Government questioned over ‘unforgivable’ failures on vaccine priority
Three separate user-led groups have questioned the government’s “unforgivable” failure to ensure that disabled people with underlying health conditions are treated as a priority for the COVID-19 vaccination programme.
They fear that hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of disabled people in England may have been unfairly left out of the group treated as the sixth highest priority for receiving a vaccine.
People in group six are supposed to be those aged 16 to 64 with health conditions that put them at higher risk of serious illness and death from COVID-19.
They should be a higher priority for a vaccine than those without such health conditions who are under the age of 65, while all those seen as clinically extremely vulnerable (CEV) are in a higher priority group.
One open letter to ministers, which is due to be sent to ministers today (Thursday) and has been signed by more than 1,700 disabled people and allies, has been drawn up by the Women’s Equality Party’s (WEP) disability and long term health conditions caucus.
The letter says that millions of disabled people – many of whom have been shielding at home since the start of the pandemic – have been “left in the dark about their vaccination status”.
The #LeftOffTheList campaign letter adds: “Disabled and chronically ill people are being asked to put absolute trust in a system which left many of us locked inside without support in the early stages of the virus, which issued illegal blanket DNRs to learning-disabled people with no clinical justification and which at every stage has forgotten and omitted many of us whose lives are at greatest risk of the virus.
“The extraordinary speed of the UK’s vaccination programme has been fantastic – but we must not allow the system to fail those who need it the most.”
Another statement has already been sent to ministers, this time co-ordinated by Disability Rights UK and signed by 23 disabled people’s organisations and allies, but again raising concerns about disabled people who have been left out of priority group six.
Among other demands, it calls on the government and the NHS to ensure that everyone who has “a learning disability or who is autistic or has a cognitive impairment”, and all working-age disabled people living in residential accommodation or hospitals, are included in priority group six.
It calls on the government and the NHS “to recognise the enormous impact of coronavirus” on disabled people, to “respond more urgently” to protect them from the virus, and to meet their needs in more personalised and accessible ways”.
Meanwhile, the National Survivor User Network (NSUN) has also raised concerns about priority group six, which the joint committee on vaccination and immunisation (JCVI) has decided should include “those with schizophrenia or bipolar disorder, or any mental illness that causes severe functional impairment”.
Akiko Hart, NSUN’s chief executive, warned that the way that this “broad but vague” definition was handled would be “down to individual services proactively reaching out”, local record-keeping, and how “any mental illness that causes severe functional impairment” is defined.
She said: “Our members have been in touch with us about concerns that this may be something of a postcode lottery in practice.”
She welcomed the inclusion in priority group six by JCVI, and work by partners such as Equally Well, which has produced advice on what to expect from the vaccination programme.
But she said NSUN was “deeply concerned that not enough disabled people at higher risk are being included in priority group six, and that not enough is being done to reach disabled people from racialised communities”.
The concerns came as the government attempted to dampen some of the anger about the number of people with learning difficulties who were not being treated as a high priority for the vaccine, despite new figures earlier this month from the Office for National Statistics which highlighted again how they had been particularly disproportionately affected by the virus.
Much of the anger followed high-profile concerns raised by DJ Jo Whiley, who was offered a vaccine before her younger sister, Frances, who has learning difficulties and is now recovering after being admitted to hospital with coronavirus.
The Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) announced yesterday (Wednesday) that all people on their GP’s learning disability register would be invited for a vaccine as part of priority group six.
This was misunderstood by some commentators, campaigners and journalists to mean the government had extended priority status to all people with learning difficulties, but DHSC stressed that the move was designed to make the process “simpler and faster”, with priority remaining only for those with “severe and profound learning disabilities”.
Public Health England said the move should still mean that “at least 150,000 more people with learning disabilities will now be offered the vaccine more quickly”, although this is only a small proportion of the total number of people with learning difficulties in England.
