; the most recent statistic shows that fully 85% of people found “fit for work” are appealing their decisions, and of those, 40% will win their appeals. In contrast, far fewer of the people placed in the WRAG appeal their findings. So whilst I understand the confusion that caused you to make it, your assertion that the appeal rate is holding up referrals simply doesn’t stand up to scrutiny.

I trust this assists you to resolve your confusion. If you have any further questions, please do not hesitate to ask. Or you could, you know, write another hilariously misinformed column…