DWP unlawfully prevented release of secret benefit deaths reviews, regulator rules
The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) unlawfully prevented the release of secret reports into the deaths of at least 20 benefit claimants, the information commissioner has ruled.
The commissioner, John Edwards, has found that DWP breached the Freedom of Information Act by blocking documents which would have showed recommendations made by its own civil servants to improve safety and reduce the number of suicides and other deaths.
The victory should mean that ministers now release between 20 and 30 so-called internal process reviews (IPRs) that were completed between March 2019 and September 2020 and have until now been kept secret.
It is the latest legal defeat suffered by DWP in an eight-year fight by Disability News Service (DNS) to ensure that crucial details from its IPRs are not kept secret.
DNS has argued that releasing the recommendations made by the IPRs – previously known as peer reviews – is vital in ensuring DWP is held to account for how it has responded to deaths linked to the social security system.
DWP had argued that it could not release the IPRs because this could impact on the development of government policy, including its green paper on disability benefits, its “vulnerable customers policy”, “paying the customer the right amount at the right time”, and its national data strategy.
The information commissioner agreed that 14 IPRs that were linked to the national data strategy or the green paper were used to “inform” the development of government policy.
But the commissioner also ruled that DWP had “failed to consider the strong public interest in the timely understanding, and scrutiny of, the recommendations made in the IPRs”.
The ruling added: “The IPRs provide insight and understanding of where DWP acknowledges that errors were made or improvements are required.
“They would also allow scrutiny of whether DWP has taken action to implement these improvements or ensure that the errors do not occur again.
“Disclosure would also allow scrutiny of whether the actions taken were sufficient or timely enough to prevent the harm identified occurring again.
“The Commissioner considers that there is a strong public interest in understanding DWP’s approach to preventing future errors and safeguarding issues.”
The ruling concluded that “DWP has not provided compelling arguments regarding how the specific policies named would be undermined by disclosure of the IPRs” and “therefore considers that the balance of the public interest favours disclosure”.
A DWP spokesperson said: “We have received the decision notice from the Information Commissioner’s Office and we are currently considering its impact.”
DNS currently has another complaint being investigated by the Information Commissioner’s Office, relating to DWP’s refusal to release the recommendations made by more than 90 IPRs completed between September 2020 and April 2022.
DWP branded DNS editor John Pring “vexatious” for requesting the release of those IPRs earlier this year.
The release of recommendations made by the reviews has revealed key safety failings by the department over the last six years.
The first batch of reviews, finally released in 2016 after a lengthy freedom of information battle with DNS, showed how at least 13 of the reports explicitly raised concerns about the way that “vulnerable” benefit claimants were being treated by DWP.
Another review obtained by DNS, in 2018, helped show how DWP had been forced to soften the “threatening” tone of the agreement that claimants of universal credit are forced to sign to receive their benefits.
And in December 2020, a freedom of information request allowed DNS to show that DWP staff had had to be repeatedly reminded what to do when claimants said they may take their own lives, following reviews into as many as six suicides.
Those reviews suggested that a series of suicides between 2014 and 2019 were linked to the failure of DWP staff to follow basic rules that had been introduced in 2009.
But more recently, DWP has resorted to increasingly desperate tactics to keep all content from the reviews secret.
27 October 2022
We have failed across the country on disability hate crime, says police chief
The performance of police forces across the country in providing justice for victims of disability hate crime is not good enough and must improve, the organisation representing senior police officers has finally admitted.
The National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC) admitted its failure this week, three years after Disability News Service (DNS) first began asking why the number of disability hate crime cases being passed by police forces in England and Wales to prosecutors had plummeted.
Now NPCC’s hate crime lead, deputy chief constable Mark Hamilton, has told DNS: “We do accept that these figures aren’t good enough.
“The figures do speak for themselves.”
Hamilton, who has held responsibility for hate crime within NPCC for eight years, also apologised this week for the previous failure of his organisation’s press office to respond properly to the concerns raised by DNS for the last three years.