Freya Papworth, co-chair of the WEP disability caucus, criticised the government’s decision to leave so many disabled people who are vulnerable to the virus out of priority group six.
She said: “With disabled people making up 60 per cent of COVID deaths, and young people with learning disabilities being 30 times more likely to die from COVID than other young adults, the fact that the government has left us off the vaccine list is unforgivable.
“Over 1,700 people have signed our letter in support of the campaign, many of whom shared their stories of shielding for over a year or witnessing their non-disabled carers vaccinated before them.
“We welcome today’s news that all adults on the learning disability register will be offered a jab more quickly in England, but we will not stop fighting for those with mild or moderate learning disabilities to be included, as well as those with chronic conditions such as asthma and ME.”
A DHSC spokesperson said: “This continues to be a hugely challenging period for disabled people, particularly those who are shielding, and we are committed to supporting them, their families and carers through this pandemic and beyond.
“Based on the advice of independent clinical experts at the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation we are prioritising people most vulnerable from this dreadful disease and this includes those with certain disabilities, including severe and profound learning disabilities, who are currently eligible to receive a vaccine.”
Meanwhile, the government has set out its “roadmap” out of the current lockdown for England.
Included in the document is a prediction that it will no longer be necessary for CEV people to shield beyond the end of March.
It says: “The Government will confirm advice and next steps nearer the time to keep Clinically Extremely Vulnerable people safe.”
But it also says that the government is “considering the long-term support” that CEV people might need, particularly those who cannot be vaccinated or do not receive a significant increase in immunity from the vaccine.
*For sources of information and support during the coronavirus crisis, visit the DNS advice and information page
25 February 2021
Regulator fails to record key details from scheme sending COVID patients into care homes
The care regulator has admitted failing to track vital details about scores of care homes that are being allowed to accept patients infected with COVID-19, while older and disabled people not yet infected occupy other parts of the same buildings.
The Care Quality Commission (CQC) has so far approved more than 150 care homes and other care facilities to be “designated settings” that accept recovering hospital patients who are still infected with coronavirus.
But analysis by Disability News Service (DNS) of a sample of the first 117 designated settings to have been approved shows most of them are existing care homes where part of a building has been assigned to receive patients recovering from, and still infected with, COVID-19, while other parts of the building continue to be occupied by older and disabled service-users not yet infected with the virus.
Many such settings care homes over two or three floors, with one floor set aside for patients with coronavirus.
According to the programme, devised by the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) last autumn to cope with an expected winter surge of coronavirus cases, some designated settings are “stand-alone units” where only service-users with the virus will be admitted.
But others are care homes “with separate zoned accommodation and staffing” for service-users with coronavirus, but other parts of those homes occupied by residents who are currently free from the virus.
The policy has been described as “abhorrent” by disabled activists, because it risks repeating the outcome of the scandal that occurred early in the pandemic, when hospital patients were discharged into care homes without being tested for COVID-19.
In a delayed response to a freedom of information request from Disability News Service, CQC has finally admitted that it has no idea how many of the designated settings it has inspected and approved have zoned accommodation.
This could make it harder for the care regulator to analyse how effective this type of designated setting has been in preventing infection of previously unaffected residents.
In the response, CQC said: “We do not have a set criterion for establishing or recording whether services are ‘stand-alone units’ or ‘zoned accommodation’, and we do not keep a central record of this.
“In each case the inspection report will contain a summary which will describe how the designated setting role is being delivered.”
Despite this lack of a “set criterion”, DHSC drew a clear dividing line between the two types of setting in a letter to social services directors (PDF) last October.
That letter said: “Emphasis should be on commissioning stand-alone units or settings with separate zoned accommodation and staffing.”
The DNS analysis of the first 25 care facilities in a list of approved designated settings provided by CQC suggests that 19 are clearly zoned settings; two are probably zoned; one is unclear; just two are clearly standalone; and one is probably a standalone setting.
