Activists raise concerns over human rights record of company that ousted Atos
Disabled activists have raised concerns about the human rights record of the outsourcing company that defeated Atos in the battle for a multi-million-pound disability benefits assessment contract.
Disability News Service (DNS) reported last week that the government decision to award Serco the final regional contract – worth £338 million over five years – meant an end to 20 years of Atos delivering assessments on behalf of the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP).
Atos earned more than £465 million over seven years from delivering work capability assessments (WCAs) before it withdrew from the contract in 2015, following years of negative publicity and multiple links between its actions and the deaths of disabled claimants.
Its healthcare professionals have also repeatedly been accused of dishonesty in the provision of personal independence payment (PIP) assessments.
But disabled activists have this week questioned Serco’s credentials and whether it is an appropriate organisation to be carrying out assessments of disabled people, many of whom will be in significantly vulnerable situations.
They highlight how Serco has made millions delivering Home Office contracts to provide asylum accommodation, and particularly how it was linked to an abuse scandal at Yarl’s Wood immigration removal centre in Bedfordshire.
Serco insisted this week that it would with treat disabled claimants with care and would provide high quality assessments, and that it was proud of its “good track record of delivery”.
Under the new Functional Assessment Service being developed by DWP, Serco will now carry out both PIP assessments and WCAs in the south-west of England from September 2024, although a Conservative government will eventually phase out WCAs if it wins power at the next general election.
But DNS has spoken this week to the grassroots disabled women’s organisation WinVisible about its concerns over Serco’s track record.
WinVisible works closely with Women Against Rape, which in 2015 helped put together a dossier of hundreds of complaints about Yarl’s Wood, where Serco had taken over the management in 2007.
Claire Glasman, co-founder of WinVisible, told DNS this week: “They were telling us that at Yarl’s Wood this predatory regime of sexual abuse by their guards was allowed to continue for many years.
“We are worried that Serco will have the same contempt for claimants that they showed to the women in detention.
“We have many women in our group who are refugee women and many women claim disability benefits because we are survivors of traumatic experiences: war, rape, abuse as children, various traumatic things.
“We are worried that they are just going to be contemptuous of claimants in the same way as they were with the immigration detention.”
She said she believed that Serco would be “no improvement on Atos”.
Rebecca Yeo, spokesperson on refugees for Disabled People Against Cuts (DPAC), also raised concerns about Serco.
She said: “Serco’s past failure to respect the human rights of disabled people must cast doubts on whether they are a suitable organisation to be delivering assessments in a situation where we know claimants’ rights have repeatedly been breached over very many years.
“Serco are already making millions from their Home Office contracts to provide asylum accommodation.
“The company profits from providing substandard accommodation and depriving people of access to some of the most basic human needs.
“Now the company’s reach is being extended yet further to have even greater impact on the wider population of disabled people.”
Announcing its success in securing the assessment contract, Serco’s group chief executive, Mark Irwin, said last week: “We will focus on ensuring all claimants are treated with care and respect and our employees are fully supported and trained to provide high quality and consistent health assessments.”
A Serco spokesperson told DNS this week that Serco delivered services in 20 countries and across five sectors and was proud of its “good track record of delivery”.
He said: “We are committed to looking after the people in immigration removal centres with dignity and respect during what is an extremely difficult period in their lives.
“Wherever complaints or allegations are raised they are thoroughly investigated and, if appropriate, actions taken.
“We have not had a substantiated allegation of sexual abuse at Yarl’s Wood since 2012.”
He added: “Serco provides accommodation for asylum seekers on behalf of the Home Office in two of the six regions of the UK.
“Our teams are committed to supporting the asylum seekers accommodated by Serco with compassion, dignity and respect.
“All the accommodation we provide is regularly inspected and complies with the terms of our contract with the Home Office and with all appropriate housing standards.
“As with any housing, faults do occur. These are repaired by our teams in line with our contract, which sets strict time limits for the completion of repairs.”