He said he had not previously been aware of those issues, but accepted responsibility for them as NPCC’s hate crime lead.
DNS has been trying for three years to secure an explanation from police chiefs as to why the number of cases being passed by police forces to the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) has been falling so steeply.
It plummeted by a fifth last year, despite the number of disability hate crime allegations reported by disabled people to the police in England and Wales rising by more than 40 per cent to more than 14,000.
Police forces across England and Wales passed just 243 disability hate crime cases to CPS to decide whether the alleged offender would be charged in 2021-22.
In 2014-15, 924 cases were passed to CPS, but by 2018-19 this had fallen to 367, and it kept dropping, to 320 in 2019-20, to 298 in 2020-21 and to just 243 across the whole of England and Wales last year, a fall of 18 per cent in one year.
Asked if the figures showed that police forces had been breaching their public sector equality duty under the Equality Act, Hamilton, a deputy chief constable in the Police Service of Northern Ireland, told DNS: “I am not going to argue that police services are providing a good enough response, because the figures speak for themselves, but I don’t know if that necessarily means that we are failing in our equality duty.”
He said: “The overall reason for the drop from my point of view links directly to victim confidence in the justice system and particularly to victim confidence in the police service and just generally whether people feel supported in the system.”
NPCC announced 12 months ago that it was planning a “thematic audit on disability hate crime reports” to try to understand why so few disability hate crime cases were being passed to CPS.
But a year on, the audit has still not begun, with no response yet from the Home Office to a funding bid for this and other hate crime work that was submitted earlier this year.
Hamilton suggested one of the reasons for the lack of a decision on funding by the Home Office has been the repeated changes in leadership within the government this year.
NPCC is also hoping to set up a performance unit that will examine how all hate crime is dealt with by police forces across the country, and it has carried out some audit work across hate crime strands which should provide a “foundation” for its work on disability hate crime.
Hamilton said he believed that police forces had focused their hate crime work on race and religion since Brexit, which had been “to the detriment” of work on disability hate crime.
He said: “I personally feel it has not received the focus that it should have had.”
CPS data appeared to show police referrals for charging decisions falling across all hate crime strands, and across crime generally, he said, which led to the NPCC decision to launch the audit work.
Hamilton said initial findings suggested “a lack of consistency across police services across the country around hate crime referrals”, which “has been raised with us on a number of occasions by the CPS”.
But he also admitted that NPCC does not keep data of its own on how many disability hate crime cases are being passed to prosecutors, and that it relied on CPS for those figures.
When asked why, he said: “We haven’t done it. I’m not going to create a reason why we haven’t.”
He also admitted that he had not yet seen the figures that CPS has shared with DNS.
He added: “I think that our performance around this has dropped. That is very clear.”
Hamilton told DNS that police performance on encouraging more disabled people to report hate crime had been successful over the last decade – although the levels are still too low – but he added: “We don’t know if we are doing enough to support victims at the point of report that encourages them to take a matter on to the criminal justice system.
“What we have seen is a dramatic increase in overall hate crime reporting… what we haven’t seen in policing is a significant improvement in the outcome rate for hate crime.”
He said this was “far less positive” and “remains a major concern” and that NPCC accepted that “we need to do more with it” following a period when – pre-Covid – the CPS had been “working to upskill prosecutors around the country specifically to the understanding of disability hate offences”.
He added: “We still have a very significant mountain to climb here in terms of improving confidence.”
Hamilton said he did not believe there had been Home Office pressure on police forces to pay less attention to hate crime issues, despite highly-public comments made by home secretaries Suella Braverman and Priti Patel about the need to focus less on “woke” issues and “diversity and inclusion”.
He said: “The Home Office and the home secretary are entitled to their position.
“I am aware of the comments that have been made in the public arena, just like everybody else. I am aware of what’s been said, and I am aware of the debate.”
But he said that no force had reported to him that they had been pressured to ease off their work on hate crime.
He said he did not think the comments had had a “direct influence” on police forces, although they would be “aware of the commentary that has been made”.