This suggests that three-quarters (76 per cent) of designated settings are in zoned accommodation, and possibly as many as nine-tenths (88 per cent).
Among those analysed was a care home for up to 50 older people who need personal or nursing care, which had “identified the ground floor within the home to be the designated area”, which CQC said was self-contained and had en-suite facilities for each room.
Another was a two-storey care home for people over 65 who need personal or nursing care, where “the provider had adapted the top floor of the service and implemented safe infection control systems in line with current guidance”, with staff “deployed to work solely on the top floor of the service”, and “systems to ensure staff did not work in other health or social care services”.
A third home, for both younger and older disabled residents who need nursing or personal care, had, according to CQC, ensured that “isolation, cohorting and zoning had been successfully implemented across the service”, while CQC was “assured that this service met good infection prevention and control guidelines as a designated care setting”.
By 11 February, there were 157 CQC approved designated settings across 110 local authorities.
Manchester Disabled People Against Cuts (MDPAC) first raised concerns in September about the designated settings programme, after DHSC said in its adult social care winter plan that it was working on such a scheme with CQC.
An MDPAC spokesperson said: “Until we have disaggregated mortality data for care settings we will not know how bad a risk zoned care homes were, but the principle the government needs to understand is: your right to life is the same whether you live independently in your own home or if you live in a care home.
“If they cannot guarantee that right, we see it as further evidence of the need for independent living and separate dedicated COVID-positive care settings.”
Linda Burnip, co-founder of Disabled People Against Cuts, said: “The failure of CQC to keep important records about the use of care homes being used effectively as hospital wards is shocking.
“It is difficult to know what they are doing to safeguard disabled and older people during the pandemic but obviously very little.”
A spokesperson for the grassroots disabled people’s organisation Bristol Reclaiming Independent Living said: “It’s very concerning that the CQC do not keep a central record of which care homes have ‘stand-alone units’ or ‘zoned accommodation.’
“This is vital public health information that the Department of Health and Social Care should make easily available.”
He said it was “troubling that disabled COVID patients may have been discharged into accommodation without knowing what faces them.
“Once again, the whole exercise has been rushed. Clearly, the government has learned nothing from their own pandemic preparations over the last 10 years, such as Exercise Cygnus**.
“Neither have they listened to disabled people, who have warned of the dangers of repeating the fatal mistakes they made early in the pandemic.”
CQC refused to say how it justified allowing so many zoned settings, and not keeping track of how many of those it approved were zoned or stand-alone settings.
CQC also refused to say if it would carry out analysis of the difference in safety between stand-alone and zoned settings since the scheme started.
Instead, it issued a statement from Kate Terroni, its chief inspector of adult social care, who said: “It is our role to ensure that proposed locations for the designate scheme, which is an initiative led by DHSC, are safe for people with a confirmed COVID-19 test result to be discharged into.
“By rapidly inspecting and, where appropriate, approving designated locations for COVID-positive people being discharged from hospital into care settings, we are working to help combat the spread of infection and increase the number of people who can access care by ensuing that people can be safely discharged from hospital.
“Our IPC [infection prevention and control] inspections provide an assurance, whether the designated location is standalone or zoned, that the correct infection prevention and control measures are in place to keep people safe.”
DHSC refused to say how it justified allowing so many zoned settings, and whether it was happy that CQC was failing to keep track of how many services it approved were zoned or stand-alone settings.
DHSC also refused to say if it would now carry out analysis of the difference in safety between stand-alone and zoned settings, and whether it stood by its overall policy.
But a DHSC spokesperson said in a statement: “Our priority is preventing infections and outbreaks in care homes while ensuring that residents receive the right care, in the right place, at the right time.
“Since the start of this pandemic, we have worked closely with the sector and public health experts to make sure discharges happen in a safe and timely way.
“We have provided clear guidance to support safe admission to care homes, and to embed the Discharge to Assess model*, with our efforts backed up with over £1.8 billion of funding.”