He said Serco would draw on its “existing knowledge and capabilities supporting the DWP and partner with existing supply chain providers in the region.
“We will also draw on our international expertise in this area of work, including managing a large workforce of health professionals in support of the Australian Defence Force, delivering the National Disability Enquiry Service in Australia, and supporting eligibility determinations for citizens in the US under the country’s Affordable Care Act.”
He added: “In the development of our proposals to the DWP we proactively sought to engage with disabled people’s organisations, advocacy groups and people with lived experience to look to address some of the challenges faced by people going through the process to ensure this fed into a better claimant experience and to build a more appropriate solution.
“This included using universal design principles to make the services easier to access and navigate the system, both physically and digitally.”
But there are other concerns about Serco’s track record in the UK and internationally.
In 2019, the company was fined more than £19 million after admitting fraudulently understating profits from Ministry of Justice electronic tagging contracts.
Serco said this week that this “related to issues from 2013 and before” and that it “undertook an extensive corporate renewal programme”, and the company “today bears no relation to that at the time with processes, culture, management, and governance all considerably strengthened”.
There are also historic concerns over Serco’s actions at detention centres in Australia, including allegations of excessive force and harassment.
A Serco spokesperson said: “All Serco employees working in immigration detention in Australia are bound by local law, the Australian Public Service code of conduct and Serco’s own code of conduct.
“We take any complaints or reports of inappropriate activity seriously.
“Alleged breaches are investigated, and appropriate action taken, including reporting to the Australian Border Force and legal authorities.”
Although this is Serco’s first benefit assessment contract in the UK, it has secured other DWP contracts, including delivering employment programmes such as Restart.
Last year, DNS reported how Serco – which was running a DWP helpline – told a disabled patient to leave hospital to visit a jobcentre when he was severely ill with a condition that later killed him and who was “very vulnerable to infection”.
DWP later claimed it had not been aware of the severity of his illness at the time.
Meanwhile, DPAC and allies will be protesting outside DWP’s Caxton House offices in Westminster from noon on Monday (30 October) over “horrendously dangerous” government proposals to tighten the WCA.
The protest takes place on the final day of a DWP consultation on its plans, which DPAC says will lead to many disabled people losing both out-of-work disability benefits and protection from conditionality and sanctions.
Under the plans, DWP would no longer take any account of whether a disabled person has a mobility impairment when deciding if they are fit for work or work-related activity.
Ministers are also suggesting removing the absence of bowel or bladder control, the inability to cope with social interaction, and the inability to access a location outside the claimant’s home, from the list of activities and “descriptors” used in the WCA.
They have argued that the “rise in flexible working and homeworking” provides “new opportunities for disabled people to manage their conditions in a more familiar and accessible environment”.
They are also considering removing protective guidance which states that a claimant should be found eligible for the highest rate of support – with no conditions or potential sanctions – if work or work-related activity would create a substantial risk to their health.
26 October 2023
Accessible transport laws are complex, unclear and not enforced, MPs are told
The legislation around accessible transport is unclear and “ridiculously complex”, with the rules protecting disabled people from discrimination not enforced by regulators or the government, MPs have been told.
Disabled campaigners and legal experts told the Commons transport committee yesterday (Wednesday) of the significant barriers disabled passengers face in trying to assert their right to use public transport.
Their evidence was part of the committee’s ongoing inquiry into the legal obligations that are supposed to ensure accessible transport.
Professor Anna Lawson, a law professor at the University of Leeds, said the systems to challenge transport providers over access are “very complex”, while finding legal advice is a “massive problem” because there are so few solicitors who specialise in this area.
She said: “Accessibility doesn’t have a high enough profile, and in other countries there is more of an effort being made to really foreground the importance of accessibility as an issue.”
Accessible transport campaigner Doug Paulley said the legislation was “ridiculously complex”, with much of it 20 to 25 years old, “and yet we’re still fighting for basic compliance with that legislation”, while “regulators and enforcers to one degree or another don’t know or enforce the law, or don’t know what’s going on on the ground”.
