Disability News Service is taking a break and will return on 10th September
Government’s ‘contempt’ for disabled people, as planning white paper ignores accessible housing
The government has been accused of “showing contempt” for disabled people after publishing an “utterly shameful” 84-page white paper on the future of the planning system without including a single mention of disabled people, disability or accessible housing.
The Planning for the Future document makes repeated references to the need for “beautiful new homes”, “beautiful places” and “beautiful buildings”, while ignoring the accessible housing crisis.
There is also no mention of wheelchair-users in the white paper, which looks only at England, even though successive Tory ministers have been repeatedly warned of the dire shortage of suitable wheelchair-accessible housing.
Robert Jenrick, the housing secretary, says in the white paper that the government wants to see “environmentally friendly homes that will not need to be expensively retrofitted in the future, homes with green spaces and new parks at close hand, where tree lined streets are the norm and where neighbours are not strangers”.
The document talks about “tackling head on the shortage of beautiful, high quality homes and places where people want to live and work” and even highlights the importance of “our capacity to house the homeless and provide security and dignity”.
But nowhere does it mention disabled people and the need for accessible housing, and when it asks those taking part in a consultation* on the white paper for their “top three priorities for planning in your local area”, accessible housing is not included as one of the options.
The closest the white paper comes to mentioning disabled people’s housing needs is in question 26 of the consultation, when it asks for “views on the potential impact of the proposals raised in this consultation on people with protected characteristics” under the Equality Act.
Last year, Jenrick was warned that he faced the threat of legal action over the government’s failure to take action to solve the crisis in accessible housing.
And two years ago, Disability News Service (DNS) revealed that representatives of the home-building industry were engaged in a countrywide campaign to defeat attempts by councils to ensure more accessible homes were built in their areas.
The Home Builders Federation had repeatedly objected to targets describing the proportion of new homes that should be built to the basic M4(2)** accessible housing standard and also to the stricter M4(3) standard for wheelchair-accessible properties.
Now the industry appears to have succeeded in persuading the government to eliminate all consideration of accessible housing from its planning reforms.
Baroness [Sal] Brinton, the disabled Liberal Democrat peer and her party’s health and social care spokesperson in the Lords, said the failure to mention accessible housing was “utterly shameful”, and she called for disabled people to express their concern in the consultation.
She said: “For the last few years, myself and Baroness [Celia] Thomas of Winchester have been repeatedly challenging government that new housing is built to higher standards to ensure that disabled people can have truly accessible homes.
“We were assured we would be pleased with government proposals.
“Yet again these new planning documents ignore the needs of disabled people and their families.”
She added: “We must ensure that the voice of disabled people is heard in this consultation.”
Cllr Pam Thomas, a wheelchair-user and a prominent Labour member of Liverpool City Council, who has spoken publicly about the accessible housing crisis, said she was in “despair” after reading the white paper.
She said: “I think the failure to even mention accessible housing shows contempt for, and marginalisation of, disabled people and those who have worked for decades to ensure all new housing takes account of people with mobility limitations.”
She added: “Most disabled people did not expect to become a disabled person and the older people become the more likely they are to acquire mobility limitations, and then find they cannot manage in their own home purely because of the poor design.
“We have managed to get a few more accessible homes built in Liverpool, some developers are fine with it, and the homes sell well. However, others refuse – because they can.”
Fleur Perry, who has previously written to Jenrick to warn him that his failure to act on accessible housing could be unlawful, said she was “shocked but not surprised that once again accessible housing has been left out of the conversation”.
She told him in a letter last year that it had taken her two-and-a-half years to find accessible housing in her home town of Swindon, a search she described as “like trying to find a needle in Loch Ness”.
She said that building all homes to the M4(2) standard and 10 per cent of them to M4(3)** “would end the current postcode lottery”.
And she said that research by accessible housing provider Habinteg last year showed that most councils have failed to say how much accessible housing is needed in their area, despite a legal obligation to consider the needs of disabled people.