The Home Office refused this week to say if the delay in providing the funding to NPCC was connected with successive attacks from home secretaries on “woke” issues, or if it was concerned by the drop in cases passed to CPS by police forces.
But a Home Office spokesperson said in a statement: “Hate crime is a scourge on communities across the country. It does not reflect the values of modern Britain.
“We expect the police to fully investigate these hateful attacks and make sure the cowards who commit them feel the full force of the law.”
27 October 2022
Three weeks on, still no sign of plans to protect disabled people in blackouts
NHS bodies have this week been unable to point to any evidence that plans have been drawn up to protect people who need electricity to run lifesaving medical equipment in their homes, in the event of power blackouts this winter.
It is now the third consecutive week that Disability News Service (DNS) has attempted – without success so far – to secure information from the government, public bodies and the energy industry about what preparations have been made to protect disabled people in the event of three-hour blackouts this winter.
So far, the only advice from the government and the power industry is that disabled people who rely on equipment such as ventilators, home dialysis machines, or fridges for insulin, should sign up to their energy provider’s Priority Services Register.
They may then be given advance notice of a power cut, could have priority support for emergency cooking and heating facilities if their electricity is cut off, and may be signposted to charities such as Red Cross for “hot meals and drinks”.
They could also be advised to “seek advice from their local health service provider”.
This week, DNS approached four of the new Integrated Care Boards* – established in July by NHS England under the government’s Health and Care Act 2022 – to ask them what advice local health service providers in England might provide when contacted.
But by noon today (Thursday), none of the four – Cheshire and Merseyside; Derby and Derbyshire; South West London; or Buckinghamshire, Oxfordshire and Berkshire West (BOB ICB) – had been able to provide any details of plans being prepared for the winter.
Derby and Derbyshire ICB passed DNS to its local resilience forum, which had failed to comment by noon today.
A spokesperson for the ICB also referred DNS to the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) because “they are co-ordinating the messaging for providers and patients”.
But DHSC – as it did last week – referred DNS to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS), which last week was unable to point to any detailed plans.
A spokesperson for South West London ICB also referred DNS to NHS England, BEIS and the energy companies.
He was unable to comment further by noon today.
A spokesperson for BOB ICB was unable to provide any details of plans in place in its area by noon today, but she said in a statement: “All utility companies keep lists of vulnerable people.
“GP practices also maintain a list of vulnerable patients so they can be identified in the event of an emergency incident.
“The Local Resilience Forum (which includes representation from energy companies, water companies, health partners, social care, police, fire and voluntary services) would co-ordinate a response to ensure health needs are met.”
Cheshire and Merseyside ICB had failed to comment by noon today.
Ofgem, the energy regulator, had also been unable to provide any information by noon today.
*ICBs are intended to bring together NHS services with councils and other local bodies “to plan, co-ordinate and commission health and care services”
27 October 2022
Seven weeks without a care minister… as figures show worsening services
New figures have revealed the steadily-worsening state of adult social care, and how disabled people are increasingly reporting concerns about the quality and safety of services, seven weeks after the government last had a minister for social care in post.
As the Care Quality Commission (CQC) released its annual State of Care report, the government published its own annual statistical report on adult social care.
Both reports highlighted a slow, steady deterioration in the standard of social care services in England.
The CQC report revealed a small but significant increase in the proportion of adult social care services that are rated as inadequate, with a rise from 1.22 per cent in 2021 to 1.30 per cent in 2022, and a similar increase in those rated as requiring improvement, from 14.10 per cent to 15.36 per cent.
Although there was little detailed analysis of the quality of adult social care services in the CQC report – with the focus more on the need for long-term planning and investment, workforce issues, and hospital discharges – the figures suggested that campaigners such as Dr George Julian and Jess Thom were right to raise the alarm this summer about the apparent trend of increasing numbers of services being labelled inadequate or requiring improvement.
This week, Rishi Sunak delivered his first speech as prime minister, but made no commitment to addressing the social care funding crisis, or any mention of disabled people.
Instead, he promised to deliver on the NHS, education, crime, immigration, the environment, defence and the economy.