He told the committee about serious breaches he had informed regulators about – which they had been unaware of – including discrimination by coach operators, and with home-to-school buses and rail replacement buses.
He contrasted the challenges disabled people face when they want to challenge transport providers over access to the situation when “you get food poisoning in a dodgy takeaway”.
He said: “Then you can speak to the local environmental health people, who will go and inspect and take whatever action and keep you anonymous, and they have a duty to deal with it.
“But if you’re discriminated against [on transport] then the only way to enforce is either to take legal action yourself, or complain, or try and get a regulator to use their discretion to enforce.”
Caroline Stickland, chief executive of Transport for All (TfA), said that “all too often” campaigners see the flawed legislation, the processes of making complaints and “the fragmentation of the different regulations” across different types of transport “actually becoming a barrier in and of itself, when really it should be there to remove those other barriers”.
She said: “Issues such as individuals having to take claims under the [Equality Act], individuals having to make complaints, individuals really having that burden of trying to enforce the law to remove those barriers ourselves, is really not the right way around.”
One TfA member told her this week that 75 per cent of her taxi journeys this month have seen the driver “charging her while they were putting the ramps out for her to disembark, which is illegal”.
She said: “There’s clearly a time requirement to sit and make a complaint… Even just finding out who you’re meant to complain to sometimes needs kind of like a PhD.”
Barrister Catherine Casserley, an expert in disability discrimination, told the MPs there was a “very difficult enforcement regime” when it came to accessible transport failures.
She said she has disabled clients who repeatedly face discrimination from the same provider and “put up with an incredible amount”.
She said: “The cases that I deal with, if people brought cases for every time there had been a breach of legislation, they would be in court all the time, and they would do nothing but bring cases.”
Casserley said that disability legislation was “a mess”, with “the attitude that’s displayed to disabled people and to their access needs reflected in the legislative progress that there’s been… or lack of progress”.
She said there did not seem to be “much of a will… to do anything about it”.
Lawson pointed to the Accessible Canada Act, which came into force four years ago, as a possible model to follow for reform in the UK.
She said the act aims to “heighten the profile of accessibility, and resource it, and place it within the centre of government”, while it also created a public body to set accessibility standards and an accessibility commissioner “who is the focal point through which you can channel complaints”.
She said both Canada and the United States – which also develops accessibility standards in “very deep consultation and the involvement of disabled people and their organisations” – place responsibility on government bodies “to be proactive in going out and monitoring the compliance of these accessibility standards”.
She said: “It’s not just a case of waiting until complaints come.”
Paulley told the committee that the “poorly enforceable and unenforceable” legislation “is a reflection of the fact that disabled people’s access needs are not seen with the priority that they should be… and this has been the case for so long”.
He said there would have to be “a huge volume” of legal cases taken against transport providers to make a difference, when the current number of cases, compared with the number of incidents of discrimination, “is tiny”.
He said: “That’s what needs to happen. And for that to happen, the whole enforcement model has to go from individual disabled people trying to enforce it yourself… [to introducing] a proactive duty on competent regulators and enforcers to make that happen.”
Paulley also highlighted the discrimination against scooter-users, which he said was “just phenomenal” and “ridiculous”, with “each transport operator having its own different scheme” and rail operator ScotRail even banning them altogether “unless you can get on and fold it up and put it in the luggage rack”.
26 October 2023
Council ‘silences’ disabled woman set to speak out over care charges
A disabled woman has been prevented by a council from describing to a public meeting how its “inhumane” and “unjust” care charging policies will strip more than £100 a week from her benefits.
Hannahlisa* was part of a two-person delegation from the grassroots group Accessible Care in Lambeth, who wanted to address a public meeting of Labour-run Lambeth Council last week about its policies on charging for social care.
But despite the significant effort she made to attend, council officers prevented her from giving a one-minute speech about the discrimination she has faced.