She said: “Accessible housing is key to successful independent living.
“A lack of accessible and adaptable housing is one factor in unnecessary moves to costly care homes.”
She said the government also had a “commitment to keep” under the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, which the UK ratified in 2009, and which says disabled people have a right to adequate housing without discrimination under article 28.
Perry added: “Overhauling the planning system could offer an opportunity to greatly increase the supply of accessible housing, if they are truly committed to planning for good living environments. I look forward to replying to the consultation.”
When asked why there was no mention of accessible housing in the white paper, a spokesperson for the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) dismissed the question.
He said: “We completely reject these claims – our planning rules already mean councils must consider the needs of disabled people when planning new homes.”
He said that building regulations “have the biggest impact on the accessibility of new homes”, which was why the department would “shortly be reviewing provisions for accessible and adaptable housing” and was “consulting on making higher accessibility standards mandatory”.
This appears to be a reference to a pledge made by the outgoing prime minister Theresa May in June 2019, when she said the government “will consult on mandating higher accessibility standards for new housing” and that “guidance will also be published to help councils meet current standards for accessible housing in England”.
The MHCLG spokesperson refused to confirm that the new review and the consultation he mentioned were those previously announced by May 14 months ago.
When asked for a link to the consultation on making higher accessibility standards mandatory, he said the department would “shortly” be carrying it out.
When asked if the decision to omit accessible housing from the white paper was due to pressure from the housebuilding industry, he refused to answer the question but said the government had provided more than £3.2 billion to deliver about 280,000 home adaptations since 2012 through the disabled facilities grant, including £505 million in 2020-21, an increase from £220 million in 2015-16.
He also refused to say if the government believed there was an accessible housing crisis.
*The consultation closes on 29 October
**Homes built to the M4(2) standard have 16 accessible or adaptable features, similar to the Lifetime Homes standard developed in the early 1990s to make homes more easily adaptable for lifetime use, while M4(3) homes are those that are supposed to be fully wheelchair-accessible
13 August 2020
Expert benefit claimants devise social security system ‘no longer guided by stereotypes’
A ground-breaking group of service-users have devised a draft plan for replacing the current working-age benefits system with something that is no longer “guided by stereotypes and myths about disabled people and people in poverty”.
The Commission on Social Security, led by Experts by Experience, was launched last year to develop a new social security system, in which claimants would be treated with dignity, trust and respect.
Every one of the commissioners has been or is on benefits, and all of them represent grassroots, user-led organisations that fight for the rights of benefit claimants and disabled people.
Last year, after the commission asked for ideas on how to improve the social security system, they received more than 1,000 responses.
Now they are hoping that a further consultation, this time on their initial ideas, will lead to a strong consensus on which to base a detailed social security white paper.
The consultation will close at the end of September.
Last night, they launched their interim findings.
Central to their conclusions is that there should be a new guaranteed decent income (GDI), so that no-one of working-age is left in poverty.
GDI would replace universal credit, and would be set at a rate of £222 a week for a single adult and £322 a week for a couple, with extra payments for disabled people, those with children, and those in long-term unemployment, and towards rent, mortgage and local tax.
The commission is also suggesting scrapping the much-criticised personal independence payment – which is supposed to cover some of the extra costs faced by disabled people – and replacing it with a new “personalised benefit”, with assessments in line with the social model of disability, higher rates of benefit, and claimants recognised as experts in how their impairments affect them.
The commission also suggests that child benefit should be more than doubled from the current £21 a week (and about £14 for every subsequent child) to £50 for every child.
The increased cost of the new system could be funded by higher taxes on businesses or high earners, or by government borrowing.
Among the commission’s key conclusions are that there should be no benefit sanctions, or conditions placed on receiving benefits (such as having to carry out a certain number of job searches or particular work-related activity), and that the government’s hated bedroom tax should be scrapped.
