Rights ignored, no protection, no safety net, no real engagement, DPOs tell Covid inquiry
Disabled people were left without protection, written out of key investigations and proper consultation, and had their rights ignored by the UK government during the pandemic, four national disabled people’s organisations (DPOs) have told the Covid inquiry.
They told the inquiry yesterday (Wednesday) that the government failed to recognise that there was no plan to protect disabled people when the pandemic broke out in early 2020.
They also said that the pandemic exposed the government’s Disability Unit as not fit for purpose because it dealt only with policy issues.
The comments were made by barrister Danny Friedman, on behalf of Disability Rights UK, Inclusion Scotland, Disability Wales and Disability Action Northern Ireland, as he delivered their closing statement for the second module of the Covid inquiry, which focuses on government decisions in the early months of the pandemic.
He told the inquiry that “in fundamental ways disabled people were left without protection during Covid”.
He said: “It was not wrong to try to protect hospitals. What was wrong was to do so little to protect those in care in the name of protecting hospitals.”
Evidence to the inquiry has shown, he said, “how obvious it would have been to any public health practitioners that mass release of hospital patients into care settings would create devastating consequences, both through patient infection and multiple movements of the workforce”.
The four DPOs also told the inquiry – through Friedman – that the lack of real engagement with disabled people meant the government was unable “to bring diverse lived experience and, where necessary, rebel voices into the room, people capable of speaking to elites as equals and without mediation”.
There was also “no proper safety net for those deemed unproductive or recognition that those only just scraping by after a decade of cuts to benefits and services would face further financial hardship”.
While there were 1.5 million “bounce back loans” worth £47 billion to businesses, universal credit was topped up by just £20 a week, while there was no increase for those on legacy benefits, or those receiving carers’ allowance in England.
Friedman told the inquiry that the oral evidence heard during the second module – which included appearances by former prime minister Boris Johnson, the current prime minister (and former chancellor) Rishi Sunak, and the former minister for disabled people, Justin Tomlinson – reinforced nine key criticisms made by the DPOs of “the Covid emergency state”.
On behalf of the DPOs, Friedman said disabled people “did not exist” in UK emergency planning before the pandemic, even though the UN committee on the rights of persons with disabilities had found the UK in breach of its legal duties over consultation, data collection and emergency planning in October 2017.
He said the UN committee had also concluded, in 2016, that “the resilience of disabled people had been placed in abject jeopardy by 10 years of austerity” and yet “at no stage in any of the papers [seen by the Covid inquiry] does anyone recognise these rights, or the fact that the UK could conceivably breach them”.
He told the inquiry: “Proper recognition would have publicly confronted from the outset that cuts in benefits and services had compromised the resilience of disabled people to deal with the life changes that the NPIs* were about to create.
“It would have declared clearly that the fact that there was no whole society planning for the pandemic in the UK would rebound terribly on disabled people.”
Friedman told the inquiry that Tomlinson, Johnson, former equalities minister Kemi Badenoch and former Cabinet Office minister Michael Gove had testified that “the risks of Covid to disabled people were so obvious that all of government was no doubt working on them”.
But Friedman said these risks had been “obvious to everyone, but the responsibility of no one”, and when civil servants “were finally pushed to deliver ambitious proposals” in the autumn of 2020, “none of the major proposals were adopted”.
He also highlighted how Tomlinson, who was the minister “nominally responsible” for producing a plan to protect disabled people, had repeatedly told the inquiry, when asked why there was no such plan: “That’s just not how government works.”
Friedman said that Badenoch, Tomlinson, former health secretary Matt Hancock and Johnson all claimed not to be responsible for addressing the “disparities” in the impact of the pandemic on disabled people, because that work was being done elsewhere.
He said: “In our submission, they all said that because they know now it should have been, but it was not.”
Friedman told the inquiry that the “predicaments” of disabled people went “largely unrecognised”, with the primary focus on those who were “clinically vulnerable” to the virus.
He said: “Strategies to protect the vulnerable and the overlaps and distinctions between clinical and social vulnerability failed in ways that most of the witnesses you have heard from have either not been able to comprehend or admit.”
*Non-pharmaceutical interventions ordered by government to deal with the pandemic
14 December 2023
Labour calls for urgent probe into ‘devastating’ DWP dossier
Labour has called for an urgent government investigation into a “devastating” dossier of evidence that suggests the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) is “in a state of crisis” and faces a “near collapse” of its benefits system.
Evidence submitted to the department by the Public and Commercial Services Union (PCS) last week warned that benefit claimants in vulnerable situations were “falling through the gaps” in the system and accused DWP of “deliberate neglect”.
The union’s dossier detailed multiple concerns about universal credit (UC), with one manager describing staff facing “completely overwhelming” workloads.
