Oct 312019
 

This week’s update from Disability News Service is given below with all the articles in a single post, however if you would prefer to view them as separate articles, you can do that on the DNS Website

Equality watchdog ‘considering action’ on benefits discrimination

The equality watchdog is considering taking action to tackle discrimination in the way decisions are made in the social security system, it revealed this morning.

Although the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) has not provided any further details, it released a statement this morning (Thursday) in response to continuing calls for action from Labour MP Debbie Abrahams.

She had told Disability News Service (DNS) yesterday that evidence from disabled people about their appalling experiences of benefit assessments was helping to build a case to persuade EHRC to launch an inquiry into links between the government’s actions and the deaths of claimants.

Abrahams has met with EHRC to discuss her concerns about the actions of the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP), following a letter she wrote to the watchdog in June.

She asked EHRC in her letter to investigate why ministers hid documents from Dr Paul Litchfield, their own independent reviewer of the work capability assessment (WCA), when they knew the information would link the “fitness for work” test to the deaths of disabled benefit claimants.

And she told EHRC of her “grave concerns” about how DWP investigates deaths linked to its activity, and the lack of official scrutiny of the treatment of disabled people by DWP and its private sector contractors, Maximus, Capita and Atos, which carry out assessments.

Abrahams is working with disability blogger Dr Chris Whitaker, who has so far collected 570 stories in less than two months from disabled people who have been through the personal independence payment (PIP) assessment system.

DNS spent months investigating allegations of dishonesty by PIP assessors in late 2016 and throughout 2017, hearing eventually from more than 250 disabled people in less than a year about how they had been unfairly deprived of their benefits.

And last month, DNS revealed that PIP claimants are now almost twice as likely to win their tribunal appeal than claimants of disability living allowance – which is being replaced by PIP for working-age claimants – were almost a decade ago.

Abrahams said she had been campaigning for urgent reform to the assessment processes for PIP and employment and support allowance (ESA) for several years.

She said: “The harm, and even the deaths of claimants following these assessments and PIP or ESA support being disallowed, is well documented.

That these assessments are government policy and government commissioned beggars belief.

Disability News Service’s lengthy investigation into the information shared with the independent experts reviewing the work capability assessment uncovered grave concerns about the department’s investigation into, and recording of, claimant deaths that may be associated with DWP activity.”

She said that the collation of assessment cases via Whitaker’s website, and elsewhere, was now “building the evidence” to try to persuade EHRC to carry out an inquiry.

An EHRC spokesperson said: “We are currently reviewing what potential work we might undertake to tackle discriminatory decision-making in the social security system.

We will respond to Debbie Abrahams in due course.”

DWP has previously insisted that it “co-operated fully with the Litchfield reviews, and shared all relevant information which was requested by Dr Litchfield and his team” and told DNS that it “was not asked by Dr Litchfield or his review for information on the specific cases you refer to”.

It has repeatedly defended the PIP assessment system, and earlier this month said: “We want the assessment process to work well for everyone and have made significant improvements, including introducing ESA life-long awards and light-touch 10-year PIP reviews for those with the most serious, life-long conditions.

The number of complaints about PIP assessments represents one per cent of the total number of individuals assessed.”

31 October 2019 

 

 

Disabled Grenfell residents were repeatedly failed in years before fire, inquiry finds

The inquiry into the Grenfell Tower fire has detailed how disabled residents were failed repeatedly by both London Fire Brigade and the organisation that managed the building on behalf of a local authority.

The Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) said the inquiry’s first report, which was published yesterday, “shows the Grenfell community, including its disabled residents, were failed by the authorities that had a legal duty to protect them”.

The report on phase one of the inquiry focuses on the events that took place on the night of the fire, which began in the early hours of 14 June 2017 in a flat in Grenfell Tower, which was owned by Kensington and Chelsea council and managed by the council’s Tenant Management Organisation (TMO).

It includes the inquiry’s findings on the response of London Fire Brigade and other emergency services to the fire that led to the loss of 72 lives in Grenfell Tower.

The report says the TMO’s emergency plan was 15 years out of date and so “contained materially inaccurate and out of date details of the numbers of vulnerable residents who would need assistance to evacuate in the event of an emergency”.

It says the emergency plan was “significantly out of date in a number of critical respects, not least in relation to the number of flats, the number of residents, the number of those with disabilities and the means of escape”.

The TMO’s chief executive, Robert Black, had confirmed to the inquiry in his evidence that evacuation plans for Grenfell Tower and many other council-owned properties had not been updated since 2002.

The report was also deeply critical of London Fire Brigade.

Among other criticisms, fire brigade control room operators (CROs) had not been trained to ask callers if they were disabled or for another reason would find it difficult to escape the fire.

The report on phase one of the inquiry into the fire says operators left it to most callers to volunteer this information themselves.

Some of the disabled residents did not share this information with the CROs, says the report.

The inquiry found that CROs “routinely failed to ask callers for their flat numbers, the number of people in the flat, and information about people whose mobility or other health or personal problems might impede their escape”.

But the report says this was not a surprise because London Fire Brigade’s policy documents did not require CROs to find out if a caller, or someone with them, was disabled or had a mobility impairment that would impede their ability to escape and meant they would need assistance in an evacuation.

The report also says there were no plans for evacuating the tower and for evacuating those who might need assistance, including disabled people.

Sir Martin Moore-Bick, who is chairing the inquiry, called on the government to develop national guidelines for evacuating high-rise residential buildings, which should include procedures for “evacuating persons who are unable to use the stairs in an emergency, or who may require assistance (such as disabled people, older people and young children)”.

The inquiry also says that it was a “matter of chance” which floors fire crews were sent to to rescue residents because of “incomplete information”, even though a senior fire brigade officer had “attempted to prioritise responses based on vulnerability and age”.

In fact, the officer responded to calls in the order they were received, says the report.

The inquiry will examine the TMO’s failure to keep the evacuation plan up-to-date in its second phase. Hearings for phase two are expected to begin in January 2020.

The inquiry report provides a detailed narrative of what happened at Grenfell Tower, from the time the fire was discovered, just before 1am, until the last survivor was evacuated, shortly after 8am.

Among the report’s tragic accounts of disabled residents who did not survive the fire is that of Hesham Rahman, who lived in flat 204 on the 23rd floor of Grenfell Tower.

The report details a series of telephone conversations he had with fire brigade CROs, who originally told him to stay in his flat.

By 2.36am, smoke was coming into his flat, but when a CRO suggested it might be better to leave his flat, he said he “could not see anything outside the door and had problems walking and so would need help on the stairs”.

Rahman had also phoned a relative at about the same time and told them the fire was approaching and that there was a lot of smoke in the flat.

He told a CRO at 3.10am that there was a lot of smoke coming into his flat and when he was advised to leave, he said he could not do so because he “could not see and he could not walk properly as he was disabled”.

He was told by a CRO: “I promise you they’re coming up to you, but it’s a big fire, OK? They’re gonna get there as quickly as they can.”

He was told to leave again by a different CRO 10 minutes later and he again said he could not escape because he was disabled.

This was the last call he made to the emergency services, but in two calls from someone calling on his behalf, CROs were first told that he was struggling to breathe and then that he was no longer answering his phone.

Rahman is listed as “deceased” in an annex to the report.

The Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) has previously found in its own report that disabled people who died in Grenfell Tower had their human rights breached by public bodies that failed to plan how they would evacuate their homes in the event of a fire.

The EHRC report found earlier this year that the safety of wheelchair-users and other disabled and older people was overlooked when they were housed on the top floors of Grenfell Tower.

An EHRC spokesperson said of this week’s report by the Grenfell inquiry: “This report shows the Grenfell community, including its disabled residents, were failed by the authorities that had a legal duty to protect them.

We are however pleased that the inquiry recommendations include the development of national guidelines for evacuations of persons who are unable to use the stairs in an emergency or who may require assistance.

As well as exploring the systemic failures that led to this terrible tragedy, it is important the inquiry and future recommendations continue to consider the safety of all residents, including those living with disabilities.”

31 October 2019

 

 

Student reform confusion ‘risks turning assessment system into PIP replica’

Major changes to the way disabled students are assessed for their support risk turning the system into a replica of the government’s much-criticised personal independence payment (PIP) assessment regime, student leaders have warned.

The changes will mean the closure in December of DSA-QAG (Disabled Students Allowances Quality Assurance Group), the independent charity that for the last 13 years has ensured that assessments of disabled students are carried out properly at centres across England and Wales.

DSA-QAG said yesterday (Wednesday) that the government’s lack of plans to replace this and its other roles was set to produce “confusion for students, delays for assessments and reports” and an “unregulated” sector.

It is the latest stage of reforms to the disabled students’ allowance (DSA) system, which caused huge controversy when government cuts introduced in 2015-16 meant students had to pay the first £200 of the cost of a computer and assistive technology software awarded through a DSA grant.

Further changes the following year saw responsibility for funding much of the so-called non-medical help (NMH) – such as note-takers or study skills mentors – passed to universities, with DSA continuing to fund more complex support such as British Sign Language interpreters.

DSA payments are non-means-tested grants that help with a disabled student’s extra disability-related costs.

The government admitted last year that the introduction of the £200 charge in the 2015-16 academic year led to a steep fall in the number of students receiving DSA equipment funding.

DSA-QAG also regulates the supply of IT equipment and training by assistive technology service providers, and since 2016 has also regulated the services and supply of qualified support workers by NMH organisations.

DSA-QAG’s duties in monitoring assessment centres will now be passed to the government-owned Student Loans Company (SLC), and the Department for Education (DfE) will be taking them on during an interim period of at least 10 months, starting in January.

But DSA-QAG said the reforms had been so poorly planned that even this timescale was “unrealistic”.

SLC is now tendering organisations to run the assessment centres, under new contracts, and expects these agreements to be in place by the start of the next academic year in 2020.

SLC will also be taking on responsibility for monitoring and registering providers of assistive technology, as well as contracting organisations to provide this equipment, software and training to students with DSAs, a change that was originally due to be made this month.

But DSA-QAG warned yesterday that the tender process for providing these services and equipment had not yet begun, with assistive technology organisations being given no explanation for the “unacceptable” delay.

DSA-QAG said DfE had also been “unable to confirm who, when and if” audits of assistive technology service-providers (ATSPs) would take place during the delays leading up to the new arrangements being introduced.

Karen Docherty, chief executive of DSA-QAG, said this created a risk that some ATSPs could let their services slip, and the quality of their equipment drop, with a negative impact on DSA students as well as “potential delays at an important time of their education”.

DSA-QAG also has concerns that more than 450 organisations that provide NMH will now in effect become “unregulated” when the charity closes, “until DfE decides what to do”.

Many of the key concerns from the National Union of Students (NUS) and DSA-QAG focus on the assessment centres and NMH organisations.

DSA-QAG’s website currently allows disabled students to access key information about each centre, including star ratings and feedback from other disabled students and how long it takes to secure an appointment and an assessment report.

But SLC will apparently only provide information on the three centres nearest the student, and NUS fears students could be allocated to a particular centre, probably the one that is closest to where they are studying, leaving them with no choice.

The NUS has told DNS this week of its grave concerns about the impact of the latest reforms – both in the short and medium-term.

It says they are being introduced by ministers without any formal consultation or any assessment of their likely impact on disabled students.

Capita, one of the outsourcing giants that carries out PIP assessments, owns and runs 37 DSA assessment centres across the UK.

One source in the sector suggested that since Capita had taken over assessment centres from other operators those centres had become “more corporate” and less flexible.

There are fears that the reforms will lead ultimately to the closure of smaller assessment centres and moves towards larger regional centres, perhaps run by larger companies like Capita, which the union says has an appalling reputation among PIP claimants.

NUS says that DfE and SLC have refused to give clear answers about the changes, have turned down the offer of assistance from the current DSA-QAG staff to help with the transition period, and cannot say what resources will be allocated to monitor assessment centres from January.

Piers Wilkinson, the NUS disabled students’ officer and a member of the DSA-QAG board, and himself a recipient of DSA for the last six years, said the changes had the potential to “dramatically affect disabled students’ lives”.

They said: “The worst-case scenario is that disabled students effectively get the equivalent of PIP assessors carrying out their assessments.

They may not be able to choose their assessment centre and may not have any control over who is giving them support for the next three or four years or who will be giving them equipment over the next three or four years.

Call me a cynic, but I am concerned the driver for these reforms is to save money rather than to ensure that the right adjustment support is in place so that I can stay in education.”

There are also concerns about whether SLC has the expertise or the resources to take on the DSA-QAG role.

Since 2015, said Wilkinson, the government reforms have prioritised value for money over choice and control for disabled students, with students “given solutions that suit the universities rather than being the best solution for the student”.

They said: “I have disabled students emailing me daily saying they are terrified about this change because of what happened in 2015.”

Wilkinson said the union feared the government was pushing for more rationalisation and cost-cutting within the DSA assessment system.

They said the current system means assessment centres have to be able to provide their services to all disabled students, regardless of impairment, from expertise on supporting visually-impaired students to having an accessible toilet.

But they warned: “We have seen with Capita and the other large companies that carry out benefit assessments that they fail to even get the basics right.

Are we going to see that with these changes, too? Will standards be maintained or are they going to be able to get away with more?

The bare minimum for DfE is to show us disabled students how this isn’t going to be another botched job and another regression in our rights.”

Docherty said she agreed with NUS’s concerns about the lack of information from DfE about how and when assessment centres and NMH organisations will be audited.

She said this meant a likely “drop in service for students with delays occurring for students when booking an assessment, delays in reports being produced by centres and the detrimental impact this will have on students at the start of their academic life in higher education”.

She added: “We close in seven weeks and there is so much uncertainty that the writing is on the wall: confusion for students, delays for assessments and reports, along with a sector that will become unregulated due to what appears to have been a lack of vision in planning and consideration of what the DFE changes will bring.”

A DfE spokesperson said: “It is vital that disabled students have the support they need and we are carrying out reforms to improve the administration of the disabled students’ allowance.

The department and the Student Loans Company are working closely together on a smooth transition for new arrangements following the closure of the DSA-QAG, which will be confirmed in due course.”  

An SLC spokesperson said: “The role of SLC is to administer government policy.

In this instance, the Student Loans Company will work closely with the DfE to ensure a smooth transition to the new arrangement, once this has been confirmed by government.

DSA-QAG duties have not been passed to SLC.”

31 October 2019

 

 

CPS concern over huge drop in police disability hate crime cases

The Crown Prosecution Service has joined a leading disabled campaigner in raising concerns about a huge fall in the number of disability hate crime cases passed by police forces to prosecutors.

The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) annual hate crime report for 2018-19 revealed this week that the number of “finalised referrals” it had received from police forces in England and Wales fell by more than 30 per cent (from 754 to 516) compared to 2017-18.

This followed a similar fall in last year’s report, which saw the number plunge by nearly 25 per cent (988 to 754).

This means that the number of disability hate crime cases passed to prosecutors by police forces has almost halved (48 per cent) in just two years.

This is likely to have played a huge part in a fall of a nearly 25 per cent in disability hate crime prosecutions, from 752 in 2017-18 to 579 in 2018-19, following a similar fall the previous year from 1,009 to 752.

The plunge in police referrals comes despite another significant rise (from 7,221 in 2017-18 to 8,256 in 2018-19) in the number of disability hate crimes recorded by police, as revealed in a Home Office report earlier this month.

A CPS spokesperson told Disability News Service (DNS) yesterday (Thursday) that there was a “concern over the growing gap between the number of hate crimes reported to the police and the number of cases being sent by forces to the CPS for a charging decision”.

He said prosecutors were “working closely with the police to understand the reasons for this fall”.

Anne Novis, a disabled adviser to the Metropolitan police and to the CPS on hate crime, said the fall was due to both the impact of austerity and cuts to police funding, but also the growing negativity towards disabled people.

Novis, who is also chair of Inclusion London, said she believed cuts had led to more expensive and experienced police officers losing their jobs and being replaced by more inexperienced officers who had failed to take on the disability hate crime work carried out by their predecessors.

But she also believes that a decade of austerity has changed attitudes towards disabled people, both among the public and police officers, with the “drip, drip, drip effect of negativity” and rhetoric about disabled people who are seen as “fraudsters” and “benefit scroungers” by the government and others.

She pointed to reports by DNS on two police forces that have passed details of disabled protesters to the Department for Work and Pensions.

She said disabled people faced not only the “organisational barriers” of police not recognising disability hate crime “when it is in their face”, but also police officers who “themselves might feel the same way” in their attitudes to disabled people.

She said attitudes towards disabled people – and disability hate crime – had regressed by 10 years.

She said: “So many more organisations are doing work on disability hate crime than even three years ago, yet we are seeing the CPS figures falling. There has to be a reason for that.”

She added: “The impact of 10 years of negativity towards disabled people is hitting us worse in the last couple of years in every aspect of our lives, not just hate crime.

It feels like we are having to fight from the beginning again.”

But she said she did trust CPS to take the issue of disability hate crime seriously, and she said the organisation continued to do “focused work on disability hate crime”.

Novis said: “This is a police issue. The police and society’s attitudes towards disabled people.”

A Home Office spokesperson declined to offer an explanation for the fall in cases passed to CPS by the police, or say whether this was due to a fall in police numbers, or whether the Home Office was concerned by the drop.

But she said in a statement: “We are encouraged that more people are willing to report hate crime and that police continue to improve their response to victims. 

Through the Hate Crime Action Plan we are working to tackle all forms of hate crime, including disability. 

This includes funding local community and engaging with stakeholders to address abuse of disabled people online.

Our wider commitments within the action plan including a review by the Law Commission of hate crime legislation.”

The Home Office also said that figures from the Crime Survey for England and Wales had estimated a 40 per cent fall in hate crime over the last decade, and that it was recruiting 20,000 more police and investing £85 million in CPS over the next two years to build capacity and ensure it can deal with cases brought by the police.

It also said that the police and CPS were continuing to work together to understand any underlying trends in the number of hate crime cases coming from the police to the CPS, including at a local level.

The National Police Chiefs’ Council refused to provide on-the-record responses to why it believed the figures had fallen so sharply; whether this was a concern; what action NPCC was taking; and whether the drop in cases passed to CPS was due to a fall in police numbers.

But assistant chief constable Mark Hamilton, NPCC’s lead on hate crime, said in a statement: “Increases in hate crime are in part due to increased confidence of victims to report to the police and continuing efforts by police to improve recording.  

However, statistics also represent real rises in hate crime, which do concern us. Police will take all reports of threats and abuse seriously and will work to improve justice outcomes for victims. 

I would encourage anyone who suffers hate crime, or receives a serious threat against them to report it to the police, either by calling 101 (999 in an emergency) or online through our True Vision web site at www.report-it.org.uk.”

A CPS spokesperson said: “We urge people to report incidents to the police so we can hold offenders accountable and victims can have justice.

In relation to disability hate crime cases we charge in over 80 per cent of them referred to us from the police – so there is every reason for victims to come forward.”

31 October 2019

 

 

Shock and alarm after 18 police commissioners call for assisted suicide reform

Disabled activists have spoken of their shock and alarm after 18 police and crime commissioners (PCCs) signed a letter calling for a change in the law on assisted suicide.

The 18 politicians, who have all been elected to oversee how crime is tackled in their police force area, have signed an open letter to justice secretary Robert Buckland.

In the letter, they point to recent cases involving older people, which they say have led to concern about the “blanket ban” on assisted suicide, and which they say has caused “distress, confusion and pain for dying people, their loved ones, and even the investigating police officers themselves”.

But Not Dead Yet UK, the leading disabled people’s campaign group opposing the legalisation of assisted suicide, said the letter appeared to suggest that older people should be exempt from the law on assisted suicide, which it said was “wholly wrong”.

It said the current law was an “essential safeguard”.

The PCCs tell Buckland in the open letter that they want an inquiry into how the law on assisted suicide should change, and point out that his predecessor David Gauke had told a campaigner that he supported calls for reform.

The letter was signed by the 18 PCCs after a call for a change in the law in the Guardian newspaper by Ron Hogg, the police, crime and victims’ commissioner for Durham.

Hogg, who is newly diagnosed with motor neurone disease, told the newspaper last month that he had become “very depressed” at his condition, and had been thinking since his diagnosis about being helped to take his own life.

He told the Guardian: “It’s about your quality of life, your ability to enjoy life.

I look at myself now and certainly become very depressed in many regards with my condition, and I can see that as things deteriorate, the life that you have, is it the life you really want, the life you think you should be leading?”

The letter calls for an inquiry into the “blanket ban” on assisted suicide and has been signed by Hogg, and 17 other PCCs, including those for Dorset; Avon and Somerset; Surrey; Gwent; Merseyside; Thames Valley; West Yorkshire and North Yorkshire.

But the letter has caused alarm among disabled campaigners opposed to the legalisation of assisted suicide.

Baroness [Jane] Campbell, co-founder of Not Dead Yet UK (NDY UK), said her organisation was “surprised and shocked that some PCCs do not support the current law prohibiting assisted suicide.

The current law is an essential safeguard not only for terminally-ill and disabled people but also their families, friends and the professionals who care for them.

It provides support for all against the inference, whether well-intentioned or malign, that terminally-ill and disabled people should be treated differently in law from the rest of the population.

The Crown Prosecution Service is clear that it will only prosecute the law when it is in the public interest to do so.

By the examples used in their letter, the PCCs appear to suggest that elderly people should be exempt from the law. That is not protecting them.

We know that many elderly people are fearful of the future and the potential for them to be isolated, neglected or even abused.

To suggest that assisted suicide is one solution to such fears is wholly wrong. The PCCs would do better to what they can to reduce such fears by using their energies to tackle the very real issues that concern elderly people.”

Nikki Kenward, campaign director of The Distant Voices, a user-led campaign group which opposes euthanasia and assisted suicide, said PCCs should not be allowing themselves to be “drawn into the rights and wrongs” of assisted suicide, given the “murky waters” surrounding the issue.

She said they should be representing “all people, not just the ones that they agree with” and certainly not Hogg’s “emotive and subjective wishes”.

She said: “The top-down nature of policing requires our elected officials to remain apolitical and so avoid such incendiary topics, since the message to the thin blue line might be interpreted as ‘not important, leave all stones unturned’.”

She said Hogg had presented a “black and white vision of the world” that was “devoid of empathy”.

She said: “He’s got it all worked out: change the law and to hell with the consequences. A few safeguards and it’ll all be sorted.

Those of us who have wandered into the shades of grey know, without a shadow of doubt, that life isn’t like that.

Even a cursory glance at the shenanigans in Switzerland or Oregon can see that this sort of killing just isn’t safe.”

She added: “As for his supporters, shame on them for putting the fear of God in me.

Somewhere, in a bedroom or old people’s home, there’s some abhorrent creature, relative or even care worker, chuffed to bits at the thought that the police won’t even turn up if poor Mr or Mrs ‘Someone’ doesn’t make it through the night.”

31 October 2019

 

 

Cabinet minister admits ‘no consensus’ on social care, despite Johnson’s pledge

A cabinet minister has admitted there is “no consensus” on how to solve the adult social care funding crisis, even though the prime minister announced he had a “clear plan” for doing so when he took office in October.

Robert Jenrick, the housing, communities and local government secretary, told a Commons committee on Monday that it was “one of the biggest issues of our time” but then admitted that there was “no consensus at the moment on the way forwards”.

Jenrick told the committee that he was unable to say when the government would bring forward its proposals, adding: “We will be bringing forward proposals when we can.”

But Labour’s Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi reminded him that Boris Johnson had announced outside 10 Downing Street on 24 July that his government would “fix the crisis in social care once and for all with a clear plan we have prepared”.

Dhesi said: “The prime minister said you have a clear plan; you have said there is no consensus.

If he has a clear plan then clearly the clear plan should be laid out in front of all of us.”

He also pointed out that the government had failed to publish its long-awaited adult social care green paper.

Jenrick told him: “I can’t give you a timetable for that other than to say that, from my perspective, it is right that we take time and get this right, and that’s what we intend to do.”

He said his focus was on “ensuring the current system is sustainable”.

Jenrick repeatedly referred to the funding for 2020-21 that the government announced in last month’s spending round, with an extra £1 billion for adult and children’s social care, and the possibility of another £500 million for adult social care to be raised by councils through council tax.

He said that a “multi-year settlement” for social care would be decided next autumn.

But Dhesi told him: “From your responses what I take is that there is no clear plan and there are no proposals in terms of the green paper on social care.”

Earlier this month, Johnson’s pledge in the Queen’s speech to bring forward proposals to solve the adult social care crisis was dismissed as “waffle” and “a smokescreen” by leading disabled campaigners, with one saying it was “designed to confuse and give the appearance of action when the reality is the opposite”.

And yesterday (Wednesday), Labour’s shadow minister for social care, Barbara Keeley, said the number of people receiving publicly-funded social care had fallen by 15,000 in the past year, while 95 people a day were dying while waiting for care, and cuts of £7.7 billion had been made to social care budgets since 2010.

Labour’s Helen Hayes told Jenrick on Monday that there were currently around one million people with recognised social care needs who were not receiving any care at all.

She said: “Arguably there is nothing sustainable about the current system.

I just want to be clear about your views on the acceptability of the current situation in any way, shape or form.

We have a system that is creaking at the seams, that is failing to deliver for people with a quantifiable gap, and the government has been systematically, over now at least 18 months, if not longer, failing to get to grips with this crisis.”

Jenrick said: “I know that the current system is very challenging. That is why we want to see significant reform.”

He said the settlement from the Treasury for 2020-21 was “a good one and it is almost certainly the most generous one that we have seen for 10 years”.

He added: “[It] has enabled councils to be on a sustainable footing until such time as we can bring forward wider proposals and a longer-term settlement.”

31 October 2019

 

 

Met apologises for failing to consult disabled advisers over XR protests

The Metropolitan police has apologised to its own disabled advisers for failing to consult them about how to treat disabled people taking part in this month’s Extinction Rebellion protests in London.

The force had been asked by its Disability Independent Advisory Group (DIAG) to investigate decision-making surrounding the policing of the Extinction Rebellion (XR) protests in relation to Deaf and disabled protestors, and the actions of individual officers.

Last week, Disability News Service (DNS) revealed that DIAG had lodged a formal complaint about the force’s “discriminatory” treatment of protesters during the protests.

DIAG warned that its actions risked causing “irreparable damage” to relations between disabled people and the Metropolitan police.

But DIAG’s members were also angry that the force had failed to engage with them before or during the protests.

As a result of the letter of complaint sent to the Metropolitan police’s commissioner, Cressida Dick, three DIAG members met on Friday with commander Jane Connors, superintendent Jon Simpson and chief inspector Neil Billany.

The senior officers apologised on behalf of the force for failing to contact DIAG until after the protests had ended, and they told DIAG chair Anne Novis that Dick was treating the complaint very seriously.

Novis told Disability News Service yesterday (Wednesday) that the senior officers also promised – for future protests – to work with DIAG to produce presentations that could be made to officers at their daily briefings.

These presentations would address the issues facing disabled protesters and their safeguarding and wellbeing needs, including equipment, personal assistants and medication.

This will include giving disabled people more time to move away when told to do so by officers, making sure officers are communicating properly with Deaf and disabled protesters, and – Novis hopes – ensuring they do not confiscate independent living equipment.

But she said she wanted to see these promises in writing, and she added: “We need to make sure these things don’t happen again.

I want to see action. What they said they were going to do was good, but I want to see it in writing so it’s a proper commitment.”

She is also waiting for a response to the request for an inquiry.

She said: “They have apologised for the lack of engagement with DIAG.

They have promised definite engagement with DIAG over protests in the future and that they would do briefings every day about disability awareness.”

She said they also committed to work with DIAG to produce training on the needs of Deaf and disabled people during protests, as part of officers’ annual training or personal development days.

Novis hopes this will be done through disabled trainers.

DIAG also hopes to act as a link between the force and the Extinction Rebellion (XR) Disabled Rebels group.

Novis said Disabled Rebels had agreed to the suggestion that they should have contact with police liaison officers during future protests.

She has now passed on these officers’ contact details to Disabled Rebels.

DIAG is hoping to meet with Disabled Rebels to discuss what took place at the XR protests.

Novis said it would be up to the Disabled Rebels to decide if they would communicate with the liaison officers.

She said: “I have encouraged them to do so because I think it would prevent some of the things that [might otherwise] happen.”

She added: “We are part of same community. Just last week I was in a protest, and other advisors take part in protests too.