Catherine Hale, one of the commissioners, told the online launch event: “The [current] system was designed by policy-makers and politicians who are far too removed from our lives and have no understanding of our realities.
“They have too often been guided by stereotypes and myths about disabled people and people in poverty and their policies as a result have too often caused harm.
“It is time that we spoke up and designed our own solutions.”
Mark Harrison, from Disabled People Against Cuts Norfolk, said it was “really important” that the commission had “given the opportunity for people who use the benefit system to critique it and design a new way of supporting people”.
He said: “It shows public bodies a new way of working and demonstrates in practice how to do it.”
He said activists were “proud to have had nearly 10 years of challenging Atos, DWP, Maximus, Capita” but it was “really refreshing to get to the point where we can actually take our experience and say, ‘What’s happening now is unacceptable and this is a better way of doing it.’”
He said that a consultation event held in Norwich last year for the commission concluded that the current system needed to be replaced, and that sanctions and conditionality needed to be scrapped.
He said: “Everybody agreed that we needed to stop and scrap universal credit.
“We need a system that puts people’s basic needs first: housing, food, heating… those are the priorities that people had and we live in a society that should put those first.
“We need to use society’s resources to create a supportive environment for people who cannot work or can’t get a job and not have a system that’s based on stigma and labelling.”
Manny Hothi, director of policy for Trust for London, which is funding the commission, said the government never asked benefit claimants for their views on public policy – in contrast to others with lived experience, such as business owners and victims of violence – perhaps because of the fear that “they will make unreasonable requests”.
He said the “unprecedented work” by the commission “shows that this is not the case”, as it had produced proposals that were “plausible” and “stack up”.
The commission had already agreed that any new system should be based on five key principles, which secured widespread support in the first consultation: all claimants should have enough money to live on; should be treated with dignity, respect and trust; should have rights and entitlements; and should have access to free advice and support.
The fifth principle is that a new system should be clear, simple, user-friendly and accessible, with people with lived experience involved in creating and running it.
The original idea for a grassroots, user-led project on the future of social security was suggested by Dr Michael Orton, from the University of Warwick’s Warwick Institute for Employment Research.
The commissioners have been supported by Orton and three other academics and researchers: Dr Rosa Morris, who has personal experience of the work capability assessment and two years ago completed a PhD examining the assessment process and disability benefits; Dr Kate Summers, from the London School of Economics; and Austin Taylor-Laybourn, from Trust for London.
13 August 2020
Scope and Leonard Cheshire merger talks are met with scorn and concern
Disabled activists have dismissed talk of a possible merger between two of the country’s largest disability charities as a “rebranding” exercise that would only “shore up a failing business model”.
Scope and Leonard Cheshire this week denied reports – based apparently on leaked documents – that they were considering a merger, but both suggested that such an idea had been under consideration earlier this year.
Neither of them has ruled out the idea of a merger at a future stage.
The original reports, in the i newspaper, stated that the two charities had held talks earlier this year, and that a planned announcement of a merger next month was put on hold because of the pandemic.
Although both Leonard Cheshire and Scope have told Disability News Service (DNS) that they are not currently in merger talks, neither of them has denied that such an option had been under discussion.
A Leonard Cheshire spokesperson told DNS yesterday (Wednesday) that, earlier in the year, it had “explored a range of collaboration options with Scope and merger was discounted”.
He said the talks had taken place because they had “a long standing and close relationship” and were aimed at “maximising our organisations’ impact and reach”.
He said that, despite the financial impact of the pandemic, Leonard Cheshire was “in a very solid financial position with reserves of £109 million”.
A Scope spokesperson said it had “discounted a merger at this time”, but also did not rule it out in the future.
She said Scope’s income was “unavoidably hit” by the pandemic but that it had “managed to achieve strong cost savings through tough decisions” which had “stood the organisation in good stead going forward”.