Both he and his predecessor Liz Truss had refused to answer questions about their disability policies during this summer’s battle for the leadership of the Conservative party – which led to Truss’s fleeting stint as prime minister – and also dodged questions from their own disabled party members.
Meanwhile, there has not been a minister for adult social care since Gillian Keegan was moved to another post by Truss on 7 September, seven weeks ago.
The Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) refused to confirm that there had been no minister for social care since 7 September, but a DHSC spokesperson said in a statement: “There has been ministerial oversight of adult social care at all times including throughout recent government changes and it would be inaccurate to suggest otherwise.”
Last Thursday (20 October), DHSC published a report on the findings of its annual Adult Social Care Survey, again covering just England.
The report reveals a fall in the proportion of service-users who feel they have choice over the care and support services they receive, an increase in those who are unhappy with the support they receive, and an increase in those who feel less than adequately safe or do not feel safe at all.
The survey collates the opinions of service-users aged 18 and over who are receiving long-term care and support funded or managed by social services, and it heard this year from nearly 60,000 service-users, about a tenth of the total.
Because of the impact of the pandemic, the report compares scores for 2021-22 with those of 2019-20.
The proportion of service-users who felt they had enough choice over their care and support services dropped to 64 per cent in 2021-22 from 66.6 per cent in 2019-20.
The proportion of service-users who said they were quite, very or extremely dissatisfied with the care and support services they received rose from 4.5 per cent to 5.4 per cent between 2019-20 and 2021-22.
The proportion who said they did not always receive adequate or timely food and drink rose from 4.8 per cent to 5.5 per cent.
And the proportion feeling less than adequately safe or not at all safe rose from 5.5 per cent to 6.0 per cent over the two years.
27 October 2022
‘Levelling up’ Tory MPs defeat bid for legal duty to make all rail stations accessible
Campaigners have questioned why Conservative ministers and MPs rejected a proposal that would have forced the government to take “reasonable steps” towards making all rail stations in England accessible to disabled people.
The proposed amendment to the government’s levelling-up and regeneration bill would have placed a new duty on the transport secretary to ensure that railway stations meet national accessibility standards.
But the move, proposed by former Liberal Democrat leader Tim Farron during the bill’s committee stage, was rejected after eight Conservative MPs outvoted Farron and Labour members of the committee.
Farron has been campaigning for access improvements to train stations in his rural Cumbria constituency.
The government’s decision to reject the amendment came after it emerged that the new Elizabeth Line station at Bond Street in the heart of London’s shopping district opened this week after a reported overspend of £570 million.
That overspend is nearly £200 million more than the government is going to spend nationally on its Access for All rail accessibility programme over five years (2019-2024).
Transport access campaigner Tony Jennings, who lives in Cumbria, said the overspend “puts in perspective” the government’s commitment to accessible rail travel.
He believes that £500 million of that overspend would have paid for 125 rail stations to have been made accessible, based on an average £4 million to install two lifts and pay for other access work at a station.
He said this failure would result in “social exclusion for disabled people for decades to come”.
Jennings said: “The amendment, if passed, would have given disabled people hope.
“As it is, I now have no confidence that the barriers will be removed in a reasonable timescale to deliver an inclusive accessible railway that is fit for purpose.”
He added: “The next generation will suffer the consequences of the government not taking accessibility seriously and refusing to invest in equal access.”
Emily Yates, co-founder of the Association of British Commuters, said: “At current rates of investment, full station accessibility will take 100 years.
“It is outrageous that this issue is being left out of both ‘levelling up’ legislation as well as the government’s plans for rail reform.
“It is a further insult that the government has still not proposed an alternative for the ‘Access for All’ fund, a competitive and non-transparent process that lacks any strategic long-term plan.
“Legislation is the only solution, and this must include compulsory deadlines for station accessibility, an approach that has already been proven successful in making all trains accessible by 2020.
“It’s vital that this is supported by proper investment as part of a strategic plan for the entire network.