It followed a series of reports by Disability News Service (DNS) that have highlighted serious safeguarding concerns around UC and the wider benefits system, including senior figures at a mental health trust telling a coroner that DWP’s actions were having a significant “debilitating” impact on service-users across the country.
DNS has also reported how whistleblowers at a jobcentre have warned of serious safeguarding concerns and massively overworked DWP work coaches, with many driven to mental health breakdowns.
Labour has previously been criticised for not speaking out about the series of safeguarding concerns affecting DWP, and their impact on disabled people.
But this week, Vicky Foxcroft, the shadow minister for disabled people, told DNS that the government should investigate the PCS dossier.
She said: “The contents of this report are very concerning.
“It is worrying to hear that DWP staff feel under so much pressure that it is affecting their mental health and that vulnerable claimants are being left without proper support.
“It is further concerning to read reports that staff are being put under pressure to sanction claimants when we were told this practice had ended.
“The government must urgently investigate.”
She said a Labour government would deliver “much-needed fundamental reform to universal credit to make it work for everyone who relies on it”.
DNS has also passed the latest evidence to Sir Stephen Timms, chair of the Commons work and pensions committee, which is carrying out an inquiry into how DWP safeguards “vulnerable benefit claimants”.
He said: “The latest claims from the PCS union, and details that have emerged from a recent inquest, add to existing concerns about whether DWP is doing enough to protect the wellbeing of the people who it is there to support.
“As part of our safeguarding inquiry, the committee will in the new year be raising with ministers concerns about DWP’s responsibilities, and how it learns lessons from past failures, ahead of making recommendations to the government on how vulnerable people can be protected better in the future.”
His committee yesterday (Wednesday) heard evidence from Daphne Hall, vice-chair of the National Association of Welfare Rights Advisers and an editor with rightsnet, which provides social welfare law advice and information.
She told MPs that the dossier handed to DWP last week by PCS contained “quite horrific” evidence from work coaches who were under “such enormous pressure” that they do not have the time they need with claimants.
She said that the “tailored approach” to dealing with claimants – which is stressed in the government’s “back to work” reforms – “doesn’t exist”.
She said: “They haven’t got time to tailor… They can’t cope. Their workload is too high.
“They are all stretched to unbelievable levels.
“If the staff welfare isn’t looked at, they’re not in a position to look after the claimants to support them.”
John McDonnell, Labour’s shadow chancellor under Jeremy Corbyn and a long-standing supporter of the disabled people’s anti-cuts movement, told DNS: “Evidence is mounting of the collapse of the DWP, the harm its policies are causing and especially its failure to protect the most vulnerable.
“People’s lives are being put at serious risk. We need an immediate intervention to end this brutal regime.”
Mark Harrison, a member of the steering group of Reclaiming Our Futures Alliance (ROFA), said ROFA was “extremely concerned at the latest revelations about the safeguarding flaws in universal credit that have caused deaths and mental distress for too many disabled claimants”.
He said this was “more worrying” because of the government’s plans to scrap the work capability assessment after the next election, which he said would move all claimants “into the sanctioning regime of UC” and cut many disabled people’s benefits.
Under those plans, disabled people who cannot work will only be able to qualify for a new health element of UC if they also receive personal independence payment, disability living allowance, or, in Scotland, adult disability payment.
This would also mean that it would be left to DWP’s over-worked work coaches – who will usually have no health-related qualifications – to decide if a disabled person should carry out work-related activity.
Harrison added: “It is not surprising DWP staff are under stress at the targets set by management for unnecessary and cruel sanctions.”
He said ROFA was not confident Labour would agree to the “complete rethink and change of course” that was needed, as the party had apparently dropped its commitment to scrapping universal credit.
He said: “When will they commit to reversing the changes to welfare benefits that have targeted disabled people as though we are the ‘enemy within’ and the cause of the economic crisis?
“This toxic rhetoric has to be challenged by progressive politicians and allies.
“We need policies based on the UN convention* and a social model, rights-based approach.”
DWP said last week – in response to the PCS dossier – that it was “committed to supporting the wellbeing of our staff, and provide access to a comprehensive range of assistance for their physical and mental health.
“We have recruitment plans in place to maintain key services – providing excellent opportunities for existing staff and new recruits who are playing a vital role in our next generation welfare reforms to help thousands back into jobs, grow the economy and drive down inflation.”
Meanwhile, reports today suggest the government has scrapped the post of minister for disabled people, a week after Tom Pursglove’s move to an immigration ministerial post at the Home Office.
A Conservative party spokesperson told DNS this week that he could not comment on the failure to appoint a replacement as it was an issue for Number 10.
A Number 10 spokesperson refused to say if there would be any more ministerial appointments to DWP and that discussion of “ministerial portfolios” was a matter for DWP.