Asked if Scope could survive without a merger, she said: “Whilst we all remain somewhat unclear of what lies ahead from the pandemic, we are well prepared, have healthy reserves and are confident that our early tough decisions have established a strong platform for Scope to face into the future.”
When DNS attempted to secure clarity on their answers, both charities refused to say if there had ever been a plan to announce a merger this autumn.
They also both refused to rule out further merger talks.
The response this week from a leading disabled people’s organisation and disabled activists with lived experience of the two organisations has been scathing and dismissive of the discussions and merger plans.
Tracey Lazard, chief executive of Inclusion London, said: “We suspect that the potential merger between Leonard Cheshire and Scope has everything to do with shoring up a failing business model and is nothing about serving the needs of disabled people.
“Far from being the effective agents of social change and the voice of disabled people as they claim, the big disability charities over the last decade have failed to marshal any opposition to the austerity measures that have had such a devastating impact on our communities.
“They have also failed to be allies of the disabled people’s rights movement and DPOs.
“I can think of no examples where these disability charities have used their power, contacts and influence to open doors for DPOs, yet I have countless examples where these charities have acted in a predatory manner, directly competing against DPOs for contracts and funding.
“Whether or not this particular merger goes ahead, there is no future for disability charities that continue to put their business model first and occupy the space that should be taken up by DPOs: organisations that are run and controlled by disabled people and that fearlessly speak truth to power.”
Bob Williams-Findlay, a former chair of the British Council of Disabled People, told DNS that the two charities had “a history of combining oppression and the exploitation of disabled people” and that he had reminded himself “how failing capitalist enterprises often seek to bail themselves out of trouble by rebranding their goods”.
He said: “Together these pillars of disablism will seek to rebrand themselves as the experts and voice of disabled people and suggest their breadth of knowledge places them centre stage, thus continuing their role of suppressing disabled people’s self-determination.
“Disability charities have always oppressed us, but today they steal our clothes, mimicking what we say and do publicly, whilst acting to disempower us at every turn for Judas money in the committee rooms of state departments.”
Williams-Findlay, who has written of the psychological abuse he was subjected to at a segregated school run by the Spastics Society, the charity that was later renamed Scope, said: “Am I totally against a merger? No, I would be happy to see them merge into a recyclable mass and then tossed into the dustbin of history.
“They symbolise a product of capitalism way past its sell-by date.”
Doug Paulley, who lives in a Leonard Cheshire home in Yorkshire and has publicly criticised the way the charity is run, said he believed a merged organisation could find it easier to take contracts away from smaller, user-led organisations.
He said he also believed that the two charities had approaches that were “incompatible” with each other, particularly since Scope had decided to sell off its segregated care homes and special schools, whereas Leonard Cheshire still runs scores of care homes across the UK.
He said: “I am not taken in by Scope’s claims about how user-oriented it is, but they seem to have at least claims of a different ethos. I don’t think the two are compatible.”
He said both organisations run “shiny” projects that are neither user-led nor empowering and there was a risk that a newly-merged organisation would want to become “the big charity that is the voice of disabled people”.
He added: “I can’t imagine Leonard Cheshire’s inflexible management structure and bull-headed, arrogant gitishness at high levels being compatible with merging organisations.”
Three years ago, Scope took the decision to sell all its residential homes and special schools, and re-position itself as a “social change organisation”, a move apparently designed to distance the non-user-led charity from its roots as a provider of segregated services for disabled people.
That strategy was set to cut its income by 40 per cent – it was £99.5 million in 2015-16 – and reduce its workforce by two-thirds.
Its 2019 annual report said its 2018-19 income had fallen to £54.5 million.
In recent years, Scope has increasingly been the go-to disability charity for government ministers seeking supportive comments on new strategies affecting disabled people, and for the mainstream media seeking comments on disability-related issues.