“Yet the government continues to evade this issue and oppose progress, despite its obvious failure to advance equality of opportunity in rail travel.
“How can it possibly be justified that disabled people have to wait 100 years for what could easily be done in 10?”
Farron called for the Access for All fund to be “quadrupled in size”, and he told the bill committee: “I am deeply concerned that there are stations throughout our country, but particularly in my community, that are not just slightly inaccessible but totally inaccessible.”
One of the stations he referred to was Staveley in the Lake District, which has 41 steps up to station and so has “zero accessibility”, which he said was “outrageous”.
He said his amendment would prevent “the kind of bidding game that we will always lose because the station is too small”, and he added: “I have no confidence that the government will tackle this issue in a way that reaches small stations that are totally inaccessible.”
Lee Rowley, the housing and planning minister, told him that the government’s rail reforms “seek to transform the railway industry’s understanding of the approach to accessibility”.
He said that, during the 17 years Farron had been an MP – dating back to the Labour government of 2005 – the Department for Transport has spent about £400 million on Access for All funding, delivering step-free routes at more than 200 stations, and smaller-scale access improvements at more than 1,500 stations.
He said he accepted Farron’s point, but he asked him to withdraw his amendment to the bill, and he added: “While recognising that we have much progress to make, I hope we can make further progress in the coming years.”
He and his Conservative colleagues then defeated the proposed amendment to the levelling-up and regeneration bill by eight votes to six.
27 October 2022
Minister for disabled people deletes tweet about DWP’s £6 million website
The new minister for disabled people has deleted a social media post in which she bragged about the millions of pounds being spent on her department’s new disability employment website.
Claire Coutinho posted a tweet last week which included a video of her welcoming a “new £6.4 million online service” which aims to provide information for employers on how to support disabled people in the workplace.
The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) launched an early version of the new “service” on the same day last week, describing it as “a new £6.4 million online service to help employers better support disabled people and those with health conditions in the workplace”.
But when Disability News Service (DNS) tested the £6.4 million Support with Employee Health and Disability service, it was just a series of web pages that offer advice to employers and managers in different situations.
DNS asked the DWP press office how a series of web pages with advice for employers could possibly cost £6.4 million.
Shortly after DNS contacted DWP’s press office about her comments, Coutinho deleted her tweet.
She had made her comments while at the annual Disability Power 100 awards event, run by the charity Shaw Trust, which has DWP employment contracts worth tens of millions of pounds a year and sponsors several special schools.
A DWP spokesperson confirmed yesterday that the £6.4 million covered the “design, development and maintenance of the website”.
He said in a statement: “The figure of £6.4 million relates to an extensive programme of work over a three-year period, to design, develop and maintain the Support with Employee Health and Disability service, an early and limited version of which has entered public testing.
“The service continues to be developed and expanded in response to feedback from small business users and expert stakeholders, with spend on areas including detailed research, digital build, management and marketing costs.”
Meanwhile, the new prime minister, Rishi Sunak, has sacked work and pensions secretary Chloe Smith – who had been a strong supporter of his predecessor, Liz Truss – and replaced her with Mel Stride, who chaired the Treasury select committee from January 2020 until this week.
Coutinho, who repeatedly tweeted her support for Sunak before his confirmation as the Conservative party’s new leader this week, appears to have kept her role as minister for disabled people.
Despite only being in post a few weeks, Coutinho has already drawn criticism from disabled people for telling DNS at her party’s annual conference that she was “not aware” of the social model of disability and so was unable to say how it would impact her work as the disability minister.
27 October 2022
DWP finally releases universal credit ‘fitness for work’ figures
The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) has finally published figures that show how many universal credit claimants are being found “fit for work” through the work capability assessment process.
They show that DWP is consistently finding more disabled people claiming universal credit fit for work – or at least to be suitable for what DWP calls work-related activity – than it is for those claiming employment and support allowance (ESA).
But because the two groups of claimants are likely to have different support needs, it is impossible to draw any firm conclusions from the figures.