So we see these issues as ours, too. We are the same community of Deaf and disabled people who want better policing.

As independent advisors we can raise all issues at the highest level in MPS*, and give advice on what they should do and check on progress. But it is up to the MPS to take on our advice.”

A group of three or four Disabled Rebels are also due to meet in the next few weeks with senior officers about the way disabled protesters were treated during XR.

Nicki Myers, a member of the Disabled Rebels, who was arrested because she needed assistance from a personal assistant during a solo protest outside New Scotland Yard during the XR protests, said they would discuss “how they must treat Disabled Rebels, their equipment and carers in London in the future”.

Myers, who will be part of the group meeting senior officers, said: “This will hopefully benefit every disabled person who wishes to peacefully protest in London, for whatever reason.

We hope the police take up the offer of training from DIAG. We believe it is very much needed.”

A Metropolitan police spokesperson said: “On 23 October 2019 the MPS received a letter and formal complaint from the Disability Independent Advisory Group in relation to the policing of the recent Extinction Rebellion ‘Autumn Uprising’ protests.

The MPS met with the DIAG on Friday 25 October to discuss the contents of the letter.

It would be inappropriate for us to comment further on a private meeting.”

*Metropolitan Police Service

31 October 2019

 

 

Mixed and wary response to government’s new transport access campaign

Disabled campaigners have delivered a mixed and wary response to a new government campaign that calls on the public to be “more mindful” of disabled passengers when they use public transport.

The Department for Transport (DfT) campaign, It’s Everyone’s Journey, was launched this week with a basic website and an aim to “make a big difference together”.

As part of the campaign, the government looks set to introduce an accreditation scheme modelled on the much-criticised Disability Confident disability employment programme.

The campaign has been backed by non-user-led charities Scope, Alzheimer’s Society, Parkinson’s UK, the National Autistic Society, Muscular Dystrophy UK, Crohn’s and Colitis UK, and transport operators such as British Airways, LNER and the Rail Delivery Group.

But Transport for All (TfA), the user-led charity which campaigns on accessible transport in London, has decided not to be an official partner, although it has offered initial support.

Kirsty Hoyle, TfA’s chief executive, said her organisation had been involved with the campaign’s development and was “pleased to support the campaign as part of a wider portfolio of change, although at this soft launch stage we are yet to see the full picture”. 

Hoyle said she was not yet comfortable with committing TfA to be a partner of the campaign, at least until it was clear that it was not being seen as a replacement for the pledges within the government’s 2018 Inclusive Transport Strategy.

She said: “I want to make sure that the campaign is used to drive the commitments of the strategy and not to be misunderstood as being the strategy. 

At the stakeholder meeting, I said that the campaign had value but not if it transposed the existing promises and not if it wasn’t open about the changes that the transport sector had to make, not just the public.”

Hoyle added: “Our members tell us that attitudinal barriers are one of the primary motivators for not travelling so we hope this campaign will encourage everyone to be more respectful of our shared public spaces. 

However, this does not overcome the many physical and systemic barriers to access, including staffing and infrastructure issues, so we maintain that the Department for Transport must be held to account for the promised developments as set out in the 2018 Inclusive Transport Strategy. 

We will be watching closely to make sure one is not allowed to replace the other.”

Leading disabled campaigners have been even more cautious in their initial reactions to the campaign.

Doug Paulley, who has played a huge part in drawing attention to discrimination across the transport industry through numerous legal actions and other campaign work, described it as “well-meaning but ineffective”.

He said: “Yes, many disabled people need skilling up and other input to plan and undertake public transport journeys, but effort and money needs to be input to ensure that the significant barriers disabled people experience in public transport are removed.

These being attitudinal, physical, compliance, and the rest of them – by public transport providers, regulators and some (a minority) of the Great British Public.

The effort + money would be much better placed in doing that, than in a feel-good, well-intentioned-but-ineffectual campaign such as this.”

And he said if the government was serious about improving public transport, it would implement the ruling of the Supreme Court in a case he won nearly three years ago.

The Supreme Court ruled in January 2017 that First Bus had breached its duty to make reasonable adjustments for disabled people under the Equality Act through its “first come, first served” policy on the use of wheelchair spaces.

But the government has still failed to bring forward measures that would implement the ruling.

Another disabled campaigner, David Gillon, said the campaign name was “dreadful” and did not even mention disability, as if DfT was “just too embarrassed to mention it”.

He said: “I’m disturbed by the way the campaign is framing transport inaccessibility as a problem of disabled people’s confidence.

If wheelchair assistance doesn’t turn up for a third of my train journeys, then I lack confidence when travelling, but my confidence isn’t the issue, the reliability of the passenger assistance service is.

Similarly, if someone abuses me on a train (it’s happened), then it may affect my confidence in being able to travel without abuse, but the issue is the abuse, not my confidence. Confidence is a symptom, not a cause.”

Gillon said he was also alarmed at plans for an Inclusive Transport Leaders accreditation scheme, which appeared to be modelled on the government’s discredited Disability Confident disability employment scheme.

The campaign website says the scheme will be launched early next year and will provide transport operators with the opportunity to “earn one of three Inclusive Transport accreditations which publicly recognise their work to improve accessibility on their services. 

Operators who achieve Inclusive Transport Leader status will be part of a forum for the exchange of good practice, and act as ambassadors for inclusive travel.”

But Gillon, a leading critic of Disability Confident, said the idea of an accreditation scheme “fills me with dread, given the example of Disability Confident, a scheme too terrified of offending employers to actually mention the workplace disability discrimination it’s supposed to challenge, and which in places is awarded for doing less than the law requires”.

The government’s campaign points out that disabled people are 30 per cent less likely to travel than non-disabled people, which impacts on their access to jobs, healthcare and a social life.

It says that one in four disabled people say negative attitudes from other passengers prevent them from using public transport.

And it adds: “With your support It’s Everyone’s Journey will increase awareness of the issues faced by disabled travellers and improve their confidence to use public transport too.”

Partner organisations will apparently be working with DfT to “communicate the improvements that are happening at a local and national level to make public transport more accessible and inclusive of disabled people”.

This will be followed by an advertising campaign early next year that will “challenge how we all use public transport and encourage everyone to reflect on how common, and often unconscious, behaviours can impact others”.

DfT also announced this week that it would work with the Real Time Information Group (RTIG), a group of councils, transport operators, consultancies and the systems industry, to allocate £2 million of funding to small bus operators to provide audio-visual on-board information.

The funding was first announced in the Inclusive Transport Strategy, which the government published in July 2018.

DfT expects the funding to help up to 30 small bus operators.

Stephen Brookes, the government’s disability champion for the rail sector, declined to say if he supported DfT’s new awareness campaign.

But he said in a statement: “To me there is one major element of importance [which] is the funding stream to allow audio visual facilities on buses which are operated by smaller, possibly more rural, companies.

These companies are running services which are not as financially sound as the larger urban services, so support to enable equal facilities is more than overdue.”

Nusrat Ghani, the accessibility minister, said: “Transport is at the heart of how we live our lives, and I am determined that we remove any barriers faced by disabled people. 

Every passenger, regardless of where they travel in Great Britain, should be able to do so confident that they have boarded the correct vehicle and are travelling to the right place.”

Meanwhile, the UK Civil Aviation Authority (UKCAA) has launched a call for evidence on the barriers faced by users of assistance dogs when travelling by air.

UKCAA said there was currently no definition of an assistance dog within UK regulations, “with a lack of formal clarity potentially causing limitations for passengers with reduced mobility when travelling by air”.

Last year, Disability News Service reported how many disabled people were being prevented from taking their assistance dogs on commercial flights, because their dogs were owner-trained and that training had not been accredited by a member of Assistance Dogs International or the International Guide Dog Federation.

UKCAA is now seeking views on what is meant by an assistance dog, which assistance dogs should be allowed on board aircraft, and whether there is the potential to widen the number of authorised training organisations for recognising assistance dogs for air travel.

The call for evidence ends on 10 January.

31 October 2019

 

 

Activists combine to offer PIP assessment recording kits

Disabled activists have responded to the government’s continuing failure to deal with the dishonesty and inaccuracy of the disability benefit assessment process by launching schemes to ensure that claimants can record their own assessments.

Grassroots groups of disabled activists launched two separate campaigns this week that aim to help disabled people preparing for a face-to-face assessment for personal independence payment (PIP).

Disabled People Against Cuts Sheffield (DPAC Sheffield) launched its campaign to Put PIP Assessments #OnTheRecord with the support of Disability Sheffield.

The campaign will allow disabled people from Sheffield to borrow the specialised equipment needed to record their PIP assessment*.

John, the first person to use the new equipment, says in a video released to publicise the new scheme, which was funded by a JustGiving fundraising campaign: “I am much happier knowing that there will be an accurate record of what has been said in the meeting, knowing that it cannot be changed in any way.

I feel so much safer having the recording kit with me. I encourage anybody going for an assessment in Sheffield to get in touch with DPAC Sheffield to loan a recording kit.”

Disability News Service (DNS) spent months investigating allegations of dishonesty by PIP assessors in late 2016 and throughout 2017, hearing eventually from more than 250 disabled people in less than a year about how they had been unfairly deprived of their benefits.

And last month, DNS revealed that PIP claimants are now almost twice as likely to win their tribunal appeal than claimants of disability living allowance – which is being replaced by PIP for working-age claimants – were almost a decade ago.

Jennifer Jones, of DPAC Sheffield, said she and her colleagues hoped the scheme would save time and money and the stress of having to undergo the Department for Work and Pensions’ mandatory reconsideration process and tribunal appeals after unfair assessments, and that it would protect claimants from assessors “who deny people medical attention during assessments or from those who bully, browbeat, or threaten claimants”. 

DPAC Sheffield is now fundraising to buy more recording kits, and hopes eventually to roll out the scheme nationally if ministers refuse to introduce recording of PIP assessments as standard practice.

The grassroots groups Recovery In The Bin and national DPAC have also combined to provide advice to people who want to record their PIP assessment, which briefs them on the equipment they need and how to use it.

They are also offering details of grassroots groups that will loan the equipment without charge, although there are currently only a small number of such kits.

They are building a map of locations where equipment is available, including the kit being loaned out by DPAC Sheffield. As well as Sheffield, there are currently kits in Cardiff, London and Manchester.

A spokesperson for RITB said: “We are doing this because there is overwhelming evidence that when assessments are not recorded and there are no witnesses, the assessment reports are persistently and fraudulently inaccurate, and are then used to deny people the support they need.

Recording the assessment is a solid step in ensuring more transparency in assessments and they also give you good grounds should you need to appeal a decision, although by recording, you reduce the likelihood of getting a bad decision in the first place.”

*To borrow one of the two recording kits at no charge, email dpacsheffield@gmail.com

31 October 2019

 

 

Mystery over sudden leap in number of disabled people working at DWP

The number of disabled people working in the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) has apparently leapt by nearly 50 per cent in just one year.

The figures were published this month, as part of an annual report on Civil Service diversity, staffing and earnings.

They show the proportion of DWP staff who say they are disabled, as a proportion of those who have declared their disability status*.

Most large government departments showed little change in the proportion of disabled employees over the last year, with the Ministry of Defence increasing from 12 per cent in 2018 to 12.1 per cent in 2019; the Department for Education rising from 13.3 to 13.5 per cent; the Department of Health and Social Care rising from 7.0 to 7.5 per cent; and the Home Office remaining at 8.9 per cent in 2019.

But the number of disabled people working for DWP has apparently leaped from 5,670 in 2018 to 8,430 in 2019, or an increase of 49 per cent.

The proportion of DWP staff who say they are disabled has shot up from 7.5 per cent in 2018 to 11.3 per cent in 2019.

The figures were published by the Cabinet Office, although a Cabinet Office spokesperson refused to comment on the figures.

A DWP spokesperson denied that the department had changed the way it measures its disability employment figures.

DWP said there were many factors which contribute to rising disability employment both nationwide and within the department, including DWP’s status as a Disability Confident employer, its active membership of the Business Disability Forum, and the setting of “ambitious targets” for disabled entrants to the Civil Service.

And DWP said the department was continually improving how it collates data on the number of DWP employees with a self-declared disability.

The DWP spokesperson said in a statement: “We want everyone to have the opportunity to find fulfilling work and are proud to support an increasingly diverse workforce.

Disability employment in the UK is at a record high of 4.1 million and our own workforce reflects that, with the number of staff employed by the Department for Work and Pensions declaring a disability rising by almost 50 per cent in the past year to over 8,000.

We have not changed the way we measure our disability employment figures, and we continue to encourage all of our employees to disclose any disability or health condition so that we can provide the best support possible.”

*The disability status of about 10 per cent of DWP staff remains either undeclared or unreported

31 October 2019

 

News provided by John Pring at www.disabilitynewsservice.com

 

 Posted by at 21:13
Oct 302019
 

[Copied from Recovery in the Bin – with thanks]

Picture of a recording kit

 

Recovery In The Bin are joining forces with Disabled People Against Cuts (shoutout to Manchester DPAC, Sheffield DPAC, and GM Coalition of Disabled People) to offer assessment compliant recording kits for people to borrow to record their PIP assessments. We are doing this because there is overwhelming evidence that when assessments are not recorded and there are no witnesses, the assessment reports are persistently and fraudulently inaccurate, and are then used to deny people the support they need. Recording the assessment is a solid step in ensuring more transparency in assessments and they also give you good grounds should you need to appeal a decision, although by recording, you reduce the likelihood of getting a bad decision in the first place. Recording acts as a deterrent to the DWP, Atos, & Capita (and Maximus).

As of now there are recording kits available in: Manchester, Sheffield, London, and Cardiff.

Map of the UK with Manchester,Sheffield, London and Cardiff marked

The next stage of this project is to encourage others to purchase the components and make assessment compliant kits themselves to offer to people in their locality. Crowdfunding to do this is possible, you’ll need about £120, but be careful who is named, as DWP can be nasty to people on -means tested especially- benefits.

So first- Atos and Capita insist upon certain conditions if they are to accept people recording their assessments, they are here and here (DWP guidance here). What this means in reality is the best way to record assessments is with dual audio cassette recorders. These produce identical contemporaneous recordings that at the end of assessment you date and sign, give one cassette to the assessor, and keep one for yourself.

Recipe

To build a kit of your own, you need:

2 Audio cassette recorders, eg Argos sell these which are ideal.

1 five metre extension cord with double sockets in order to power the recorders, such as this.

A case or bag for the recorders and the cable, for robustness we recommend a large equipment case such as this or this.

Blank unopened audio cassettes (it is important they are sealed/unopened, some assessors will refuse to allow already unwrapped out of their plastic seal audio cassettes) such as these.

PAT (Portable Appliance Testing) stickers, it is important for you to ascertain the electrical equipment is safe, see HSE guidance, that it is undamaged and functioning correctly, once you have done this, fill in the sticker and attach to each plug of the kit (that’s the two cassette power lead plugs and the plug of the extension cable). Such as these.

NB. We are not endorsing any retail provider but for ease of showing people what they need to get we have used commonly available links. Ebay is also useful, but any second hand electrical device must be PAT tested.

So that is your assessment compliant recording kit. But there are also basic procedural steps you have to make to record your assessment:

  1. Contact the assessment centre and tell them at least three working days before your appointment of your intent to record, giving them more time is even better. Three working days is the bare minimum (this is because a lot of assessors refuse to be recorded, make of that what you will, so they need time to find and schedule an assessor who is willing to be recorded).
  2. On the day it is best to attend with a friend, family member, advocate, or witness. You will need to sign a recording agreement form that the assessment centre will provide. Your accompanying person can take care of operating the kit and then also during the assessment it is ideal if they can also make contemporaneous written notes of the assessment.

Taken together: Recording kit, giving them notice, attending with an assistant. Gives you a better chance of gaining a PIP award that more accurately reflects your support needs and narrows the freedom that Atos, Capita and the DWP have to make false assertions to deny your PIP award. None of this is fair, the fact remains the assessment system, legislation, and corporations implementing it, are all part of a deliberate hostile environment towards disabled people, survivors, services users and people with lived experience. None of this is right, we should not have to jump through these tortuous hoops and have our health made worse by a system that is meant to support us. But we are where we are and this is about surviving an abusive system and taking self defence measures to mitigate the harm it causes. Together with continuing campaigning to change the regime and end the hostile environment. And also, make sure you are registered to vote and in case the Tories try to suppress votes, if you can, get photo ID (Passport or driving license or Citizen Card).

A note on ESA/Universal Credit: the Work Capability Assessment- in theory the DWP contractor Maximus should be letting you record and providing the equipment to do so. However this is not reliable and is often begrudgingly done, so these kits are also advised for use with the WCA. Overall the government has repeatedly mooted the use of bodycams for video and audio recording of all assessments, this is not an ideal solution (fundamentally the problem is the legislation and the assessment model, and control of recoding lies with the assessors and use of video should only be done with consent of client) and as yet does not appear to be a functioning provision beyond limited pilot programmes.

There is a lot of poor advice and gossip floating around the internet about how to record and what to do. This guide has been made by activists who have been building recording kits for the past three years and have accompanied and recorded numerous assessments. This advice and these specifications are tried, tested, and proven to work, safely, reliably, and repeatedly. The point of doing it openly and in this approved way is that it acts as a deterrent towards the assessors, so they know they have less room to make misleading assessment reports. While covert recoding is your right, it does not act as a deterrent and is only of use if a tribunal is persuaded it is admissible (they may allow if there is genuine complaint the assessment was misleading, but you will have to argue that forcefully). Also if you are discovered to be covertly recording the assessment they will ask you to stop and may also halt the assessment entirely. The function of recording as deterrent is to get the right award first time and thus avoid the stress, poverty, and potential year plus wait for a tribunal. Please also see our Advice Links page, getting the ward you need starts from the very first contact with the DWP and having reputable battle tested advice from qualified experts is essential.

To arrange to borrow a kit these are the contact details:

Note: we are fellow disabled people, service users, survivors, people with lived experience, we are not funded service providers, so we will do our best but please be patient and appreciate we have our struggles too.

If you create a kit and want your locality added to this list please email

recoveryinthebin@gmail.com

Call To Action: We Ask

  • Recovery Colleges
  • Community Mental Health Teams
  • User Led Organisations and Disabled People’s Organisations
  • Charities
  • And any other organisation that professes to care about the health and wellbeing of people.

To purchase and build kits immediately and provide them to people undergoing assessments. If you do, please email us so we can add you to the list. The Grassroots are already engaged in this struggle, so we ask- Where are you? Let us know at recoveryinthebin@gmail.com and we’ll put you on the map!

 Posted by at 15:27
Oct 292019
 

DPAC is looking for ESA claimants who have been found fit for work but were unable to get a fit note from their GPs and therefore to go back on the ESA assessment phase while they were appealing.

There could have been 2 reasons for this:

  • In August 2017 the DWP changed the ESA65B letter [see footnote] that removed the section that told Doctors (GP) they can continue to issue a fit note when a claimant is appealing an ESA decision,  so GPs had the impression that fit notes were not necessary any more for benefit purposes
  • and also when the Data Protection Act 2018 (DPA) became law on May 23rd 2018 including the GDPR, the ESA1 claim form and ESA50 and UC50 forms were not amended by DWP to ensure  they complied with these new Data Protection rules, which has a bearing on GPs being informed of WCA outcomes

[ Download: ESA65b Letter  ]

Background of this request:

Several high profiles cases, reported on in the media[1] [2][3], have demonstrated the negative impact of GPs refusing to issue fit notes to claimants who need them to appeal a fit for work decision.  The fit note is absolutely necessary for claimants to be entitled to claim ESA at the Assessment Phase rate while waiting for an appeal (these days, it can take one year or more before an appeal is heard).  It had become more difficult because DWP amended the ESA65B letter sent to GPs about their patient found fit for work, and removed the relevant part pertaining to fit notes being needed in case their patient was appealing. Fortunately, thanks to the pressure of campaigners, the ESA65B letter has been amended back to its previous version.

But a second issue persists:  Since the introduction of the DPA and GDPR in 2018, which imposes stricter requirements in terms of opt-in consent, the DWP has stopped complying with the Data Protection Act.  This has been officially recognised by the Information Commissioner Office (ICO), which ruled that the DWP ‘has not complied with its data protection obligations, because its ESA1, ESA50 and UC50 forms do not provide a way for claimants opt in to the statement’. “I agree to my doctor or any doctor treating me, being informed about the Secretary of State’s determination on limited capability for work, limited capability for work-related activity, or both…” as required by the Data Protection Act 2018/GDPR.

What it means practically is that consent requires a positive opt-in, meaning no pre-ticked boxes, multiple terms and conditions with one signature or other method of default consent.

To give an example, see at the ESA50 form below (click on the picture) :

You have the space for only one signature if you agree with all the multiple terms and conditions and you are not given the opportunity to refuse any of the default options, in particular the “I agree” section about consent for GPs to be “informed” by the DWP about a fit for work decision, using the ESA65B letter. And contrary to the ICO guidance, the consent requests are not kept separate from other terms and conditions and the requirement that ESA claimants are given a choice to opt-in to this “I agree” statement.

In the above example, it means that if you don’t agree with sharing your WCA outcome with your GP, you need to take other steps, like crossing out the section or writing a separate letter to express your lack of opt-in consent.  See DPAC’s article in footnote[4].  It is likely that many claimants did not do that and just signed the form.

The GDRP makes it easier and more explicit to refuse consent or withdraw it later. But although the DWP has been told by the ICO that their forms were not compliant with the GDRP, these forms have still not been amended, and we need claimants who suffered a prejudice because of that to make a complaint to the ICO.

Even if you have not suffered a prejudice or other detriment, you could also complain to the ICO as the DWP has not informed you of your new  GDRP rights or that, because the way the ESA1, ESA50 and UC50 forms are designed you never know you could refuse for your GP to be “informed” of any WCA fit for work decision.

Footnote

Original

https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/79333/response/242864/attach/html/2/ESA%2065B.pdf.html

2017 version

http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:juZfLEwWZi8J:data.parliament.uk/DepositedPapers/Files/DEP2018-0290/ESA65B_Letter.pdf

Current

https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/584246/response/1390670/attach/html/2/ESA%2065B%20Letter.pdf.html

 

For further information:

https://www.z2k.org/latest/scrap-the-letters-campaign-where-we-are-now/ https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/lack_of_claimant_consent_to_send#incoming-1413128

 

Please specify in your reply ‘For the attention of Anita Bellows’

[1]               https://metro.co.uk/2016/12/29/jobcentre-secretly-told-dying-mans-gp-to-stop-giving-him-sick-notes-6349168/

[2]               Video  https://metro.co.uk/2016/12/29/jobcentre-secretly-told-dying-mans-gp-to-stop-giving-him-sick-notes-6349168/

 

[3]               https://www.google.com/search?q=esa65b&client=firefox-b-d&source=lnms&tbm=nws&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjiw72NiqvlAhUJesAKHTcTCx4Q_AUIFigA&biw=1366&bih=618

 

[4]               https://dpac.uk.net/2018/04/you-can-prevent-the-dwp-interfering-in-the-patient-doctors-relationship/

 

 Posted by at 16:45
Oct 282019
 

1. As the Grenfell community and people round the country await the critically important Moore-Bick report on the fire, due this Wednesday, many remain in crisis about their own situations.  In the words of Edward Daffarn of Grenfell United, “Thousands of people go to sleep at night in homes effectively covered with liquid paraffin.  The fact is that this catastrophe was predictable. . . . Accidents do happen, but this wasn’t an accident.”

Many social housing tenants, as well as leaseholders, are still living with ACM cladding like Grenfells.  No provision has been made for removal of other kinds of flammable cladding and insulation.  And people who have cladding and insulation removed but not replaced. face yet another cold winter.   Statistics on ACM cladding are available from the monthly “Building safety data release” but only show the tip of the iceberg.

*** Please see the news of our latest letter to MHCLG, which many of you signed and which was delivered on 17 October by affected residents, and supporters.  

2. A fantastic new app: https://www.safeashousesapp.org/ is designed to empower residents to identify, document, and work to resolve the risks they live with.  From their website:

Our app will put residents in control of their own fire safety. Grenfell and other high rise fires have shown us that we should not rely on authorities.  Our reporting tool will ensure that residents are more aware of fire safety issues and ensure that they are not ignored when they raise concerns. No one should feel unsafe in their own homes.  Those in public housing should be at least as safe as those of us in houses. . . . Using the app you will audit the block you live in and create a report for your landlord with images and evidence of issues that need fixing. And you can audit your own home too, checking for fire risks from your appliances, cables and electronic devices.”  

*** Please help spread the word and let residents know about this tool!

Other news from FPA is available now on our homepage (or, later, here) and our recent Annual Report is here.

As always we welcome your involvement of any kind, and of course donations   and affiliations, as we remain unfunded.

Cold homes, fuel poverty, climate change, millions of homes in debt to their energy supplier, huge profits for the Big Six… the energy system isn’t working.
Another energy system is possible! Get behind the Fuel Poverty Action Energy Bill of Rights
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 Posted by at 18:57
Oct 282019
 
Campaign video and pictures have been released on Sheffield DPAC Facebook and Twitter pages at 12noon on Monday 28 October.
 
#OnTheRecord : DPAC Sheffield Launch New Service To Help PIP Claimants
Disabled People Against Cuts (DPAC) Sheffield have launched a new service, backed by Disability Sheffield, to keep Personal Independent Payment (PIP) assessments ‘On The Record’; their campaign was launched at Disability Sheffield’s office in Sheffield city centre last week and will provide disabled claimants with kit they can use to record their PIP assessments.
The assessments are performed by private contractors Atos and Capita but claimants say they do not reflect their condition accurately.  Following face-to-face assessments claimants can ask for a written report, which thousands of PIP claimants say frequently bares little or no relation to the face-to-face assessment; this results in the DWP drastically cutting or even taking away people’s payments entirely.
People have the right to record their assessments but rarely do the DWP or the private contractors provide suitable equipment.  The DPAC Sheffield kit comes as two portable, PAT tested cassette recorders with blank cassette tapes and a 2-gang extension cord in an aluminium case; strict DWP rules prevent people from using modern electronic recording devices such as mobile phone voice recorders.
John from Sheffield is the first person to use the new kit. John, who appears in the DPAC Sheffield online campaign video, said, “I am much happier knowing that there will be an accurate record of what has been said in the meeting, knowing that it cannot be changed in any way. I feel so much safer having the recording kit with me, I encourage anybody going for an assessment in Sheffield to get in touch with DPAC Sheffield to loan a recording kit”
DPAC Sheffield launched a Just Giving campaign earlier this year to raise funds for the kits; David Hayes of DPAC Sheffield said, “We would like to thank everyone who gave so generously to the ‘On The Record’ fund; we feel that this new service will relieve people claiming PIP of a lot of stress and anxiety by knowing they have an accurate audio recording of their PIP assessments, we will continue to raise funds for more kids until legislation is introduced how to record all PIP assessments”

The success rate for PIP and ESA appeals has now reached 75% per, according to new Ministry of Justice (MoJ) statistics.

“Some 16,337 appeals overturned a Personal Independence Payment (PIP) decision between January and March 2019- the highest ever in a three-month period.

And 74% of the 21,995 PIP cases that went through a tribunal ruled against the DWP – also a record high…
The government admitted it cost £26.8m to run PIP appeals that ruled against the DWP in 2018 alone.” (source Daily Mirror – Dan Bloom June 2019)

A benefits assessor told a disabled woman to ignore “irrelevant” information about a suicide attempt, shoved her son after he was asked to halt the assessment, challenged him to a fight, and then damaged their house as he left.  (Source Disability news service -John Pring 24 October 2019)

Being accused of faking my visual impairment was my first experience of being treated like a criminal (source The Guardian-Rob Palk 26 October 2019)

Jennifer Jones of DPAC Sheffield said:  “With PIP claimants and the DWP now having accurate recordings of their assessments in Sheffield due to our scheme we hope that we can save people a lot of wasted time and money, not to mention the stress and emotional of people going to mandatory reconsideration and tribunal appeal. But also to protect claimants from assessors who deny people medical attention during assessments or from those who bully, browbeat, or threaten claimants.
Whilst we continue to campaign to have PIP assessments scrapped we are determined that there is overwhelming evidence to support the idea that now is the time to put PIP assessments ‘On The Record’
We demand that the Government introduce legislation to ensure that this be standard procedure.”
To hire a kit please contact dpacsheffield@gmail.com there are currently two recording kits available to loan . the kits are loaned on a first-come first-served basis and on a trust basis; there is no charge.
We are fundraising to be able to provide more equipment in our city and potentially to roll out this scheme nationally.
 Posted by at 18:54
Oct 282019
 

We know that this is a bad time of year to ask anyone on a limited income for donations but for all those disabled people who live in fear of another 5 years of the Tories in power we must be ready to launch a vigorous campaign to stop them winning a General Election. This looks imminent and should be an opportunity for disabled people to make their votes count.