Last year, Scope was one of the charities that supported prime minister Theresa May when she announced – in the dying days of her leadership – what she said were “new measures to break down barriers faced by disabled people”.
And, again last year, Scope hosted a speech by the then work and pensions secretary Amber Rudd about a series of reforms to the disability benefits assessment system.
Leonard Cheshire has also faced continuing criticism from the disabled people’s movement.
Two years ago, it was one of the disability charities that confirmed that it had signed a contract connected to the government’s Work and Health Programme that included a clause preventing it bringing the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) into disrepute.
The same year, Leonard Cheshire was accused of making “a complete mockery” of its supposed commitment to service-user involvement after it suddenly told residents of 17 of its care homes that it planned to sell them to other care providers.
It later faced questions from the care regulator after three former residents of another of its care homes died within a month of its sudden closure.
13 August 2020
Charity pays thousands to settle job discrimination claim by disabled campaigner
A disability charity that supports people with learning difficulties has paid thousands of pounds to settle an employment discrimination case taken by a leading disabled campaigner.
The settlement by Learning Disability England (LDE) comes just months after one of its founding member charities, which also works with people with learning difficulties, was found to have unfairly dismissed an autistic member of staff.
LDE has agreed to pay Kaliya Franklin £12,500 to settle her claim for unfair dismissal, a refusal to provide reasonable adjustments, and discrimination arising from disability, after she was made redundant last year.
LDE has refused to apologise for the way it treated her, or to accept that it behaved unlawfully in any way.
But Franklin says the settlement demonstrates how non-user-led charities – particularly those that claim to campaign on behalf of people with learning difficulties – fail to practice what they preach on rights and empowerment.
She said: “The entire learning disability sector is based on a false premise.
“Everybody across the sector understands the buzzwords about empowerment and leadership but they don’t practice them.
“This sector makes its living by having power and control over people with learning difficulties.
“It’s an industry and it serves and feeds itself. It is an abuse of power.”
Franklin’s victory comes only a few months after United Response, another disability charity that works with people with learning difficulties and campaigns to end discrimination in the workplace, was found by an employment tribunal to have unfairly dismissed an autistic member of its staff.
United Response, which was one of LDE’s 31 founding members, had concluded that the adjustments that would be needed to allow its disabled staff member to continue working would be too expensive.
In her claim, which was settled through judicial mediation before it could reach a full employment tribunal, Franklin argued that she had only been made redundant because LDE refused to provide the adjustments she needed to continue working at the charity she had helped set up just three years earlier.
Just as with United Response, LDE claimed it could not afford to make those adjustments.
Franklin’s dismissal last year came after LDE had engaged on a restructuring exercise.
Her role was made redundant and she was asked to apply for one of two new 19-hours-a-week job-share roles as a membership and engagement co-lead.
But LDE refused her request for a role that would allow her to work eight hours a week, and to work only from home, both for impairment-related reasons.
LDE turned down her request even though it had told her that she had had “considerable impact working remotely” in other roles.
In its response to her tribunal claim, LDE denied that Franklin was unfairly dismissed, that it had failed to provide a reasonable adjustment, and that it had discriminated against her, arguing instead that the role could not “logistically be undertaken” as an eight-hour job share and that travel would be “an essential aspect of the role”.
A spokesperson for LDE said it was “sad and sorry that it found it necessary to make Kaliya redundant and we have apologised to her for that from the outset”.
She said: “Two years ago, LDE’s staffing structure was not fit for purpose and a staffing review was undertaken to ensure that our limited income was being used to fund the staff posts that were needed.
“This sadly involved the removal of the role that Kaliya was originally employed in as that activity was not a priority for the very limited funds LDE has.
“These priorities are decided by our representative body (made up of self advocates, families, and organisational representatives) as well as the trustees.
“LDE did not discriminate against or act unlawfully towards Kaliya and it is wrong to imply there has been any such finding.