** An exercise commissioned by DHSC in 2016 to assess the UK’s preparedness for an influenza pandemic
25 February 2021
‘Why did it take disabled man’s death to lead to rail safety action?’ campaigners ask
Investigators who examined the death of a visually-impaired man who fell from a railway platform that had no tactile strip to warn him he was approaching the edge say only half of UK mainline stations have such markings.
The Rail Accident Investigation Branch (RAIB) inquiry report found that the failure to fit the platform with tactile surface markings was a possible factor that caused the accident that led to the death of 53-year-old Cleveland Gervais.
Simon French, chief inspector of rail accidents, said the rail industry appeared to have “no coherent strategy for the provision of tactile strips, despite their obvious importance”.
Gervais, who used a mobility aid and travelled regularly by train, died on the evening of 26 February 2020 at Eden Park station in south-east London, after falling onto the track and in front of a train that was arriving at the platform.
The inquiry found that he had moved to, and along, and then fell from, the platform edge as the train approached, probably because he was unaware of how close to the edge he was.
The RAIB report found that the rail industry did not always “effectively” consider “safety-based justifications for platform edge markings” to help blind and visually-impaired passengers.
The report also found that the methods used by station operators to “manage risk” at the edge of platforms “do not include adequate consideration of the risk to disabled passengers”.
According to the Office for Rail and Road (ORR), Network Rail was responsible for funding and installing tactile surfaces near platform edges, although Network Rail appears to have disputed this in discussions with RAIB.
Network Rail subsequently funded the installation of tactile surfaces at the edge of station platforms throughout the region, including at Eden Park, which is managed by Southeastern Railway.
The report also warns that information about tactile surfaces at station platforms “is not made publicly available by station operators”, which means blind and visually-impaired passengers “may be unsure whether the platform they are on is fitted with tactile surfaces, which could increase their risk of falling from the platform”.
RAIB said that its research “suggests that visually impaired passengers who wish to travel by train are exposed to substantially greater risk at station platforms than the general population” and that “tactile surfaces are effective at reducing this risk”.
It added: “Despite this, the overall result of the railway’s current practices is a patchwork of different approaches and conflicting understanding about when tactile surfaces should be installed.”
It concluded that there was “a strong case for reviewing the current policy on the installation of tactile surfaces”.
Andrew Hodgson, president of the National Federation of the Blind of the UK (NFB UK), said: “I would urge that tactile and visual markings should be installed at all stations as a matter of urgency.”
Sarah Leadbetter, NFB UK’s national campaigns officer, who was herself seriously injured trying to board a train with assistance in 2016 – although the incident was not connected with tactile markings – said: “I cannot understand why it has taken so long for these recommendations to be made.
“It is clear that all stations should have tactile markings and I am very alarmed to learn that there are so many still without this basic warning system.
“This could have been installed as a matter of urgency after the gentleman’s death last year and it makes me angry to think somebody had to die for action to be taken.
“It is also very clear that immediate improvements are needed to the assistance that is given for all disabled and vulnerable passengers at all railway stations.
“This includes all aspects of travel, including booking, assistance at the station, getting on and off the train and while on the train.
“I am more than willing to work with train operators along with my colleagues if they are willing to talk with us.”
Doug Paulley, a disabled campaigner, rail access expert and member of the Campaign for Level Boarding, said that what happened to Cleveland Gervais had been “utterly horrific”.
He said it only happened because Network Rail would not spend money to implement basic, straightforward, industry-accepted measures to improve safety for disabled people.
He said that reducing decisions on safety measures such as tactile surfaces to a “cost:risk:benefit ratio” was “foul and dehumanising”.
He said: “It is really great to see the RAIB so comprehensively dismantle this thinking. It isn’t academic, people’s lives are at risk.
“If Network Rail truly valued the safety of disabled people as they should, this wouldn’t have happened.”