A DWP spokesperson said that any ministerial announcement “will happen in the usual way”.
But LBC’s political editor Natasha Clark reported this afternoon on Twitter that Number 10 had finally confirmed it would not be appointing a replacement for Pursglove.
She said: “The brief will be handed to someone within the department already, on top of their existing responsibilities.
“Comes after last week they appointed two migration ministers.
“No 10 deny it is a downgrade. They say: ‘Actions matter. You will continue to see a government showing strong support for disabled people and disabled issues.’”
*The UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities
14 December 2023
Court set to be told how DWP misrepresented plans to reform ‘fitness for work’ test
A disabled activist has begun a judicial review claim against the government that accuses it of misrepresenting controversial plans to reform the work capability assessment (WCA).
Ellen Clifford said that a Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) consultation on the plans to tighten the assessment process – which ended on 30 October – appeared to have been used as a “smokescreen for cuts”.
She is also arguing that the eight-week consultation period on the changes – which will not be implemented until 2025 – was too short and that work and pensions secretary Mel Stride failed to make the consultation accessible to many disabled people.
Clifford is arguing that Stride presented the reforms as helping disabled people, when in fact they focused on cutting spending and will reduce income by up to £390 a month.
Confirmation of the changes to the assessment were made as part of the autumn statement – just three weeks after the consultation closed – with chancellor Jeremy Hunt saying it was “wrong economically and wrong morally” to provide support for so many disabled people without forcing them to look for work.
Hunt claimed the tightening of the assessment reflected “greater flexibility and availability of home working after the pandemic”.
The changes will cut DWP spending by an estimated £125 million in 2025-26, £500 million in 2026-27, £900 million in 2027-28, and £1.265 billion in 2028-29.
And, according to the Office for Budget Responsibility (PDF), this will mean 371,000 disabled people will lose their entitlement to extra support – and start being subject to conditionality and sanctions – as they are moved out of the LCWRA group (or the ESA support group) by 2028-29.
But the WCA reforms will increase employment by just 10,000 by 2028-29, the Office for Budget Responsibility estimates.
Clifford, a member of the national steering group of Disabled People Against Cuts (DPAC) and author of The War on Disabled People, said: “While I was originally frustrated with the proposals being consulted on and the short timeframe, which prevented me from being able to respond, the autumn statement seems to indicate that the goal may have been to save money all along.
“There is nothing in the proposed reforms that will actually help or support disabled people, and the consultation papers did not tell anyone that the DWP was looking to save money by bringing in the proposals.
“Having presented these reforms as support, the government’s consultation now looks to have been a smokescreen for cuts.
“Deaf and disabled people will also face more sanctions and risk losing money if they fail to comply with new and often absurd conditions and requirements, which will be imposed on them as a direct result of these reforms.
“The harm this will cause is bad enough, but to be told it is meant to help us as disabled people to ‘realise our potential’ is deeply patronising and an insult to anyone’s intelligence.”
The legal action is backed by disabled people’s organisations including Inclusion London, Disability Wales, Disability Rights UK, Inclusion Scotland, North West Forum of People with Disabilities (in Northern Ireland), Disability Action Northern Ireland (DANI) and Black Triangle.
Svetlana Kotova, director of campaigns and justice at Inclusion London, said: “We were shocked and dismayed at the proposed reforms and the consultation itself.
“We support this challenge as we believe disabled people should always be given a meaningful opportunity to have a say about reforms that will have a huge impact on our lives.”
Megan Thomas, policy and research officer at Disability Wales, said: “Disability Wales is appalled at the short timeframe to respond to the WCA proposals and the very limited information given on changes which could cause massive harm to disabled people in Wales and across the UK.”
Bill Scott, senior policy adviser at Inclusion Scotland, said: “Inclusion Scotland were appalled at how little time we were given to consult on changes which could have such devastating consequences for disabled people.”
And Nuala Toman, DANI’s head of policy, communications, information and advocacy, said: “Disabled people in Northern Ireland have been overwhelmed by the tidal wave of consultations on cuts to provision which severely and disproportionately impact on our lives.
“It was impossible to properly engage and respond to the consultation under these circumstances.”
Aoife O’Reilly, from solicitors Public Law Project, who is representing Clifford in the legal action, said: “If cost savings was the purpose of the reforms, it was unlawful for government not to have been upfront with that information as part of the consultation.
“These reforms were presented as a helpful support: the autumn statement even specifically mentioned the health benefits of work to explain why its focus was getting more long-term unemployed people into a job.
“But anxiety over losing financial support and fulfilling new requirements will not help anyone’s health.
“Considering that the consultation period was also far too short for many disabled people to engage with it, it seems to us that the government’s consultation was unfair and ultimately unlawful for a number of reasons.”