And together we really can be stronger so if everyone who supports or follows DPAC donated just £1 then we would have enough money to work to stop a Tory victory and provide support to local groups to campaign in their own areas. Obviously if anyone can afford more than £1 we would be very grateful.

No-one else will campaign effectively for our rights except ourselves.

You can donate to us at https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/rights-not-charity

Please donate if you can or share with others and keep sharing to help us reach our election target.

Also make sure you are registered to vote and to avoid any problems with the need for photographic identity in any areas ask for a postal vote.

It is time to Trash the Tories and send them into obliteration.

 

 Posted by at 18:42
Oct 272019
 

Over 150 friends, family, fellow campaigners and trade unionists attended Stephen Aselford’s funeral in Croydon on Friday 25 October, followed by a commemoration event co-ordinated by DPAC, Transport for All and People First.

Below are some of the tributes made during the day.

 

Remembering Steve – by Paula Peters

I have so many memories and not a lot of time
But today am going to share some memories of mine
Steve was a gentle person, with a ready smile
Out on every local DPAC Protest, always went the extra mile.

Had extensive knowledge of every Train Tram and bus route down to an art
Accessible public transport was close to his heart
Would interrupt a conversation with “guess what?”
Facts and figures shared with you whether you wanted them or not

A long time member of the GMB
Passionate about inclusion & equality
Hated Facism and Racism too
Didn’t like the Tories and all they would do

Together we set up BROMLEY and Croydon Disabled People Against Cut’s
Get local disabled people active in campaigning & kick some Tory butt
Followed Mayoral Candidate Zac Gokdsmith around Croydon Town
Banners flying high & chanting slogans we followed him around

No to ESA WRAG Cuts, we want the Tories out
Crashed his public meeting to hold him to account
Chased him up the road with a flea in his ear
Steve standing there smiling from ear to ear

Joined Unite Community in 2018
Became a passionate member & really keen
He was BROMLEY and Croydon Unite Community Equalities Officer too
He supported the branch and all we would do

Steve loved Croydon and Croydon loved Steve
He loved the community and instilled in us to believe
That we must continue to fight to unite the community together
He joined every local picket line whatever the weather

Steve loved Transport for all and people first
The fight for disabled people’s rights he was well versed
Knowledgable passionate and kind too
Always a joke and a hello Mate how are you

To honour your memory we must continue the fight
For equality inclusion and human rights
That is something we must now do
That is the best way to pay tribute to you

We miss our friend, comrade and trade union brother
But you would tell us keep strong and support each other
We will remember you at Ruskin House and on every train.
It’s heartbreaking we will not see you again

Now you leave this earthly life
Free from pain and every strife
Your spirit is now set free
That brings comfort to everyone gathered here and to me

We will see your star twinkling high in the sky
Knowing you will live on in our hearts and will never die
We will hear your voice in every summer breeze
On behalf of Bromley and Croydon DPAC and Bromley and Croydon Unite Community Branch
We miss you, we love you, our friend Steve

Rest in peace

(C) Paula

 

Tribute from Ellen

So, it feels strange speaking at something in Croydon without Stephen who would get me invited to the range of forums, meetings and assemblies he was involved with locally – which was a lot – to spread the word about DPAC – Disabled People Against Cuts. I could always trust that whatever important points I’d forgotten, Stephen would remember for me. Today I will just have to try my best.
I can’t remember the specific date when Stephen and I first met. We were both around the DDPO movement – that’s the movement of organisations run and controlled by Deaf and Disabled people -for many years. Stephen was involved in particular with People First and Transport for All.
But it was over two key things that Stephen and I really bonded:
– The first was DPAC which was originally founded in the Midlands following a protest outside the Tory party conference in 2010. We both got involved in the early days of DPAC, attracted to the idea that this was a campaign that not only stood up against injustice targeted at disabled people, but did so within the context of a class analysis and the aim of making links with the broader anti austerity and labour movements.
– Secondly, Stephen and I have a shared love for our home town of Croydon. That’s not something that those of you from outside the borough may understand – indeed it may well be a mystery to many of who are from Croydon – but Stephen loved Croydon – specifically the North of the borough and was very concerned about issues of inequality between the North and the South.
Having migrated East to Lewisham, I would always look forward to my invitations back to Croydon. Stephen revelled in what his co-chair of Bromley and Croydon DPAC, Paula Peters, says he called DPAC “naughtiness” and he had great ideas for stunts we could pull to try and grab attention to how government policy was adversely affecting disabled people.
One of his favourite stories was about an intervention Croydon DPAC organised when then Tory MP Gavin Barwell held a public meeting at Croydon Town Hall to justify his position on welfare reform. Members of Croydon DPAC turned up to distribute leaflets outlining the cuts Barwell had voted for and certain views he had expressed on social media. We had forgotten to put any identifying details on said leaflet. Barwell stood at the front of the room, leaflet in hand, fake aghast at our statements, threatening to sue for libel if only he knew the perpetrators – who were right there in front of him in the front row. Stephen roared with laughter every time he told that story.
There was also the time Zac Goldsmith visited Croydon on his mayoral election campaign. We were tipped off at the last minute and had an admittedly not sizeable DPAC welcoming party for him outside the event – sufficiently sizeable however for Croydon Conservatives to skirt nervously round us on their way in. Zac himself was keen to engage – which prompted him to end up in a room with Stephen, Paula and Peter. I’m not sure his gaggle of election aides have ever recovered from the experience.
One idea of Stephen’s we never got to execute was delivering an access ramp to Gavin Barwell’s inaccessible constituency office in Shirley. Before we could, Barwell was out. My partner fondly remembers time spent with Stephen in Croydon on DPAC’s 2015 General Election campaign: “Who 2 Vote 4? Not the f***ing Tories.”
Stephen had really good political insights. He was also completely non-sectarian – if you seriously cared about the same issues that really mattered to him, that was good enough for him.
He had a kindness and generosity of spirit that will be sorely missed alongside his rebellious streak and his wicked sense of humour.
The day we learned of Stephen’s passing, there was a documentary on BBC4 about eugenics featuring another awesome Croydon self-advocate, whom many of you may remember, Mabel Cooper.
I found the timing of the programme especially poignant. It reminded me of how far we have come since the days when disabled people were locked away, spending decades in horrifically abusive institutions, as did Mabel. Stephen spent his adult life living in the community he loved and I am so happy he was able to do that.
The programme spoke also to the spirit of resistance of those self advocates like Mabel and Stephen who don’t give up but who campaign for a better world.
It also reminded me how far we still have to go to get to a world where people with learning difficulties are valued equally and fully included in society. That’s the kind of society Stephen spent his life fighting for.
Stephen was pioneering in getting involved in mainstream political activity at a time when disability politics tended to be more separate. Advances in access and inclusion that others of us have since benefited from, he pushed for.
The mixture of people here today paying tribute to Stephen’s life is testament to his efforts, to his ability to bring people together, to his energy and his commitment to the struggle.
So, Stephen, from all of us at DPAC, we’ll continue the fight that was so central to your life and you comrade, can now Rest In Power.
Solidarity, mate!

 

 

A TRIBUTE TO STEPHEN ASELFORD
From Ted Knight, Croydon TUC and Croydon Assembly
25 October 2019

Friends, Comrades
I feel very privileged to have known Stephen and very honoured
that he welcomed me as a friend.
I came to know him through meetings here in Ruskin House.
Always the advocate of those without a voice.
His words would come booming across the meeting.
Do you know what is happening out there in the community, he
would demand.
He would then explain in graphic form, the suffering of a family
or a vulnerable person, at the hands of uncaring bureaucracy.
But it would not just be a horror story because he would then
tell you what steps he had taken to assist.
But what Stephen always emphasised was that no one should be
left to battle alone.
Collective support was always his message.
But not just words or letters or petitions, Stephen believed in
direct action.
That is why he was so proud of his comrades in DPAC.
Stephen knew that the establishment had power and resources,
that the role of the state was to preserve an unequal society.
But Stephen had confidence that working class people acting
together in unity could win friends and allies to overcome that
class barrier.
Whenever I met up with him he would tell me of another action
that he and his comrades had carried through.
He would chuckle, and you can hear that chuckle, as he
explained in detail how they had demonstrated or occupied,
perhaps a benefits office or surrounded a bureaucrat or saved a
family from eviction.
But Stephen also knew that it was not enough just to help and
assist people when they were under attack, but it was necessary
to remove the threat altogether.

You had to change the balance of wealth and power from those
who owned to those who were exploited.
That is why he became excited by the movement that grew
around Jeremy Corbyn.
He well understood the demand:
“From the Few to the Many”.
He was very proud to say that he was the one of the first to
support Jeremy.
Croydon TUC had invited Jeremy to speak at May Day 2015,
days before the General Election.
Stephen had his photograph taken with Jeremy holding the DPAC
banner.
That photograph has appeared many, many times on Facebook.
Then when Jeremy became candidate to be Leader of the Labour
Party, again we invited Jeremy to speak hear in Ruskin House.
Expecting a meeting of 50 or so, 500 plus turned up, together
with the world’s press.
The press surrounded Jeremy and stopped him entering the
meeting.
Stephen immediately took charge.
He moved in between the reporters and Jeremy.
And when Stephen moved in with those shoulders, they had to
get out of the way
And he then ushered Jeremy to the stage and the meeting began.
He then gave his support, awaiting the day when Jeremy and a
Labour government came to power.
Whenever I was running a meeting here at Ruskin, Stephen was
always the first, usually waiting for me to arrive, and as I paced
nervously up and down wondering whether people would come,
Stephen was always the font of absolute confidence .Calm down
Ted, he would say. They will come.

Then if, when the meeting opened, and there was any hesitancy
in discussion, that voice of his would loudly come across the
room, and another of his experiences would get people talking.
It is always hard to say goodbye to a friend, but particularly one
who has been a firm and constant fighter.
A man, who from his own experiences, understood the pain and
frustrations of those who looked to him for help.
That is what made Stephen in his own right a leader.
And as such he will be remembered and be a strong influence
for those who continue his struggle.

Oct 252019
 

[From Winvisible – Women with Visible and Invisible Disabilities, text reproduced with thanks]

Theatre play:  No Bad Women – Rape on Trial

 1-14 November (not Sundays)

Flyer for the play - the text on the image is repeated in the text below the image

We want to let you know about this theatre show at Clean Break, 2 Patshull Road, London NW5 2LB.    Please share Facebook event.  Book here

It dramatizes a rape trial where two sex workers took the attacker to court themselves, because the authorities refused to take action. It’s a true story about women surviving violence who face discrimination, and what they did, with support from Women Against Rape and the English Collective of Prostitutes. #NOBADWOMEN

 

The play runs from Friday 1 November to Thursday 14 November (not Sundays). 

Question & Answer after the shows on 1, 8 & 12 November with one of the original women who bravely testified, and others involved in the case.

Access

·        Tues 12 Nov BSL interpreted performance with Jacqui Beckford.  Deaf guests book here choose Tues 12 November.

·       All shows wheelchair accessible (studio & accessible loo are on ground floor).

·       The venue Clean Break is about 40m along a cobbled alley behind Kentish Town Jobcentre, at 2 Patshull Road.

 

For more info, please contact us at WinVisible or via Facebook here

 Posted by at 22:30
Oct 242019
 

This week’s update from Disability News Service is given below with all the articles in a single post, however if you would prefer to view them as separate articles, you can do that on the DNS Website

PIP assessor told claimant to ignore her ‘irrelevant’ suicide attempt… then challenged her son to a fight

A benefits assessor told a disabled woman to ignore “irrelevant” information about a suicide attempt, shoved her son after he was asked to halt the assessment, challenged him to a fight, and then damaged their house as he left.

The shocking incident in Cardiff last week has left Cheryl Matthews terrified that the healthcare professional who carried out her face-to-face personal independence payment (PIP) assessment for the outsourcing giant Capita could return to her home.

As he left the house, the assessor even told her 22-year-old son that he intended to return for a fight.

Capita has confirmed that the assessor has been suspended as a result of the incident, but the company has refused to say if it will now re-examine the other face-to-face assessments he has carried out for the company on behalf of the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP).

But within two hours of her lodging her complaint, Capita had already offered her £600 compensation.

South Wales police is now investigating allegations of criminal damage by the PIP assessor.

Matthews, who works as a customer service agent and has several long-term health conditions, including one that could cause a fatal aneurysm if she becomes anxious, has struggled to sleep since the incident last Wednesday.

She already receives the PIP standard rates for daily living and mobility, but she had requested a new assessment after her health worsened in recent months.

She says she has been told by Capita that the assessor confirmed to his bosses that the incident had taken place, after he was called in for an interview about the allegations.

Matthews has told Disability News Service (DNS) how the assessor agreed to carry out the face-to-face assessment in her bedroom because her stairlift was broken.

Her husband Paul was also in the room during the assessment, while her disabled son was in his bedroom nearby.

But she said the assessor began to grow angry after she told him she couldn’t say which of her various health conditions was causing her the most problems with her mobility and ability to live independently.

And when she told him that she had recently been to hospital with one of her conditions, he told her: “Absolutely irrelevant. Irrelevant, irrelevant, irrelevant.

I don’t need to know about the past. I just need to know about your condition.”

As she grew increasingly alarmed by his attitude, she told him she found him “very, very rude and quite abrupt”.

When she said she had been treated for a kidney infection and was being tested for lupus, the assessor said: “As I told you, I’m not going to repeat myself again…”

She then told him that she had tried to take her own life six weeks earlier, but he again told her this was “irrelevant”.

At this point, her son, who was passing the room and could see how upset his mum was becoming, told the assessor: “Excuse me, I have heard you being quite rude to my mum.”

The assessor, who she believes is in his 50s, asked her son if he wanted him to end the assessment and leave, and he said yes.

Matthews said: “With that he slapped his laptop closed, ripped the plug out of the extension lead and as he left the bedroom he pushed my son so hard that he fell against the door.”

The assessor ran downstairs and then turned and told her son, who was still at the top of the stairs: “You want a fight do you, mate, because I can give you a fight?”

Matthews’ son told his mum to phone the police and told the assessor: “I have told you three times now to leave the house.”

The assessor then left the front door open and kicked the safety gate that protects their three dogs off its hinges, damaging the wall of the house.

As he left, he told her son: “Don’t worry, I will be back for you because clearly you want a fight.”

Matthews was told later that day by Capita that the company had immediately called the assessor in for an interview after she lodged her initial complaint.

She said she was concerned about other disabled people who were in more vulnerable situations than she was who could have been visited in their own homes by the same assessor.

She said: “He’s in a very powerful position.”

She said his behaviour raised concerns about the other face-to-face assessments he has carried out for Capita.

She was too unwell to go to work for the two days following the incident, and added: “I have had to go to the doctors because I was so upset. I have been really quite anxious, worrying if he was going to come back.”

She has been visited twice by a police officer about the allegations.

She said she still could not believe what had happened and how the assessor had behaved.

She said: “I don’t think you could have written it.

I would never in my wildest dreams have thought that somebody in such a position would have been so aggressive.”

The incident is just the latest in a series of failings that have plagued the PIP assessment process since the government launched the new benefit in 2013.

Evidence from disabled people – collated by the grassroots WOWCampaign and published in July – shows that PIP assessment reports are still often riddled with distortions, twisted facts and ignorance.

DNS spent months investigating allegations of dishonesty by PIP assessors in late 2016 and throughout 2017, hearing eventually from more than 250 disabled people in less than a year about how they had been unfairly deprived of their benefits.

And last month, DNS revealed that PIP claimants are now almost twice as likely to win their tribunal appeal than claimants of disability living allowance – which is being replaced by PIP for working-age claimants – were almost a decade ago.

A Capita spokesperson said: “We have apologised to Ms Matthews and offered her compensation following this incident.

The assessor involved has been suspended pending an investigation.”

But she declined to say whether the company would now review his past face-to-face assessments, and if Capita would contact those claimants he has assessed.

She also declined to say whether he was a nurse, a paramedic or an occupational therapist, and whether there had been other similar complaints made against him.

A DWP spokesperson said: “We take these allegations extremely seriously – the assessor in this case was immediately suspended while Capita is carrying out their investigation.

We expect the highest standards from our providers and all claimants must be treated with dignity and respect.

Capita’s investigation is ongoing – we cannot comment any further.”

A South Wales police spokesperson said: “South Wales police is investigating an allegation of criminal damage to a property in [Cardiff], on October 16.

Statements have been taken and enquiries are ongoing. There have been no arrests.”

24 October 2019

 

 

Police admit officers have no guidance on when to pass protesters’ info to DWP

Police forces across the country have admitted that they have no policies or guidance that would tell officers when they should pass information about disabled protesters to the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP).

Concerns had been growing this year after two forces – Lancashire and Greater Manchester* – admitted passing information and video footage to DWP about disabled people taking part in protests, including anti-fracking demonstrations.

The human rights organisation Liberty has warned that this is likely to have been unlawful.

The admissions by Lancashire and Greater Manchester police have fuelled fears of a growing hostile environment facing disabled people, which were further heightened by the treatment of disabled activists by the Metropolitan police during this month’s Extinction Rebellion protests in London.

Police forces appear to have been relying on the Data Protection Act for legal authority to pass information to DWP, without any advice or guidance to their officers on when this can or should take place.

Because of this concern, Disability News Service (DNS) submitted requests under the Freedom of Information Act to 10 police forces, asking each of them for a copy of any guidance or policy documents that they use to assist their officers in deciding when information about disabled people taking part in protests can or should be shared with DWP.

Of the eight forces that have replied so far – the other two have breached their legal duty to respond within 20 working days – not one of them has said it has any such document.

Those admitting to failing to hold any guidance include Greater Manchester*, Lancashire and the Metropolitan police.

Leading disabled activists, who have all taken part in protests, this week raised serious concerns about the “extremely worrying” admissions.

Andy Greene, a member of the national steering group of Disabled People Against Cuts (DPAC), said the admissions were “disturbing” and showed forces were “clearly failing” in their legal obligations to “treat everyone equally before the law”.

He said: “Disabled people should be able to exercise their democratic right to protest without fear.

But in these and other instances, disabled people are being targeted by state institutions exactly because they are exercising that right.”

He said the responsibility for these actions lay with senior decision-makers in each of the police forces.

He said: “Leaving individual officers free to make arbitrary decisions about who has the right to protest and who doesn’t, doesn’t absolve decision-makers of responsibility when those officers get it so badly wrong. Like here.”

He added: “Disabled people’s lives have been ripped apart over the last 10 years by austerity and we have been a central plank in building a progressive movement for change in the UK over that period because we refused to accept what was happening without a fight. And rightly so.

DPAC has always encouraged disabled people to be active in all the struggles which affect them.

Our message now is the same: Demand your rights. Hold these institutions to account. Become involved.

It’s only by confronting these failings and demanding more from those who are responsible for them that we will begin to see anything change.”

Dennis Queen, from Manchester Disabled People Against Cuts (MDPAC), who has taken part in numerous protests in Manchester, said the admission from GMP was “extremely worrying to us, as it seems to mean that officers in GMP are making reports to the DWP, but without any kind of clear framework or guidance.  

On what basis are reports being made to the DWP? How does the police force know who has a relationship with the DWP? How do they decide when and how to contact DWP? Are individual officers taking it upon themselves to do it at random?” 

She said: “This is unacceptable and we will do everything we can to work with Liberty to get to the bottom of this.

Disabled people have the same right to protest as everyone else, and at least as many reasons to fight back.”

She pledged that MDPAC would continue to demonstrate against an “oppressive government” and those who profit from its policies. 

Rick Burgess, also from MDPAC, added: “In the absence of official guidance, I advise the police to never pass on a disabled protester’s details to the DWP, because the ministry has been identified as a human rights abuser by the UN.”

Burgess suggested that Greater Manchester police might like instead to investigate DWP.

Sandra Daniels and Bob Williams-Findlay, who both took part in this month’s Extinction Rebellion protests in London as part of the Disabled Rebels group, said it was vital to ensure that the relationship between police forces and DWP was exposed to scrutiny.

They said that – for at least the last decade – disabled people had become caught up in a political agenda that suggested many of them were “faking their lack of functionality or simply abusing the system”.

They said this had been “supported by a rabid mass media presenting the scrounger narrative which increases disabled people’s anxiety and fear”.

But they also raised concerns that the lack of clarity and transparency over the actions of police was causing fear and anxiety among disabled people and was therefore playing into the hands of DWP because it helps it “continue its narrative of skivers and scroungers” and “monitor the growing militancy amongst disabled claimants”. 

They said: “We need to ask how does taking part relate to claiming either employment and support allowance or personal independence payment.

Both benefits operate activity descriptors, so unless the evidence shows a breach of these, the only possible use of the police’s information can be to trigger a fishing exercise or to intimidate.”

They added: “To what extent the police are gathering intelligence is hard to know for certain, or whether or not this is just a tactic to disarm and intimidate disabled people during this fractured moment in history.”

But they said: “The fear that now exists is a direct consequence of the policies and culture of the institutionally disablist DWP.

We need to publicly hold the DWP and the police to account by demanding that their relationship is open to scrutiny.

Whatever the truth is about this relationship and the type of information that is or could be passed on, what is clear from disabled people’s experiences at the Extinction Rebellion is that the police are showing increased contempt for disabled people’s rights.”

Sam Grant, policy and campaigns manager for the human rights organisation Liberty, said this week: “Some police forces have been found to be sharing information about disabled protestors with the DWP; this is likely to be unlawful.

Forces need to guarantee that they will not report disabled people to the DWP simply for exercising their fundamental right to protest.

Liberty is very concerned the police appear to have no guidance on how, why and when they would share information.

Without guidance there will be inconsistency between police forces and protestors will have no idea under what circumstances and to what end their information is being passed on.

The right to protest is one of the building blocks of our democracy and is a tool we use to protect all our rights.

Any time the police undermine this right is a dangerous step, but it is particularly deplorable when they do so in a way that is discriminatory.”

The College of Policing – the professional body for those working in the police service in England and Wales – said in a statement on Tuesday: “Information sharing protocols are agreed between individual police forces and the relevant partner agencies and statutory bodies.

In all cases officers and staff would be expected to use their professional judgement, comply with [data protection regulations] and information sharing protocols and follow the National Decision Model to guide their decision making around sharing information with other bodies based on the specific circumstances of each case.”

DNS told him that DWP had made it clear that there were no information sharing agreements with police forces, and asked him to explain what the “National Decision Model” was, but he had failed to comment further by noon today (Thursday).

The National Police Chiefs Council refused to provide an on-the-record comment on the freedom of information responses.

*Yesterday (Wednesday), Greater Manchester police confirmed in a freedom of information response to DNS that it had provided details of “a number of” disabled people to DWP following their involvement in protests.

It said this was done “on the basis of information sharing for the prevention and investigation of criminal offences, in order for DWP to undertake their own investigation” and is “believed to have included names, video and photographic footage”.

24 October 2019

 

 

Met’s disabled advisers lodge complaint over police ‘discrimination’ during XR protests

The Metropolitan police’s own disabled advisers have lodged a formal complaint about the force’s “discriminatory” treatment of disabled protesters during this month’s Extinction Rebellion protests in London.

A joint letter from every member of the Disability Independent Advisory Group (DIAG) to commissioner Cressida Dick says they are “disappointed and angered” by the force’s actions.

They say they believe the force breached the Equality Act by discriminating against disabled protesters.

And they warn that those actions risk causing “irreparable damage” to relations between disabled people and the Metropolitan police, and that the consequences of its actions will “take many years to heal”.

The want Dick to order a full investigation into the force’s decision-making surrounding the policing of the Extinction Rebellion (XR) protests in relation to Deaf and disabled protestors, and into the actions of individual officers.

Among the incidents they highlight in the letter are the force’s decision to confiscate equipment that was intended to make it safe and accessible for disabled people to take part in the XR protests.

This included two mobile accessible toilets and showers, wheelchairs, ramps, noise-cancelling headphones for autistic protesters, and solar-powered charging equipment for wheelchairs and scooters.

They also highlight the decision to arrest a wheelchair-user because she needed support from a personal assistant – who was also arrested – during a solo, peaceful protest outside New Scotland Yard.

Another incident highlighted in the letter is the way a police officer was seen to be “visibly shaking with anger” as he and about 20 other officers threatened to arrest a small group of members of the XR Disabled Rebels group, who again were taking part in a peaceful, non-disruptive protest outside New Scotland Yard.

But DIAG members are also angry that the force failed to engage with them before, during and shortly after the protests.

DIAG chair Anne Novis – who in June was recognised with a commendation by the force for her service with DIAG – repeatedly attempted to contact the force to offer advice from DIAG when she and her colleagues became aware of incidents unfolding during the XR protests.

The letter says that “all members of the DIAG are disappointed and angered” at the failure to seek their assistance in the lead-up to XR “in understanding the complexity of addressing the needs of disabled protesters, despite the fact that we have on several occasions tried to engage with the team”.

It adds: “The actions of the MPS* have not been received well by the disabled and Deaf community, many of whom now fear that their legal right to participate in peaceful protests can no longer be exercised if their mobility equipment is to be confiscated, and personal assistants/carers arrested.

The effect on the relationship between the MPS and members of our community is at risk of irreparable damage.

The actions in the last few weeks will have long-lasting consequences for our community and will take many years to heal.”

The Metropolitan police had failed to comment by noon today (Thursday).

*Metropolitan Police Service

24 October 2019

 

 

NAO action on suicides ‘could be long-awaited recognition of deaths caused by DWP’

A watchdog’s decision to question the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) about the information it holds on benefit-related suicides could be a long-awaited recognition of the damage caused by the government’s policies, say disabled activists.

They spoke out after the National Audit Office (NAO) confirmed that it would seek information from DWP about what records it holds on suicides linked by coroners to its actions.

The watchdog decided to act after Justin Tomlinson, the minister for disabled people, claimed in a parliamentary answer that it would be too expensive to produce such information.

Tomlinson was asked about the figures last month by Frank Field, the independent MP who chairs the Commons work and pensions select committee.

He had asked Tomlinson how many times since 2013 DWP had submitted evidence to inquests into the deaths of benefits claimants who had taken their own lives, and how many of the coroners holding those inquests had ruled that DWP policies were partly responsible for the suicide.

Field raised concerns about Tomlinson’s answer with NAO.

Now Gareth Davies, NAO’s auditor general, has told Field in a letter – seen by DNS – that it is a “very important and serious topic” and that he will ask DWP about the information it holds.

Davies also suggested that NAO might decide to compile the information itself, depending on how DWP responds to his questions.

The decision to question DWP about benefit-related suicides has been welcomed by disabled activists, despite concerns that much more needs to be done to uncover the actual number of deaths caused by the actions of DWP ministers and officials over the last decade.

Less than two years ago, Field’s committee refused to put questions to the then minister for disabled people, Sarah Newton, about figures that showed attempted suicides among people claiming out-of-work disability benefits had doubled between 2007 and 2014.

The figures, which showed how the proportion of claimants reporting a suicide attempt rose sharply after the introduction of employment and support allowance (ESA) and the work capability assessment (WCA) – although the figures did not prove a link to the WCA – had been passed to the committee by Disability News Service (DNS) in advance of an evidence session with Newton.

Field’s committee also refused to comment in May this year when DNS secured proof that DWP had failed to pass crucial documents linking the assessment with suicides and other deaths to its own independent reviewer of the WCA.

Years of research have shown clear links between the government’s social security reforms and suicides.

Four years ago, public health experts from the Universities of Liverpool and Oxford showed in a study that, across England as a whole, the process of reassessing people on incapacity benefit for the new ESA between 2010 and 2013 was “associated with” an extra 590 suicides.

A petition calling for an independent inquiry into deaths linked to the actions of DWP, and for any evidence of misconduct by ministers and civil servants to be passed to the police for a possible criminal investigation, secured more than 55,000 signatures by the time it closed last month.

The Justice for Jodey Whiting petition secured almost no support from large disability charities like Leonard Cheshire, RNIB, Scope and Sense, but was backed by grassroots organisations of disabled people and the families of disabled people whose deaths have been linked to DWP’s actions.