Tony Jennings, co-chair of a rail accessibility panel and another disabled campaigner and member of the Campaign for Level Boarding, said it should not have taken the death of a disabled person “to get this on the radar”, and even now there was no apparent urgency from the rail industry.
He said: “We are an after-thought. It absolutely is life and death. It’s a lot more than an accessibility enhancement. You’re excluding visually-impaired people from travel.
“I was really shocked that there are so many stations that do not have tactile paving.”
He called for a cross-party agreement for “proper long-term funding on rail access and safety”, and a rolling programme of platform safety improvements.
Among its recommendations, RAIB says the Department for Transport (DfT) and Network Rail should create a “coherent policy” for establishing when tactile surfaces should be provided at the edge of station platforms.
It says the Rail Delivery Group (RDG) – which represents the companies that run Britain’s railways – should find ways to reduce the risk for blind and visually-impaired passengers using station platforms where tactile surfaces have not yet been installed.
It also says the Rail Safety and Standards Board (RSSB) – which is owned and run by the industry – should “develop processes to ensure that the rail industry has sufficient information, guidance and decision-support tools to fully address the safety risks associated with disabled people using the railway”.
And it says ORR should change its guidance for station operators, to make sure they publish information on whether the platforms they manage are fitted with tactile surfaces.
DfT, Network Rail, ORR and RDG all accepted RAIB’s recommendations.
Rail minister Chris Heaton-Harris said the government was “fully committed to improving safety and accessibility at stations across our rail network”, and was “working with Network Rail on a plan for the roll-out of tactile surfaces on platforms, and will be making it absolutely clear to the industry that we expect them to prioritise installation whenever work is carried out”.
Network Rail said there was “a lot of important learning in RAIB’s report and we will work with industry colleagues to implement the recommendations”.
ORR said it welcomed the recommendation to use its Accessible Travel Policy guidance “as a vehicle to improve the availability of information on tactile surface at stations across the UK”.
RDG said it would “work closely with rail companies, RSSB and disability experts to work out the best way to make train travel safer for blind and visually impaired passengers, while supporting the Department for Transport and Network Rail to implement improvements”.
Southeastern said it continued to “work closely with all relevant parts of the railway and the regulator to ensure that our stations and our trains are as safe and as accessible as possible for everyone, and that all recommendations are implemented”.
25 February 2021
Ministers silent after sitting on report on discrimination in politics for more than a year
The government has sat for more than a year on a report that is set to expose the barriers faced by disabled people in accessing elected office, and the discrimination they face at the hands of political parties.
The report, commissioned by the Government Equalities Office, was completed in December 2019 but has yet to be released.
Mary Griffiths-Clarke, a disabled politician who fought the north Wales seat of Arfon for Labour at the 2017 general election, and who contributed to the report, said she was not surprised it had not been published.
But she said: “I’m really disappointed opposition parties are not pushing for its publication.
“Sadly there doesn’t appear to be an empowering political voice in any party for disabled people right now.
“I believe this is because there is a fundamental perception that disabled people do not have the capacity to be good leaders and bring about change.
“This attitude needs to shift because it’s outrageously wrong and offensive.”
She added: “This could not be more pertinent as we approach leaving lockdown and a post-COVID crisis era, when so many thousands feel the affects of virally acquired disability and the impact of a long-neglected NHS and social services.”
The government has also been sitting on an evaluation report on the temporary EnAble fund that was set up – following the closure of the short-lived Access to Elected Office fund – to support disabled people with the extra costs they face in trying to become local councillors, MPs and mayors in England.
Ministers are refusing to reopen the EnAble fund – which was closed last year – with only two months to go until local council, mayoral, London Assembly and Police and Crime Commissioner elections on 6 May.
This leaves disabled people seeking election in England without financial help to pay for the extra-impairment related costs they face, such as British Sign Language interpreters and assistance with transport.