14 December 2023
Parliamentary meeting demands end to segregation and abuse of young disabled people
Disabled activists and allies came together in parliament this week to call for an end to the degrading treatment, dehumanisation and even torture that young disabled people are subjected to in institutional care settings.
Members of the End Torture of Disabled People campaign described how a series of media exposés and inquiries have revealed abuse of disabled children and young people in care homes, residential special schools and mental health institutions.
Ellen Clifford, a member of the national steering group of Disabled People Against Cuts (DPAC) and author of The War on Disabled People, said that behind these scandals was “a culture that violates people’s rights and allows degrading treatment”.
Among the scandals she highlighted were those at children’s homes in Doncaster run by Hesley Group, which is owned by a private equity firm; those at homes run by Calcot Services for Children; mental health units run by The Huntercombe Group; and failures by Tees, Esk and Wear Valleys NHS Foundation Trust.
She said that these examples of torture and abuse “are not anomalies” but are “part of a wider system, where physical restraint and seclusion rooms are used as common practice”.
She said disabled children and young people are placed in settings many miles from home, where they are traumatised, and then punished when they respond to that trauma.
“Thus, their distress escalates, their trauma is entrenched, and they’re told that services within the community cannot cope with them, so they become trapped within abusive institutions.”
The campaign aims to eliminate the use of these segregated settings, and end the torture, violence and abuse of young disabled people across such services.
It is led by the The Alliance for Inclusive Education, and backed by DPAC, Reclaiming Our Futures Alliance (ROFA) and other disabled people’s organisations including WinVisible, Sisters of Frida and Deaf Ethnic Women’s Association (DEWA).
Simone Aspis, who set up Inclusion London’s Free Our People Now project, which is led by people with learning difficulties and autistic people, described how one autistic young person ended up in an inpatient psychiatric unit after failing to cope with the “personal torture” of trying to fit in with her school’s inaccessible learning environment.
She said a “pipeline” led from disabled children being provided with no support in mainstream schools, to pupil referral units, to special schools, to residential schools, to mental health services and finally to psychiatric inpatient care.
She said: “At the moment, disabled young people and children, the only time they only have any rights is when they’re detained under the Mental Health Act.”
Aspis said the voices of people with learning difficulties and autistic people had been missing from the debate.
She said there was a need to end all forms of segregated institutions, and that the regulators, the Care Quality Commission and Ofsted, as well as the Crown Prosecution Service, “really must get tough” with the “torture and inhumane and degrading treatment” that was taking place in segregated institutions.
Michelle Daley, ALLFIE’s director, said it was vital to remember the “legacies of the past”, such as the eugenics movement and the institutionalisation of disabled people.
She said: “We’re still using words like special education, special needs, as if it’s a favour rather than a right.
“We’re still not talking about justice… in terms of our emancipation and liberation as disabled folks.
“We want real justice and real rights, we want to talk about the desegregation of these disabled people, and we can’t continue to have the legacy of eugenics which is keeping us held back, and basically killing too many disabled people.”
Mark Harrison, a member of ROFA’s steering group and author of a new book on working with young disabled people*, blamed successive governments for failing to implement key parts of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD), including articles 19 (on independent living) and 24 (on inclusive education).
He said the last Labour government decided to listen to “the lobbying voices of the segregationists and the professionals”, with the damage caused by that decision “enhanced and multiplied many times by successive Conservative governments”.
He said this had “made segregated education a cornerstone of their educational policies with the resulting disastrous situation we find ourselves in today”, with the “reinstitutionalisation of disabled children and young people in residential institutions”.
The campaign has heard how one autistic teenager – who is being supported by DPAC – has been “tormented” and left terrified by her treatment within a series of privately-run psychiatric intensive care units.
During an eight-month period, Lucy Hughes, who is just 14, was repeatedly pinned down by six support staff who had little experience or training, before she was injected with drugs, stripped of her clothes and placed in seclusion.
Her parents also saw hospital staff dragging 12-year-old children around by their collar or their clothes, “shouting and swearing at autistic children as they cried on the floor”.
The members of ALLFIE’s campaign group say they are “increasingly outraged” by the exposure of disabled young people to “neglect, violence, torture, rape and death” in institutions.
They want to hold to account those commissioning these services, professionals and staff, and end the use of institutional and segregated settings, replacing them with a national independent living service and an inclusive education service.
But they also want to ensure that the voices of the young disabled people affected by the abuse are no longer missing from the debate.
Lucy Wing, a member of ALLFIE’s Our Voice project, which aims to amplify disabled young people’s voices, told the meeting: “Despite decades of disabled people sharing their experiences of segregation in education and organisations campaigning for change, special schools and residential institutions are still the norm for disabled children and young people.”
She said that those responsible for the abuse, assaults, negligence and torture needed to be held accountable.