Rick Burgess, from Manchester Disabled People Against Cuts, said: “Anecdotally we all know of deaths that would not have happened if it weren’t for the DWP.

It is hard to quantify with precision and this exercise will likely undercut the true total due to a reluctance of state authorities to accuse other organs of the state of unlawful killing.

Perhaps an epidemiological approach could discover the true scale of harm caused.”

But he added: “What I would hope this signifies is a recognition that the DWP’s hostile policies towards disabled people have caused immense suffering, deaths, and human rights abuses, and that this has to be stopped and then accounted for through a truth and reconciliation process, that will inevitably include prosecutions of key government personnel.”

John McArdle, co-founder of Black Triangle, welcomed NAO’s decision to examine the figures held by DWP.

He said: “Black Triangle welcomes Mr Field’s activism on this issue which we have been campaigning on for so long.

It has come not a moment too soon.”

But he said it came in the wake of the “disappointing” failure of the Justice for Jodey Whiting petition to secure the 100,000 signatures necessary for a parliamentary debate.

He added: “Families are crying out for justice. Really the police and the Crown Prosecution Service should be looking at this.

We believe there is sufficient evidence that would give rise to the prosecution of DWP ministers and officials for misconduct in public office and possibly other offences.”

Field was not available to comment this week on why he had changed his mind on probing DWP on the issue of deaths linked to the government’s social security reforms.

But he said in a statement issued earlier this week, and passed to DNS by his office, that he had asked the question in parliament after a constituent took his own life when his personal independence payment was withdrawn.

Field said: “I struggle to believe that, given the amount of time it must take to put together evidence for inquests, attend court hearings, and internally review the decisions to see what part the DWP policy may have played in a claimant taking their own life, there is no record of such.

It shocks me even more that the department is apparently unconcerned with the most drastic effects of its policies and conducts no internal monitoring of the tragedies in which it could be complicit.”

He added: “Amongst many other things, I hope the NAO will, through these initial enquiries, find out the cost the DWP will incur to answer this parliamentary question, as it would be most helpful to understand what expense the department considered out of proportion to the infinite preciousness of the human lives it is supposed to serve and protect.”

A DWP spokesperson said: “The NAO has been clear that they have not opened an inquiry into this and has made no commitment to opening one in the future.

They are interested in the information we hold.

The death of a claimant is always a tragedy and whilst this is not an inquiry, the NAO rightly considers it an important topic which we will engage with them on.”

An NAO spokesperson said: “We can confirm that we have received correspondence raising concerns about a reply by the Department for Work and Pensions to a written parliamentary question relating to inquests of benefits claimants who ended their lives by suicide. 

We are engaging with the DWP about the information it holds on this issue and will reply to the correspondent with our findings in due course.”

Samaritans can be contacted free, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, by calling 116 123 or emailing jo@samaritans.org

24 October 2019

 

 

MPs criticised over ‘disgraceful’ omission of ALLFIE inclusive education evidence

MPs who released a report criticising the implementation of the government’s reforms of the special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) system have been accused of a “disgraceful” omission of crucial evidence on inclusive education.

The Commons education committee, chaired by the disabled Tory MP Robert Halfon, released its report yesterday (Wednesday) following an 18-month inquiry.

The report was heavily critical of how the reforms in the 2014 Children and Families Act have been implemented, which it said had left families in England “facing a nightmare of bureaucracy, buck-passing and confusion”.

The reforms saw the introduction of education, health and care plans, which last from birth to the age of 25 and should set out all the support a family should receive across education, health and social care.

But the committee said the “significant” shortfall in government funding for SEND since 2014 was a “serious contributory factor” in the failure to deliver on the reforms.

It also called for a culture change within government, councils and schools and a more rigorous inspection regime, while it accused the Department for Education (DfE) of a “piecemeal” approach which creates “reactive, sticking-plaster policies”.

But the report almost completely ignores growing concerns about the increasing numbers of disabled children being educated in segregated settings.

A report by the National Audit Office last month found the number of pupils with SEND who attend special schools or alternative provision rose by more than a fifth between 2014 and 2018.

This week’s report makes no mention of evidence given in person to the committee by Tara Flood, former director of The Alliance for Inclusive Education, who spoke last November about the “perfect storm” facing parents who wanted their disabled child educated in a mainstream school.

After that evidence session, Flood had criticised the committee for a “sham” inquiry that was refusing to discuss the increased levels of segregated education in England and what needed to happen for the system to be more inclusive.

This week’s 127-page report makes almost no mention of the need to address the growing levels of segregated education.

ALLFIE’s omission came despite the report quoting a string of council leaders, ministers, charities, parents, special and mainstream schools and colleges, NHS leaders, regulators and tribunal judges.

Michelle Daley, ALLFIE’s interim director, said: “It is disgraceful that we have not been mentioned in the report.

We are extremely disappointed that the points made by Tara on 20 November 2018 have not been mentioned

You should not cherry pick what’s in your report. It should be fair and accurate.”

She said the report only mentions inclusive education “in passing”, for example through a call for Ofsted to inspect schools on the basis of how inclusive they are and how they deliver SEND support.

But she said it ignores how disabled children are being “bully-pushed” into special schools because mainstream schools are not being resourced to support them.

The report even calls for local authorities to be allowed to open more special schools.

Daley said the report still provided a “damning” verdict on the government’s reforms and provides “a catalogue of issues that are hampering and jeopardising the future generation of our disabled children and young people”.

And she said it shows a failure to both enforce the 2014 reforms and protect the rights of disabled children and young people.

The report says failures of implementation have led to “confusion and at times unlawful practice, bureaucratic nightmares, buck-passing and a lack of accountability, strained resources and adversarial experiences”.

But Daley said she was concerned that the committee appears to hint that the government’s failings justify the unlawful behaviour of some local authorities.

She said: “We know the only way to achieve improvement for disabled learners and properly deliver on inclusive education is for our government to implement the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities in our domestic law.”

Among the report’s recommendations are for parents and schools to be able to appeal directly to DfE if local authorities are not complying with the law; and for the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman to be given powers to investigate complaints about schools. 

Halfon said in a statement issued alongside the report: “Families are often forced to wade through a treacle of bureaucracy, in a system which breeds conflict and despair as parents try to navigate a postcode lottery of provision.

A lack of accountability plagues the system as local authorities, social care and health providers too frequently seek to pass the buck rather than take responsibility for providing support.”

A DfE spokesperson said: “No child should be held back from reaching their potential, including those with special educational needs.

That’s why we recently announced a £780 million increase to local authorities’ high needs funding, boosting the budget by 12 per cent and bringing the total spent on supporting those with the most complex needs to over £7 billion for 2020-21.

This report recognises the improvements made to the system over five years ago were the right ones, and put families and children at the heart of the process.

But through our review of these reforms [announced last month], we are focused on making sure they work for every child, in every part of the country.”

24 October 2019

 

 

Two more PIP reviews could mean DWP has had to fix 10 benefit blunders in two years

The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) has had to carry out what appear to be as many as nine or even 10 costly trawls through the records of disabled people unfairly deprived of benefits in just two years.

DWP quietly slipped out its latest admissions last week in response to a legal ruling that found the department had made serious errors in relation to claims for personal independence payment (PIP).

The announcements were spotted by the Benefits and Work website.

Because of the refusal of DWP’s press office to answer questions about the latest reviews, it is not clear how many there have been in total, but it appears that there have now been at least nine, or even 10, with as many as eight related to PIP.

In addition to the two revealed last week, there appear to have been as many as eight other reviews launched by DWP during 2018 and 2019 as a result of court and tribunal rulings.

The two latest reviews follow an upper tribunal ruling on 28 November 2016 which found that DWP had been wrongly deciding some PIP claims.

But DWP continued to make errors in the assessment process after that ruling.

The first review relates to the way DWP assesses the extra help disabled people need to follow a special diet.

DWP is now reviewing PIP claims which might have been entitled to a higher rate of support and some claimants who were originally found ineligible for PIP, and it says it will be backdating any claims that were wrongly decided after 28 November 2016.

The second review relates to the way DWP assesses the need for supervision, prompting or assistance to manage medication and monitor a health condition.

This review will only affect those whose claims were decided by DWP between 28 November 2016 and 16 March 2017, the date the government changed the law to take account of the tribunal ruling.

Neither of the new reviews will see claimants invited for face-to-face assessments.

The two latest reviews mean DWP may now have had to launch nine or 10 such trawls through its records as a result of serious errors by its senior civil servants.

In June 2018, DWP announced a review following a tribunal ruling delivered in March 2017 – concerning a PIP claimant referred to as RJ – on how DWP assesses whether disabled people can carry out activities safely and need supervision to do so.

This was likely to affect people with conditions such as epilepsy, with (at the time) an estimated 10,000 PIP claimants set to benefit by £70 to £90 per week by 2022-23.

In the same week, DWP announced a review of an estimated 1.6 million PIP claims to find claimants who experience mental distress when making or planning a journey.

This followed a court ruling in December 2017 – in the case of a claimant referred to as MH – which found that new rules introduced that year by DWP were unlawful, “blatantly discriminatory” and breached the UN disability convention.

A third review announced in June 2018 related to the way DWP had been assessing an estimated 420 PIP claimants with haemophilia who have the associated condition haemarthropathy (a severe type of arthritis caused by bleeding into the joints).

Another review was thought to have been launched last year so that DWP could trawl through the files of thousands of PIP claimants who need support to take medication and monitor their health conditions, following two tribunal findings – in the cases of AN and JM – that found that DWP should have been scoring such claimants in the same way as people needing support to manage treatment therapies such as dialysis.

This may relate to one of last week’s two reviews, which also concerns support for taking medication and monitoring health conditions.

The fifth review followed a high court ruling in June 2018 that DWP had unlawfully discriminated against two disabled men who each lost disability premiums worth £178 per month when they moved to a new local authority area and were forced to transfer onto the new universal credit.

The sixth review came as a result of the botched migration of former claimants of incapacity benefit and other benefits to employment and support allowance (ESA).

DWP failed to realise that many of these claimants were entitled to income-related ESA – and therefore to associated disability premiums – rather than just the contributory form of ESA.

Last week, DWP adjusted its estimates of how many claimants would receive arrears through this review, from a previous estimate of 210,000 to about 120,000.

A seventh review began in January this year, following an upper tribunal ruling in November 2017 in the case of a claimant moving from disability living allowance (DLA) to PIP who had his DLA stopped because he had failed to attend an Atos face-to-face assessment, even though the upper tribunal found he had had “good reason” for not doing so.

DWP said at the time that it expected about 4,600 claimants to benefit from a review of such cases.

The eighth review followed a Supreme Court ruling in July that found that more people with mental distress who have problems with social situations should receive PIP.

DWP’s press office was asked late on Tuesday afternoon to answer a series of questions about the reviews, some of which were merely seeking clarity, but it has refused to answer any of them.

Shortly before noon today (Thursday), DWP produced the following statement: “There are a variety of reasons why a review is undertaken, including legal judgments that are the result of new judicial interpretations of the benefit.

We are dedicated to ensuring everyone receives the benefits they are entitled to.”

24 October 2019

 

 

ROFA’s draft manifesto calls for end to austerity and a right to independent living

Political parties are set to be told to promise an end to austerity, a legal right to independent living and an immediate end to universal credit, if they want disabled people’s support at the next general election.

The Reclaiming Our Futures Alliance (ROFA) is carrying out a consultation with members across England on a draft Disabled People’s Manifesto, so a final version can be ready in time for an election that most commentators believe will be called within months.

The ROFA manifesto can then be compared with the disability policies included by parties in their general election manifestos.

ROFA is an alliance of disabled people and their organisations, including Sisters of Frida, Inclusion London, The Alliance for Inclusive Education, Disabled People Against Cuts, the Trade Union Disability Alliance, People First (Self Advocacy), Change, and Equal Lives.

The draft manifesto says: “Disabled people’s inclusion must be a right and a reality from the beginning of our lives, not a continuous struggle in the face of daily exclusion, injustice, prejudice and discrimination.”

Disabled people, it adds, “must have the right to enjoy the same degree of autonomy, and control over their day-to-day lives, and their long-term futures as non-disabled people”.

The manifesto includes about 20 “priority demands”, including a call for the next government to implement in full the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD).

The manifesto highlights the need for the next government to bring an end to austerity, and to reverse the cuts to disabled people’s support that have been introduced by successive Tory-led governments since 2010.

It points to reports which have shown the impact of austerity on disabled people, including research which showed a likely 120,000 “excess deaths” as a result of austerity cuts to adult social care and health spending between 2010 and 2017. 

Among the draft manifesto’s other priority demands are for a legal right to independent living, under UNCRPD’s article 19, and the introduction of a National Independent Living Support Service (NILSS).

And it calls for an urgent programme to end the use of institutional care for autistic people and people with learning difficulties.

A series of demands for social security reform includes scrapping all benefit sanctions, universal credit, the bedroom tax, and the work capability assessment, and producing a new assessment system for disability benefits in co-production with disabled people and in line with UNCRPD, as well as restoring benefits to the same real levels as 2010.

There are also calls for a fully inclusive education system that would see an end to all segregated special schools and colleges, and for a major programme of building accessible homes.

Other priority demands cover investment in accessible infrastructure; access to justice; enforcement of the Equality Act; barriers to employment; the response to Brexit; the needs of disabled people in a climate emergency plan; and the need for “real and effective co-production” with disabled people’s organisations at local, regional and national levels.

ROFA has also issued a separate document that sets out priorities for the first 100 days of a new government.

This document includes calls for an assessment of the cumulative impact of austerity cuts on disabled people, and a commitment to address that impact; for the announcement of a legal right to independent living; for the new government to make spending commitments to address the funding crises in social care and special educational needs and disabilities; and for a pledge to provide strategic funding for disabled people’s organisations in every local authority area.

24 October 2019

 

News provided by John Pring at www.disabilitynewsservice.com

 

 Posted by at 15:20
Oct 212019
 

What to do when you have a problem with social care services?

Many people have a problem with services they receive from their local authority, either for themselves or someone they are caring for. As council budgets are increasingly under pressure, and demand for services is going up, it is no surprise that there may be a gap between what is offered and what is expected when it comes to social care services.

Monitoring Officers are responsible for investigating unlawfulness

If you have an issue with a local authority, there is an easy – and free! – way of raising your concerns. It is not much talked about, so you may well not realise that every council has a “Monitoring Officer“, whose brief is to look out for incidents of alleged unlawfulness within the council.

The duties of a Monitoring Officer were established under the Local Government and Housing Act 1989. If they become aware of any proposal, decision or omission by the local authority that has led, or is likely to lead, to a contravention of any statute – like the Care Act – or Regulations – like the Assessment Regulations – or rule of law, they have to prepare a report and arrange for each member of the authority to receive a copy. While members are considering the report, the relevant actions or proposals are automatically suspended. They have 21 days to consider the report.

MOs have to look into any matters referred to them

To keep Monitoring Officers independent, they are protected from dismissal, except through special steps. The creation of the office is intended to manage legal risk in an effective way, thus minimising the need for legal proceedings. The MO or their deputy is personally responsible for considering any matter referred to them which involves a coherent statement that the local authority is in breach of the law in something it has done or failed to do. They can’t just ignore it. If they believe that the case you have brought to their attention is not a matter of unlawfulness, they should provide you with the reasons why they have reached this conclusion. The council has to provide the Monitoring Officer with the resources necessary to do their job, including paying for legal opinion, if it is outside the expertise of the MO.

As you know, there is a Local Authority Ombudsman scheme for problems with council services, but the ombudsman will not consider your case until you have made a complaint to the council and received no satisfaction. Making a representation to the Monitoring Officer is an effective way of showing that you have tried to resolve the issue with the LA.

Information from Belinda Schwehr of Care and Health Law

This information about the role of Monitoring Officers comes from Belinda Schwehr, the leading expert in adult social care law. She has also put together a list of contact details for most MOs in the country. It is downloadable as a PDF from the page link below, about halfway down.

http://www.schwehroncare.co.uk/using-the-monitoring-officer-as-a-free-and-convenient-means-to-raise-concerns-about-illegality-in-the-public-law-sense-in-adult-social-care/

Although approaching a Monitoring Officer is free, it does require you to understand the law sufficiently to be able to make a case as to why you believe the authority is acting in contravention of it.

If you are in a dispute with your local authority about adult social care, the legal advice charity Cascaidr, is a good place to start to look for advice. https://www.cascaidr.org.uk/contact-us/

Mainly reblogged from Independent Living https://www.independentliving.co.uk/

 

 

 

 Posted by at 21:43
Oct 212019
 

NORTHERN IRELAND SET FOR ‘HUGE LEAP FORWARD’ AS ABORTION AND SAME SEX MARRIAGE LEGISLATION PASSES

Abortion and same sex marriage have for too long been taboo subjects on Northern Ireland says GMB Union

GMB says Northern Ireland will take a ‘huge leap forward’ when abortion and same sex marriage legislation passed at midnight tonight.

Sections 58 and 59 of The Offences against the Persons Act, 1861, will be repealed, effectively decriminalising abortion in Northern Ireland.

Any existing cases, including that of a mother who procured abortion pills for her 15-year-old daughter, will be dropped.

Denise Walker, GMB Senior Organiser, said:

“At midnight tonight, Northern Ireland will take a huge leap forward.

“Women in Northern Ireland will finally be trusted to make the choice that is right for them without fear of prosecution or the arduous, costly and often lonely journey to Great Britain.

“They will no longer have to rely on abortion care secretively or from unauthorised sources.

“Meanwhile at long last people will have the right to enter into same sex marriages and look forward to the first wedding in Northern Ireland, six long years after the rest of the UK.

“Abortion and same sex marriage have for too long been taboo subjects on Northern Ireland.

“Now we must stand by all those that have been victimised and criminalised by this unjust and barbaric legislation.”

ENDS

Media enquiries: GMB Press Office on 07958 156846 or at press.office@gmb.org.uk

 

 Posted by at 20:29
Oct 182019
 
We would like to invite you to join with us in celebrating the life of our son, brother, comrade and friend, Stephen Aselford, who sadly passed away in September.

Funeral starts 10.30am at Croydon Crematorium, Mitcham Road, Croydon, CR9 3AT.
Commemoration event to be held from 12pm at Ruskin House, 23 Coombe Road, Croydon, CR0 1BD.
We are inviting people to wear red for the occasion to reflect both Stephen’s socialism and his love of London buses!

All welcome to come and share your happy memories of Stephen’s life and activism.
 Posted by at 22:27
Oct 172019
 

This week’s update from Disability News Service is given below with all the articles in a single post, however if you would prefer to view them as separate articles, you can do that on the DNS Website

Police could face XR legal action over disabled people’s right to protest

The Metropolitan police faces claims that it breached disabled people’s right to protest during this month’s Extinction Rebellion (XR) demonstrations in London, after a wheelchair-user was arrested because she needed support from a personal assistant (PA).

During the same action outside New Scotland Yard, officers arrested another disabled activist who was standing outside their headquarters asking – peacefully – for the return of vital independent living equipment.

Members of the XR Disabled Rebels network are now considering possible legal action in response to this and other measures taken by the police force during this month’s XR climate change actions in the capital.

They say the measures taken have added to growing concerns about the actions of police across the country, including admissions from two other forces that they have passed information about disabled protesters to the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP).

The Metropolitan police apparently refused to provide a written guarantee that it would not pass information from this month’s protests to DWP.

A small group had been outside New Scotland Yard in central London on Friday to protest against the confiscation of equipment that had been intended to make this month’s climate change protests more inclusive – and safer – for disabled people.

The equipment confiscated by officers included two mobile accessible toilets and showers, wheelchairs, ramps, noise-cancelling headphones for autistic protesters, and solar-powered charging equipment for wheelchairs and scooters.

The plan was to carry out a short, peaceful, non-disruptive protest.

The group of about 10 activists were twice given permission to continue their protest – which called on the force to “give us back our access kit” – by police officers patrolling the area.

Sandra* and Bob Williams-Findlay, two of the disabled activists taking part in the protest, then approached the entrance to New Scotland Yard to ask to speak to Metropolitan police commissioner Cressida Dick.

Sandra said: “We wanted to tell her that this equipment had been taken and was very important because it made it accessible for disabled people to be able to peacefully protest.

It had been hard going for all of us and disabled people had stayed away [as a result of the equipment being confiscated].

Once people heard that there were not toilet facilities, it was more difficult, and they didn’t come.

We wanted to make a stand as disabled people and speak up about the injustice of this.”

She said the force’s actions would affect future protests by disabled people, and she added: “Our voices are not going to be heard.”

Officers refused to accept a written complaint that Sandra and Williams-Findlay asked to be handed to the commissioner.

They rejoined their fellow protesters as about 20 police officers arrived, threatening the group with arrest if they failed to disperse.

One of the members of the XR Disabled Rebels network, Tracey Lazard, said that one of these officers was “visibly shaking with anger” as he told her that protests linked to Extinction Rebellion had been banned, under section 14 of the Public Order Act, unless they took place in Trafalgar Square.

That section 14 order was later extended to cover Extinction Rebellion protests across the entire city.

Lazard said: “He was right in my face, saying, ‘section 14, if you don’t move now you’re under arrest.’

It’s my understanding that it’s good practice that there should be a series of warnings, but literally after a minute and a half tops I was arrested.

There was no attempt to have a conversation and negotiate us leaving. It was completely unnecessary, aggressive policing, with no factoring in of the extra time it might take for me to pick up or drop stuff and for us to move.”

Lazard was taken to Lewisham police station and spent nine hours in a cell before being released pending further investigation.

Most of the rest of the group returned to Trafalgar Square, but one disabled protester, Nicki Myers, stayed outside New Scotland Yard for about an hour.

Myers, who has a life-limiting condition, could not be arrested for being part of an Extinction Rebellion “assembly” while she was on her own.

But eventually she needed support from a personal assistant (PA) to adjust her oxygen levels and hand her vital medication. And when the PA joined her, both of them were arrested.

Officers argued that she had become an “assembly” by being joined by the PA.

The two wheelchair-users were then surrounded by police officers while they waited for vehicles to take them to London police stations, and they were prevented from talking to legal observers or receiving food or water from fellow activists.

Although her friend, who uses a manual wheelchair, was taken into police custody, officers could not find a vehicle that would take Myers’ electric wheelchair.

Eventually, she was de-arrested, but was told she would need to return to be interviewed at a police station at a future date.

Myers said she believed the police actions breached her right to protest and the Equality Act.

She said: “If a single person has the right to be alone [under section 14] then a single person with a PA should have that right also.

I want them to investigate. I want to challenge it in court. If they don’t follow up, then I will take a civil action instead for wrongful arrest.”

She said she believed the police actions showed that disabled people’s right to protest was “at huge risk”.

She said: “Any disabled people’s organisation that does any kind of protest should be extremely worried.

The treatment of activists, particularly disabled activists, seems to be getting worse.

I think we are seen as an easy target, which is horrific. The police have a duty of care and they are not exercising that duty of care.

We want our equipment back. This is not over. People are still at risk while they are in London because we haven’t got the equipment.”

Myers said that in meetings held in the months leading up to Extinction Rebellion, senior police officers refused to provide written confirmation that information about disabled protesters would not be passed to DWP.

They also refused to provide written confirmation that they would ensure the wellbeing of disabled people and look after their equipment while they were in custody.

Lazard said she thought the police’s treatment of disabled protesters – including the confiscation of independent living equipment, the treatment of Myers and the general police approach to disabled protesters – was “legally challengeable” and “really ethically dubious”.

She said: “They have gone after kit that was clearly disability access stuff. That has taken away many disabled people’s legal right to lawfully protest.”

She said other disabled activists had made it clear on social media that they had cancelled plans to join the XR protests because of the confiscation of the access equipment.

Lazard said there was an increasing fear and anxiety among disabled people about being seen on a protest, and that the police actions were “undermining our legal right to protest”, which was “really worrying”.

She pointed to the “hostile environment” that had been created, including the “utterly outrageous” treatment of Nicki Myers, and other police forces that had previously admitted passing on information about disabled protesters to DWP.

She said of the actions of the Metropolitan police: “We are going to be speaking to some lawyers and seeing what the options are.”

This could include examining the equipment confiscation, the treatment of Myers, the general approach to policing and the failure to provide disabled protesters with extra time to respond to a police order, with the possibility that some of the force’s actions could even be seen as targeted disability hate crime.

Activists in the wider Extinction Rebellion movement were so appalled at how the disabled protesters had been treated that they organised a solidarity protest – again, entirely peaceful – outside New Scotland Yard two days later, with estimates suggesting that as many as 1,000 people may have attended.

All three of the disabled people who had been arrested on Friday were at the gathering.

Myers told those present: “Today I am overwhelmed by you guys being here supporting XR Disabled Rebels.

I’d like to tell you that disabled people have a rich history of civil disobedience and every right we have was fought for.

Our accessible buses we got because people chained themselves in the road. We are useful in XR.”

Another disabled protester, Mary Ellen, told the gathering that she also had been “overwhelmed” to see so many people there.

She said: “I just wanted to express my gratitude to all of you for standing up for our planet and for being here to support disabled people to have an equal right to stand with you in peaceful rebellion.”

She also asked them to continue to stand with disabled people, and told them how Disabled People Against Cuts had been fighting the government’s austerity cuts since 2010, “fighting their austerity, fighting their inequality, fighting their cuts, fighting their sanctions, fighting their brutality, and fighting for our lives, literally”.

A police spokesperson has so far failed to respond to concerns about the treatment of Nicki Myers and her PA and the failure to provide confirmation in advance about the treatment of disabled protesters, including whether information would be passed to DWP.

But she said that officers refused to accept the written complaint on Friday because they are unable to accept correspondence handed over in person at New Scotland Yard “for security reasons”.

And she said in a statement: “It is the police’s role to provide a lawful and proportionate response to any planned protest, balancing the potential impact on the community with the human right to protest.

At the time of assemblies outside New Scotland Yard on Friday, 11 and Sunday, 13 October conditions under Section 14 of the Public Order Act 1986 had been imposed on Extinction Rebellion ‘Autumn Uprising’.

The conditions stated any assembly by those involved in Extinction Rebellion ‘Autumn Uprising’ could only lawfully take place in Trafalgar Square. Therefore, the assemblies outside New Scotland Yard were unlawful.

The [Metropolitan police] does not single out or disproportionately target any group or community.

If those involved in an assembly to protest break the law, they are liable to arrest. Those people can also expect to be charge, prosecuted, and receive a criminal record.

Officers have powers to seize any equipment which they believe will facilitate unlawful protest.

Equipment is not seized on the basis of who it belongs to, but on its ability to enable unlawful protest which could cause serious disruption to the community.

When officers make arrests, they do so with dignity and respect.

The health and wellbeing of people in our care and custody is a priority, and we do all that is possible to provide appropriate facilities and support for individuals on a case by case basis.”

*Sandra has requested that only her first name is used

17 October 2019

 

 

Ministers push ahead with single face-to-face assessments for disability benefits

Ministers are pushing ahead with controversial plans to merge two disability benefit assessments into one, despite concerns raised by disabled campaigners.

The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) wants to offer a single face-to-face assessment – with the agreement of the claimant – that would replace and merge the current work capability assessment (WCA) and the assessment for personal independence payment (PIP).

A parliamentary petition calling on DWP to abandon the plans was signed by more than 7,000 people earlier this year.

But the new work and pensions secretary, Therese Coffey, mentioned the proposals as she gave evidence for the first time yesterday (Wednesday) in front of the Commons work and pensions select committee.

In an evidence session marked by apparent frustration and even anger from some opposition MPs, Coffey also insisted that – despite repeated and serious concerns raised by disabled activists, campaigners, charities and MPs – the new universal credit (UC) benefit system was “broadly working well”.

And she claimed that the five-week wait for a first payment for new claimants – and the system of advance payments for those in need, which must then be repaid out of future monthly payments – “does work”.

Liberal Democrat MP Heidi Allen told her: “Imagine living on such a tiny amount of money that it is not enough to live on and then you have to pay some of it back.

How can that work?”

But Coffey said: “For those people who are claiming universal credit for the first time, I do think the advance works.”

Coffey’s confidence came just days after a fringe meeting at the Tory party conference heard from the boss of a local homeless charity how UC was causing early deaths, addiction, mental distress and suicides, and that the “killer” for her clients was the five-week wait for a first payment.

Coffey also told the committee that there had been a “drop in satisfaction” with DWP among disabled people.