Fellow campaigner Margaret Ashmead had told the meeting that the care charges imposed were “harmful and cruel” and of the “scandal” of the south London council taking benefits from disabled people “whose health and wellbeing are already at risk” to pay for their care charges.
Ashmead, a carer for both her 92-year-old mother and her adult disabled daughter, also described the council’s failure to follow guidance on disability-related expenditure (PDF).
But after she had addressed the council, Hannahlisa – who had been waiting to speak – was ushered away by council officers.
Although Inclusion London’s Jon Abrams tried to persuade an officer to allow her to speak, the council refused to give her the few minutes she would need to return and deliver her speech to the meeting.
She would have described how she had been forced to return her “lifeline”, a pendant that allowed her to call paramedics when she fell over – which she often does – after the council started charging her £8 a week for the service.
She would have told the council: “Ever since that pendant was taken, my safety is compromised.
“There have been nights where I’ve been stranded, lying cold on my bathroom floor, with distant family unable to rush to my aid.
“The sun rises, and only then does my carer arrive to help.”
She has also been told the council will charge her more than £100 a week from her benefits “to set up a care package so I can get the support I so desperately need”.
She would have said: “This, councillors, is not just a charge but a tax on my disability.
“I urge you to reconsider this decision, for it is not just inhumane but unjust.
“Every individual deserves dignity, safety, and the right to care. Let’s make sure Lambeth stands for that.”
Abrams, Inclusion London’s campaigns and justice coordinator, said afterwards that the way Hannahlisa had been treated by the council was “scandalous”.
He said: “Not only are they proposing to strip her of over £100 a week of her welfare benefits as a charge to pay for vital social care support but last night they also stripped her of her voice.”
He suggested the council had failed to understand its duties to disabled people under the Equality Act.
Cllr Jim Dickson, the job-share cabinet member for healthier communities, said after Ashmead’s speech that members of the council’s Labour administration “agree with you that the care charging regime in this country, which all councils fall within and have to work with, is out of date and needs huge reform”.
He said the council provided “an awful lot of support” for disabled people, through both social care and “our cost-of-living work”.
And he agreed that there were “huge inequities” in the care and charging system, and highlighted “cuts in government funding which mean we have to charge at all”.
A council spokesperson told Disability News Service this week: “Deputations are invited to speak for five minutes, split across as many speakers as they wish, and this was explained to Margaret and Hannahlisa.
“On this occasion, Margaret’s contribution took five minutes, after which a response was provided by Cllr Jim Dickson on behalf of the council.
“Deputations, which over many years have represented the diverse demographic of Lambeth, sometimes request additional time but in fairness to all those taking part this is not possible.
“Cllr Dickson is very happy to meet Hannahlisa to discuss her situation if she would like to get in touch. She is also welcome to request another delegation at a future meeting.
“Everyone who attended will receive a written response to their deputation.”
Abrams said Inclusion London was concerned that Lambeth council “did not fully understand” how its public sector equality duty – under the Equality Act – had applied to the deputation process.
He said: “While we appreciate the constraints of the deputation process, adequate time and consideration are crucial, especially when disabled people are part of a deputation.
“Extending the time by a few minutes would have been a reasonable adjustment, which councils usually strive to do.
“Having attended numerous council meetings across London, I was surprised and disheartened that Lambeth council did not make this effort.”
*She has asked for her surname not to be used
26 October 2023
The State of Care is ‘longer waits and reduced access’, says watchdog
The care watchdog has raised a series of concerns about access to care and support, the over-use of restraint and seclusion, and the failure to provide legal protection to disabled people in vulnerable situations, in an annual report.
In its annual assessment of the state of health and adult social care in England, the Care Quality Commission (CQC) warned that a combination of the cost-of-living crisis and pressures on the health and care workforce risked “longer waits, reduced access and poorer outcomes for some”.
In its State of Care report, the commission warns that local authority budgets have “failed to keep pace with rising costs and the increase in the number of people needing care”.
This has led to the risk that people who live in more deprived areas “may not be able to get the care they need”, it says.