Former DWP ministers such as Therese Coffey and Chloe Smith have repeatedly argued that it would be too expensive to produce official statistics showing how many disabled claimants of universal credit have been put through the work capability assessment (WCA), what level of benefit they received following their assessment, and how many were being found fit for work.
Smith told MPs on the work and pensions committee in July that it was too expensive and too much effort to produce the statistics about key parts of an assessment system linked to hundreds, and probably thousands, of deaths over the last decade.
Sarah Newton, the minister for disabled people at the time, promised nearly four years ago that DWP would soon be publishing official WCA universal credit statistics.
But those statistics were never published.
The Office for Statistics Regulation told DWP earlier this year – following a complaint from Disability News Service – that its failure to publish universal credit WCA statistics left “a gap in the information available” and that there was a “wealth of evidence around the need for transparency around Universal Credit WCA statistics”.
It now appears that – shortly before she was sacked from the post of work and pensions secretary by Rishi Sunak this week – Smith had a change of heart.
In response to a written parliamentary question from Sir Stephen Timms, the Labour chair of the Commons work and pensions committee, the new minister for disabled people, Claire Coutinho, released some limited figures.
Those figures, which were released earlier this month, were first spotted by the Benefits and Work advice website.
They show that, for every month from July 2021 to March 2022 – apart from November 2021 – the proportion of claimants going through the work capability assessment who were found fit for work, or were placed in the group of those expected to carry out work-related activity, was higher for those seeking support through universal credit (UC) than for those receiving employment and support allowance (ESA)*.
In the latest month in which figures were available, March 2022, 21 per cent of those on ESA who were put through the WCA were found fit for work, with another 13.4 per cent placed in the work-related activity group (WRAG).
But in the same month, 23.9 per cent of UC claimants were found fit for work and another 16.8 per cent were found to have limited capability for work (the UC equivalent of WRAG).
The figures do not prove there is a harsher assessment regime under UC, as it could be that the population of ESA claimants going through the WCA have higher support needs on average.
But they still raise fresh questions – supported by anecdotal evidence – over whether ministers are using the new UC system to restrict spending and increase pressure on claimants to move towards work.
A DWP spokesperson declined to say if the department would now be publishing regular official statistics on UC and WCAs.
But the department said the figures released to Sir Stephen were produced using departmental management information, which is a less extensive and costly process than producing official statistics.
*ESA was introduced as the new out-of-work sickness and disability benefit in 2008, and ESA claimants are now gradually being moved onto universal credit
27 October 2022
Protest ‘shows strength of feeling’ on York’s blue badge ban
By Tom McDonough
A protest outside York council has been hailed as an important step in disabled people’s year-long fight against the decision to ban blue badge-holders from their city centre.
Reverse the Ban, a coalition of disabled-led organisations and allies, held the demonstration outside a full council meeting last week to protest against City of York Council’s “discriminatory decisions adversely affecting disabled and older citizens”.
The protesters handed council members more than 2,700 signed postcards, each of them calling on Liberal Democrat council leader Keith Aspden to reverse the blue badge ban.
Disabled campaigner Flick Williams, who played a key role in organising the protest, said: “It went fabulously well.
“There were around 60 people there. It was very important in terms of showing the council the strength of feeling out there about the discriminatory actions of this council.”
She added: “Later in the evening, the Labour councillors all stood up and went to the table in the centre of the chamber and put down their sacks of postcards.
“There were more than 10 sacks in front of the council leader, with the lord mayor sitting behind him. They really can be under no doubt now about the strength of feeling.”
Among the disabled-led organisations campaigning against the ban are York Accessibility Action, York Disability Rights Forum and York People First.
One of the postcards handed over had been signed by a leading disabled academic, Professor Tom Shakespeare, who lent the campaign his support while on a visit to York.
He said: “Disabled people are a part of society. The time to end the discrimination that prevents us playing a full part in the life of the city is long overdue.”
York’s own Paralympian, Beth Moulam, said: “Having a blue badge is not a perk or a luxury in life. It is a reasonable adjustment that many rely on in order to take part.”