“The settlement was reached with Kaliya because of a desire from LDE to bring this difficult employment process to a close and to enable all parties to move on from what was distressing on all sides.”
She added: “We were personally extremely disheartened to have to see Kaliya leave our team but we also needed to act in the best interests of the organisation and make best use of the resources available.
“There is no doubt that we are sorry that this had to happen and sorry for all the distress caused, but we still believe it was the right thing to do for the future of LDE, what we stand for and for who we are here to serve.
“LDE could not accommodate the role Kaliya requested. We seriously considered it on a number of occasions alongside other options.
“She proposed a job doing work that did not meet the organisation’s goals and this was the only reason her proposal was not accepted.”
Franklin told Disability News Service that she had realised last year that she could not continue to campaign for disability rights if she did not stand up to the discrimination she experienced at LDE, which claimed that it was a rights-based organisation.
Franklin, who has a young son, said she had managed successfully for years to have a significant impact as a campaigner while working from home.
She has previously played a significant and high-profile role in campaigning against the coalition’s welfare reforms and cuts to disability benefits, both through her own research, blogs and lobbying, and as a key member of the Spartacus online network of disabled activists.
LDE’s refusal to provide her with the adjustments she had requested, and the way she was treated, caused her significant mental distress that led to a “complete breakdown”, she said.
She added: “The settlement doesn’t take account of the emotional damage, and that damage was intensified because of the kind of organisation they were, because they were set up to fight discrimination.
“There were no excuses about not understanding the law or not knowing what their duties were.
“I’m not going to be the same again. It has changed me for good.”
LDE was formed in 2016 through a merger between People First England (PFE) and the Housing and Support Alliance, and is funded by organisations including service-providers United Response, Dimensions and MacIntyre, local authorities and housing and disability organisations.
It faced criticism in 2016 because PFE had been set up by Franklin and fellow disabled activist Gary Bourlet as a national user-led organisation, but the merger of PFE and the Housing and Support Alliance meant that people with learning difficulties were in the minority on its new representative body and its board of trustees.
13 August 2020
Disabled students ‘face appalling barriers’ at latest university to face discrimination claims
Disabled students have launched a new campaign aimed at convincing their university to address the discrimination they face on campus.
They say the University of Exeter is plagued by access barriers and a failure to provide reasonable adjustments under the Equality Act.
It is just the latest British university to face criticism for discriminating against its disabled students, with Disability News Service (DNS) previously reporting on concerns about Glasgow University, the University of Cambridge, University College London, the University of Hull, the University of Leeds, London South Bank University and the University of Liverpool.
Among the concerns raised by the new campaign are the shortage of accessible parking bays and lifts – many of which are old and outdated – while students with invisible and fluctuating conditions find it particularly difficult to secure the support they need.
The campaigners also say that signage in campus buildings is poor, there is a shortage of accessible accommodation for disabled students, and the university has failed to address the barriers caused by the location of its main campus on a steep hill.
One autistic student has refused to attend further lectures related to autism after they said their lecturer had described autistic people as “retarded”.
And the failure to make reasonable adjustments for dyslexic students in the “peer marking” system – where students mark each other’s work – means other students are forced to mark down those who are dyslexic.
The campaign also says the university has failed to make any meaningful provision for disability sport, such as coaching, training facilities or opportunities for competition, even though the university brags of investing more than £25 million in its sports facilities and services over the last 10 years.
A petition supporting the campaign has secured hundreds of signatures.
Scarlett Aylen, the disabled geography student who founded the campaign, told DNS there were many disabled students at Exeter who faced problems securing the reasonable adjustments they needed.
Maisie Dowding, who is supporting the campaign, said that disabled students “already have to struggle to get to university”, but at Exeter – which she said claims to be “very good” at supporting its disabled students – it had been “a constant battle to get the assistance I need”.
Skye Dunstar, another disabled student supporting the campaign, said: “The inaccessibility of the campus is a barrier for disabled students.