And it says that some disabled people who pay for their own care at home have had to cut back on support as providers have increased their fees.
The report also raises concerns that staffing shortages in the mental health sector have led to “the over-use of restrictive practices, including restraint, seclusion, and segregation”.
There is also an analysis of the continuing problems with the Deprivation of Liberty (DoL) system of human rights safeguards.
Care homes and hospitals should apply DoLs when an adult does not have the mental capacity to consent to their care arrangements and they need to be deprived of their liberty through “supervision and control”, but this should only happen when “necessary, proportionate and in the person’s best interests”.
CQC said it was concerned that the DoLs system was unable to cope with the demand for assessments, with the number of applications to deprive a person of their liberty increasing to over 300,000 in 2022-23, with only one-fifth of standard applications completed within the statutory 21-day timeframe.
DoLs were supposed to be replaced by the new Liberty Protection Safeguard (LPS) system in October 2020, but the government said in April that their implementation would be delayed “beyond the life of this Parliament”.
The report says: “We are concerned about what this means for people being potentially deprived of their liberty unlawfully, for their family and friends, and for providers and local authorities.
“Disabled people and older people are more likely to require the safeguards offered by DoLs and will therefore be disproportionately affected by the decision to delay LPS.”
The report says CQC is concerned that the problems with DoLs are contributing to the overuse of “restrictive practices”, with its expert advisory group warning that some adult social care providers “continue to use stricter measures introduced during the pandemic without recognising them as potential human rights infringements”.
The report also says that NHS England data shows the number of new requests to councils for adult social care support increased by three per cent between 2020-21 and 2021-22 to reach nearly two million requests.
But more than half a million of these requests (568,685) did not result in extra support, an increase of more than four per cent, while another 522,850 received only universal services (those available to anyone, without the need for an assessment) or were advised to contact non-council services, such as local charities.
Since 2017-18, the rate of new requests granted through either short- or long-term care has fallen by more than two per cent, from 915 to 895 per 100,000 population aged 18 and over.
Meanwhile, the rate of requests from working-age adults per 100,000 population has increased by 15 per cent over the last five years, while in 2021-22 more than 205,000 adults aged 18 to 64 were not provided with adult social care support when they requested it.
Mikey Erhardt, from Disability Rights UK, said: “The latest Care Quality Commission report is a damning indictment of our failing system.
“Disabled people across the country are being failed by a system that simply does not care.
“This report must be a red line, which breaks the current cross-party consensus on cuts, and spurs the change we all need to experience.”
The Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) said this week that it had made up to £8.1 billion available in additional funding to support adult social care over the next two years, which it claims will put the system on a stronger financial footing and help local authorities address waiting-lists, low fee rates, and workforce pressures.
The CQC report also warns that people with learning difficulties and autistic people “continue to be in hospital inappropriately when they should be receiving care in the community”.
At the end of September 2023, there were 2,045 such inpatients, and more than half of them (1,115) had been there for more than two years*.
But this is a drop of less than 200 on the 2,240 inpatients there were at the end of March 2022 – 18 months ago – whereas the government’s target is to cut the number of people with learning difficulties and autistic people in specialist inpatient care by 50 per cent by March 2024 compared with March 2015, when there were 2,900.
A DHSC spokesperson said: “We remain committed to achieving our ambition set out in the NHS Long Term Plan to reduce by half the number of autistic people and people with a learning disability in mental health hospitals, by March 2024, through investment in community support.
“This year, we are investing an additional £121 million to improve community support, including funding for children and young people’s keyworkers.
“The number of people with a learning disability and autistic people in specialist mental health inpatient settings at the end of September 2023 was 2,045 – a 30 per cent net reduction since March 2015.”
*These are more up-to-date figures than those in the CQC report, as new figures were released by NHS Digital last week
26 October 2023
Ministers reject Tory pleas for new law that would support disabled councillors
Ministers have rejected the chance to scrap rules that prevent disabled councillors taking part in council meetings remotely, despite Conservative MPs and peers urging them to change the law.