The ban prevents vehicles, including those with blue badges, from entering York’s pedestrian “footstreets” zone from 10.30am to 5pm every day of the week.
Introduced initially by the council to create more space for pedestrians amid the COVID-19 pandemic, the exclusion zone was made permanent a year ago to “create a safer and more attractive city centre and to reduce inner city pollution”.
Since then, a council equality impact assessment (EIA) and a council-funded report by consultancy Martin Higgitt Associates have both found that the withdrawal of vehicle access from the city centre has had a strong negative impact on disabled people.
But while the EIA recommended that the council continues with the scheme as long as it provides improved blue badge parking on the outskirts of the area, the Higgitt report rejected the scheme, saying that “blue badge motorised access into the footstreets for disabled people with additional needs is required”.
Members of Reverse the Ban have cited the Higgitt report as well as the council’s public sector equality duty when making their case, but they have failed so far to persuade the council.
Williams said: “Nobody from the ruling administration came out to talk to anybody last night.
“We honestly believe the only way it’s going to get changed now is with a change of leadership.”
She added: “This administration doesn’t want to [reverse the ban] and we think it’s because they believe in the wholesale commercialisation of the public realm.
“By shutting us out it’s allowed them to have pavement cafés everywhere in the city, which of course is another problem for disabled people to get about.
“The cafés are forcing people into the road but it’s a road still full of vehicles (delivery and refuse, for example) so you can imagine how terrifying that is if you’re visually impaired, for example, especially as some of these vehicles are electric and silent.”
She added: “It’s made it a nightmare for all disabled people. We know many disabled people who now just don’t go into the city centre at all because even if they can physically get there, it’s just too difficult to get around.”
Reverse the Ban is now considering hanging large print copies of 650 of the postcards around the city as the next stage in its campaign.
Williams said: “That’ll mean people can see just how disabling the blue badge ban is.”
The council told Disability News Service that the council’s executive member for transport, Andy D’Agorne, had spoken to protestors, while other executive members had offered to answer questions before joining the meeting.
But the council refused to comment on the signed postcards, or to say if it accepted that the protest showed the strength of feeling about the blue badge issue, or if it believed its approach was discriminatory.
It also refused to say why it had not accepted the findings of the Martin Higgitt report, if it accepted that its actions were breaching its public sector equality duty under the Equality Act, or if it accepted that the new pavement café culture in the city centre was placing disabled people at risk and making it too difficult for them to get around.
But Neil Ferris, the council’s corporate director of place, said in a statement: “We want our historic city to be accessible and inclusive for all.
“The attractive features, cobbles and narrow, mediaeval streets of York’s centre present challenges to those with mobility issues, while attracting large visitor numbers which can create security risks.
“York, like cities including Chester and Newcastle, is installing measures to combat the threat of ‘vehicle as weapon attacks’, like those seen in Liverpool, Toronto, London and Nice, following advice from counter-terrorism experts and the police advising emergency vehicle access only.
“We recognise that listening to feedback from, and the lived experience of, disabled residents is a very important part of making our ambition of having a safe and accessible city centre a reality.
“Work is ongoing to improve various access aspects across the city, including the creation of additional dropped kerbs, extra blue badge bays and improvements to Stonegate to make historic streets more accessible.
“Further work on this will be informed by a specialist access consultant.
“Dial-and-ride services, wheelchair-accessible buses and Shopmobility services continue to support people to get into and around the city centre alongside York Wheels [a community transport charity].”
This news story is part of an ongoing Disability News Service series that highlights the vital work of the UK’s disabled people’s organisations
27 October 2022
Other disability-related stories covered by mainstream media this week
Disabled children suffered “serious abuse and neglect” at three residential schools in Doncaster, a report has found. The Child Safeguarding Practice Review Panel identified a “culture of abuse”, including evidence of violence and sexual harm. Its findings have prompted calls for an urgent, nationwide review of similar children’s homes: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-south-yorkshire-63392167
27 October 2022
News provided by John Pring at www.disabilitynewsservice.com