Griffiths-Clarke said that disabled people had never needed an access to elected office fund more than they do now.
She said: “It can enable the delivery of practical solutions based on lived experience, more ideas and better solutions.
“Parking access to elected office is a tragedy and a missed opportunity to really make a difference. Society is poorer for not having disabled voices heard.”
Disability Rights UK (DR UK), which administered the EnAble fund on behalf of the Local Government Association, wrote to the minister for disabled people, Justin Tomlinson, on 18 December, to ask him to reopen or replace it.
It has been told by disabled candidates that knowing the fund was there had encouraged them to stand for election, and that they had had to rely on goodwill and the availability of volunteers if they wanted support from their own political party.
The letter said: “The shocking under-representation of disabled people in Parliament and local government shows that positive action is required. Leaving it to political parties just isn’t working.”
It called for “urgent action” before the May local elections, but it has yet to receive a reply from Tomlinson.
Both Scotland and Wales now have their own funds to provide financial support for disabled candidates for elected office, other than those seeking election to the UK parliament.
This means that disabled candidates for elections to both the Welsh parliament and the Scottish parliament on 6 May will be able to seek financial support for their extra costs, while candidates for the elections in England will not.
Last month, Cabinet Office minister Chloe Smith, in response to a written parliamentary question from Mike Amesbury, suggested the government would not set up a new fund, telling the Labour MP that the government “has been clear that the responsibility for supporting disabled candidates sits with political parties”.
She did not explain which organisation was expected to fund the extra costs of independent disabled candidates.
Dr Elizabeth Evans, co-author of the report on barriers to elected office, and a reader in politics at Goldsmith, University of London, said she had been told that the two reports “have been signed off and that they are waiting for a publication date”, but she could not comment further.
The Cabinet Office was asked to comment on Monday morning but had not done so by noon today (Thursday).
25 February 2021
Claim that government reduced the disability employment gap is wrong, experts tell MPs
The government has made no progress since 2010 in closing the disability employment gap, MPs were told yesterday by academics.
Ministers have long bragged about their success in reducing the difference between the proportion of disabled people and non-disabled people in work.
They have frequently quoted Office for National Statistics (ONS) figures, which appear to show disabled people becoming increasingly likely to find work in comparison with non-disabled people.
The apparent success has come despite a decade of government austerity policies and allegations of a hostile environment created by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP).
Last July, the minister for disabled people, Justin Tomlinson, said in a written answer to Labour’s Margaret Greenwood that the latest figures showed that “the employment rate gap had closed from 33.8 percentage points to 28.6 percentage points in just six years”.
But now two leading academics working in the area of disabled people, employment and out-of-work benefits have told the Commons work and pensions committee that this apparent progress was likely to be simply the result of more people describing themselves as disabled people when surveyed.
The committee was hearing evidence for its inquiry into the disability employment gap.
Professor Melanie Jones, professor of economics at Cardiff Business School, and a member of the Disability@Work group of four academics, said there needed to be a measure of “prevalence” and an understanding of why it was rising.
She said: “If you look at the proportional changes in the disability employment gap, and the prevalence of disability, as we have done, what we see is the combined measure, actually those two things net each other out.”
Ben Baumberg Geiger, a senior lecturer in sociology and social policy at the University of Kent, said it was important to have a disability employment gap target, but it was also important to have a “better definition of disability” so the target “rewards success rather than failure”.
He said: “If you don’t have a sensible measure of what disability is, then your target does the worst thing a measure could possibly do, which is it will look like things are getting better if they are getting worse.”
He added: “If you use a very simple alternative measure that both Melanie and I have suggested, there has been no progress since 2010.”
Disability News Service (DNS) first reported this evidence last October.
DNS reported then how a Disability@Work briefing note by Professor Jones and her colleague Professor Victoria Wass showed how the percentage of working-age people describing themselves as disabled in the ONS employment figures had risen from 16.5 per cent to 19.7 per cent between 2013 and 2020.