Members of the House of Lords finally accepted defeat yesterday (Wednesday) after the government repeatedly rejected amendments to its levelling-up and regeneration bill that would have eased the rules that mean councillors must attend a meeting in person if they want to take part.
Emergency regulations that allowed council meetings to be held online – or in a “hybrid” combination of in-person and online attendance – during the pandemic were only in place until 6 May 2021.
Since then, it has been illegal for councils in England to hold hybrid or virtual meetings, although the Welsh government passed legislation allowing remote meetings two years ago, while Scottish local authorities have had powers to do so for 20 years.
A Local Government Association (LGA) survey found that 95 per cent of councils want the powers to be able to reintroduce virtual and hybrid technology for statutory council meetings.
Two disabled councillors, both Conservatives, spoke in June of how the ability to take part in meetings virtually on some occasions would allow them to fulfil their roles.
One of them, Cllr Dr Jane Worlock, a councillor at Hart District Council in Hampshire, who has a progressive mobility impairment, said: “Attending virtually during the pandemic allowed me to fully realise what truly accessible local government could look like.
“Flexibility through hybrid meetings could remove the inherent barriers of in-person only meetings and encourage greater public engagement from parents, carers, full-time workers and disabled people who might find it more challenging to attend in-person.
“It would be difficult for me to overstate how important it is that councils are allowed the flexibility to offer virtual and hybrid meeting options.”
The LGA call for the government to allow hybrid meetings was backed by a series of Conservative MPs and peers – and other political parties – over the last week, as supporters pushed for a change in the law.
Among them were Tory MPs Peter Aldous, Liam Fox and Theresa Villiers, who called on ministers to change their resistance to a modernisation of the law.
Aldous said on Tuesday: “Set in the overall context of a bill that gives local communities and local councils greater discretion and greater autonomy and looks to devolve powers away from Whitehall, it is perverse that the government are dictating to local authorities how they conduct themselves.
“The provision will strengthen local democracy and will make it easier for such groups as the disabled, parents with young children, carers and those in full-time employment to participate in decision-making in their own local communities.”
Despite his comments, MPs voted against the amendment by 292 to 177.
In the Lords, the Conservative peer Baroness [Anne] McIntosh, a former Conservative MP, who proposed the amendments to change the law, said on Monday: “It is not fair that they should be excluded from attending a meeting because they cannot get there physically either because of weather – floods and storms, or snow in the winter – or due to some disability or illness or childcare commitments.”
Among the Conservative peers who supported her call was former health secretary Lord [Andrew] Lansley, who said there were “physical, demographic and personal circumstances that mean that members may wish or need to participate in meetings remotely”.
But Earl Howe, the Conservative deputy leader of the House of Lords, said the government had “consistently expressed the view that councillors should be physically present to cast their votes and interact in person with citizens”.
The view was repeated in the Commons on Tuesday by housing and planning minister Rachel Maclean, who said the government’s position had not changed.
She said all MPs recognised the “real problems faced by people who wish to take part in local democracy without being excluded because of where they live, because they do not have a car or because of other barriers”, and she added: “We need our politics to be as inclusive as possible.”
But she said the government could not accept the Lords amendment and told MPs: “It is a long-standing principle that local democracy should take place face to face.”
Withdrawing her amendment yesterday, Baroness McIntosh said: “To move from completely virtual attendance during Covid to a situation where no virtual or remote attendance is allowed seems baffling.”
She suggested she would try again in the future to secure a change in the law, telling Earl Howe: “If there is any possibility in any of the legislation in the King’s Speech, I will latch on to it. I give him early warning of that.”
26 October 2023
Only one in three disabled PhD students receive the support they need, report finds
Only a third of disabled postgraduate doctoral students receive the support they need to study on an equal footing with their non-disabled colleagues, new research has revealed.
The report also found that nearly nine in 10 (86 per cent) of the disabled students surveyed said that conducting their PhD research had negatively impacted their mental health.