She said that a single assessment would be an “important part” of improving the experience of disabled claimants, “as long as we can make sure that customers actually want that to happen and that we have people adequately trained on that”.

She stressed that the minister for disabled people, Justin Tomlinson, was “very keen to make sure it is absolutely the decision of the person going through the process about whether to have one or two assessments”.

Tomlinson himself had appeared to dismiss the idea of a single assessment in April, when he told MPs that there had been “confusion” over the government’s plans, which he said would merely offer a “very few people” the chance to have both their PIP assessment and their WCA on the same day.

But Coffey told the committee that Tomlinson was “very much engaged in trying to make [a single assessment] happen”.

And John-Paul Marks, DWP’s director general for work and health services, told MPs that the plan was to offer disabled people a single, joint assessment.

He said: “We recognise that a PIP assessment is about independent living and the employment and support allowance assessment is about fitness for work and these are not the same thing, so we have got to be careful about understanding how this would improve customer experience.

Would it improve trust, would it improve engagement, would it make it easier for people?

If we can do the feasibility and show that’s true, then it is a helpful improvement.”

But he said that some people might want to continue to have separate assessments.

He said that “trying to merge those two things into a single face-to-face contact might work for some people but it might not work for everyone so that’s why we do want to be cautious and make sure get it right and base it on evidence”.

Coffey also heard a claim from Labour MP Neil Coyle that ministers had decided that those disabled people previously receiving enhanced disability premium (EDP) on top of benefits such as employment and support allowance (ESA) would be “deliberately made worse off under universal credit”.

He pointed to a court ruling in January that found DWP had acted unlawfully in how it treated recipients of disability-related premiums when they were moved onto UC.

But Coyle said that the “transitional protections” now agreed by DWP would only help those who had been receiving SDP and not those who had only received EDP.

He said there were about 100,000 disabled people receiving SDP, compared with 900,000 receiving EDP and he suggested DWP was “deliberately” targeting compensation at the smaller group and was in effect saying that the 900,000 would be “deliberately made worse off under universal credit”.

Marks told Coyle: “To be honest, that is a choice that has been made.”

He told Coyle that ministers had decided to pay more to those disabled people who were not expected to work, who were previously in the support group of ESA and were now in the new limited capability for work-related activity group of UC.

He said this group would on average be £100-a-month better off under UC.

He added: “So when decisions were made by previous ministers – with advice – it was about how do you get the right choices with what’s available, given the resources and the choices that have to be made.

Every choice has to be around support for vulnerable people and incentives for work and fairness for the taxpayer and so that is the balance that has been struck on SDP.”

Asked if all those on EDP would be worse off when they move onto UC, a DWP spokesperson told Disability News Service this morning: “We are committed to ensuring that everybody receives the support they need.

The severe disability premium and the enhanced disability premium are different premiums with different qualifying conditions.

Many people transferring from enhanced disability premium are better off under universal credit.

Transitional payments introduced for those claimants who were receiving the severe disability premium recognise their very specific circumstances.”

DWP has always admitted there would be winners and losers among disabled people as it gradually introduced its delayed and much-criticised new UC system, while it claims that any savings would be reinvested into supporting those it calls “the most severely disabled”.

But it has repeatedly refused to provide clear details of how UC is likely to affect different groups of disabled people, particularly those currently receiving the various disability-related premiums.

17 October 2019

 

 

Queen’s speech social care pledge ‘is waffle and a smokescreen’

The government’s promise in this week’s Queen’s speech to introduce proposals to solve the adult social care crisis has been dismissed by leading disabled campaigners as “waffle”, a “smokescreen” and “the same old platitudes”.

A speech laying out Boris Johnson’s first programme of priorities for his government, delivered by the Queen, included a pledge to “bring forward proposals to reform adult social care in England to ensure dignity in old age.”

In a briefing accompanying the speech, the government said it would “bring forward substantive proposals to fix the crisis in social care to give everyone the dignity and security they deserve”, which would include “setting out legislative requirements”.

But in his introduction to the briefing document, Johnson ignored social care completely.

The announcement came as the Care Quality Commission, in its annual assessment of the state of health and social care in England, warned that the “failure to find a consensus” on a future adult social care funding model “continues to drive instability in this sector” and said there was “an urgent need for Parliament and government to make this a priority”.

The government’s Queen’s speech pledge to reform social care was dismissed by leading disabled figures.

Mark Harrison, of the Reclaiming Our Futures Alliance, who helped draw up plans for a new National Independent Living Support Service (NILSS), an idea overwhelmingly approved by Labour members, although not yet by party leaders (see separate story), said: “The Tories have no intention of solving the social care crisis.

They are not serious. If they were, they would have a bill and a legislative timetable.

The smokescreen in the Queen’s speech is designed to confuse and give the appearance of action when the reality is the opposite.

The relatively small sums of money being promised don’t go any way to meeting the need or addressing the funding cuts since 2010.”

Professor Peter Beresford, co-chair of Shaping Our Lives, who has written in support of ROFA’s “radical and transformational” NILSS plans, said: “As for the present minority government’s waffle about social care, perhaps the least said the best.

We are used to modern UK governments making announcements of new money that really isn’t there.

But to announce inadequate social care proposals they aren’t even in a position to implement, takes us to a new low.”

Baroness [Jane] Campbell, a crossbench peer and chair of the Independent Living Strategy Group, said she was working on her own proposals, which would be laid out in a private members’ bill.

She said: “Although the announcement on social care was at least mentioned in the Queen’s speech yesterday, there is nothing to suggest that it is going to be anything more than the same old platitudes that we have been fobbed off with for years.

I am so weary of fine words that never materialise into action; it will take strong, progressive action to make me believe that anything is going to change.

That’s why I am attempting to develop my own private members’ bill, on the right to independent living.”

Brian Hilton, digital campaigns officer for Greater Manchester Coalition of Disabled People, said it was unclear from the Queen’s speech whether long-delayed plans for a social care green paper had now been scrapped.

He criticised the failure to mention disabled people in the part of the speech relating to social care.

He said: “Did the government think that disabled people would simply disappear following the scrapping of the Independent Living Fund in 2015? 

The government legislative agenda in relation to social care makes no direct reference to disabled people, which is totally unacceptable.”

Like others, he was critical of Labour’s own announcement on social care this week, which pledged to provide free personal care for older people and only to “work towards” extending that to working-age adults.

He said: “GMCDP believes we need a clear timescale and commitment from both the government and the opposition parties to consult on their social care plans.

That means actively engaging with and listening to disabled people and our organisations. 

To be clear, what we need, what we demand, is that all political parties accept the need for legislation that enshrines disabled people’s universal right to independent living.

Furthermore, just as health care is free at the point of delivery, so should social care.”

Svetlana Kotova, director of campaigns and justice for Inclusion London, said: “This Queen’s speech is a bad news for disabled people who have been hardest hit by austerity.

There is nothing in it to make our lives better.

Proposals for social care and mental health are not the radical change that we need, but are just patching up an already broken system which breaches our human rights and does not comply with the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.

The government has been promising to reform social care for years and it looks like their main concern is cost, not the radical rethinking of the system and setting up a service that would promote our right to independent living.”

She said this reflected the lack of meaningful engagement with disabled people and their organisations.

Sue Bott, head of policy and research at Disability Rights UK, said: “Once again, a commitment to reform social care but only so far as ‘bringing forward proposals’, which we have heard many times before. Will this time be any different?”

Fran Springfield, co-chair of Disability Labour, said the funding offered by the government for adult social care was “totally inadequate and fails to address people’s real needs”, describing it as like “an Elastoplast being applied to a fracture”.

Elsewhere in the Queen’s speech, the government promised to continue work to reform the Mental Health Act – following last December’s publication of an independent review of the act – with a white paper promised by the end of the year.

Bott said that people experiencing mental ill health “must be at the centre of any reform”.

And Deborah King, co-founder of Disability Politics UK, said: “The mental health section of the Queen’s speech briefing says there will be a white paper by the end of the year.

Despite all the political rhetoric, this shows how slowly mental health is moving as an issue under this government. They have been in office since 2010.”

There will also be a controversial new bill that would tackle electoral fraud – which would require voters to show photographic identification, which Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn has described as “clearly discriminatory” – but would also make it easier for disabled people to vote at polling stations.

This would allow a wider range of people to assist disabled voters and would require returning officers to provide equipment to support voters with sight loss and other impairments who face barriers in voting.

King said: “It is good that there is going to be more support for disabled voters. But the proposals say nothing about the accessibility of polling stations.

We’ve seen how personal independence payment assessments are held in inaccessible buildings and polling stations continue to be held in premises without proper access.”

17 October 2019

 

 

Disappointment and sadness’ over Labour’s social care policy

Frustrated disabled campaigners have expressed “massive disappointment” at Labour’s latest policy announcement on social care, after it failed again to commit to introducing a legal right to independent living if it wins power.

Jeremy Corbyn promised on Tuesday that a Labour government would introduce free personal care for older people in England – ensuring support for getting in and out of bed, dressing, eating and bathing – and would only “work towards” doing the same for working-age disabled people.

Corbyn criticised Boris Johnson for failing to set out in this week’s Queen’s speech any legislation on adult social care, or to provide details of any proposals or set a time limit for any reforms (see separate story).

And he said Labour’s plans would extend state-funded social care to hundreds of thousands more people.

But those plans fall far short of proposals for a National Independent Living Support Service (NILSS) for England, and a legal right to independent living, which were overwhelmingly backed by Labour members at the party’s annual conference in Brighton last month.

It came as the Care Quality Commission, in its annual assessment of the state of health and social care in England, warned that the “failure to find a consensus” for a future adult social care funding model “continues to drive instability in this sector” and said there was “an urgent need for Parliament and government to make this a priority”.

Fran Springfield, co-chair of Disability Labour, said she was “massively disappointed” that Labour did not seem committed to the NILSS proposals that had been backed by its own members.

She said Labour’s plans for a National Care Service “will not meet the needs of thousands of disabled people of all ages who want to live independently and have control over who provides that care and how it is delivered”.

Mark Harrison, of the Reclaiming Our Futures Alliance (ROFA), who helped draw up the NILSS plans, said Labour had failed to co-produce its proposals with disabled people and their representative organisations, as required by [article four of] the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD).

He said: “If they had consulted disabled people and implemented the policy on independent living and social care passed at the recent conference and the TUC Congress in September, it would not look like this.

Their policy is free personal care for older people (and working towards free personal care for working-age people) rather than the National Independent Living Support Service approved unanimously by party members at conference.”

He said the party’s plans were also not in line with those proposed by the Equality and Human Rights Commission, which has called for a legal right to independent living.

Harrison said: “We need the Labour front bench to take the UNCRPD seriously and work closely with representative disabled people’s organisations to develop a plan for achieving disability equality and addressing the last nine-and-a-half years of austerity cuts which have disproportionately hit disabled people and our families.”

Professor Peter Beresford, co-chair of Shaping Our Lives, who has written in support of ROFA’s “radical and transformational” NILSS plans, said: “First and most important, we have to hope that Labour’s early announcement about social care will not come to be seen as a lost opportunity, rather than a first response to broader extraordinary political circumstances.

What we have to hope is that Labour will ultimately commit itself to an approach to future social care policy that is closely in line with achieving independent living as set out in the UNCRPD.

This must be the goal, although we know that it may take time, but the UN convention recognises this and has introduced the concept of ‘progressive realisation’ knowing that while states cannot be expected to have all the resources in place in the short term they must have concrete steps in place towards it.

The current announcement does not yet put us in this crucial place.”

Svetlana Kotova, director of campaigns and justice for Inclusion London, said her organisation was “disappointed” with Labour’s focus on personal care, rather than independent living.

She said: “Our lives are so much more than just being clean and fed.”

She said the proposals “reflect the lack of meaningful engagement with disabled people and our organisations” and called on Labour to rethink its policy in co-production with disabled people and disabled people’s organisations.

Brian Hilton, digital campaigns officer for Greater Manchester Coalition of Disabled People, said Labour’s announcement and the lack of reference to NILSS was “disappointing”.

He said: “Whilst free personal care for older people is obviously welcomed, extending that right should and must be extended to all, including disabled people young and old. 

GMCDP believes we need a clear timescale and commitment from both the government and the opposition parties to consult on their social care plans.

That means actively engaging with and listening to disabled people and our organisations. 

To be clear, what we need, what we demand, is that all political parties accept the need for legislation that enshrines disabled people’s universal right to independent living.

Furthermore, just as health care is free at the point of delivery, so should social care.”

Michelle Maher, from WOWcampaign, said she viewed Labour’s announcement with “great sadness”.

She said: “The closure of the Independent Living Fund stripped disabled people of a lifeline and impacted disabled people grievously. Labour know what that impact is.

They have been at the fringe events [at the party conference], they saw the protests. 

We are not invisible; they know the facts. The continued attacks on personal independence payment and social care are getting worse.

Social care is a lifeline, it is our human right, our access to society. Labour need to get behind this as they have with other cuts to support.”  

The Labour party had not been able to comment by noon today (Thursday).

17 October 2019

 

 

Disabled job-seeker banned from using toilet on DWP work programme

A disabled job-seeker who signed up to the government’s new Work and Health Programme was banned from using the toilet, washing his hands or accessing drinking water.

Ryan*, from north London, was attending a voluntary programme run by the charity Shaw Trust, which was supposed to help with his search for a job.

But when he turned up to the first session at the offices in Cricklewood, having cycled there in the rain, he asked to use the toilet to wash his hands, and was told the facilities were only for staff.

Ryan, who has experience of depression and anxiety and receives universal credit after previously being found fit for work – he was sacked from his last job after an anxiety episode – was told to use a nearby café instead.

When he insisted that he only wanted to wash his hands, he was escorted to the kitchen area, while a member of staff watched over him “like a prison officer”.

The following week, while attending his second weekly session, he asked to use the toilet, to be told again that the facilities were only for staff and that he should use the nearby café.

Ryan did not want to have to ask to use the facilities in a café, so he “cycled home really fast” after the session and used his own bathroom instead.

He is now refusing to return to the offices in Cricklewood Lane and has asked Shaw Trust to refer him to another service. He has also lodged a complaint about the way he was treated.

Ryan said: “This was a breach of my human rights.

It is an unacceptable way to treat people, especially disabled people.

I believe in fighting for my rights, so I made a complaint. I just feel that it is degrading.”

He added: “I’ve attended many jobcentre-sanctioned courses over the years and never have I experienced anything like this.

In my opinion it’s not fit for purpose for holding any type of work programme-related support.”

Shaw Trust is one of the largest 25 charities in the country and says it provides “specialist services to help people gain an education, enter work, develop their career, improve their wellbeing or rebuild their lives”.

But last year, Disability News Service revealed that the charity had promised to “pay the utmost regard to the standing and reputation” of the work and pensions secretary and pledge never to do anything that harmed the public’s confidence in the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) in order to win the Work and Health Programme contract.

The £398 million, seven-year Work and Health Programme is replacing the Work Programme and the specialist Work Choice disability employment scheme across England and Wales, with contractors paid mostly by results.

Most of those referred to the scheme are expected to be disabled people.

Shaw Trust is one of the five main Work and Health Programme contractors.

Linda Burnip, co-founder of Disabled People Against Cuts, said: “I think any organisation raking in so much money to supposedly provide services to disabled people can afford to provide premises which have a toilet and facilities for attendees to get both hot or cold drinks during the day.

But, sadly, this Shaw Trust failure comes as no surprise given their previous track record in failing to meet disabled people’s needs on workfare-type programmes.”

A Shaw Trust spokesperson said: “Shaw Trust seeks to provide services in communities, and co-locates these services to ensure they are accessible to all clients.

On this occasion the premises, which belong to our partner, in Cricklewood do not meet our required standards and this is already being addressed with them.

The wellbeing of those participating on our programmes is a priority for Shaw Trust and we are already in contact with [Ryan] to support him at alternate locations to meet his individual needs.”

A DWP spokesperson refused to comment.

*He has asked for his full name not to be used

17 October 2019

 

 

Disabled peer misses Queen’s speech after Underground flouts court ruling

A disabled peer was forced to miss the state opening of parliament after London Underground failed yet again to alert wheelchair-users to broken lifts on the network, despite a critical court ruling in January.

Baroness [Jane] Campbell was forced to retrace her steps on the tube network to Waterloo station, and then wheel in the wind and rain to the Houses of Parliament, after she arrived at Westminster station to find the lifts were out of order.

By the time she arrived at the House of Lords, it was too late to take her place for the Queen’s speech.

She has already written to Transport for London’s chair and chief executive about her experience, and she plans to raise it with a transport minister.

The crossbench peer, who has spinal muscular atrophy and has repeatedly had to be admitted to hospital with life-threatening chest infections, told Transport for London (TfL) that “wheeling in the cold has its own dangers”.

The latest London Underground failure comes just months after a judge ruled that it twice discriminated against a disabled campaigner by failing to warn him that vital lifts that would allow him to complete his journey on the tube network were out-of-order.

Doug Paulley found himself stranded and confronted with inaccurate and incomplete information and unhelpful staff on trips to London in October 2016 and May 2017, a similar situation to that faced by Baroness Campbell on Monday.

A judge ruled that London Underground breached its duty to make reasonable adjustments for its disabled customers by failing to let Paulley know about lift closures on its network.

The judge ruled that it was not reasonable for London Underground to expect wheelchair-users and other passengers who rely on lifts to check the organisation’s website for closures before every journey they make.

London Underground was told to do more to alert passengers when its lifts were out of order across the 12 stations with step-free access in the central zone – which include Waterloo and Westminster – which should include placing white boards at station entrances to ensure passengers know about problems before they start their journey.

This does not appear to have been done on Monday and led to Baroness Campbell missing the Queen’s speech.

Paulley said it appeared from Baroness Campbell’s experience that London Underground had failed to act on January’s court ruling.

He said: “It’s sad that disabled people are still suffering unduly disrupted journeys because London Underground don’t bother to take the smallest of effort to publicise broken lifts.”

Mark Evers, London Underground’s chief customer officer, said: “I would like to apologise to Baroness Campbell for her recent experience on the tube which fell far short of the customer service that we strive to provide.

Making London’s transport network more accessible is one of our top priorities and we understand how challenging it can be for our customers when lifts are taken out of service, either for planned maintenance or due to a fault.

We try hard to alert our customers in advance to any issues, for example through real-time lift information on our website, and to provide up-to-date information at stations and on trains.

However, it’s clear that some of the recent improvements we’ve made to keep customers up-to-date weren’t carried out properly in this case.”

A TfL spokesperson said London Underground had introduced a real-time information app for station staff which allows them to report lift faults, via their iPads, directly to the control centre.

It has also installed poster frames next to lifts in stations, and prints posters with key alternative routes “that can be quickly deployed in the event of a lift fault”.

She added: “We have also introduced an initiative at all step-free stations which involves distributing prompt cards to station staff to remind them of the actions to take when a lift goes out of service.”

17 October 2019

 

 

Disappointment at mayor’s scaled-back plans for Liberty arts festival

Disabled artists have expressed disappointment at the mayor of London’s scaled-back plans for the capital’s annual disability arts festival, which has continued to shrink in size since its heyday in the mid-2000s.

Liberty was originally launched by Ken Livingstone in 2003 as a festival celebrating both disability arts and disability rights.

The first eight Liberty festivals were held in Trafalgar Square before the venue was moved to the South Bank in 2011.

Liberty was then merged with National Paralympic Day – a decision that itself was widely criticised by disabled artists – and the location moved to the Olympic Park in east London.

Last year, the festival was renamed Liberty Unbound and was held for the first time across three London boroughs – Enfield, Hounslow and Lewisham – in late August and early September.

This year’s Liberty will be held in late autumn – 23 and 24 November – in venues across the north-east London borough of Waltham Forest, which mayor Sadiq Khan has named as his first London borough of culture.

There is a line-up of critically-acclaimed disabled artists, including Nwando Ebizie, Jess Thom’s Touretteshero and Byron Vincent, and a Deaf Rave club night, with performances, installations and screenings of the documentary The Unlimited House of Krip, but there are concerns that the festival has lost its original scale and commitment to disability rights.

Dr Ju Gosling, artistic director of Together! 2012*, who has contributed to many Liberty festivals over the years, said the new format “seems focussed on showcasing disabled artists to non-disabled people, with disabled people having to criss-cross Walthamstow for 36 hours if they want to access all of the activities, which clearly creates significant barriers”.

She said: “All of the acts are great, of course, and I would welcome any and all of them to Newham, where we continue to have one of the lowest cultural engagement rates in the UK.”

But she added: “I still believe there is a huge need for a summer-based outdoor festival – late November hardly being ideal for disabled people to access outdoor installations, etc – which brings disabled people together on one site to enjoy our own cultural activities, as promised by article 30 of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.

Most of us don’t live in fully accessible homes, so we only see our friends at events like Liberty – there are quite a number of people whom I haven’t seen since 2017 when the last single-site festival took place.

Liberty began as ‘The Mayor of London’s Disability Rights Festival’, but all of the elements which supported our rights, from information stalls to gaining resilience through social networking, have seemingly been abandoned.”

David Hevey, chief executive of London-based Shape Arts, said: “I hope Liberty returns to the scale it used to have.

Let’s hope this is the beginning of it going back to a large scale.

It’s great that it’s keeping going. It’s got a great legacy. I just hope that it achieves a more national pre-eminence again.”

Kevin Walsh, executive director of Graeae Theatre Company, said: “Liberty Festival is one of the cornerstones of the modern disability arts landscape and it is great that it returns for another year.

We have been supportive of the programme reaching parts of London outside the centre, as it is taking the festival to boroughs that would benefit from a bit more Touretteshero and Candoco [Dance Company] in their lives.

That said, something has been lost by not having a celebration in the centre of London.

It was with great pride that we belted out tunes and danced across Trafalgar Square to the random passers-by who just came to frolic in the fountains.

There is something brazen and sexy about introducing tourists to 40 years of progress in disability arts.

Front and centre, loud, proud and chaotic, Liberty Festival was always a little bit of naughtiness on a summer’s day.

We’ll be there in Walthamstow, though, the line-up sounds awesome and we love what [access to live music charity] Attitude is Everything are doing to support Waltham Forest venues.”

A spokesperson for the mayor of London said: “This year’s Liberty festival will take place across an entire weekend, showcasing deaf and disabled artists and performers.

By partnering with Waltham Forest London Borough of Culture we are holding a range of events across a variety of locations so there are more opportunities for Londoners to enjoy the works.

We are working closely with Waltham Forest to ensure that all sites are accessible to the widest possible audience.”

He said the London Borough of Culture programme was “designed to bring arts and culture to the doorsteps of Londoners” and that Liberty would be “family-focused to help break barriers and educate children”, including panel talks, workshops, emerging artist commissions, local artist performances, and performance pieces.

He added: “While some events take place outside, there will also be indoor events as part of the festival.”

*Together! 2012’s Disability History Month Festival begins on 22 November in Stratford, east London

17 October 2019

 

 

Definitive’ account of austerity decade ‘provides evidence of government’s shame’

The government is continuing to breach disabled people’s rights despite repeated exposure by the United Nations, according to a new book that provides a “definitive” account of the harm caused by a decade of cuts and reforms.

In Second Class Citizens, disabled researcher Stef Benstead looks at the conclusions of various UN investigations that have examined the UK’s provision for disabled people and how it has changed and have concluded that the government has been “gravely breaching disabled people’s rights”.

In contrast, says Benstead, the UK government “remains confident that it is a world leader in disability rights, and that in recent years it has improved its provision through better targeting of resources and more support to help disabled people get and stay in work”.

Her book, published by the Centre for Welfare Reform, includes a series of examples describing how government cuts and reforms have impacted on individual disabled people.

It has been described as “essential reading” by the disabled crossbench peer Baroness [Jane] Campbell.

Professor Peter Beresford, co-chair of Shaping Our Lives, said it provided “the definitive verdict on government welfare reform, the UK’s shame”.

He said: “It’s a policy against the evidence, against human rights and most of all against disabled people. Here the truth gap is filled with the real voices of disabled people.”

Niall Cooper, director of Church Action on Poverty, described the book as “a benchmark study of the treatment of disabled people under austerity”.

He said: “It is illuminated by numerous powerful personal stories illustrating the human impact of austerity, and a devastating critique of the shift from a positive vision of social security to today’s welfare system based on a culture of blame and the myth of dependency.”

Benstead has previously worked with the Spartacus online network, which produced a string of influential research reports on cuts to disabled people’s support between 2012 and 2017, and the thinktank Ekklesia.

She is currently working with the user-led Chronic Illness Inclusion Project and Church Action on Poverty.

Her book presents evidence on the impact of policy changes that have affected disabled people since 2010.

But she also looks at the history of how disabled people have been treated by society and the state, and examines the development of the welfare state and post-war campaigns for a more inclusive society, and the Thatcherite policies of the 1980s and the “gradual erosion of the welfare state”.

Benstead describes how politicians began to frame benefit recipients as “scroungers and frauds and the benefit system as a costly mistake”, before extending this argument to recipients of out-of-work sickness and disability benefits.

She then begins to examine the impact of the austerity policies introduced by successive Tory-led governments from 2010, including cuts to social care and employment and support allowance, growing claims by ministers that work should be seen as a health outcome, and substantial increases in the use of conditionality and benefit sanctions imposed on sick and disabled people.

Benstead also examines the introduction of universal credit, which she says is “a mess, deliberately designed to fail to cope with reality” and has left people “trapped in unsuitable homes without enough money to cover their rent, the support they need or their food and bills”.

Her book – which includes many personal stories that illustrate the dehumanising impact of austerity – concludes that sick and disabled people are being failed by the government, which is “failing both to provide the opportunity to work for those who can, and an adequate alternative income for those who can’t work”.

Since 2010, says Benstead, governments have “caused substantial harm to sick and disabled people’s health, living standards and social inclusion”.

She says they have done so “without any moral or economic justification”, failing to uphold one of governments’ “most fundamental reasons to exist: to ensure and improve the access to basic rights of its most vulnerable citizens”.

She adds: “Sick and disabled people in the UK today are treated as second-class citizens, and until this situation is rectified the UK Government will continue to be violating international law by its ongoing breach of disabled people’s rights.”

17 October 2019

 

News provided by John Pring at www.disabilitynewsservice.com

 

 Posted by at 22:29
Oct 102019
 

This week’s update from Disability News Service is given below with all the articles in a single post, however if you would prefer to view them as separate articles, you can do that on the DNS Website

 

Anger as police confiscate Extinction Rebellion accessible toilets, ramps and wheelchairs

A police force has been accused of discrimination and “abusive” behaviour after confiscating ramps, wheelchairs and even accessible toilets that were intended to make this week’s Extinction Rebellion climate change protests in London more inclusive – and safer – for disabled activists.

Members of the Disabled Rebels group had spent months working with the organisers of Extinction Rebellion (XR) to ensure that the protests taking place this week and next would be accessible and inclusive, as reported last week by Disability News Service.

But the Metropolitan police have sabotaged those preparations by impounding two mobile accessible toilets that had been rented by XR, and arresting two members of staff working for the charity that was providing the equipment.

That police action on Monday near St James’s Park, Westminster, followed a police raid on a building in south London on Saturday, which led to eight arrests and the seizure of independent living aids and other equipment being stored by XR.

Organisers said later that the equipment seized included wheelchairs, ramps, noise-cancelling headphones for autistic protesters, camp beds for those unable to sleep on the floor, and solar-powered charging equipment for wheelchairs and scooters.

As a result of the seizure of this equipment and the accessible toilets two days later, plans for a disability hub in St James’s Park had to be abandoned.

The hub was to have provided a central place for disabled people to gather, rest, receive information, take part in training, provide peer support, and begin to build a movement of disabled people on climate change.

There was further anger over Monday’s police’s actions, after it emerged that – following six hours of negotiations with XR – a senior officer had apparently given permission for the two converted vans, each containing an accessible toilet, a changing bench, shower facilities and a ceiling hoist, to be driven into the occupied protest area.

Two members of staff working for the charity that hires out the vans at subsidised rates – Mobiloo, founded by retired Irish Paralympian James Brown – were then arrested, along with two XR protesters, even though they had been given permission to bring the vans into the protest area and had apparently been following instructions from a police officer on where to park them.

One of the two Mobiloo staff members later had to be taken from a police station to hospital after an angina attack, believed to have been caused by the stress of being arrested and held in custody.

All four are believed to have been arrested for conspiracy to cause a public nuisance and obstructing a public highway.