She said: “We need an explanation to why the countless reports weren’t followed up on.
“We need the reason why these schools were considered good despite evidence of abuse.
“We need national recognition that this is the reality, but it does not have to be.”
John McDonnell, the Labour MP and former shadow chancellor who sponsored the event, said disabled people had become “economic units to be profited from”, both by providers of residential care but also by the pharmaceutical industry.
He said there was a need for “a new civil rights movement” that focused on desegregation and exposed the abuse and the failure of existing provision and regulation, exposing both the results of privatisation but also failures within the public sector.
He called for new legislation on civil rights for disabled people around desegregation.
He said: “If you look at all those civil rights movements in the past, they’ve largely been based upon the exposure of a segregated society.
“And I don’t think in our community at the moment there’s a full and thorough understanding of how much segregation has gone on with regard to people with disabilities.”
He added: “Don’t underestimate direct action. That’s what we’ve done in the past. Because sometimes it’s needed to shake the place up a bit about what we’re doing.”
Navin Kikabhai, ALLFIE’s chair, said it was a “travesty”, after more than 25 years in the education sector, that he found himself increasingly supporting disabled young people who had been “locked away in residential settings”.
And he said it was “embarrassing” to see other countries “far exceeding” the UK in meeting their responsibilities under the UNCRPD, including article 15, which covers freedom from torture.
Claire Glasman, from WinVisible, said mothers who were part of the Disabled Mothers’ Rights Campaign had had their children taken away and placed in abusive institutions.
She said: “Today, more children are in care than ever. Councils take children from low-income single mothers, disabled mothers, from care leavers, and women who report domestic violence.
“Children of colour and/or disabled children are disproportionately targeted.”
And Maresa Mackeith, ALLFIE’s youth parliamentary officer, said: “Children and young people continue to experience being dehumanized by so-called trusted people.
“We are calling for segregated provision such as these institutions to be phased out and for all disabled children and young people to be included in their communities as a right with the support they need.”
*Labels are for Jars not People: Emancipatory Approaches to Working with Young Disabled People, by Mark Harrison
14 December 2023
Thousands in compensation for disabled woman driven to thoughts of suicide by DWP
A disabled woman who was driven to extreme distress and suicidal thoughts by the failure of the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) to make reasonable adjustments for her disability benefit claim has secured more than £6,000 in compensation.
DWP repeatedly refused to make the adjustments needed by Jeanine Blamires after it began transferring her from disability living allowance (DLA) to personal independence payment (PIP) in September 2019.
She asked for communication via letter or email, because she struggles to speak on the phone due to her impairments, and for the face-to-face PIP assessment to be recorded, because of her memory loss.
She also said she would need to have someone with her if they did need to phone her, in case her voice stopped working, while she said she might need to move the assessment date due to ill-health, pain and chronic fatigue.
Speaking on the phone causes her stress and extreme fatigue, and aggravates her physical and mental health conditions, impacting her depression, chronic fatigue and muscle spasms.
But she said her requests for reasonable adjustments led to DWP and its contractor Atos passing responsibility to each other.
Atos told her she would have to provide her own specialist recording equipment – at a cost of £1,400 – and that Atos “don’t do email”, while requests for reasonable adjustments had to be dealt with by DWP.
When she contacted DWP, she was told the responsibility for reasonable adjustments lay with Atos.
After Atos told her again, in November 2019, that it would not be able to make the reasonable adjustments she had requested, her mental health began to deteriorate.
She said: “I was extremely distressed that I would be assessed as ineligible for PIP due to the lack of reasonable adjustments that I had requested.
“I was scared and distressed that I would have no way of challenging a PIP assessment because I would be unable to remember what had happened during the assessment without the assessment being recorded.”
A planned home assessment in January 2020 by Atos had to be abandoned because of the lack of recording equipment, although an Atos manager promised to provide her with a note-taker when the assessment eventually took place.
But a telephone assessment planned for June 2020 also had to be cancelled the day before it was due to take place because Atos told her it could not be recorded and it had failed to arrange for a note-taker to attend the assessment.
The second abandoned assessment left her – again – extremely distressed.
Two months later, Blamires, who has twice given evidence about disability discrimination to parliamentary committees, was awarded PIP without the need for an assessment, based on the written evidence she had provided.
She took legal action against DWP under the Equality Act and the Human Rights Act, with the assistance of legal firm Deighton Pierce Glynn.
She described in legal documents how she had experienced “difficulty speaking, an exacerbation of muscle spasms and fatigue, deterioration to her physical health and a significant deterioration to her mental health including suffering suicidal intent and exacerbating her depression” because of the way she had been treated by DWP.
DWP settled the case by awarding her £6,500 in compensation.