They said in the note that they believed this increase was because increased public awareness and acceptance have led more people to “recognise and acknowledge that they have a health condition and/or that it is limiting”.
They showed that, once the increase in the rate of people describing themselves as having an activity-limiting impairment was taken out of the ONS figures, the disability employment gap actually rose slightly between 2013 and 2020, while it fell significantly under the last Labour government, between 1998 and 2009.
They concluded: “The prevalence-corrected measure suggests all the narrowing in the [disability employment gap] from 2010 is accounted for by the expansion in disability prevalence and not by any reduction in underlying disability employment disadvantage.”
25 February 2021
Two flagship DWP disability jobs schemes slated in front of MPs
Two of the government’s flagship disability employment schemes have been heavily criticised by a pair of disabled campaigners in a parliamentary evidence session.
The Commons work and pensions committee was hearing evidence for its inquiry into the disability employment gap, the difference between the proportions of disabled people and non-disabled people in work.
Among those giving evidence yesterday (Wednesday) were Fazilet Hadi, head of policy for Disability Rights UK, and James Taylor, executive director of strategy, impact and social change for the disability charity Scope.
Hadi told the committee that she loved the Access to Work (AtW) scheme – which funds workplace adjustments such as support workers and travel costs – and could not have worked without it.
But she said she hated the way it was run.
She said that securing support from AtW had felt like a “battle” in recent years, “as if I have to prove something, like I’m not the expert, apparently, on my needs”.
And she said that disabled people were often “just brow-beaten” by DWP civil servants working on AtW.
She said: “There’s a sort of feeling that you’re trying to get something you’re not entitled to.
“There are far too many forms, there’s far too much bureaucracy, they are not quick, they haven’t moved with the times.
“I have got really nothing to say in terms of praise for the way it is administered.”
She added: “I don’t know if it’s an attitudinal thing or a managerial thing, but the impact for a disabled person is that it makes a good scheme difficult.”
Hadi said she had heard of employers “walking away” from the scheme.
She said: “Some of us want to work for small employers and Access to Work would be vital because we want to come to that as equal members of the staff group, not with the employer thinking we cost more.”
But she said there was a sense from AtW that disabled people were “taking the piss” and “that you’re not being truthful and that you don’t know about your own needs.
“I have been using AtW for 30 years so I think I know what I need from it.”
Later in the session, Taylor was critical of the government’s Disability Confident scheme.
The much-criticised scheme aims to encourage employers to “think differently about disability and take action to improve how they recruit, retain and develop disabled people”.
But Disability News Service revealed earlier this month that DWP had announced that the personal independence payment section of its contractor Capita had been awarded membership of the top level of the Disability Confident scheme just as a coroner was implicating the company in the decision of a young disabled mum to take her own life.
And four years ago, DWP declared itself a Disability Confident Leader just days before being found guilty of “grave and systematic violations” of the UN disability convention.
Taylor told the committee yesterday that while Disability Confident was a “very good scheme at… promoting disabled people in the workplace, it has actually had a very limited impact on the number of disabled people in work.”
He said the scheme had been viewed as “too reliant” on self-assessments by employers of “how well they are actually doing at employing disabled people”.
And he said that anecdotal evidence Scope had heard from disabled people working for Disability Confident employers “has suggested that their employers have not been particularly supportive of them, despite being signed up to the Disability Confident scheme”.
Earlier in the evidence session, Hadi told the committee that she was growing “quite tired of [DWP] saying they don’t know what works” when it comes to disability employment.
She said: “We are in 2021 now and they have had an awful long time to find out what works.”
She said it was not “rocket science”, and that what worked was providing disabled people with personalised support and providing it quickly.
She said: “I don’t really know what they are waiting to find out.
“I think we do know what works and if they talked to disabled people, if they had personalised support, they would see the results.
“It desperately needs more funding and then things will work.”