Sandra Daniels, one of the activists behind XR Disabled Rebels, said the police actions had caused health and safety problems for disabled protesters, and were likely to lead to an official complaint to the force, and possibly legal action.

She said: “The access for disabled people has been limited by the police. It has stopped disabled people being included.

We have the right as disabled people to protest. In effect they have stopped that right.”

She said Disabled Rebels had challenged XR to make the fortnight of protests accessible and inclusive, and XR had been “supportive”, but because of the police action that inclusion had not been possible.

She said: “Once again I feel we have been excluded as disabled people, and we have a right to protest.”

Another Disabled Rebel, Nicki, said the police decision to impound the Mobiloos “could have huge implications” for disabled people’s health, wellbeing and dignity.

She said: “It has meant that some people have had to stay away; their right to peaceful protest has been taken away by this decision.

This has been a huge blow to disabled people wanting to participate, coming just days after so much access equipment was seized from the XR warehouse on Saturday.

This equipment was crucial for the safety and welfare of sick and disabled people.

One of XR’s principles states that we welcome everybody and every part of everybody.

We really hoped to achieve this and XR had been so positive about embracing radical inclusion of disabled activists.”

Alex Howell, Mobiloo’s operations director, has been told that his charity’s two drivers waited for six hours while XR’s liaison team negotiated permission to bring in the two vans.

They were then given permission to do so by a senior officer, and the vans were driven through the police cordon by two XR volunteers, with the Mobiloo staff – who were not part of the protest – in the cabs.

All four of them were then arrested, and taken to Acton police station, with the two vans impounded.

Howell said: “My concern is for my staff, first and foremost. Them being put in a situation where they were following police instructions and were arrested is quite concerning.

It does make us reticent to be involved in protests in the future.”

He said Mobiloo had not heard from the police about how or when they could retrieve their vans, which had been booked by XR for the two weeks Extinction Rebellion is expected to last.

Howell said: “Taking part in a protest is something someone should be able to do. If someone is disabled, they need accessible toilet facilities to be able to do that.

We were just providing a service as we would do to anyone.”

Extinction Rebellion said today (Thursday) that it was keeping a record of “abusive police behaviour”, following the forceful confiscation of “shelter, food, water and anything that might allow disabled people to conveniently participate”.

It has called for witness accounts of such behaviour to be emailed to: xr-legal@riseup.net.

A Met police spokesperson said all those arrested in south London had been released under investigation, while the property had been searched using powers under section 32 of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984.

He said: “Officers seized a large amount of equipment at the address. The property will be retained while the investigation is ongoing.”

He added: “It is the police’s role to provide a lawful and proportionate policing response to any planned protest, balancing the community impact with the right to protest.

Officers have powers to seize any equipment which they believe will facilitate unlawful protest.

This forms part of our robust, proportionate policing plan which we continue to keep under review.

If protestors break the law, officers will look to arrest those people. Furthermore, those people can expect to be charged, prosecuted, and receive a criminal record.”

The force had not commented on the St James’s Park negotiations and arrests by noon today (Thursday).

10 October 2019

 

 

Criticism over ‘shocking’ appointments to ODI’s new disability networks

The government is facing criticism over its decision to appoint representatives of just two disabled people’s organisations (DPOs) – and a leading disabled Tory – to chair its new regional stakeholder networks.

The minister for disabled people, Justin Tomlinson, this week announced eight chairs to lead the networks across England.

But it appears that only two of the chairs who have been appointed lead representative organisations run and controlled by disabled people, an apparent flouting of the government’s obligations under the UN disability convention.

Three of the new appointments are bosses of disability charities, one leads a community interest company and one is described as a board member of the veterans advisory and pension committee.

And Barry Ginley, who will chair the south-east network, is vice-chair of the Conservative Disability Group, although he is described in this week’s government announcement as director of a consultancy company.

Last week, Disability News Service (DNS) reported how Ginley had defended the government’s disability policies, and had dismissed three highly critical reports by the UN’s committee on the rights of persons with disabilities, as well as concerns about the impact of Brexit on social care, disability rights and access to medication.

Another of the newly-appointed chairs, Ruth Owen, chief executive of the charity Whizz-Kidz, and a wheelchair-user herself, will chair the Greater London regional network.

A third of the new chairs, Liz Leach Murphy, founder of the social enterprise Imagineer, who has a long-term health condition, will chair the Yorkshire and the Humber network.

Another chair, Samantha Everard, chief executive of the charity Support and Mentoring Enabling Entrepreneurship, who also has a long-term health condition, will chair the south-west network.

Lynne Turnbull, chief executive of Cheshire Centre for Independent Living, the new north-west chair, and one of the two disabled people’s organisations (DPOs) represented in the appointments, is another disabled appointee.

She said the networks were “a brilliant opportunity to influence government policy”.

She said: “This is about bringing the voice of disabled people and DPOs across the north-west and making sure that is heard within government.”

Turnbull said the appointment of chairs who were not from representative organisations of disabled people was a matter for the government, but she added: “If you’re chairing a network made up of disabled people and their organisations, that is the voice you’re taking forward.”

She said she would be “really keen” to look at the membership of her network and “make sure it’s appropriate and representing the voice of disabled people and DPOs”.

She said that, “in an ideal world”, it will be made up only of disabled people and representatives of DPOs, although she had not yet seen her membership list.

The other chairs are Naomi Tomkys, chief executive of Sky Badger (east); Michael Potts, a board member of the veterans advisory and pension committee (north-east); and Louise Mckiernan, chief executive of Birmingham Disability Resource Centre (West and East Midlands), the other DPO represented in the new appointments.

The networks will be tasked with “amplifying the voices of disabled people and disability organisations in regions across England” and then reporting back to the Office for Disability Issues (ODI) on issues including transport, housing and employment.

The delay in announcing the names of the chairs and members of the networks had already attracted criticism, as had the government’s refusal to pay them, with the networks described by one leading disabled campaigner as “the worst kind of phoney engagement”.

At least five of the eight chairs announced this week identify as disabled people or have a long-term health condition.

Their first meeting took place on Tuesday (8 October).

Tracey Lazard, chief executive of Inclusion London, said: “We are shocked but not surprised by the appointments to the chairs of the regional stakeholder forums.”

She said most of the chairs did not appear to represent Deaf and disabled people’s organisations (DDPOs).

She said: “Rather than work with DDPOs, as they are obliged to do under the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD), the government has instead, once again, chosen to carry out yet another cynical window-dressing exercise in engagement.

In reality, these forums fail all the measures of meaningful engagement: they are not forums of disabled people, they are not representative of DDPOs, they are not strategic, they are not resourced and they will operate in a policy vacuum.

This is simply not acceptable.

After 10 years of systematic retrogression of our rights and inclusion, the government must meet its UNCRPD obligations and begin working with us in a real and strategic way to get our rights and inclusion back on track.”

UNCRPD makes it clear that, when developing laws and policies relating to disabled people, governments “must closely consult with and actively involve persons with disabilities, including children with disabilities, through their representative organizations”.

It defines “representative organizations” as those that are “led, directed and governed by persons with disabilities”, a definition which the UN committee on the rights of persons with disabilities included in its general comment number seven, which was adopted in September 2018.

Each of the new regional groups will be led by an independent chair and consist of between 10 and 40 members, who will all be “either disabled people, charities or organisations that represent disabled people”.

The groups will only be funded to meet once a year and will have to pay for any further meetings they arrange themselves, but ODI will still expect them to provide input throughout the year via email.

In response to concerns about the selection process, a Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) spokesperson said the chairs were “selected based on their skills, knowledge, experience, and proven track record working as advocates for disabled people within their regions”.

DNS had not asked DWP about its failure to appoint representatives of DPOs.

10 October 2019

 

 

Dismal’ job figures show failure of Disability Confident, says de Cordova

The government’s much-criticised Disability Confident jobs scheme appears to be growing increasingly less successful at persuading employers to offer jobs to disabled people, according to new Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) figures.

The figures, secured by Disability News Service (DNS) through a freedom of information (FoI) request, show that the 13,600 employers that have signed up to the scheme since it was launched in 2013 have pledged to provide just 8,763 paid jobs for disabled people between them.

This is an average of less than two-thirds of a job per employer.

Many of those that have signed up to Disability Confident are large employers such as local authorities, government departments, manufacturers, national charities, banks and retailers, including the big four supermarkets, more than 100 NHS trusts, and high street banks.

The figures provide fresh evidence that the scheme is “trivially easy to abuse” and allows employers to describe themselves as “disability confident” without being assessed on that claim, and without employing a single disabled person.

Three years ago, DWP declared itself a gold-standard employer of disabled people under the scheme – securing the status of “Disability Confident Leader” – just days before being found guilty of “grave and systematic violations” of the UN disability convention.

The new figures show that about 13,600 employers that had signed up to the scheme by 13 September had promised to provide 8,763 new paid jobs and 1,903 traineeships for disabled people between them*.

This compares with figures from last year year which showed how at that stage 4,586 paid jobs and 1,223 traineeships had been promised by 6,841 employers.

This means there is so far an average of 0.64 jobs per employer and 0.78 jobs and traineeships per employer, compared with 0.67 jobs and 0.85 jobs and traineeships per employer 15 months ago.

Marsha de Cordova, Labour’s shadow minister for disabled people, said: “These dismal figures are yet more evidence of the failure of this government’s Disability Confident scheme.

Under the government’s flagship employment scheme, you can become a Disability Confident employer without employing a single disabled person.

The Disability Confident scheme lacks any accountability, transparency or credible performance measures to ensure that employers recruit disabled people.

Labour is committed to halving the disability employment gap, closing the disability pay gap and ensuring that disabled people have equal access to the labour market.”

David Gillon, a disabled campaigner and one of the most prominent critics of the Disability Confident scheme, said: “The number of disabled jobs created by the scheme is sadly pathetic.

Less than one job per employer, when disabled people make up one in five of the workforce.

Under 9,000 new jobs across the three years of the revamped scheme, yet disability employment has supposedly increased by 246,000 in the past year.

So Disability Confident is responsible for a little over one per cent of new jobs for disabled people, even though it includes some of the largest employers in the country.

The figures are so bad you have to wonder if Disability Confident employers are actually less likely to employ disabled people [than those not signed up to the scheme].”

Gillon said Disability Confident had still signed up just “a 0.002 per cent sized drop in the ocean of 5.7 million private sector employers”.

He said: “It is obvious that Disability Confident just doesn’t grab employers by the scruff of the neck and say, ‘This is something you need to compete in today’s market.’

When Disability Confident actually asks for less than the law requires in places, this is worrying.

Disabled people remain three times more likely than non-disabled to be economically inactive.

Fully 3.3 million disabled people are not looking for work and that number isn’t falling, it’s slowly increasing.

Some of those people will be unable to work, but a significant proportion will have some capability to work with appropriate adjustments, but have learned through grim experience that the jobs market is unwilling to consider us.

This is a lesson reinforced every time we see a disabled person forced out of work because an employer has no respect for our rights, and Disability Confident simply isn’t challenging our confidence in the truth of that lesson.”

DWP has so far been unable to say how many of the 8,763 jobs that were pledged by Disability Confident members resulted in paid jobs for disabled people.

Asked why the Disability Confident scheme appeared to be so unsuccessful – and getting worse – at persuading employers to provide new jobs for disabled people, and whether the figures showed the scheme was “trivially easy to abuse”, a DWP spokesperson said: “Disability Confident is a business-led scheme designed to support businesses of all sizes to recruit, support and retain disabled workers.

We are constantly reviewing and strengthening the process, and we’ve made great progress, with two-thirds of large employers surveyed having employed a disabled person as a result of joining the scheme.

There are now 1.15 million more disabled people in work compared to six years ago, but there is always more that can be done.

We hope to continue to increase sign ups and ensure that all businesses can reap the rewards of employing disabled people.

The DWP spokesperson has so far been unable to provide any detailed figures relating to the “two-thirds of large employers” who he said had employed a disabled person as a result of joining the scheme.

*The freedom of information response failed to provide figures for how many apprenticeships have been promised by employers

10 October 2019

 

 

Government’s silence over sex abuse inquiry evidence

A government department appears to be trying to cover up evidence that a former senior civil servant – later arrested over two unconnected rape allegations – may have helped block tougher laws on the sexual abuse of disabled people.

The Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) promised five years ago that it would pass “all known documentation” about the possible actions of Brian McGinnis to the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA).

Disability News Service (DNS) asked DHSC this summer if it had kept its promise and passed the documents about the actions of McGinnis in the 1980s to the inquiry, but was told by the department’s press office to submit a freedom of information (FoI) request.

Now the department, headed by health and social care secretary Matt Hancock, has finally answered that FoI request, but its response claims that it would be too expensive to check whether it kept its word.

Its freedom of information department says in the response that it would be a “very time-consuming process” to confirm if it passed information to IICSA because it would have to search “a vast quantity of files”.

It claims it would take one person more than three-and-a-half days to search its archives.

It took more than a week for DHSC’s press office to respond to questions about the FoI response.

When a DHSC spokesperson eventually responded, he refused to comment; or explain why DHSC could not just ask the IICSA inquiry team if it had received information about McGinnis; or say whether the department had breached its safeguarding duties by failing to keep track of information passed to the inquiry.

An IICSA spokesperson said: “The inquiry cannot comment on whether it has or has not received evidence from a particular individual or organisation outside its public hearings.”

But he said he had passed on DNS’s concerns about DHSC and McGinnis to the inquiry team.

The DHSC promise to pass on documents to IICSA was made in 2014 after concerns were raised that McGinnis may – in the 1980s – have helped to stop MPs tightening laws protecting people with learning difficulties and mental health conditions from sexual abuse.

McGinnis was named in 2014 in a report into the activities of the disgraced TV presenter Jimmy Savile at Broadmoor hospital, as he was the senior civil servant in charge of mental health in the Department of Health and Social Security (DHSS) in 1986, shortly before Savile was appointed to a new board to run the hospital.

The report mentioned that McGinnis had “since been the subject of two allegations that have been made public”, which “arose in the course of his voluntary sector work with disturbed and abused children, and both cases were dropped without charge”.

Those allegations were made public in a news story written by DNS editor John Pring in Disability Now magazine in 2006.

McGinnis has always claimed to be innocent of the two separate rape allegations and insists that he is a lifelong “celibate”.

In 1985, the year before McGinnis left DHSS, MPs on the Commons social services committee had called for an “independent expert review of law and practice on sexuality and contraception in relation to mentally disabled people”.

But DHSS dismissed the idea in its response to the committee’s report, warning that “a major review might simply attract unwelcome, unhealthy and wholly disproportionate media interest without achieving any helpful consensus”.

It is believed that this response could have come from McGinnis.

The review never took place, and law reform that would make it easier to secure convictions for rape and indecent assault of people with learning difficulties and experience of mental distress was delayed until 2003, when a new act introduced fresh offences and tougher sentences.

DNS was led to believe five years ago by the Department of Health (as it was known at the time) that any material it held on McGinnis that related to the DHSS response to the social services committee would be passed to the child abuse inquiry that had recently been launched by the Home Office.

It also claimed that it was examining its archives to check whether McGinnis had influenced the DHSS response in 1985.

It later confirmed that it was investigating whether McGinnis may have helped to block tougher sexual abuse legislation.

A DH spokesperson said in August 2014: “We are taking this issue very seriously and investigating whether there is any relevant material held on file.”

But DHSC is now claiming it would be too time-consuming to check its records to confirm if it did pass any documents to IICSA.

McGinnis, who became a special advisor for the charity Mencap after leaving the civil service, but left that role more than 10 years ago, has never been convicted, or even charged, with any offence.

But he has been arrested twice over unconnected rape allegations, one of which involved a child with learning difficulties at the notorious Betts Way respite home in Bromley, Kent, in the mid-1990s.

The arrests came in March 2001 and August 2005 and both resulted in McGinnis, who is now in his early 80s and is believed to live in Shirley, Croydon, being released without charge.

He has always denied the allegations.

Until the allegations about his behaviour were publicised in 2006, he was an influential figure in the disability world, with links to a string of charities, learning difficulty organisations and his local church in Shirley.

Following his first arrest, Bromley council advised its staff to “disassociate” McGinnis “with anything related to children with learning difficulties and council services”.

Croydon council later told church authorities that McGinnis “should be suspended from duties that involved him working with children”, after being informed by Bromley council about the 2005 arrest. He had at the time been working with a children’s church group.

10 October 2019

 

 

Tomlinson dodges questions over serious case panel

The minister for disabled people has refused to provide MPs with any details of government plans to set up an independent panel to examine cases where his department’s failings have led to the deaths of benefit claimants.

The spending round document published by the Treasury on 4 September said the new “independent serious case panel” would aim to improve DWP “safeguarding”.

The Treasury said it would provide funding of £36 million for 2020-21 to fund both the panel and ensure that decision-making on benefit claims was “accurate” and that benefit application processes were “straightforward and accessible”.

But following that announcement, DWP refused to explain why it was setting up the new serious case panel.

Now, a month later, Justin Tomlinson, the minister for disabled people, has been asked about the plans in the House of Commons.

Labour’s shadow minister for disabled people, Marsha de Cordova, told Tomlinson that a catalogue of DWP failings had “created a hostile environment for disabled people”.

And she said: “The announcement of the new independent serious case panel lacks any meaningful detail, terms of reference or purpose.”

De Cordova asked Tomlinson to confirm if the new panel would review previous deaths linked to benefits, and if he would describe the panel’s “statement of purpose”.

But Tomlinson refused to answer the question, telling de Cordova instead how DWP worked “all year round with claimants, stakeholders and charities – organisations with real-life experience – to help to improve not only the training but the understanding of all areas of disability and health conditions”, and backed that up with “genuine financial support”.

DWP also refused – again – to answer questions from Disability News Service (DNS) about the serious case panel this week, including whether the new work and pensions secretary Therese Coffey had now ditched the idea.

But de Cordova told DNS: “The government’s announcement of a new independent serious case panel lacks any detail, terms of reference or statement of purpose.

At DWP [oral questions], the minister failed to give any concrete answer on the nature of the panel, or to confirm whether the panel will examine the DWP’s own failings surrounding social security-related deaths.

It is of the upmost importance that these questions are answered and that the government are committed to investigating the hostile environment it has created in the DWP.”

If a serious case panel is being set up to examine deaths linked to benefit claims, and other serious cases connected to DWP failings, it would be a significant victory for grassroots disabled activists who have spent years highlighting such tragedies.

It would also be a victory for the Justice for Jodey Whiting petition, backed by grassroots disabled activists and Whiting’s mother Joy Dove, which spent nearly six months highlighting the need for an independent inquiry into deaths caused by DWP’s failings, and secured nearly 55,000 signatures.

DNS has spent more than five years highlighting DWP’s safeguarding failings.

In June, DNS reported how DWP had acted unlawfully by destroying a damaging internal report about its failure to ensure the safety of benefit claimants in jobcentres.

Also in June, the Liverpool Echo reported that Amber Rudd – who has since resigned as work and pensions secretary – had admitted that an internal review into the death of Stephen Smith, from Liverpool, had found that DWP missed “crucial safeguarding opportunities” and had “identified areas where we need to change our policy” to protect claimants in vulnerable situations.

And in February, DNS reported on the Independent Case Examiner report into the death of Jodey Whiting in February 2017, which concluded that DWP failed five times to follow its own safeguarding rules in the weeks leading up to her suicide.

This led to the launch of the Jodey Whiting parliamentary petition, which was set up to press for a criminal investigation into misconduct by ministers and senior civil servants that may have contributed to the deaths of claimants.

10 October 2019

 

 

Third report in a month raises fresh concerns over SEND system

An ombudsman has added to increasing concerns about the special educational needs and disability (SEND) system in England after revealing that it has been upholding an “exceptional and unprecedented” number of complaints.

The new report by the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman into the education, health and care (EHC) plan process is now the third in a month to raise serious concerns about the support provided to disabled children and young people.

The ombudsman is now upholding nearly nine out of every 10 cases (87 per cent) it investigates, compared with 57 per cent of other cases, and says this suggests a “system in crisis”.

In 2018-19, it received 45 per cent more complaints and carried out 80 per cent more detailed investigations about EHC plans than in 2016-17.

Ombudsman Michael King said he was “particularly concerned” that some local authorities could now be putting extra barriers in place to “ration scarce resources”, rather than basing support on children’s needs.

And he said the report suggested a system “beset with serious problems”, with “severe delays” of up to 90 weeks, some council areas without any specialist provision, and EHC plans often issued without any advice from health or social services.

The ombudsman’s report came days after research by the National Deaf Children’s Society found that more than half of local councils and health authorities in England had failed inspections of their joint services for children with SEND by Ofsted and the Care Quality Commission.

According to the charity, 100 of England’s joint services have been inspected since local area SEND inspections began in 2016, and 51 of them failed that inspection.

And just last month, the National Audit Office found that the needs of many disabled pupils in England were not being met, while councils were under growing financial pressure because more children were attending special schools.

That report found there had been a 2.6 per cent real terms reduction in funding for each pupil with high needs in the four years between 2013-14 and 2017-18.

The week before the NAO report was published, education secretary Gavin Williamson had announced a review of support for children with SEND.

Meanwhile, on Monday, three families with disabled children heard that the high court has rejected their claim that the government acted unlawfully by failing to provide enough funding for local authorities to meet their legal obligations to educate children with SEND.

All three of the families – supported by the SEND Action campaign network – have been unable to secure the support their disabled child needs with their education.

The Alliance for Inclusive Education (ALLFIE) has repeatedly called on the government to recognise that it has been breaching its duties under article 24 (on inclusive education) of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD).

Two years ago, the UN committee on the rights of persons with disabilities raised concerns about the increasing number of disabled children being educated in segregated settings and said the UK education system was “not equipped to respond to the requirements for high-quality inclusive education”.

Michelle Daley, ALLFIE’s interim director, said: “This year alone we have seen a series of disturbing reports that are screaming out the problems and failings to disabled learners.”

She said the title of the ombudsman’s “shocking review” – Not Going to Plan? – “signifies the sad reality for disabled pupils and students”.  

Daley said there was now plenty of evidence of the crisis and the need for urgent action rather than any more reviews.

She said: “What we need is a properly resourced education system that is inclusive for learners.

We need the education of disabled learners considered as a human rights matter and for that to happen we need the UNCRPD article 24 implemented into our domestic law with no reservations.”

Daley said ALLFIE was “totally devastated” by the court’s decision, which she said showed the weakness of the Equality Act’s public sector equality duty “in producing no meaningful outcomes for disabled people”.

She said: “Even though there was plenty of evidence about the funding crisis, the court still decided to remain with the existing formula that doesn’t improve the situation for disabled learners and keeps them trapped in appalling situations.”

She praised the three families and their children and supporters for taking the case and “helping to raise the profile of the crisis and the inequality in education for disabled learners”.

She said: “This is not the end. The fight must continue. We must end the dual education system and inequality in education for all disabled learners.”

A Department for Education spokesperson said: “As the ombudsman admits, this report is based on a very small sample size – covering less than 0.3 per cent [of all the new EHC plans that were issued in 2018]. 

Over 48,000 children were issued with new education, health and care plans last year, and the majority of these were completed within 20 weeks.

During the assessment process children continue to attend their school and receive additional support, until their tailored support package is put into place.

We’ve also announced an extra £700 million for pupils with complex needs in 2020-21 – an 11 per cent increase on this year.

However, we know the system is not working well enough for every family, and have launched a review to introduce further improvements.”

10 October 2019

 

 

Accelerator scheme plans to open door to inclusion

Five organisations led by disabled people are to benefit from a new “accelerator” programme that aims to boost their work on social inclusion.

Disability Rights UK (DR UK), Inclusion London, Love Language, Grid Smarter Cities and SociAbility are all disabled-led and are among the first 10 organisations to be chosen for the OpenDoor “inclusion accelerator” pilot programme.

The programme will provide them with workshops, mentoring and one-to-one support that is designed to help them develop their own products, services and projects.

It is being run by Plexal, the innovation centre and “coworking space” based in the Olympic Park in east London.

DR UK will be receiving support for its plan to create an online marketplace for disabled innovators and entrepreneurs to showcase their products and services to other disabled people.

Kamran Mallick, chief executive of DR UK, said: “We want to address the problem of how disabled people find the right products and services that offer solutions for everyday barriers to living independently, especially when most products and services are developed and marketed by non-disabled people and companies.

The marketplace would also showcase peer-tested and recommended items for sale.

These can be tech solutions such as apps that help you find accessible routes or give you information on access levels at places like restaurants, to everyday independent living equipment.”

Mallick said the 12-week programme would support DR UK to “test and learn” and “support us in refining the idea to a point that we can pitch to potential investors”.

He said: “OpenDoor will give us access to industry mentors, who will bring their extensive knowledge on how the tech industry uses tried and tested techniques to evaluate ideas and bring them to the market.”

Love Learning, a collaboration between Love Language and Idea East, uses digital technology to tackle the disparity between the number of Deaf people and the number of available British Sign Language interpreters. 

Plexal plans to help prototype the technology and present it to investors.

SociAbility provides detailed accessibility information for local social venues and shops, while Travel MI by Grid Smarter Cities aims to improve accessible wayfinding in busy areas, particularly airports. 

Plexal will support SociAbility and Travel MI by helping them build partnerships with transport organisations.

And Inclusion London is supporting internships for young people with learning difficulties, with Plexal helping to set up the programme with employers in the Olympic Park.

Last month, Plexal and its partners announced the launch of the East London Inclusive Enterprise Zone (ELIEZ), which it described as the UK’s most accessible technology hub.

ELIEZ will develop an accessible space for entrepreneurs and businesses leaders who are disabled or are focused on providing products or services to disabled people.

It will also aim to build on the London 2012 Paralympic Games legacy by developing links with Tokyo 2020 and Paris 2024.

Among Plexal’s partners on ELIEZ are Inclusion London, DR UK, Loughborough University, UCL (University College London), Greater London Authority and the Global Disability Innovation Hub (GDIH), which is based on UCL’s Olympic Park campus.

ELIEZ aims to meet some of the “enormous international need for disability innovation and assistive technology” and has set itself a target of launching 100 new start-ups.

It says it wants to “kick-start the UK’s first inclusive innovation sector”.

Its partners highlight the fact that only one in 10 disabled people currently has access to the assistive technology they need to go to school, work, or have a family.

10 October 2019

 

 

Stephen Aselford: Tributes paid to ‘energetic and passionate campaigner’

Friends and fellow activists have paid tribute to Stephen Aselford – a passionate disabled campaigner who was committed to improving the lives of others – after his sudden death.

They have described not only his commitment to social justice, equality and disability rights, but also his kind and cheerful nature.

Aselford worked originally in a sheltered workshop in Croydon, where he joined the GMB union, of which he remained a member all his life.

He later played a significant role in several London-based disability organisations, including People First (Self-Advocacy), Transport for All (TfA) and Disability Croydon.

He was also a long-time member of the Labour party and friends say that he loved public transport, his family, Croydon and “shaming Tory politicians”.

One of his finest moments, says his friend and fellow disabled activist Ellen Clifford, was when he confronted Tory mayoral hopeful Zac Goldsmith in 2015 about voting for the government’s cuts to support for disabled people placed in the work-related activity group of employment and support allowance.

Another was in 2015, when Aselford wrote of how a planned BNP demonstration was “an attempt to stir up hatred and divide our community”, and described his pride at living in such a “diverse and vibrant” area as Croydon.

He wrote: “Migrants were not responsible for the financial crisis. In fact, our economy and vital services that disabled people rely on, including the NHS and social care services, are dependent on migrant labour.”

Among those sending condolences this week was John McDonnell, Labour’s shadow chancellor and a long-standing supporter of many grassroots disabled people’s organisations.

Aselford was a dedicated member of Disabled People Against Cuts (DPAC) and a co-founder of Bromley and Croydon DPAC.

Clifford said: “Stephen was an energetic and committed campaigner with an instinctive passion for social justice.

He was also a thoroughly lovely person with a great sense of humour.

He was knowledgeable and politically insightful and had great ideas. As a beloved friend he is badly missed and as an activist he leaves a big hole in the movement.

The best way to honour his memory is to continue the fight that was so central to his life.”

Andrew Lee, director of People First (Self Advocacy), said Aselford was “a great friend, advocate and activist.

He was a passionate campaigner locally and nationally and was well known for his strong views on accessible transport and the right to vote for people with learning difficulties.

