I&#x27;m having meetings with local branches of the English Department for Work and Pensions to try to get some clarification around their rules for people claiming out of work disability benefits who also do work of various types.<p>The out of work disability benefits are currently Employment and Support Allowance (contributions based), Employment and Support Allowance (income related), and Universal Credit.<p>People on ESA might be in the work related activity group (can work, should work), or the support group (probably could work at some point, or with correct support, but DWP (and probably society) have given up on these people).<p>The work might be &quot;therapeutic activity&quot; (a regular activity, unpaid, organised by certain approved providers); &quot;voluntary work&quot; (needs to be for a charity, or approved by DWP), &quot;service user participation&quot; (sometimes paid, but not always, and this is the stuff I&#x27;m working hardest on to get some clarification about.  Many people do it, and they probably should be declaring it in advance (disabled people need to ask permission before they do work!) and then declaring the small amounts of income, although the rules are unclear, or paid work.<p>If anyone wants to see the rules for this you can have a look at the Decision Makers Guide and the Advice for Decision Makers. (The ADM is for Universal Credit).<p>I know a bunch of people who do service user participation and they have no idea how to declare it, and the DWP have no idea what it is (even though it&#x27;s in their rules) and so a bunch of people are inadvertently not in compliance with the rules.  That&#x27;s bad enough, but when DWP change their mind they treat the claimant as a fraudster and stop benefits, when the claimant has only ever done exactly what they were told by DWP.<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.gov.uk&#x2F;government&#x2F;collections&#x2F;decision-makers-guide-staff-guide" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.gov.uk&#x2F;government&#x2F;collections&#x2F;decision-makers-gu...</a><p>Any journos: Download the decision makers guide.  Then print it all out and stack it up.  Then find a handful of real people and try to make a decision about their case.