Disabled benefit tribunal member says DWP drove her repeatedly to brink of suicide 1
Concern over scope of EHRC inquiry into ‘unlawful acts’ by work and pensions secretaries 3
Council sparks anger over refusal to release details of care cuts agreement with consultancy 9
DWP silent over whether Sunak was wrong to say PIP was being exploited, as fraud falls to zero 11
Government failure on mental health detentions ‘is scandalous’ 16
Low traffic neighbourhoods can often damage disabled people’s independence, MPs are told 18
Other disability-related stories covered by mainstream media this week 21
Disabled benefit tribunal member says DWP drove her repeatedly to brink of suicide
A disabled woman who sits on a social security tribunal has described how the incompetence and abusive actions of the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) have driven her repeatedly to the brink of suicide.
Katherine*, who continues to sit on the tribunal, is now terrified that the department is investigating her for benefit fraud, even though she says she has done nothing wrong and is very careful to stay within the rules.
With a general election now just six weeks away, she says the department’s actions prove again that DWP is not fit for purpose, puts the lives of claimants with mental distress at risk, and needs top-to-bottom reform under the next government.
She has repeatedly told DWP of her history of suicidal ideation and suicide attempts, as well as her diagnosis of PTSD as a result of domestic violence, but she says this has had no impact on what she believes is a campaign of harassment.
She says DWP keeps making mistakes over the complex rules that relate to benefit claimants who sit on tribunals, despite her informing them repeatedly that she is “actively suicidal” and that its letters are having a very damaging effect on her mental health.
Its behaviour even led to her telling her two adult children on Christmas Day that she wanted to die, and that DWP was partly to blame.
She told Disability News Service (DNS) this week: “I am in real fear because I think they are going to turn up and send the police for fraud.
“Every day I think, will it be today, the day the letter arrives with the postman? If I get a letter like that it is quite likely I will kill myself.
“They don’t seem to give a damn if people are suicidal or killing themselves.”
Katherine, who has a law degree and has passed the legal practice course, was a justice of the peace (a lay magistrate) for 15 years and applied for a position as a disability qualified member of the social security tribunal in 2017.
Since 2014, she has been in the support group of employment and support allowance (ESA), which places a strict limit on how much she can earn every week under its permitted work rules.
But she wrote to DWP before she started working with the tribunal to check if the part-time tribunal role was allowed under permitted work and what impact it would have on her ESA if she took it up.
She said in the August 2018 letter that she was “terrified that I will end up in another suicidal crisis”, and added: “Please would you confirm that there would be no consequences from DWP [and its assessment company] that will be detrimental to my health if I were to undertake this role?”
But she never heard back from DWP in response to her letter.
Katherine, who lives in the south-west of England, started working as a disability qualified panel member of the first-tier tribunal in December 2018, sitting on a panel with a judge and a medical member and hearing benefit appeals.
She was soon told by her judicial mentor about a DWP regulation that allowed ESA claimants working as tribunal members to work a maximum of one full day or two half days a week, and still receive their full ESA entitlement.
Ever since, she has kept strictly under that limit.
But within weeks, DWP was sending her letters telling her that she had exceeded the permitted work limits – which appear to be based on a fundamental misunderstanding of their own rules – and deducting money from her ESA. It eventually fined her £50.
In a period of just over a year, she was sent 15 different entitlement, overpayment and civil penalty decisions by DWP.
All but one of these decisions were later conceded by DWP or set aside by the first-tier tribunal, she says.
At one point, during the pandemic, DWP sent her a letter telling her that her ESA had been stopped completely, a letter she received the day she returned home from hospital after a suicide attempt.
She appealed against DWP’s decision on her permitted work but eventually lost on one overpayment decision two years later.
But Katherine realised the tribunal had made legal errors, and appealed the ruling.
Just days before the upper tribunal was set to hear her case, in December 2022, DWP – which had instructed a barrister – capitulated and agreed that she had not been told clearly enough before she started working as a tribunal member how many days she would be able to work every week.
The tribunal ruled that money deducted from her benefits would have to be repaid.
But, she says, DWP never repaid it, nor the hundreds of pounds in arrears owed to her for just over five years.
And last year, DWP began to harass her again, despite her repeatedly informing the department that this harassment was making her suicidal and the tribunal having made it clear that it was misapplying the law.
Late last year, DWP sent her a “very threatening” letter warning that her ESA could be stopped a few days before Christmas, if she didn’t provide particular information before a certain date.
She told DNS: “I knew they were going to make the same errors again. I rang them in great distress and drew their attention to the upper tribunal judgement.”
The letter led to her telling both her adult children on Christmas Day how much she wanted to die and that DWP’s actions were the last straw.
She told DWP in a letter she sent days later: “Why DWP would send such correspondence to an isolated and vulnerable adult in Christmas week – threatening to cut off their benefit – is a question only they could answer.”
She fears DWP will now claim she owes it thousands of pounds, despite strictly following the rules and providing the department with all her tribunal pay slips.