Stephen worked really hard to make sure that people with learning difficulties had a voice and were heard – particularly our ‘political voice’.

He helped others realise that we have views on all sorts of things, not just disability issues.

Wherever he went, he lit up the room.”

Aselford worked for People First for three years, between 2008 and 2011, as an inclusion worker, helping to build the capacity of its member organisations.

Lee said: “It’s important for us to remember Stephen’s energy and commitment to making the lives of others better. He achieved so much and we sadly lost him far too early.”

Aselford was also a long-time member and trustee of TfA.

Alan Benson, TfA’s chair, said: “He was deeply committed to the importance of transport for the public good and specifically for the well-being of disabled and older people.

He could often be found supporting protests, picket lines or events promoting or
defending public transport.

His strongly held beliefs were rooted in an incredibly detailed knowledge of trains and buses, both old and new.

He was always willing to share this passion and could be relied upon to know exactly what was going on in the transport sector.

But perhaps the thing Stephen should be best remembered for is his kind
and cheerful nature.

He was always one of the first to arrive at Transport for All events, where his irrepressible positivity was infectious.

He will be sorely missed by those that knew him and by the campaigns he supported.”

Paula Peters, co-founder of Bromley and Croydon DPAC, said her friend was always ready with a smile and a joke and loved DPAC’s direct actions, which he called its “naughtiness”.

She said he had provided “great political insight, with great experience and knowledge” in his role as equalities officer for Unite Community’s new Bromley and Croydon branch.

She said: “His passing is a great loss to our movement. We miss a treasured friend, comrade and activist, but we will honour Steve’s memory by continuing the fight for human rights as he would want us to do.”

Michelle Gordon, GMB’s equalities officer, said Aselford had been active in the union for many years and had been determined to make it more accessible to disabled people, while he often spoke of the importance of young people joining the union movement and the need to do more to promote its successes.

She said: “Stephen will be sadly missed but his legacy of making our movement more accessible will live on.” 

Linda Burnip, co-founder of DPAC said: “Stephen was involved with DPAC for many years and was a lovely man who will be missed by many people.”

Leanne Purvis, a fellow self-advocate and long-standing friend through People First, said: “Big Steve was a big help to anyone and nice to talk to. He was my friend and I will miss him a lot.”

Andy Ward, a friend and fellow member of Croydon constituency Labour party, said he was “a great campaigner for disability rights and in the field of public transport” whose knowledge and expertise on public transport and accessibility was “almost unsurpassed”.

He said: “He will be sadly missed both for his disability rights campaigning and for his campaigning for better accessible public transport.”

Tony Newman, leader of Croydon council, said: “Stephen was over many years a tireless campaigner for disabled people, and worked hard to ensure everyone received the maximum amount of support possible.

Stephen was a gentle, kind man who along with his encyclopaedic knowledge of the transport system will be greatly missed by all.”

Croydon councillor Karen Jewitt said: “I was proud of Stephen. He was a friend as well as a comrade.

I will miss him. His contribution to equality and the Labour movement is something we should all aspire to.”

DPAC plans to organise an event to commemorate Stephen Aselford’s life and work.

10 October 2019

 

 

Legal firm hands out cameras to help disabled passengers prove discrimination

Disabled people who experience repeated discrimination on public transport are being offered a camera to record video evidence for possible legal cases.

Legal firm Fry Law, which specialises in disability discrimination cases, is hoping some of the evidence produced can then be used to bring cases under the Equality Act against bus, train and taxi providers.

It plans to pass some of the evidence to the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC), which last month launched a new project to support disabled and older people who have faced discrimination on public and private transport.

The EHRC scheme will offer advice and help in resolving complaints, but it will also provide funding to take legal cases.

Now Fry Law is planning to collect evidence that it can pass to EHRC for possible legal cases by lending miniature cameras to disabled people in England and Wales who have been experiencing discrimination from transport providers.

The cameras have a remote control pad and can be fixed to wheelchairs, scooters and clothing to allow filmed evidence to be collected.

Chris Fry, founder of Fry Law, said he hoped this would help EHRC collate evidence and encourage disabled people to enforce their rights.

He said disability discrimination cases taken against public transport providers can be difficult to prove, while there is also the risk that claimants could have to pay some of the other side’s costs if they lose their case.

The EHRC project, he said, was a “once in a decade opportunity” that should mean that providers are “held to account in a way they currently are not”.

Fry Law has already given cameras to about half a dozen disabled people who frequently face discrimination when using public transport, and is now looking for other disabled people willing to test out one of the cameras*.

Fry said he hoped EHRC would also eventually show the filmed evidence of discrimination to MPs and ministers.

And he said he hoped the cameras would also provide evidence of “really good customer service” by train, taxi and bus providers that could again be passed to EHRC.

He said he hoped the project would help to address some of the everyday discrimination faced by disabled people who “are not getting to work on time, are missing hospital appointments, are missing benefit assessments, and are just having to put up with it because they don’t have the evidence”.

He said: “The commission’s transport project is a really positive step and we ought to be doing everything we can to provide as much evidence and get as many cases forward as we can to demonstrate that these failings are still systematic.

Filmed evidence seems the best way of doing it.”

*To express interest in the scheme, contact Fry Law

10 October 2019

News provided by John Pring at www.disabilitynewsservice.com

 

 Posted by at 14:05
Oct 072019
 

[From Disability Arts Online]

Piss on Pity is the title of an exhibition of work by disabled artists on the subject of charity currently in the Ridings Centre, Wakefield. Gill Crawshaw writes about pulling the exhibition together as a way of channeling anger at the flagrant dismissal of the disability arts communities concerns about representation of our issues by Damien Hirst.

Sasha Callaghan’s digital collage ‘Blood Brothers’

Sasha Callaghan’s digital collage ‘Blood Brothers’

I’m writing this from the exhibition. I’ve been sitting in the unit in a Wakefield shopping centre where it’s on show, talking to people who pop in. I’ve had many interesting and moving conversations – that have had nothing to do with Damien Hirst!

More specifically, our conversations have had nothing to do with Hirst’s monumental bronze sculpture, Charity. You might be aware of this sculpture, a huge version of a “Help Spastics” collecting box from the 60s, in the shape of a disabled girl. If you’re a regular reader of Disability Arts Online, you’ll have likely read Colin Hambrook’s scathing takedown: “… yet another example of ‘disability’ being used and exploited by the rich and powerful as a commodity for trafficking ideas and power.” Or you might have signed the open letter from disabled activists to Hirst on Change.org, stating how offensive this work is and asking for an explanation (which was never given. Hirst didn’t seem to want to take part in the “conversations about disability” that his mates Scope hoped would result.)

Despite the outcry from disabled people that Hirst’s sculpture is hugely offensive, and has nothing to say about the reality of disabled people’s lives, Charity continues to be shown in galleries and at festivals. It landed at Yorkshire Sculpture Park this summer as part of a new, high-profile festival, Yorkshire Sculpture International (YSI).

When I found out, I felt more weary than angry. Here we go again, another thoughtless, exclusionary sculpture to complain about. Another instance of highly-paid artists ignoring the views and needs of disabled people. In recent months disabled people have protested against the inaccessibility of other contemporary artists’ work: Olaf Eliasson’s installation at Tate Modern and Jeremy Deller’s monument to Peterloo in Manchester.

Katherine Araniello and Simon Raven protest in front of ‘Charity’ in the City of London, selling Damien Hirst gherkins by The Gherkin

Katherine Araniello and Simon Raven protest in front of ‘Charity’ in the City of London, selling Damien Hirst gherkins by The Gherkin

 

However, artist Jason Wilsher-Mills convinced me that we couldn’t let the appearance of Charity in Yorkshire go unchallenged. I contacted YSI, perhaps they would be interested in working with us to hold a public debate; an opportunity for disabled people to explain why the sculpture is problematic, and to show disabled artists’ responses. Jason and I thought this would be a worthwhile and interesting way to explore some of the issues Charity raises, particularly around representation and artists’ responsibilities. YSI seemed keen and we set up a meeting.

The outcome of this meeting, however, wasn’t what Jason or I expected. YSI and the Sculpture Park focused on their aspiration to involve more disabled artists throughout the organisation. While we fully support this, somehow we’d lost touch with our original aim.

In the meeting, Jason explained that he’d decided to make sculptures in direct opposition to Hirst’s Charity, because this representation of disabled people and Hirst’s lazy appropriation of it had infuriated him. Jason also writes about this for Piss on Pity’s zine-catalogue available on ISSU.

This sculpture by Hirst had such an impact on me, as I felt it did not have an ‘authentic voice’. It was made by an artist, who seemingly had no experience of life as a disabled person. Disabled people were not consulted about the piece. It was made, because he could make it.

Jason’s had turned his anger into something positive, his sculptures are joyous, colourful celebrations of disabled people’s lives. Now we were feeling angry not just at Hirst, but also frustrated at a missed opportunity. I wanted to turn this anger into something positive, thus the idea for Piss on Pity came about.

With two months to go before YSI ended, pulling an exhibition together to coincide with this festival, with no funding or venue, was going to be a challenge. But I knew that plenty of excellent artwork existed. Disabled artists have engaged with the subject of charity for decades, and continue to do so, with anger, wit and humour.

Katherine Araniello sends up charity

Katherine Araniello sends up charity

As well as Jason Wilsher-Mills, another artist in particular inspired this exhibition. Katherine Araniello, in a blue plastic dress and blonde papier mâché wig, is instantly recognisable in her imitation of the same Spastics Society collecting box that Hirst copied. Her film Pity, where she performs in this guise, was my first choice for Piss on Pity. I was also delighted to include The Crippled Gherkin, a film of a performance by Araniello and Simon Raven. The pair attempted to sell pickled gherkins in front of Charity when it appeared in the City of London: “Made by Damien Hirst on his farm with the little spastics!”

Katherine Araniello passed away earlier this year. The exhibition is dedicated to the memory of her anarchic, irreverent, hilarious performances.

The Art House in Wakefield and the National Disability Arts Collection and Archive (NDACA) were brilliant supporters. The exhibition wouldn’t have happened without them. NDACA generously lent several items, including David Hevey’s iconic portrait of Adam Reynolds, ‘Andicapped Adam says Thank You, another artwork on my wishlist.

I wanted to hold the exhibition in Wakefield, rather than Leeds where I live, because Yorkshire Sculpture Park lies on Wakefield’s outskirts. Thanks to The Art House, this was possible. They secured the venue and helped install the exhibition. We opened on the night of the September Art Walk in Wakefield, at the tail end of YSI.

Justice not Charity shroud by Vince Laws

Justice not Charity shroud by Vince Laws

In the days since then I’ve been having conversations with passing shoppers. Many of the people who have come for a look round are disabled people. “I’m disabled myself” is a typical introduction. They have seen the notice on the window announcing that this is an exhibition by disabled artists. Or they have been drawn in by Vince Laws’ shrouds, from his series DWP Deaths Make Me Sick. Disabled people are connecting with the bold slogans: “Rights Not Charity”, “Justice Not Charity” and “Respect Not Charity”. They identify with the rest of the messages on these shrouds, which pay tribute to people who have died, some through suicide, as a result of being declared fit for work and having their benefits stopped, under the Department for Work and Pensions’ brutal assessments.

Several visitors have told me how close they’ve come to suicide themselves, in the wake of unjust and harsh assessments.

People are also engaging with the viewpoints on charity that the art conveys. The exhibition challenges the widespread idea that charity is wholly a force for good. I wasn’t sure how contentious this might be, but people definitely relate. They have railed against “pity porn” and the way that charities portray disabled people as pathetic victims.  They have complained about public funding cuts that have forced them to seek support from local charities – who are often overwhelmed and unable to help. And they agree that the support that disabled people need should be a matter of “Rights Not Charity”.

These conversations couldn’t be further away from the rarefied art world that supports an artist like Hirst to make millions while offending and disrespecting disabled people. Any mention of Damien Hirst to visitors to Piss on Pity is generally met with a shrug of indifference. Because Hirst’s work is out of touch and irrelevant.

Piss on Pity features work by

  • Katherine Araniello and Simon Raven
  • Sasha Callaghan
  • Eddy Hardy and Geof Armstrong
  • David Hevey
  • Tony Heaton
  • Vince Laws
  • Jason Wilsher-Mills.
 Posted by at 13:21
Oct 042019
 

Watch and listen below to our sessions at The World Transformed last week. Transcript of Ellen’s contribution on disabled people’s oppression also below. Many thanks to @ImaJSAclaimant for filming and to everyone who helped.

 

Piss on Pity: disability oppression

 

Independent Living

 

Frances Ryan’s talk on disability and oppression:

 

Transcript of contribution from Ellen:

Disability is an issue that powerfully exposes the true nature of capitalism as a cruel system based on exploitation and greed. It therefore isn’t surprising that the dominant ideas in society around disability are full of misperceptions and act to conceal an understanding of the true relationship between disability and capitalism.

Disability is a historical concept that did not exist in the way we understand it today before the industrial revolution and the social and economic changes that that brought. There were always people with impairments but the way labour was organised meant that people with impairments were not thought of as belonging to a separate identifiable category.

The category of disability came about as a socially created way of identifying and separating out those who are less productive within the conditions of the workplace – and it is to be noted that as those conditions change depending upon industrial changes and intensification of labour, which people are more or less productive also changes. For example research indicates that disabled people were more likely to be in employment in the 1970s than today and found it easier to fit into jobs in manual industry than the service sector.

So, disability is a historical, socially created category and yet the way it is commonly understood is as an individual problem. You still often hear people talk about disability in terms of what is “wrong” with a person.
The development of the social model of disability was ground-breaking because, without denying the pain or distress that are part of the lived experience of certain impairments, it provides a tool for explaining that far from being an individual problem, disability is a form of oppression. If we want to end the oppression and ill treatment of disabled people, we don’t need to “cure” people with impairments, we need to fundamentally change the way society is organised.

In the early twentieth century the socialist Helen Keller wrote:
“Many young women full of devotion and good-will have been engaged in superficial charities. They have tried to feed the hungry without knowing the causes of poverty. They have tried to minister to the sick without understanding the cause of disease. They have tried to raise up fallen sisters without understanding the brutal arm of necessity that struck them down…We attempt social reforms where we need social transformation.”

Disability politics are inherently radical in challenging the system we live under. It can therefore be frustrating for disabled campaigners when the issue of disabled people’s oppression remains poorly understood within the wide left among people who are supposed to be committed to social transformation.

During my research over the past couple of months I have come across complaint after complaint from disabled campaigners and academics about the lack of interest in disability theory beyond people with personal experience of it. The historian Douglas Baynton writes for example: “Disability is everywhere in history, once you begin looking for it, but conspicuously absent in the histories we write.”

While I share this frustration I also think we need to understand that this flows from a cunning concealment of the nature of disabled people’s oppression where what is really interesting about it from a political economic perspective is hidden from view. Instead of understanding disability as the deliberate exclusion of people who can’t serve the interests of profit, the dominant idea of disability in society is that it is somehow inevitable that people with impairments will experience disadvantage, that our marginalisation is somehow common sense.

Helen Keller is herself a strong example of how popular ideas concerning disability present it as an individual problem. Most people who have heard of her know that she was born deafblind. They may well have been taught as I was at school that she bravely overcame her impairment with the help of a wonderful teacher to be able to communicate with the outside world. What is less well know is that she was a fervent socialist who campaigned against the first world war and railed against US immigration laws that barred entry to disabled people thereby preventing disabled Germans and Austrians from fleeing there to escape mass murder by the Nazis. The reception her political activism got from the right wing media of her day was very similar to what Greta Thurnberg is now experiencing where her views were attributed to the “limitations of her mind” arising from her impairment.

These aren’t aspects of Helen Keller’s life that many people know because the version of her life that has been popularised is not one where she rebelled against the system but one where she overcame the “adversity” of her deafblindness in order to better conform. Her passion for collective resistance is taken out of the story and we are left with a familiar account of triumph over tragedy.

Whether it is presented as triumph or tragedy, the popular story of disability is always an individual rather than a collective one, one that is personal not political.

The oppression of disabled people is a strong and malignant force affecting millions of people – disabled people are the world’s largest minority group – and it is worth taking the time to understand it so that we can more effectively resist it and fight to build a radically different society where everyone is valued for who they are. One in the words of Karl Marx where each can contribute according to their abilities and receive according to their need.

In my experience of campaigning with DPAC one of the most effective ways of changing people’s views about disability has been when we are engaged in active struggle alongside non-disabled people who come to see disabled campaigners not as defined by our impairments but as fighters who resist the passive role society tries to thrust on us and who are less easily fooled by the system as a consequence of the brutality of our experiences of oppression.

 Posted by at 17:26
Oct 042019
 

Stephen smiling, doing a solidarity salute, sitting in the big wooden President's chair in the RMT head office committee room.

As many of you will have heard, Stephen Aselford, Disabled People Against Cuts stalwart and co-founder of Bromley and Croydon DPAC has very sadly and suddenly passed away. Stephen was a socialist and an activist to his core. His many friends and comrades across the disability world and the labour movement are deeply saddened but agree the best way to honour his memory is to continue the fight that was such an integral part of his life. There will be a longer tribute in next week’s DNS.

Details of an event to celebrate his life to follow.

Any condolence messages posted in the comments will be passed on to his family.

Examples of the fun DPAC had in Croydon with Stephen:

https://insidecroydon.com/2016/03/18/backzacandcraic-goldsmith-suffers-st-patricks-day-disaster/

https://thecroydoncitizen.com/politics-society/leaflets-libel-and-livetweets/

Stephen confronting Zac Goldsmith for voting in favour of the ESA WRAG cut

Stephen modelling the white DPAC t-shirt

Stephen with his DPAC bag

Stephen. Lou, Sabina and Roger at a DPAC stall in front of the Bromley and Croydon DPAC banner

Stephen smiling and wearing dark glasses inthe foreground. IN the background a packed meeting room at Ruskin House, Croydon, with a trade union banner saying "Croydon" on the wall behind.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Paula, Lou and Stephen with their Bromley and Croydon DPAC bannersCampaigners including Stephen holding a banner saying "Is this how 2 treat disabled people"

 

 

 

 

 

 

Stephen demanding "Rail Access Now!"

Oct 032019
 

This week’s update from Disability News Service is given below with all the articles in a single post, however if you would prefer to view them as separate articles, you can do that on the DNS Website

Tory conference: Disabled activists shame Tories on cost of ‘heartless’ austerity

Disabled activists have protested outside the Conservative conference in Manchester in a bid to shame party members into accepting that a decade of austerity cuts from Tory-led governments have caused poverty, despair and countless deaths.

Protesters spoke of how the cuts and reforms had led to the deaths of tens of thousands of disabled people, backed up by research by mainstream institutions like Oxford, Liverpool and Cambridge Universities.

Others pointed to three high-profile and evidenced UN reports that have shown the devastating impact on disabled people of a decade of austerity.

The Disabled People Against Cuts (DPAC) protest took place on Monday afternoon, just a few yards from the main entrance to the conference, in central Manchester.

Two activists even dressed up as “Torie Plague” and “Doris Death” to highlight the “debt, despair and death” that “heartless, soulless” Conservative-led governments have caused since 2010.

Some protesters, from Manchester, were also there to tell Tory party members that they were not welcome in their city.

And some said it was vital that those disabled people who were able to protest in person ensured that Tory party members were aware of the damage caused by their government’s policies.

Piers Wilkinson, disabled students officer for the National Union of Students, said: “It is important that those of us who can protest and are in a position of being able to protest and have our voices heard do it, particularly on behalf of people who cannot.”

Jo Taylor said of the government’s cuts and reforms to disabled people’s support: “We have to keep on protesting until they listen and understand. It is a horrendous situation.”

Rick Burgess, from Manchester DPAC and Greater Manchester Coalition of Disabled People, said the Tories had to understand that they were not welcome in the city, after 10 years of denying disabled people’s rights, and policies that had led to the loss of countless lives.

He told Disability News Service (DNS) that he was at the protest because the Tories “keep coming back and they have not got the message that Manchester is not a city built on Conservative values. It is not somewhere they are popular.”

He said there had been 10 years of the denial of disabled people’s rights “with the consequent loss of many lives”.

He said the continued return to Manchester by the Conservative party amounted to “hostile trolling” of the city.

He added: “On a human level, they need to know that they are not welcome. They should be ashamed of what they do.”

He pointed to three UN reports that had condemned the impact of government policies on disabled people, in 2016, 2017 and 2019.

He said: “This isn’t just our opinion.

They are a disaster. There is something wrong with people who think this is OK.”

Another leading disabled campaigner, Doug Paulley, said that he had wanted to be at the protest because of the government’s “mass punishment of disabled people”.

He said: “We are an inconvenient expense at best, a complete side issue, and yet people are suffering and dying. It’s utterly disgusting. It cannot be allowed to go on.

I am lucky that I am relatively protected from it but so many people are not.”

Eleanor Lisney, one of the founders of Greenwich DPAC, said she was at the protest because she had no idea what was going to happen to the country now, “let alone to disabled people”.

She highlighted the “intersectionality” of the impact of austerity, which had affected not just groups like disabled people and women individually, but had hit disabled women, disabled people from BAME communities and disabled immigrants even harder.

She said: “The protest here is so we keep the focus on the disastrous impact on disabled people through all those years of austerity.”

Dominic Hutchins, from Manchester DPAC, who is also a parish councillor, said he was at the protest because of the treatment of disabled people by the Tory government, including through the introduction of universal credit and its reforms and management of the disability benefit assessment processes.

He said the mainstream media failed to report how many people had died after being unfairly assessed.

Hutchins is a qualified youth worker but is currently unemployed because the youth service is “on its knees” following years of austerity.

He said: “I am on jobseeker’s allowance and disability benefits and I have got a good degree.

The Tories don’t see the benefit of youth work but when young people are on the streets, they complain.”

Wilkinson said the protest was particularly important when Greater Manchester Police had admitted sharing information about disabled protesters with the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP).

He pointed to “hidden cuts” such as the introduction of personal independence payment (PIP), the cuts to disabled students’ allowance, the rollout of universal credit and the social care funding crisis.

And he highlighted the conclusions of the UN’s committee on the rights of persons with disabilities, which found there had been “grave and systematic violations” of disabled people’s rights by the Tory-led DWP, and research which showed austerity had been to blame for more than 130,000 deaths since 2012.

Taylor said she was at the protest because she had been forced to wash at the local swimming pool after her housing association refused to provide the disabled facilities grant she needed to adapt her bathroom, while she had also been forced to buy her own stairlift.

She said she was “disgusted” with the government’s benefit reforms and cuts to support for disabled people, and she added: “There are people dying from sanctioning and having no money.”

Another disabled campaigner and DPAC member at the protest, Nigel Peirce, a former mental health nurse, said he wanted to raise concerns about the transition from disability living allowance to PIP, and the introduction of universal credit, which had caused people to suffer “economically, physically and emotionally”, while some had died.

He said: “I haven’t got a message for the Tories because I don’t think they will listen.

The point of being here is for other people to see us. We are in Manchester and they come by and see us. Not one Tory going in there is going to listen.”

One disabled activist told fellow protesters: “I have watched the social security system in my country turn into something I am thoroughly ashamed of.”

She said the work capability assessment “has got nothing to do with your ability to work” but was there “to frighten you and humiliate you and we are sick of it”, while she said DWP staff label her “a scrounger and a skiver”.

Another said: “We are here today to demand our basic human rights, the ability to live our lives as independently as possible, with dignity, humanity and a society that cares.

How dare you come to the north of England. Go back to where you belong!

You’re not wanted here, you’re not needed here, you’re not welcome here. Go home, go away, be gone.”

Gary Caine, a disabled activist from Manchester, told DNS: “There is that much tragedy going on with disabled people’s lives. People need to take a stand.

My life has got a damn sight worse under the Conservatives, compared with Labour.

I cannot believe my life has gone down the chute and got worse for no damn reason.”

Another disabled activist, Mero, said she had come to the protest from Birmingham, because of the “unfairness” of the government’s policies.

She said she had been told she would have to be reassessed for PIP when she had previously been told she would not need to be assessed again.

She said: “I just can’t stand these cuts any more.

Why have we got to keep fighting for our rights?”

3 October 2019

 

 

Labour’s pledge to scrap universal credit ‘is victory for years of activism’

Disabled activists have welcomed Labour’s promise to scrap universal credit (UC) if it wins power at the next general election as a victory for years of campaigning.

But they have warned the party that they still want to know how UC will be replaced before they give the plans their whole-hearted approval.

Labour’s announcement comes after years of campaigning by disabled activists, particularly Disabled People Against Cuts (DPAC), and organisations such as Black Triangle, Sisters of Frida and Inclusion London.

Countless individual disabled activists have also called repeatedly for Labour to change its previous policy that demanded the government “pause and fix” the system and commit instead to “stop and scrap” UC.

Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn said this week, in an announcement originally planned for last week’s party conference, that a Labour government would “scrap” the “inhumane and cruel” UC and replace it with a social security system that focused on “alleviating and ending poverty, not driving people into it”.

Labour would also replace the Department for Work and Pensions with a Department for Social Security on “day one” of a new government, said Corbyn.

And it would introduce an “emergency” package of reforms – including scrapping the benefit cap and ending the five-week wait for a first UC payment by introducing an interim payment after two weeks – while it developed a replacement system.

Labour said it hoped to reduce the assessment period for UC to one week so claimants receive their first payment about 10 days after making their claim, but they say this may take time to introduce because of the complexity of the UC system.

Marsha de Cordova, Labour’s shadow minister for disabled people, said: “Universal credit is a cruel and inhumane system that has left many disabled people destitute, unable to heat and light their homes and going without food.”

After the Labour announcement, the new work and pensions secretary Therese Coffey told the Conservative party conference in Manchester that UC “provides a safeguard for the most vulnerable in our society” and that it “supports strivers who are not content living a life on welfare”.

She said that one of her priorities was “to continue to improve universal credit to ensure that people get the money they need in a timely manner, are helped into work, and onto an escalator up to better work”.

But those comments came as a fringe meeting heard from the head of a homeless charity – which provides services just a short walk from the party conference – that UC was causing early deaths, addiction, mental distress and suicides, with claimants “at the end of their tether” (see separate story).

De Cordova said Coffey’s defence of UC was “obscene” and added: “Her party has caused untold suffering for disabled people and so many others, but they continue to bury their heads in the sand.”

Disabled activists who were protesting outside the Tory party conference this week welcomed Labour’s decision to scrap UC, with some reservations.

Rick Burgess, from Manchester DPAC and Greater Manchester Coalition of Disabled People, said: “It’s good that they are saying they are going to stop and scrap it, but they need to engage with us about the replacement.

That is what we need now, to be confident that we are going in the right direction. We wait to hear from them.”

He warned that Labour had apparently still not committed to scrap all benefit sanctions, but only the Tories’ “punitive sanctions regime”.

He said: “They can’t just talk to the usual suspects about what they are going to replace it with. They need to talk to disabled people and the grassroots organisations.

It was a system not designed by or for disabled people.”

He added: “I think a lot of people should be quite happy that their efforts have pushed the Labour party to that position.

Sometimes it feels like we are fighting against a brick wall but clearly that moved the Labour party.”

Burgess said DPAC had – from the beginning – examined universal credit and realised that it needed to be scrapped, persuading unions that were originally against scrapping UC but just calling for it to be fixed.

He said: “Everyone has come to our way of thinking. We were right, and the experience people had with UC – poverty, homelessness, starvation – has been exactly as we predicted.”

He also said he was concerned that a Labour government would just “rebadge” DWP as the Department for Social Security.

He said: “They also need to change the culture. Key personnel certainly need firing, and probably need prosecuting.”

Dennis Queen, another of the DPAC activists protesting against the Tory government outside the conference on Monday afternoon, welcomed Corbyn’s announcement, which she said was “really good news”.

But she warned: “I don’t think anyone is going to hand our rights to us on a plate. I will be interested to see the details of what they propose to implement instead.

We are going to have to fight for our rights whoever is in power.”

Piers Wilkinson, the disabled students officer for the National Union of Students, said Labour’s announcement was a “move in the right direction” and “feels long overdue”.

But he said he wished there had been more emphasis from Labour on the fact that UC had “effectively targeted” disabled people and women.

He also said he wanted to see what a replacement system would look like and added: “Any future social security system has to be designed by people who are using it: Nothing About Us Without Us.

If Labour are really serious about changing the current system to make it not punitive and exploitative and life-destroying then we need to design it and not people who have never used it.”