The research* – which included a UK-wide survey of 192 doctoral students – focused on disabled PhD students in science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM).
The report, Improving the Experience of Disabled PhD students in STEM, was written by Disabled Students UK – which is run by current and former disabled students – and Pete Quinn Consulting.
It suggests seven ways that support for disabled PhD students could be improved, including addressing gaps in support; reducing the “administrative burden” associated with securing support; and improving safeguards to prevent the relationship between disabled PhD students and their supervisors deteriorating.
The survey results showed that those who found the administrative process of setting up support “quick and easy” were 4.5 times more likely to say they had the support they needed, compared to students who had not found it quick and easy.
And PhD students whose supervisors were “accepting and supportive” of their impairments were more than 12 times more likely to secure the support they needed, although 38 per cent of those surveyed said their supervisors were not well-equipped to support them.
The report also calls for universities to make the physical and sensory environments on campuses more accessible, with students with mobility impairments the least likely to have a sense of belonging at their institution.
And it calls for disabled PhD students to be allowed to study “at a pace that suits different bodies and minds”, as they are more likely to drop out than other PhD students.
One disabled PhD student told the researchers: “Disability services staff were very kind and wanted to help, but just had no experience supporting PhD students, especially those working in labs.
“I went to them because long hours working at an inappropriately positioned microscope was exacerbating my chronic pain and making it very difficult to work, and initially all they could offer me was ‘extra time in exams, and permission to record lectures’.
“Both of these accommodations are useless because as a PhD student I don’t have lectures or exams.
“It felt like they had no idea how to support anyone that wasn’t doing an undergraduate degree.
“After a few months, they lent me an ergonomic mouse, which has been some help.”
Some PhD students spoke of having to prove they were disabled before their university would provide them with the reasonable adjustments they needed.
One said: “The biggest change would be to believe and accept students’ disabilities even if they don’t have a formal diagnosis or documentation.
“This would involve adjusting the process for requesting accommodations and making it more accessible to those who do not yet have formal documentation.
“I struggled severely for the first two years of my degree due to health issues and lack of accommodations, but I did not have the required medical diagnosis documentation to be able to submit the online form and begin the accommodations process.”
Another said: “Until I filled in this questionnaire, it never occurred to me that I could complain about the lack of support [my university] offered.
“I’d told them I was on a waiting list of [autism] assessment, but there was no support available without a diagnosis, and the waiting list was 18 months long, so it’s been a bit of a surf-through-hell-on-a-chocolate-board really.”
Other disabled doctoral students highlighted the need for better funding for university disability services departments.
One said: “Fund the disability services so they are no longer so horrendously overworked that it takes months for them to reply to their emails.”
Another told the researchers: “Employ more people in the disability offices so students don’t have to wait for months after they start to get the reasonable adjustments they need and are entitled to from day one.”
The research found that those disabled students who felt they had somewhere to turn with disability-related issues were 3.7 times more likely to feel they belonged at the institution than those who did not.
And more than half of those surveyed (53 per cent) reported being concerned about how they were going to meet their financial commitments.
The report also stresses the need to ensure that international disabled PhD students are aware they have the same right to support as students from the UK, and that doctoral students know they have a right to the same level of support as taught disabled students, whether it is funded by disabled students’ allowance or by their institution.
Disabled students often take longer to complete study tasks, have less time and are in a financially difficult position, but the report’s authors said they “were concerned to see that funders often have policies which make it impossible for disabled students to get extensions, take sick leave or reduce their work hours without a loss of funds”.
They conclude: “Our report consistently shows the importance of allocation of responsibility, communication and collaboration within and between the bodies responsible for accessibility for doctoral students.”
But they add: “Throughout this work we found numerous examples that whether accommodations were put in place was largely down to whether disability was prioritised to the same degree as other protected characteristics.
“Senior leaders must take responsibility and listen to the data and lived experience expertise to create lasting change.”