Some letters she receives from DWP say she is within the legal limits for permitted work, but some appear to show DWP has ignored or forgotten her tribunal exemption.
Now she is terrified that she will be arrested and prosecuted as a benefit cheat, when she has always followed DWP’s rules.
She has been waiting for another two mandatory reconsiderations – the first stage in the appeal process – over what DWP claims was her non-entitlement to ESA during lengthy periods, and a decision that confirmed she was entitled to ESA from December 2023 but which was again made applying the incorrect legislation.
She told DNS: “I was a justice of the peace for 15 years, but I have never been able to get justice. I can’t get benefits and I can’t get justice.
“They have now caused so much damage, I don’t think I will ever be able to return to work again full-time.”
A DWP spokesperson said last night (Wednesday): “We have reimbursed the customer for the money previously recovered and apologise for any distress.
“This case is currently being reviewed.”
Katherine told DNS that the DWP statement was not accurate and that it still owed her hundreds of pounds.
*She has asked to remain anonymous
23 May 2024
Concern over scope of EHRC inquiry into ‘unlawful acts’ by work and pensions secretaries
The equality watchdog has finally launched a – limited – investigation into unlawful treatment by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) of disabled benefit claimants, including some who died, five years after it was first told to act.
The move to investigate possible “unlawful acts” by successive work and pensions secretaries – including an examination of the deaths of some claimants – has been welcomed by some activists.
But there is also mounting concern that the investigation by the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) will only focus on events from January 2021 onwards.
And there is also concern that EHRC has made it clear that it is not seeking evidence from individual disabled people or relatives of those who have died due to DWP failings, while it has failed to make it clear in its terms of reference if it will take evidence from disabled people’s organisations.
The decision to launch only a limited investigation has now strengthened calls for a full independent inquiry into DWP’s actions over the last 15 years.
The focus on the last three-and-a-half years will mean the investigation may not consider evidence relating to some of the most high-profile and disturbing deaths linked to DWP’s failures, such as those of Philippa Day (September 2019), Jodey Whiting (February 2017), Michael O’Sullivan (September 2013), Roy Curtis (November 2018) and Errol Graham (spring 2018).
And it is also likely to mean a focus on the actions of just three work and pensions secretaries: Therese Coffey, Chloe Smith (who was in post for less than two months in 2022) and Mel Stride, who current occupies the position.
Disability News Service (DNS) has continued to report on deaths linked to DWP’s actions since January 2021, including those connected to safeguarding flaws in the universal credit system, such as the deaths of Nazerine Anderson, from Leicestershire, who died in June last year, and Kevin Gale, from Cumbria, who took his own life in March 2022.
EHRC yesterday (Wednesday) launched the investigation into what it said were concerns that successive secretaries of state may have broken the Equality Act in the way their department has carried out benefit assessments.
It will particularly examine the work capability assessment (WCA) and the assessment for personal independence payment (PIP), and it will include the impact of the WCA on universal credit claimants.
And it will focus on failures to make reasonable adjustments for people with mental distress and learning difficulties.
EHRC commissioner Akua Reindorf, a barrister and employment judge who has specialised in human rights law, told DNS this week that the potential breaches of the act by DWP were “very serious”.
She said: “We wouldn’t be launching an investigation on this scale if we didn’t think it was extremely serious.”
She said the commission would “follow the evidence” and would look back further than 2021 “if it appears relevant to do so”.
Reindorf said the investigation was a “massive” piece of work but could not say how long it was likely to take.
The commission will also be assessing whether DWP breached its obligations under the Equality Act’s public sector equality duty.
DWP could face a potentially unlimited fine if the allegations are found proven, and be required to produce an action plan to correct its failings.
The commission finally took the step to launch an investigation after discussions with the department that lasted more than two years and were supposed to lead to a legally-binding section 23 agreement that would have forced it to take action to address its discrimination.
Just two weeks ago, this delay led to the watchdog being accused of bowing to political pressure by failing to force DWP to take action to prevent further deaths of claimants.
The commission has now apparently decided that DWP had no intention of ever signing the agreement.
But calls for EHRC to act date back as far as April 2019, when Labour’s Debbie Abrahams wrote to the commission to ask it to investigate deaths linked to the WCA and PIP assessment processes.
The commission eventually rejected calls for an investigation into the deaths the following year, blaming the pandemic.
Asked if the decision to launch the investigation was a recognition that it should have acted earlier, rather than spend two years trying to persuade DWP to sign a section 23 agreement, Reindorf said: “I’m massively restricted in how much I can talk to you about that, but I think we’re satisfied that we’ve approached it appropriately.”
EHRC says that those who are being asked to give evidence to its investigation are whistleblowers from DWP and its contractors, including Atos, Capita and Maximus, “charities, third sector and advocacy organisations”, welfare rights advisers, legal and medical professionals, academics and researchers.
Disabled People Against Cuts (DPAC) said the restricted list of people EHRC was willing to accept evidence from was “offensive and unacceptable”.