Paula Peters, a member of DPAC’s national steering group, said there had been “tireless work” by many activists that persuaded Labour to change its position, with disabled campaigners often “being a lone voice in the room when everyone else’s view differed from yours”.

But she warned that Labour would still have to be elected, and then activists would “have to hold them to their word and make their policy pledges become reality”.

She added: “We have so much more to do. But never say campaigning never makes a difference. It does.

We can effect change. We can make a difference.”

3 October 2019

 

 

Months of PIP distress ‘hastened my brother’s death’

The brother of a disabled man who was denied disability benefits when he was dying has launched a petition calling on the government to scrap the outsourcing of all face-to-face assessments to private contractors.

James Oliver, from Hastings – the constituency of former work and pensions secretary Amber Rudd – spent the last few months of his life in despair over the refusal of the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) to grant him personal independence payment (PIP).

Shortly before he died in hospital, in April this year, he told his brother, Dave Smith: “I can’t believe it. I am dying, I am going to be dead, and I’m still not sick enough to get PIP.”

Oliver, who had chronic liver disease caused by alcohol dependency, as well as other health conditions including scoliosis, hypertension and depression, had twice tried to claim PIP, but both times was found ineligible.

In 2016, he is believed to have applied for PIP for the first time when his health worsened and left him barely able to walk.

He had a face-to-face assessment with a paramedic employed by Atos*, one of the two outsourcing companies paid hundreds of millions of pounds by DWP to carry out the tests on its behalf.

The assessor awarded him zero points for every area of the assessment, which meant DWP rejected his claim, a decision which is believed to have been confirmed at an internal review, through the mandatory reconsideration process.

Although Smith is not certain of the details, he believes his brother had a second Atos PIP assessment last year, and was again awarded zero points, even though his health had worsened.

The subsequent decision by DWP to deny him PIP again was upheld, following another mandatory reconsideration.

Now Smith is working through his brother’s paperwork line by line, highlighting the inaccuracies and what he believes are lies in the assessment reports, including comments about the way he walked and read, and his clothes and memory.

In reference to the 2016 report, he said of his brother: “His liver is failing, his other organs are giving up, he has scoliosis, he has a backside red raw from the incontinence, he has open sores all over his body, his stomach is permanently swollen and he holds it when trying to walk because of the pain, he has pain in his arms and legs, he is regularly coughing up blood and bleeding internally, he has piles and he has pain in both hands, he is wheezing and exhausted after a few steps and constantly needing an inhaler and he needs a stick or support of house furniture to walk.”

Despite this, the assessor awarded him zero points, which led to him being denied PIP and which Smith said amounted to “blatant disability discrimination”.

The tribunal appeal against the refusal to award him PIP was due to take place late last month but has been postponed, following a request by DWP.

His brother is certain that the months of anxiety, depression and distress caused by the refusal to award him PIP last year hastened his death.

He told Disability News Service (DNS): “He felt nobody would help him. Whereas before he had been sticking to his doctor’s orders and restricting his drinking, when he was told he was having to go to tribunal he just gave up.

All he kept on about was he wasn’t sick enough for PIP. He was a total physical mess.”

Smith said he has yet to hear from DWP, despite sending his details to the department six months ago.

The Hastings advice centre that dealt with Oliver’s claims is believed to have written to Rudd to complain about the way the case has been dealt with.

Like many other campaigners, Smith believes ministers and senior civil servants should be held accountable in the criminal courts for their failure to make the system safe for people in vulnerable situations.

Now he has launched a petition that he hopes will secure enough signatures – 100,000 – to ensure the issues are debated in parliament.

His petition calls for an end to the use of private contractors for DWP disability benefit assessments, both for PIP and for employment and support allowance (and its universal credit equivalent).

He says in the petition that the disability benefit assessment system is linked to many suicides and “accelerated deaths”, like his brother’s.

And he says he believes – in claims backed up by DNS’s own investigations – that there have been “multiple lies” in the written assessment reports completed by nurses, paramedics and occupational therapists working for Atos and Capita (the other PIP assessment contractor).

Smith has been in contact with Joy Dove, whose daughter Jodey Whiting took her own life in February 2017 after her out-of-work disability benefits were wrongly stopped for missing a work capability assessment.

He praised Dove’s “continued bravery” for continuing to speak out about her daughter’s death.

He said: “For me she is an inspiration to keep fighting and highlighting the bullying, ineptitude, discrimination and lies coming out of the DWP and its assessment agencies.”

And just as in Whiting’s case, the family’s grief was worsened by receiving a letter about his claim, addressed to Oliver at his home address, even though DWP had been repeatedly notified of his death.

In his case, the letter came from the tribunal service.

Smith said: “If this was a company with this many deaths on its hands, it would be forced to cease trading and have a criminal inquiry.

All the promises of ‘it will never happen again’ by the DWP are a total waste of time because it is a department which doesn’t know how to behave in a humane way.

We could sit back, do nothing, and let the government treat us like a worthless waste of space when we get ill.

Or we can do something about it and let them know in no uncertain terms that under the Human Rights Act we deserve to be treated with respect and dignity and that their bullying and victimization will not be tolerated.”

A DWP spokesperson declined to say if the department was happy with its decision-making in the case and whether it showed the system was not fit for purpose, and that DWP should stop outsourcing assessments.

But he said in a statement: “Our thoughts are with Mr Oliver’s family at this difficult time.

We are very sorry for the distress caused and are looking into this to prevent it happening again.

We want the assessment process to work well for everyone and have made significant improvements, including introducing ESA life-long awards and light-touch 10-year PIP reviews for those with the most serious, life-long conditions.

The number of complaints about PIP assessments represents one per cent of the total number of individuals assessed.

Decisions are based on all the information provided to us by applicants, as well as that from their GP or medical specialist.”

DNS revealed last month that disabled people were almost twice as likely to win their disability benefit appeal than they were 10 years ago, at the start of almost a decade of Conservative control of DWP.

The proportion of tribunal appeals that found in favour of disability living allowance (DLA) claimants was just 38 per cent in 2010-11, the first year of the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition.

But the rate of tribunal success for claimants of PIP, which was introduced in 2013 to gradually replace DLA for working-age claimants, has risen from 26 per cent in 2013-14, to 50 per cent in 2014-15, to 61 per cent the following year, and then to 65 per cent in 2015-16 and 68 per cent in 2017-18.

The latest figures show that 73 per cent of PIP claimants in 2018-19 saw the decision originally made by DWP decision-makers revised in their favour at tribunal.

An Atos spokesperson said: “It is not possible for us to comment on individual cases however our thoughts are with Mr Oliver’s family at this time.

Our focus is to provide a professional and compassionate assessment service for everyone.”

*Atos delivers its PIP assessment contracts through Independent Assessment Services, a trading name of Atos IT Services UK

3 October 2019

 

 

Tory conference: Universal credit damage ‘is throwback to Victorian era’

The boss of a homeless charity that provides services just a short walk from this week’s Tory party conference has told party members that universal credit is causing early deaths, addiction, mental distress and suicides, with claimants “at the end of their tether”.

Yvonne Hope, chief executive of the Manchester charity Barnabus, which works mostly with rough sleepers, said universal credit (UC) had caused poverty levels that were “a throwback to the Victorian era”.

UC was first introduced in Manchester in 2014 and Hope said the levels of sanctions and “destitution” seen in those early days were now over for most people.

But she added: “We continue to see a development in poverty which I think my whole team thinks is a throwback to the Victorian era where they have almost created ghettoes of people who are never going to be able to move on.”

And she told the fringe event – which was organised by The Trussell Trust and Lloyds Bank Foundation – that the “killer” for her clients was the five-week wait for a first payment after moving on to UC.

She said: “When you’re dealing with people who have nothing, who are already destitute… five weeks is the difference between being able to feed yourself, being able to remain housed, being able to pay the bus ticket.

It throws you on the resources of churches, charities, and other organisations.”

She said many people in Manchester and around the country were ending up on the street because of UC, while the slide into homelessness was “almost inevitable” if someone was already in housing arrears when moving onto UC.

She described what happened to a client called Darren, who came to Barnabus after he had been sleeping rough for a couple of nights following a relationship breakdown.

He had been experiencing anxiety and depression and self-medicating with alcohol, she said.

After he was moved on to UC, Darren was left with less than £200 a month to live on because of debt repayments, including repaying the loan he had been forced to take out from the Department for Work and Pensions as a result of the five-week wait, and because his rent was higher than his housing benefit.

The experience left him suicidal, she said, although Barnabus managed to intervene and “get his life back on track”.

Hope said: “He is only one person and his story is so common. We hear it every day.”

She said there was a need for more affordable housing; to persuade landlords to take on UC claimants who did not have steady jobs; and for more flexibility in the UC system.

She said UC rules were currently built around a “linear life” when in fact “nobody leads a linear life: relationships break up, you lose your job… life is messy and people have problems, not everybody can work, not everybody can stay in work.

We are going to see more addiction, more mental illness issues, more unemployment, earlier deaths because of bad health, and sadly I think we are seeing a rise in suicide rates because people have just had enough, they are at the end of their tether.”

One Conservative party member, Martin Boniface, a volunteer with Worcester foodbank, told Tory MP Nigel Mills, one of the fringe meeting’s panel and a member of the work and pensions select committee: “There are times when I am embarrassed to be a member of the Conservative party.

When I am challenged by fellow volunteers at Worcester foodbank who say how can you possibly be a Conservative bearing in mind what you do here, that makes me worry.”

He asked what could be done to make the Conservatives be seen again as a “caring and compassionate party”.

But Mills said it was “fair” of the government to ask people to go through a process to ensure they are entitled to receive support, and he added: “What we are trying to do through these systems is help people progress, improve their lives and their families’ lives.

We are not trying to punish them. This was a reform designed to make welfare pay, make it simpler for people… we need to smooth out the edges, clear out the things that just aren’t working.”

Emma Revie, chief executive of The Trussell Trust, which supports a nationwide network of about 1,200 foodbanks, said the charity’s concern at the moment with UC and the benefit system was that “instead of holding people up at a time of crisis, at a time of need, it’s actually helping to pull them further down into poverty and into destitution”.

She said that relationships were being “broken by the crushing pressure of not having enough money”.

She said: “Often it is a corrosive effect of poverty and destitution that we lose our relationships and we lose the family and friends that we used to be able to reply on.”

In the last five years, the trust has seen a 73 per cent increase in the number of people using its foodbanks.

She said that half of those who come to a foodbank are from a household containing a disabled person or someone with a long-term health condition, and so already have higher essential costs.

She said: “Our new benefit system is definitely, unquestionably, working for many people, but for a significant minority it is not working.

The problems they are experiencing with the five week-wait, government debt repayment, which leave them with not enough to cover essentials and low levels of payment, and much more, are causing people to have to come to a food bank to receive donated goods.

We need to start listening to the people who are telling us [universal credit] is not working.”

She added: “Our data shows us unquestionably that the longer an area has universal credit in rollout, experiencing that five-week wait, the higher the numbers of people who are having to come to foodbanks.”

Mills agreed that for some people the five-week wait “was just not working”.

And he said people moving onto UC from other benefits should be able to “seamlessly migrate so they don’t notice a change”.

He said: “There is no logical sense in putting people into debt at the start of a claim, when they have been in the system for a while before.”

Edward Davies, director of policy at The Centre for Social Justice, which designed UC in 2009 and is chaired by Iain Duncan Smith, the former work and pensions secretary who introduced UC in 2013, said problems with UC had to be tackled at the same time as issues like addiction, education failure and debt.

He said that one of the problems with UC was that the provision of universal support – which was supposed to be a key part of the system for those with complex needs – was “not doing two per cent of what it could do”.

Universal support is supposed to offer help with claiming and managing UC, and was originally offered through local authorities, but is now provided through Citizens Advice and Citizens Advice Scotland.

But Davies said: “When we met with some very senior cabinet members of the former [Tory] administration, they didn’t even know what it was.”

He said universal support needed to be higher up the agenda.

Revie agreed, and said that more than two-thirds of people using foodbanks who were claiming UC did not know about universal support.

Davies said the impact of family breakdown was also important, and he added: “We need to start talking about family a lot more… politicians hate talking about it.

Look at the current prime minister [Boris Johnson]. He’s not going to want to talk about this.”

3 October 2019

 

 

Tory conference: Solution to social care crisis ‘may finally be within reach’

A permanent solution to the social care funding crisis may finally be within reach, with growing calls for proposals that would include free social care, according to a former adviser to the Tory health and social care secretary.

Richard Sloggett, who was advising Matt Hancock on policy until as recently as August, was speaking at a fringe meeting at the Tory party conference in Manchester this week.

His comments, and the apparent mood of the packed meeting, suggest growing momentum behind a solution that offers free social care, funded by national taxation, even if it does not go as far as a legal right to independent living and the National Independent Living and Support Service proposed by the Reclaiming Our Futures Alliance and Disabled People Against Cuts.

The optimism of those at the meeting came despite the failure of ministers to say anything substantial about social care during the conference.

Prime minister Boris Johnson said yesterday (Wednesday) that the Conservatives would “solve the problem of social care and end the injustice that means people have to sell their home to pay for their old age”, but he offered no suggestion for how this would be done, and failed to mention the support needs of working-age disabled people.

Hancock, in his main speech to conference, said only that the government had delivered the “biggest increase in social care funding in a decade” this year, while saying nothing about his much-delayed green paper on adult social care.

And chancellor Sajid Javid said only that the latest round of spending decisions by the Treasury last month had included a “large down-payment on social care”.

Social care minister Caroline Dinenage was unable to attend the conference because of ministerial engagements in Westminster.

She told Disability News Service by email that she had intended to attend on Monday and Tuesday but had deliberately not confirmed any speaking engagements because “of the current uncertainly in Parliament”.

She had needed to be in Westminster to respond to debates, including one on social care funding on Tuesday.

She said: “I wouldn’t read anything into the absence of social care from conference speeches.

The prime minister, in his inaugural speech from the steps of Downing Street, said, ‘The government will set our plans to fix the crisis in social care once and for all.’

Our commitment to this is undiminished.”

In her speech on Tuesday, which mainly focused on older people, she offered no suggestion that the green paper was imminent, instead repeating the chancellor’s line that the funding announced in the latest spending round was “a down payment on much more fundamental reforms to social care that we need to introduce”.

Sloggett was speaking at a fringe meeting hosted by the centre-right thinktank Policy Exchange, which has publicly called for social care to be free at the point of use, just like the NHS, and was attended by about 150 people who appeared strongly in favour of such a solution.

He told the meeting he was “really optimistic” about the issue and said he believed that politicians were moving towards a “state-backed solution of some ilk”.

He pointed to two recent reports he believed were “very pertinent” – a report by the House of Lords economic affairs committee and the Policy Exchange report – which have both advocated (mostly) free social care.

He said the Lords report was “a massive, massive step forward” and that he was “more optimistic than I perhaps was”.

And he told the meeting later: “We have an unbelievable sense of momentum on this agenda to actually do something.”

Warwick Lightfoot, a former adviser to three Tory chancellors in the late 1980s and early 1990s, who led Policy Exchange’s research on social care funding, said providing free social care, paid for from national taxation, was a cost that was “possible to manage” and was the “logical way of resolving” the current “misalignment” between free NHS care and means-tested charging for social care.

3 October 2019

 

 

Disabled Rebels call for ‘new blood’ as they prepare for Extinction Rebellion

A group of “Disabled Rebels” who will take part in next week’s Extinction Rebellion protests in London are calling for other disabled people to join the action and take part in the worldwide attempts to highlight the impact of climate change.

Together with a group called Deaf Rebels, they hope to play a key part in the UK actions, which will include a “central focus” on Westminster and will last two weeks from Monday (7 October).

Bob Williams-Findlay, a leading figure in the Disabled Rebels group and a veteran of many non-violent direct action protests, has called for “new blood” to join the Extinction Rebellion (XR) Disabled Rebels and Deaf Rebels.

He hopes that as many as 100 or even 150 Deaf and disabled people will take part in non-violent direct action in London.

If that happens, the numbers taking part will be greater than those who took part in direct action in the campaign for accessible transport and in the Disabled People’s Direct Action Network in the 1980s and 1990s.

Williams-Findlay said the Deaf and disabled people involved were of a “very different” composition than those who take part in disability rights protests.

He said the driving force was “primarily around saving the planet”, although the climate change actions in April and the worldwide publicity around Greta Thunberg had “triggered an increasing interest from traditional disability activists”.

He and other Disabled Rebels have been working to ensure there will be accessible toilets across the London protest sites, to provide disability equality training for stewards, and to organise a Disability Hub where disabled activists can secure information, advice and support.

Williams-Findlay said: “The plan is for the Disability Hub to have a multi-purpose area where disabled people can gather, build a sense of community, and help take disability culture right into the heart of Extinction Rebellion.”

They and Deaf Rebels have also been working to ensure Deaf people and Extinction Rebellion’s legal team can use British Sign Language signs to communicate with each other if there is a threat of arrest.

Williams-Findlay said that Extinction Rebellion and Disabled Rebels were both “on a steep learning curve” but he said he saw a “willingness to learn, be reflective and make changes” which was “not common among most social movements or campaign groups”.

He added: “There is a genuine commitment to be as inclusive as possible.

However, as with any social movement, Extinction Rebellion is a product of a society that has kept disabled people excluded or marginalised, and as a result, there remains deeply ingrained forms of ignorance about disabled lives and how the inequality of power impacts.”

He said it had been a “hard slog” to ensure the essential access issues will be in place, and there were still “gaps”.

And he issued a call for allies who might not be willing to engage in non-violent direct action, but who could carry out “backroom activities” such as staffing the Disability Hub or playing other supporting roles.

He said: “We would welcome new blood within the Extinction Rebellion itself, but we recognise that isn’t possible for everyone, therefore we would welcome ‘eyes and ears’ willing to use various social media platforms to pass on information and counteract disinformation and possible news blackouts.”*

Williams-Findlay, a former chair of the British Council of Organisations of Disabled People, said: “There is no point demanding rights if we don’t have a planet to exercise them on.

By raising the profile of disabled people within XR, we can send out a clarion call to other disabled people – this is our fight too.”

He said his past experiences of non-violent direct action had shown that it requires “serious commitment” and “accepting you are part of a team”.

He said: “You need to decide how far you are willing to challenge the law.

There’s always a risk of arrest, but we need to assess the implications of getting arrested and have plans to defuse the situation and move away.

Another lesson has to be that non-violent direct action can be effective in getting the message across. So, direct action isn’t a game, but it can be fun and feel uplifting.”

He added: “Our future, not just that of disabled people, but humanity as a whole, is at a crossroads with time running out.

Disabled people want a future. We understand that only a just and transformative society can be inclusive, and addressing sustainable environments has to be a vital part of the process.

“‘Nothing About Us, Without Us’ has to include taking steps to save our planet, helping to prevent disaster and protecting people from human suffering.”

He called on the government to “tell the truth” about climate change, “put its full weight behind ensuring everyone understands what’s at stake” and engage in dialogue.

Williams-Findlay warned that disabled people would be among the groups to pay “the highest price” if the Extinction Rebellion and other climate change campaigns failed.

He said: “In the global south we are already seeing ecological disasters where people are being displaced, crops failing and huge migrations taking place.

Under these conditions, children and older and disabled people are going to struggle to survive.

Without adequate infrastructures and facing hostile disabling environments, these conditions are going to be too much to deal with.

Disabled people are less adaptable than non-disabled people, and if you add to that existing discriminatory attitudes, what will be the consequences?

Disabled people will be seen as having less worth, so if resources are rationed, it is fairly obvious who will lose out.”

*XR Disabled Rebels can be contacted through their Facebook page, or by email at: xr.inclusion@protonmail.com

3 October 2019

 

 

Tory conference: Leading disabled Tory ‘wouldn’t give UN the time of day’

A leading disabled Tory has defended his government’s disability policies, dismissing three highly critical reports by the UN and concerns about the impact of Brexit on social care, rights and access to medication.

Barry Ginley, deputy chair of the Conservative Disability Group (CDG), said the UN’s committee on the rights of persons with disabilities (CRPD) and its special rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights were “not seeing the true Britain” when they criticised the UK government for its policies on disability in 2016, 2017 and 2019.

And he insisted that he was not embarrassed when CRPD was so critical of the UK government two years ago, telling it to make more than 80 improvements to how its laws and policies affect disabled people’s human rights.

Ginley, who is disability and access officer at London’s V&A museum, said: “I am not putting my head in the sand over that.

I know a hell of a lot of countries around the world I have visited that do little or nothing.

For us to be criticised by the UN for stuff that we have done, being proactive and so on, I just wouldn’t give them the time of day.”

He was speaking to Disability News Service (DNS) after a fringe meeting hosted CDG, an independent organisation of Conservative party members “who want to see a more inclusive society for disabled people”.

Ginley, who voted “leave” in the 2016 European Union referendum, said that he believed Brexit was being used as an “excuse” by its opponents.

He said: “It was raining, I got wet this morning coming to conference, some people say it’s down to Brexit, everything is down to Brexit, everything bad is down to Brexit and everything good is because we are in Europe.”

He compared “scare tactics” about the impact of Brexit on disabled people’s rights, access to personal assistants and medication to fears about the Y2K Millennium Bug in the lead-up to 1 January 2000 “when planes were going to fall out of the sky because computers weren’t going to work”.

He said: “I get told that if we come out of Europe, disabled people are going to suffer and they won’t be able to get out and about, da-de-da-de-da.

I think personally that’s rubbish.”

Asked about concerns raised by disabled campaigners such as the crossbench peer Baroness [Jane] Campbell about a possible shortage of personal assistants after Brexit, he said: “She obviously has her experiences… but we do have plenty of British people that are still unemployed so we shouldn’t say that everyone from eastern Europe should be a PA because they are not.

The government has said they have the right to stay in the UK after Brexit. That’s been mentioned at conference today.

I think there has been a lot put on Brexit, these scare tactics.”

He said he had not read the government’s progress report on disability, which was hidden away on the Office for Disability Issues (ODI) website last month, and not publicised by the minister for disabled people or the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP).

He said: “I didn’t know the report had been published so I will go and seek it out. I would have hoped that they would have communicated it better.”

He said one of his previous roles had been as an ambassador for ODI on its Strengthening Disabled People’s User-Led Organisations project, which ended in 2015.

But told that organisations like Shaping Our Lives and the National Survivor User Network had raised repeated concerns at the number of user-led organisations that had been forced to close, he suggested that some of them “may have merged and become stronger that way”.

Although he was critical of the personal independence payment (PIP) assessment process, which he said was “a failure”, he insisted that this was due to the private sector organisations carrying out the assessments, rather than the ministers who were responsible for the system, or DWP decision-makers.

He said: “It’s not the ministers saying you have to go out to work if you are terminally-ill with cancer.

It is the individual who has made that assessment, not the minister. It’s the human factor.”

But he said he would not defend the government over links between the fitness for work test and disabled people who had taken their own lives.

He said: “I don’t defend it. I’m not going to defend it. One lost life is one too many.

Work should be done to ensure those kinds of benefits aren’t just whipped away from people that are vulnerable.”

Ginley said ministers should have acted to improve the work capability assessment, adding: “I am happy to say it is a failing and it is something that still definitely needs to improve.

And that’s a Conservative member saying that of a Conservative government.”

He was also concerned and critical of the five-week wait for universal credit and the “ridiculous” proportion of subsequent payments that must be paid back by those who take a DWP loan to tide them over while waiting for that first payment.

He said CDG tries to challenge the government “when we feel it is necessary and because disability comes before party”.

He said: “We challenge when we feel we need to. Some ministers are better than others. I am not going to name names, good or bad.”

The fringe meeting had discussed how to make the UK the world’s most accessible tourist destination.

Ginley said that the V&A and other UK museums were seen as leaders on access for disabled people.

He said: “We still have a lot to do in this country, but we are far better off than most countries.

That’s not just me saying that: it’s feedback I get from disabled people from anywhere from Taiwan to Argentina, where I was last month. British museums are seen as leaders.

We can be tough on ourselves and say what we are doing is rubbish: actually, it’s not.

I would challenge people to go to other parts of the world and see if you find that as accessible as what London might be.

Yes, we still have challenges, but we are much further down the road than many other countries around the world.”

Diane Lightfoot, chief executive of the Business Disability Forum, and a member of VisitEngland’s England’s Inclusive Tourism Action Group, said the ambition of the government and tourism industry’s Tourism Sector Deal was to make the UK “the most accessible tourist destination in Europe by 2025”.

A key measure of this was to increase the number of in-bound visits by disabled people by 33 per cent.

She said VisitEngland research valued the accessible tourism market – the amount spent by disabled people and their traveling companions on day trips and domestic and in-bound overnight trips – at about £12 billion a year, and more than £14 billion in Britain.

Peter Hand, CDG’s chair, defended the decision to choose accessible tourism as the subject of the fringe when there were so many crucial issues affecting disabled people.

He told DNS after the meeting: “There are lots of issues concerning disabled people. We as CDG focus on those throughout the year.

We are not saying it’s the only issue, far from it, but in the context of Brexit, we thought it was a valuable opportunity to help promote UK PLC, but there are many other important issues and we still think they should be discussed as well.”

3 October 2019

 

 

Train companies set to be forced to act on rail replacement access after legal advice

Train companies must ensure that nearly all their rail replacement vehicles are accessible to disabled people, or risk criminal prosecution, according to legal advice obtained by the rail regulator.

Train companies have reacted to the provisional legal advice by promising to comply with any new rules produced by the Office of Rail and Road (ORR) as a result of the advice.

ORR was forced to seek the legal advice after a legal threat issued by accessible transport campaigner Doug Paulley.

Paulley warned last year that he was considering taking legal action against a train company over the failure to ensure that its rail replacement vehicles were accessible, which he said “makes travel substantially more difficult for many disabled people”.

He believes that most of those vehicles should comply with the Public Service Vehicle Accessibility Regulations 2000 (PSVAR).

But when he read new accessible transport guidance issued to the industry by ORR in July, he realised that it fell far short of such a requirement, stating only that companies should make “reasonable endeavours to secure accessible rail replacement services and taxis”.

Paulley contacted solicitors at Deighton Pierce Glynn (DPG), who sent a legal letter to the regulator, which promised to seek its own legal advice.

Now ORR has published that legal advice from a barrister (PDF).

It states that, with a few minor exceptions, all rail replacement vehicles must be accessible, and the train companies, and the bus or coach providers, are at risk of criminal prosecution if they are not.

Paulley, who has been campaigning on the issue for years, says this advice goes well beyond what he and his solicitor from DPG, Louise Whitfield, were asking for.

They originally asked for train operating companies (TOCs) to ensure that all their rail replacement vehicles were fully accessible if used as a result of disruptions that were planned and reasonably foreseeable.

But ORR’s provisional legal advice says that even vehicles used as a result of unplanned disruption to rail services must be accessible, with a few exceptions.

Paulley said he was “delighted” with the advice but doubted whether there would be enough accessible buses or coaches for rail companies to hire, which would still put them at risk of prosecution for running inaccessible vehicles.

He also pointed out that TOCs had been breaking the law for more than 20 years, apparently without ORR and TOCs realising they were doing so.

He said: “A difficult situation they find themselves in, but I have little sympathy. 

If TOCs had made any significant effort to improve the accessibility of vehicles over the last 20 years, they wouldn’t be in this situation.

Similarly, if they had complied with the law, which has been around for 20 years and had a staggered introduction to ease the transition.”

ORR has written this week to seek the views of the rail industry and other stakeholders on the provisional legal advice, before launching a new consultation on the issue later this month.

The Rail Delivery Group (RDG), which represents the companies that run Britain’s railway, promised that every replacement vehicle would comply with ORR regulations, although these vehicles could be buses, minibuses or taxis.

It said the legal advice “fits within our plan to make the railway more accessible to more people and ensure compliant replacement vehicles are in place during improvement work”.

Dominic Lund-Conlon, RDG’s head of accessibility and inclusion, said: “We always want people to have smooth journeys and train companies work closely with other transport operators during planned improvement work to meet the needs of passengers. 

We will ensure that people with accessibility needs can continue their journey in a vehicle that complies with the latest regulations, which could be a coach, minibus or taxi, depending on availability and the number of other people travelling.”

A Department for Transport spokesperson said: “We will consider responding to the consultation once it is published as we don’t want to pre-empt our response.”

3 October 2019

 

News provided by John Pring at www.disabilitynewsservice.com

 

 Posted by at 14:25