“Many other universities with similarly hilly campuses have either increased their disabled spaces near to campus buildings or have implemented different points of access into the buildings – neither of which Exeter have implemented.”
When she began her degree, she was shown a back entrance into the library building, and a nearby lift, which would have cut out a steep walk to the entrance, but she was told it was for staff use only.
The university has defended its treatment of disabled students.
A University of Exeter spokesperson said it had been working with the university’s Students’ Guild and the Falmouth and Exeter Students’ Union to improve support for disabled students.
He said: “We have already completed, or are in the process of completing, many of the actions suggested in the petition and we hope to meet with those involved to discuss further steps that can be taken.
“At the University of Exeter, students with unseen disabilities receive similar support and adjustments to other disabled students.
“This can include support from specialists, using specialist software, consideration given to assessment deadlines, alternative examinations and personal support assistants.
“In line with our responsibilities set out in the Equality Act 2010 and the public sector equality duty, when we are notified of a need to make reasonable adjustments, due regard is given to comply and avoid any disadvantage.
“We start working with all students who tell us they have a disability or additional needs before they arrive at university to ensure they have an individual learning plan in place, reasonable adjustments to their accommodation and other support in place so any barriers to learning are minimised.
“We dedicate financial resources each year to make our campuses more accessible and comply with all equality legislation.
“In recent years we have invested in new accessible bedrooms in halls of residence, hearing loops, a vibrating fire alarm call alert system, lifts and stair lifts, ramps and more automated doors and additional accessible parking spaces.
“Those on students sport committees receive training from the University of Exeter’s equality, diversity and inclusion team.
“The Russell Seal Centre has inclusive fitness machines and accessible changing spaces.
“We also run taster sessions across the academic year in disability specific sports, including wheelchair basketball, boccia, table cricket and wheelchair tennis.”
He added: “Harassment, bullying, intimidation and discrimination go against all we stand for and will not be tolerated.
“We would encourage anyone who has experienced or witnessed any of the above to report it immediately and to get the support they might need – the Exeter Speaks Out resources are available to help report incidents quickly.”
But Aylen was dismissive of the university’s response.
She said: “The university always says it’s going to fix our problems, but it never does.
“I feel like if I sit and do nothing, nothing will change for years and years, until maybe an equality lawsuit appears, and they will do one small thing to sort out the case of discrimination.
“We need the changes for the students who are in the university currently and we need them now.”
She added: “The university has created a system where you can talk to special advisors about discrimination.
“This is a talking service, confidential and is just so you can have your voice heard. Nothing gets done and everything you say doesn’t go past the advisor.
“We don’t want councillors to help us accept that the uni is breaking the law, we want fast change.”
She said the opportunities for disabled students in sport were nowhere near the level for non-disabled students and that “para sports cannot be simply limited to a ‘wheelchair basketball taster session’”.
She said the barriers faced by herself and other disabled students were “so appalling that I simply cannot put our frustration and anger into words”, and there had been “absolutely no improvements recognised by disabled students” and any action taken “a bare minimum”.
She said the university “cannot possibly know about half of the barriers presented in the petition when they haven’t even asked the disabled student population”.
Aylen said changes she had proposed a year ago were supposedly being “researched” for development, but a year on nothing had changed.
She added: “Many students I have spoken to have told me they are afraid to complain in case they are harassed by the university or face undeserved punishment indirectly, like in their academic results, hence they wish not to be named.
“This kind of culture is not something that is acceptable in today’s society.
“My life and the lives of the other students at the University of Exeter are being negatively impacted as a result of the lack of disabled inclusion and access.
“This is going to affect us for the rest of our lives, and I will not stand by and let this happen.”
13 August 2020
Book exposes harassment, abuse and neglect of benefit claimants in austerity years
A new book by a campaigning journalist has exposed how disabled people and others were harassed, neglected and abused by the state bodies they were forced to rely on to survive during the years of austerity.