25 February 2021
Government’s 2016 welfare reforms ‘had devastating impact on disabled people’
Government welfare reforms introduced in 2016 have had a “devastating” impact on disabled people and others in low-income households over the last five years, according to a new report by a group of MPs and peers.
The report (PDF) by the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Health in All Policies, which draws together research from numerous sources over the last five years, was described this week as “stark” and “hard-hitting”.
It focuses on the impact of five key measures within the Welfare Reform and Work Act 2016, including cuts to the benefit cap; freezing certain benefits for four years; and cuts of almost £30 a week to disabled people placed in the work-related activity group of employment and support allowance (ESA).
The report says that the “disproportional, negative” impact on disabled people and children was “reprehensible”, and it adds: “The increase in social-security driven poverty has been mirrored by a deterioration in our health status as a country, one of the few advanced economies where since 2018 life expectancy has been flatlining.”
It concludes that the act has pushed many low-income households into poverty, and has caused increased debt, rent arrears, food-bank use, homelessness, and a negative impact on mental health.
It also says that the treatment of benefit claimants by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) often leaves them feeling worthless and even “dehumanised”.
Ellen Clifford, a member of the national steering group of Disabled People Against Cuts, told the report’s online launch event: “The APPG has succeeded in producing such a stark report that cuts through the spin and selective use of figures that have too often been used to disguise the true impact of welfare reform and it presents a very hard-hitting portrait of Britain today.”
She said the report showed that the “more disabled you are… the harder you are hit” by the measures in the act.
Clifford, co-chair of the Commission on Social Security*, pointed to one of the new report’s key recommendations, for the government to extend the £20 a week rise given to universal credit claimants during the pandemic to those on “legacy benefits” such as ESA.
She said that many of those refused the uplift were disabled people who have seen their spending rise sharply during the pandemic, through having to pay for essentials such as personal protective equipment for their personal assistants or for online deliveries of food.
She said: “At DPAC we think we urgently need to pressure the government into extending that to legacy benefits.
“There’s no question that the failure to do so has been deeply detrimental to disabled people’s health.”
On Monday (1 March), DPAC is holding a day of action as part of its #20MoreForAll campaign, which includes asking supporters to email their MP to tell them why it is important that the uplift is extended to legacy benefits.
It is also hosting a survey on the impact of the failure to extend the uplift.
Among its recommendations, the all-party group repeats calls from the disabled people’s movement, and many others, for an assessment of the cumulative impact of the government’s cuts and reforms on disabled people.
It also says DWP must change its culture “from one that is perceived to ‘dehumanise’ claimants to one that trusts, supports and enables claimants” and must “develop systems and practices… which identify and support vulnerable claimants at all stages of their application and claim”.
And it repeats calls for the Equality and Human Rights Commission to launch an inquiry into the deaths of benefit claimants between 2008 and 2020 that have been linked to DWP’s actions.
Disabled activist Rick Burgess told the launch event that it was also crucial to consider, when examining the impact of the government’s welfare reforms and cuts, what it was like to be “an oppressed group” that has been subjected to “democide or social murder, particularly during the pandemic, when we are 60 per cent of the deaths”.
He said: “I would like people to understand there needs to be some process of truth and reconciliation.
“We cannot simply stop oppressing people, we have to acknowledge that was done, and reparations have to be made, because it’s about respecting people who you have dehumanised in the past.”
Debbie Abrahams, chair of the all-party group and a former Labour shadow work and pensions secretary, said: “Our report shows there is strong evidence from several sources that the cuts in social security support have contributed to increasing poverty and financial hardship in low-income households which has particularly affected the poverty levels of children and disabled people.”
*The Commission on Social Security was launched in 2019 to develop a new social security system, in which claimants would be treated with dignity, trust and respect. All of its commissioners have lived experience of the benefits system
25 February 2021
News provided by John Pring at www.disabilitynewsservice.com