Blamires told Disability News Service (DNS) she was “appalled” at how she had been treated, but that she was also “extremely worried” about how DWP would treat other disabled people who need reasonable adjustments, including members of her own family.
She added: “I’m frightened that, despite this, when I next need an assessment, they will refuse again to provide reasonable adjustments.
“I was shocked by their behaviour. It’s like they had no understanding of their duties under the Equality Act.
“The constant threat of losing your benefits if you don’t or can’t comply with what they want, while they simultaneously make it so you can’t do what they want, it’s terrifying.”
She said DWP was still refusing to contact her via email as a reasonable adjustment, even after the case had been settled.
A DWP spokesperson said: “We support millions of people every year and our priority is they get the benefits they are entitled to as soon as possible and they receive a supportive and compassionate service.
“We apologise to Ms Blamires for the inconvenience caused and following this case, have put in place new staff training and guidance.”
Atos – which will lose its final assessment contracts next year – said it could not comment on the legal action because it was not involved in the case, and it said it no longer holds any information on her assessment.
But an Atos spokesperson said in a statement: “We make every effort to accommodate requests for reasonable adjustments within the guidance provided to us by the Department for Work and Pensions.
“After DWP’s personal independence payment assessment guide was updated in April 2022, we now offer audio recording for face-to-face and telephone consultations if individuals let us know in advance and all claimants are free to make a recording of their assessment on their own device.”
*Jeanine Blamires has functional neurological disorder (FND) and has asked DNS to include a link to the charity FND Action, which was founded by campaigners with the condition
14 December 2023
Minister ‘not persuaded’ by calls for new law on access to public transport
A transport minister has failed to back calls for a new law that would address the multiple barriers faced by disabled passengers trying to access public transport.
Guy Opperman was speaking to the Commons transport committee after a survey it commissioned found that only a tiny proportion of those who complain about accessibility on public transport are happy with the response.
Of the 40 per cent of respondents who had complained multiple times, nearly two-thirds (63 per cent) said they had never been satisfied with the responses, and just 0.7 per cent said they were always satisfied with the response.
One said: “When complaining I get non-answers and nothing changes.
“There seems to be no way to have a constructive dialogue about the access barrier and no interest in resolving such barriers.”
Of the respondents who said they had complained just once before, 82 per cent said they were dissatisfied with the response they received.
More than 800 passengers responded to the committee’s survey.
Opperman, a newly-appointed transport minister, who leads on access issues in the department, was giving evidence to the committee in the last session of its inquiry into accessible transport.
He told MPs yesterday (Wednesday) that the experiences of those who took part in the survey were “noted and not acceptable” but he was “yet to be persuaded” that new legislation would secure the necessary changes.
He said there was a need to change “attitudes” among transport staff, and that regulators must “do the job they are meant to do”, including the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC).
Opperman admitted that “getting yourself heard” was “very difficult” and “that has got to change”.
He said: “I would hope we would look at this, go away, and come up with realistic solutions to dramatically improve the experience for those persons.”
More than two-thirds of respondents to the committee’s survey had said they “always” (36 per cent) or “most of the time” (31 per cent) experience access challenges or barriers that make it more difficult to travel, while another 22 per cent said they often face such difficulties.
One respondent said: “I don’t use public transport at all anymore. I can’t cope with buses refusing me space; trains leaving me stranded in the sidings; airside crew destroying my wheelchair; taxis refusing wheelchairs.”
Despite the survey results, and the evidence provided to the committee during its inquiry, Opperman said he still believed that the government would meet its 2030 target of “equal access for disabled people” that was laid out in its 2018 Inclusive Transport Strategy.
He said the government would publish an audit of its progress next year and although he said there would be “isolated exceptions”, he believed it would meet that 2030 target.
Conservative MP Karl McCartney had earlier criticised EHRC for failing to do more to enforce the rights of disabled passengers.
John Kirkpatrick, EHRC’s deputy chief executive, had told the committee that the commission tended to “work with people” to agree action plans to improve access to transport – often through section 23 legal agreements – rather than taking transport operators to court.
But McCartney said the commission’s actions sounded “very touchy-feely” and he suggested that the commission was spending too long in meetings where they “drink coffee and tea and eat biscuits”.
Kirkpatrick pointed to the commission’s three-year legal support fund, which had supported 26 legal actions on transport discrimination, although it had brought only two “strategic” legal cases of its own.
He said the commission felt it did a “respectable job” on that project and had made a difference with its “strategic litigation”, but he admitted there was no member of EHRC’s senior management team now responsible for transport, as it was no longer a strategic aim.
He told McCartney he did not think it would be right to characterise the commission’s approach as “soft”.
Opperman later said he agreed with McCartney’s criticism of the commission.
Asked if he felt the commission should “help the various departments by getting their hands dirty and enforcing what government’s trying to do”, he said: “I listened to the evidence, I’ve looked at the evidence… I manifestly think the EHRC should be doing more.