In Abusing Power*, Kate Belgrave particularly focuses on the actions of local authorities and the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP).
Belgrave’s book is based on five years of grassroots journalism in which she joined claimants at their jobcentre meetings, helped them with their claim forms, and confronted council leaders.
The book includes transcripts of covert recordings of interviews and meetings that show exactly how benefit claimants were treated by representatives of public bodies such as jobcentre advisers, local councillors and homelessness officers.
She manages to expose some of the “false statements” made by organisations like DWP, such as its claim that disabled people received “tailored” support from jobcentre advisers, following the decision to cut the number of disability employment advisers (DEAs).
Belgrave recorded jobcentre advisers saying exactly the opposite, “that removing DEAs from jobcentres had been disastrous for people with support needs, and that no ‘tailored’ or replacement service had been introduced”.
She also writes of the “institutional contempt for benefit claimants that permeated public sector organisations in austerity: a feeling that government rhetoric about scrounging claimants had taken hold”.
And she says that it was a “matter of luck” whether claimants found an officer who was decent and helpful.
DWP and local authorities, she said, held all the cards: “housing, benefits and the power to menace”.
She highlights how asking the state for help meant “having to sacrifice privacy and freedom” and being forced to attend repeated assessments where officers and assessors pick through their personal histories.
She writes: “People talked about making a choice and a major sacrifice either way: homelessness and freedom, or help and the grip of the state.”
One chapter examines the experiences of a disabled woman, Linda*, whose benefit claim was closed by her local jobcentre without warning because she had been extremely unwell and had not been given the telephone number to call when she was unable to attend a meeting.
Linda tells Belgrave in the jobcentre: “…they don’t give a shit, these people. They stopped my housing benefit and everything.
“It’s that woman over there – she didn’t give me the phone number…
“When I was ill, I couldn’t get hold of her. They don’t give a shit. Oh. I thought I was going to pass out in the bus… what’s bad is that if you’re ill, you can’t help being ill. But they don’t give a damn.”
Linda was left with no money, and faced eviction, but neither she, nor Belgrave, could find anyone on duty at the jobcentre who was willing to help her.
It was, writes Belgrave, an example of “bloodless bureaucracy” and “public sector dysfunction”, another “hostile” jobcentre where “aggressive sanctions regimes set advisers and claimants against each other”.
Belgrave told Disability News Service (DNS) this week: “I wanted to not only interview people who were experiencing the benefits system but also go through the experience with them – jobcentres and PIP assessments – and talk about how that experience of this brutal state has actually shaped people’s politics and thinking.”
As she spent more time with people, she witnessed how the “constant harassment” of being rung repeatedly by the council “starts influencing how you think” and leads to a “slow deterioration” in people’s wellbeing.
She describes how she spent time with Eddie*, who has learning difficulties and diabetes, and whose life had imploded after his mother died.
The lack of support led to him being stuck for years in a cycle of “filthy flats and jobcentre charades”, until an activist from Kilburn Unemployed Workers’ Group, who had volunteered to support him and spent months helping him try to navigate the system, eventually finds him a sheltered flat.
Belgrave believes that neither those on the right – with their view that those in poverty just need to “pull their finger out” – or those on the left, with their “romanticized views” that paint all those in poverty as a victim, have any understanding “of people’s complex situations”.
She told DNS: “This is how things unfold when people have no money and no recourse against the state that they are forced to rely on to survive.
“Fending off an intrusive, punitive, unaccountable state became the main focus of people’s lives. That relentless pressure started to affect the way that people thought and behaved.”
*Abusing Power: How an aggressive austerity state shaped people’s politics and lives. The book is not for sale, but it is available free for a limited period as a PDF document. Its publication was funded by a grant from the Barry Amiel and Norman Melburn Trust
**Not their real name
13 August 2020
News provided by John Pring at www.disabilitynewsservice.com
