[manifold]

Yes, but having been declared fit to work you would expect that their health has been assessed and "passed" and so expect lower mortality rates in this population, or at least lower than the total claimant population. Without the official statistics it's impossible for anyone to determine whether the total figures are reasonable or not.

I disagree about austerity being a PR exercise. As far as I can tell the £28bn increase in the total "welfare" budget is almost all pensions, and what people typically think of as welfare (child care, housing, unemployment, etc) has dropped by 6% overall, although the social exclusion budget within that has actually risen.

[gadders]

They are passed to be able to work, not to live a long and healthy life. For instance, someone very obese might have high blood pressure and diabetes, but could probably still work in a call centre.

>> As far as I can tell the £28bn increase in the total "welfare" budget is almost all pensions, and what people typically think of as welfare (child care, housing, unemployment, etc) has dropped by 6% overall, although the social exclusion budget within that has actually risen.

Pensions are welfare spending. If you're going to arbitrarily pick sections off then you could make any amount of spending look like a reduction. You could argue about the priorities, but not that welfare spending has gone down.