“Going forward, could they do more? Unquestionably yes.”
14 December 2023
Those still shielding from Covid have far less trust in government, research finds
Disabled people who are still shielding from Covid have far less trust in the government than the general public and are far more likely to believe it handled the pandemic very badly, a survey has found.
The survey also found that immunocompromised people are far more likely to be experiencing poor mental health.
But those still shielding from the virus reported much higher levels of political participation.
The survey aimed to investigate how continuing vulnerability to COVID-19 affected people’s political engagement and mental health.
Forsaken but Engaged, a report on the survey findings, found that those immunocompromised people who participated in the survey “experienced higher levels of worry due to COVID-19, poorer mental health, lower perceptions of representation, lower trust in government, and poorer satisfaction in democracy and in terms of how the government has handled the pandemic”.
Four years on from the identification of the virus, more than 1.2 million immunocompromised people are still believed to be at high risk because their conditions and medications make the Covid vaccines ineffective.
Many are either still shielding or living restricted lives, trapped in “enforced isolation”.
The survey results were compared with a survey of the wider public.
Compared to the general population, immunocompromised people reported much higher levels of concern about the long-lasting negative impact of the pandemic on society (91 per cent were worried, compared with 60 per cent of the general public).
Nearly one in four (24 per cent) of those who are immunocompromised reported poor mental health, compared to nine per cent of the general public.
When asked to rate their level of trust in the government (on a scale from 0 to 10, where zero means “do not trust at all”), the average for immunocompromised people was just 1.19, two points lower than the general public (3.18).
And seven in 10 immunocompromised people said the government had handled the pandemic very badly, compared to three in 10 of the general public.
But their experiences of prolonged shielding appear to have increased their levels of political engagement.
Compared to the general public, in the past 12 months, 71 per cent of immunocompromised people said they had contacted a politician or government official, against just 18 per cent of the general public.
And 88 per cent said they had signed a petition (against 40 per cent of the general public), while nearly three-fifths (58 per cent) said they had posted or shared something about politics online (against 17 per cent of the general public).
Among its recommendations, the report calls for action to support and protect people who are still shielding, and those who may need to shield from a virus in the future.
It also calls on the Department of Health and Social Care, and the wider government, to recognise the psychological needs of those who have been shielding.
And it says the government should ensure those who are immunocompromised have adjustments put in place to allow them to vote in-person safely.
The Forsaken but Engaged inquiry was a collaborative project between the universities of Liverpool and Bath; the all-party parliamentary group on vulnerable groups to pandemics; Forgotten Lives UK – which campaigns on behalf of the 1.2 million people who are still at high risk from Covid because of a compromised immune system – and the national expert group for immunocompromised patients.
Mark Oakley, co-leader of Forgotten Lives UK, said: “This report highlights the stark contrast between the immunocompromised, who are still shielding, and the general population.
“They are now heading into their fourth Christmas shielding and this report shows how they are being ignored.
“The scale of increasing mental health issues caused by the isolation and the problems it is building for the future is shocking and this needs to be addressed urgently to protect their mental and physical health.
“It is no wonder that the report shows the level of dissatisfaction of government handling of the pandemic is double that of the general population.
“Those in this position have shown a stronger desire to vote, take part in political activities, and are four times more likely to try to contact their MP.
“It underlines that those affected by this need to be engaged with properly on all levels by politicians and facilitated to be able to do so safely.”
Dr Luca Bernardi, a senior lecturer in politics at the University of Liverpool, and one of the report’s authors*, said: “Our findings reveal that Covid is not a thing of the past for immunocompromised people, who feel left behind and unrepresented by the political system and whose trust in government is way lower in comparison with the general public.”
*The other author was Dr Jo Daniels, senior lecturer and clinical psychologist at the University of Bath
14 December 2023
Top Disability Confident members ‘do no better on jobs than non-members’
Employers that have reached the highest level of the government’s flagship disability employment scheme, Disability Confident, are no more likely to employ disabled people than those that have not signed up to the scheme, new research has revealed.
The research* suggests that membership of the scheme often offers little more than “window dressing” that serves to disguise “ongoing disadvantage”.
It also shows that disabled people working for Disability Confident employers do not report better experiences than those working for employers that are not members of the scheme.
The analysis by two members of the Disability@Work group of researchers, Professor Kim Hoque and Professor Nick Bacon, is the latest to cast doubt on the scheme’s impact and credibility.
They say the increase in the number of employers signed up to the scheme – now more than 19,000 – “might be viewed as representing a false impression of progress”.
And they say their results suggest the government should back reforms suggested by the Disability Employment Charter, which is supported by organisations including Disability Rights UK (DR UK), Spinal Injuries Association, Disability Cornwall, Disability North, Spectrum Centre for Independent Living and Buckinghamshire Disability Service.
