National Insurance number
The National Insurance number is a number used in the United Kingdom in the administration of the National Insurance or social security system. It is also used for some purposes in the UK tax system. The number is described by the United Kingdom government as a "personal account number".
Disability in the United Kingdom
A number of financial and care support services, commonly referred to as disability benefits are available. Incapacity Benefit and Income Support have been replaced firstly by Employment Support Allowance and subsequently by Universal Credit which are seen as less generous and more coercive. Social security benefit claimants with disabilities are 53% more likely to have their benefits sanctioned than claimant without disabilities. Disabled people complain about job centre staff not understanding their disability. Mark Atkinson of disability charity Scope said, “Punitive sanctions can be extremely harmful to disabled people, who already face the financial penalty of higher living costs. There is no clear evidence that cutting disabled people’s benefits supports them to get into and stay in work. Sanctions are likely to cause unnecessary stress, pushing the very people that the government aims to support into work further away from the jobs market.” In 2017 roughly 4,600 disabled claimants had their benefits incorrectly stopped because they did not attend interviews with good reason.