*The research was funded by the Oxford Interdisciplinary Bioscience Doctoral Training Partnership, a four-year graduate training programme funded by the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council
26 October 2023
Disabled mum calls for others to challenge discriminatory roadworks
A disabled woman who successfully challenged a utility company over the discriminatory actions of its contractors, after they made crossing-points impossible for her and her daughter to access, is calling on other disabled people to follow her example.
Kate Ball, from Derby, has secured compensation and an apology from CityFibre and now hopes her victory will encourage other disabled people to challenge utility companies that discriminate against them by blocking their path with temporary works.
She and her disabled daughter Sophia, who is autistic and has learning difficulties, were out for a walk on 15 July when they were forced to attempt a risky road crossing because two pedestrian crossings were blocked with equipment placed there by contractors working for broadband network provider CityFibre.
Ball uses a wheelchair and Sophia cannot judge vehicle speeds, and both of them were put at risk by having to cross the road when they saw a gap in the traffic, rather than being able to use a pedestrian crossing.
After the incident, Ball secured information about the roadworks – which were there because CityFibre was laying broadband cables – from Derby City Council, and contacted CityFibre and its contractors.
She then wrote a “letter before action” to CityFibre, explaining that she and her daughter were both disabled and had faced discrimination because of its actions, and told the company she was prepared to take it to court for disability discrimination under the Equality Act.
She pointed to Department for Transport guidance, Safety at Street Works and Road Works, which makes it clear that failure to comply with the code of practice is a criminal offence*.
The code warns “operatives, supervisors, managers, planners and designers” of road works that they “must pay particular attention to the needs of disabled people”.
In response to her letter, CityFibre apologised and blamed “human error” and “poor site management” by its contractors.
A manager told her: “CityFibre recognises the need to ensure that our build is designed inclusively and in line with legislation and that our contractor failed in this regard.”
She accepted the offer of £500 compensation, and a promise to ensure training for CityFibre’s contractor Trust Utility Management (TUM) that would “emphasize their responsibility for site standards and safety, including contractor-installed traffic management”.
CityFibre also said it would stop using the sub-contractor used by TUM to carry out works “due to their failure to meet the required standards”.
But after Ball pushed CityFibre further, it also agreed to review its own internal training.
Ball told Disability News Service: “My hope is that other people could use a similar approach if they know about it.
“I’d really like more disabled people to know how road works should legally give access as I think this could be a very useful way to help people improve provision and stop temporary road works from blocking people’s journeys.”
CityFibre and TUM refused to comment.
*The code applies across the UK, although failure to comply with it is not a criminal offence in Scotland where Scottish government ministers have authority over its application
26 October 2023
Other disability-related stories covered by mainstream media this week
Tory ministers and train bosses must halt plans to shut almost all railway ticket offices because they are moving “too far, too fast”, MPs have warned. The Commons transport committee said the government must rethink the mass closure as it will hit disabled, older and “vulnerable” people. In a letter to rail minister Huw Merriman, the committee said changes should be piloted in a small number of locations so the impact can be properly assessed: https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/tory-ministers-told-halt-too-31257235
A woman who has been stuck in hospital for 16 months due to a lack of accessible social homes says she is “in limbo”. Sophie Shuttleworth, from Newport, became paralysed after developing meningitis in July 2022. Social properties with the adaptations she needs have become available, but they have been reserved for people over 55. Freedom of information requests to all 22 local authorities in Wales showed a gap in accessible housing stock data: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-67169806
Government officials are using artificial intelligence (AI) and complex algorithms to help decide everything from who gets benefits to who should have their marriage licence approved, according to a Guardian investigation. The findings shed light on the haphazard and often uncontrolled way that cutting-edge technology is being used across Whitehall. Civil servants in at least eight Whitehall departments and a handful of police forces are using AI, especially when it comes to helping make decisions over welfare, immigration and criminal justice: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2023/oct/23/uk-officials-use-ai-to-decide-on-issues-from-benefits-to-marriage-licences
26 October 2023
News provided by John Pring at www.disabilitynewsservice.com