The charter says all employers at Disability Confident levels two and three should have to employ a minimum proportion of disabled people.
Disability Confident has faced repeated criticism since its launch in 2013, particularly over concerns that the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) scheme is “trivially easy to abuse” and allows employers at the first two of its three levels to describe themselves as “disability confident” without being assessed by an outside organisation, and without employing a single disabled person.
But the new analysis by Hoque and Bacon shows that even disabled people working for employers that have reached the highest of the three levels do not fare better in their jobs than disabled employees working for non-Disability Confident employers.
The analysis shows that the percentage of the workforce who are disabled is no higher within levels one and three than in non-Disability Confident organisations (although the proportions are slightly higher, the differences are not statistically significant).
The percentage is slightly higher in level two organisations, but the difference is still small (4.7 per cent against 4.3 per cent) and it only applies to private sector employers and not those in the public sector.
With level three employers, although there is a higher proportion of disabled people in the workforce of public sector organisations than in non-Disability Confident public sector employers (6.5 per cent against 4.5 per cent), in the private sector there is no difference (4.2 per cent for both level three and non-Disability Confident employers).
The analysis is based on the WorkL database of the work experiences of more than 125,000 UK employees, of whom more than 5,600 are disabled, which was collected between 2021 and 2023.
When it comes to factors such as the control employees have over their jobs, how they feel about whether they are treated fairly, job-related mental health and job satisfaction, there is no difference in the experiences reported by disabled employees in Disability Confident and non-Disability Confident organisations.
And the gaps in these experiences between disabled and non-disabled staff are no smaller in Disability Confident employers than in those not signed up to the scheme.
Among the 16 employers that are members of the government’s elite Disability Confident Business Leaders’ Group, the proportion of the workforce who are disabled is even lower than within non-Disability Confident employers (four per cent versus 4.3 per cent), although the difference is not statistically significant.
Disabled employees’ experiences of working for employers within the business leaders’ group are also no better than those working for non-Disability Confident employers.
In their conclusions, Hoque and Bacon say: “Disabled jobseekers should not assume that Disability Confident organisations are necessarily any more likely than non-Disability Confident organisations to hire and retain them, or provide them with a better experience of work.
“Employment advisers (including at JobCentre Plus) should also be extremely wary of advising disabled people to focus their job search activity on Disability Confident organisations.
“In many instances, Disability Confident certification may represent little more than window-dressing that masks ongoing disadvantage.”
Fazilet Hadi, DR UK’s head of policy, said: “Many of us have thought for a long time that the Disability Confident scheme is ineffective; this research confirms our suspicions.
“It is not credible that organisations should be allowed to call themselves Disability Confident when they fail to employ increased numbers of disabled employees and when their working conditions are no better than for other employers.
“The UK government has no stated ambition to close the disability employment gap or disability pay gap, so there is nothing driving it to make levers such as Disability Confident more effective.
“The government has also failed to introduce mandatory disability workforce monitoring, which would be another tool to drive greater disability equality in the workplace, despite a consultation process [that ended in April 2022].
“There has been support from shadow Labour ministers to implement key aspects of the Disability Employment Charter, such as a right to flexible working from day one, and a time limit for responses to reasonable adjustment requests.
“In the light of this research they need to add radical reform of Disability Confident to the list.”
A DWP spokesperson said in a statement: “Disability Confident is designed to help businesses think differently about disability and to make positive and productive steps to address the challenges they face.
“Surveys published earlier this year found around two-thirds of employers reported hiring a disabled employee upon joining the scheme with more than four in five reporting they were currently offering workplace adjustments.”
These surveys were part of DWP-commissioned research which showed in September that more than a third of employers who signed up to Disability Confident failed to employ a single disabled person after they joined the scheme.
It also showed that nearly a fifth (19 per cent) of employers with at least 250 employees did not recruit any disabled people after joining the scheme.
DWP has so far failed to explain why the report, which was completed in May 2022, was not published until September 2023, 16 months later.
*Does the Government’s Disability Confident Scheme Improve Disability Employment Outcomes? by Professor Kim Hoque, of King’s Business School, King’s College London, and Professor Nick Bacon, of Bayes Business School, City, University of London
14 December 2023
Other disability-related stories covered by mainstream media this week
Campaigners have written to the chief constables of Norfolk and Suffolk to request an investigation into thousands of mental health deaths in those areas. They say coroners are raising safety issues but no improvements are being made. A report by independent auditors found as many as 8,440 patients had died unexpectedly over three years. Norfolk and Suffolk NHS Foundation Trust said it had started a review of patient deaths: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-67658492
14 December 2023
News provided by John Pring at www.disabilitynewsservice.com