Paula Peters, a member of DPAC’s national steering group, said yesterday: “We’ve been waiting over five years for the EHRC to launch an inquiry into benefit deaths.
“More disabled people have died since then as a result of the distress from the cruel, callous, inhumane treatment meted out by the DWP disability benefit assessments.”
She said the restricted period EHRC was examining meant it would not investigate the deaths of claimants such as David Clapson, Mark Wood, Errol Graham and Michael O’Sullivan.
She said their families were still “fighting for justice and to hold to account those in policy- making and the assessment process” and that starting the investigation from January 2021 was “a slap in the face” for those and other families.
She said DPAC demanded a “full public benefit deaths inquiry” that would cover the introduction of employment and support allowance and the WCA in 2008, and would allow relatives of those who have died, and members of the public, to be heard, and “hold to account every politician past and present and senior civil servant involved in policy and decision-making”.
Mark Harrison, a member of the steering group of the Reclaiming Our Futures Alliance, who has played a key role in holding EHRC to account over the section 23 agreement, said: “It is about time the EHRC used its powers to hold the DWP to account for the grave and systematic violations of disabled people’s rights.
“I have concerns as to the scope of their investigations, as they have failed over the last two years to sign a section 23 agreement with DWP despite repeatedly trumpeting this in the media, publicly and with the UN disability committee.”
He claimed last night – although this is not clear in the terms of reference – that EHRC was “not going to take evidence from disabled people affected by this brutalising and unsafe regime, bereaved relatives or Deaf and disabled people’s organisations”, which he said would be in direct violation of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, so would have to “be rectified immediately”.
Harrison added: “The jury is out until they demonstrate that they are going to act in line with the UN convention and not just let the unnecessary benefit-related deaths and harm continue without challenge.
“We will be monitoring them closely.”
Alison Burton, whose father-in-law Errol Graham starved to death after DWP wrongly stopped his benefits when he missed a work capability assessment, said she was disappointed that EHRC was only looking back as far as January 2021.
She told DNS that she welcomed the investigation as an acknowledgement of the harm that has been done.
But she said she was “still quite frustrated and annoyed that it has taken so long” and that the commission “has not supported disabled people in the way it should have done over the last few years”.
She said: “The EHRC has got a lot of work to do to gain that trust back from disabled people.
“Hopefully this might be a starting point, but as a disabled person myself I have mixed emotions because I feel let down by the EHRC because there is a real risk of [ongoing] harm and this investigation is going to take a long time.”
Imogen Day, whose sister Philippa’s death was caused by widespread failings in the PIP assessment system, said she was “cautiously optimistic” about the investigation.
She said it was a “hard-won step and recognition” for disabled people’s campaigning, and added: “I look forward to seeing the results of the investigation and hope this brings the accountability we need.”
Joy Dove, whose daughter Jodey Whiting took her own life after her employment and support allowance was wrongly stopped by DWP for missing a work capability assessment, welcomed the commission’s decision to launch an investigation and said it was “about time something was done to investigate DWP’s actions”.
She said: “They have destroyed our family, they need to be held accountable.
“I want justice for my daughter Jodey and all the others who have killed themselves.”
But she also said the investigation should look further back than January 2021.
Stride promised MPs yesterday – hours before the prime minister called a July general election – that he and his department would co-operate with the investigation.
Questioned about the failure to sign the section 23 agreement, DWP’s permanent secretary, Peter Schofield, its most senior civil servant, told the Commons work and pensions committee yesterday that the “challenge” his department had had was “understanding the nature of the concerns” and “where the suspected breach of the Equality Act was”.
He said the terms of reference for the investigation published by EHRC now provided “a clear sense about where the commission want to investigate”.
He said there had been “a lot of change in the way we do health assessments”, that “the vast majority of health assessments nowadays are done over the phone rather than in person”, and that DWP had “been taking lots of steps” in “changing the way we do health assessments” as part of its Health Transformation Programme.
And he said the department’s serious case panel continued to examine “where things have gone wrong”.
But Labour’s Neil Coyle later pointed out in the Commons that Schofield had told the committee in January last year that the negotiations with EHRC were “going well” and that an agreement would be secured.
And he said Stride had told the committee in November 2022 that negotiations were “constructive” and that he expected an agreement to be reached.
A DWP spokesperson said earlier in a statement: “The DWP is committed to providing a compassionate service to all our customers.
“Benefits assessments are carried out by qualified health professionals with reasonable adjustments available to protect vulnerable claimants.
“We take our obligations under the Equality Act incredibly seriously, including the public sector equality duty, and will continue to cooperate with the commission.”
Debbie Abrahams said last night: “I welcome the EHRC’s decision to use the full force of its powers and officially launch an investigation into the Department for Work and Pensions and the tragic deaths of vulnerable welfare claimants.
“It has been two years since the section 23 agreement issued by EHRC, yet we are no further forward with justice or accountability for deaths of disabled claimants.
“I am pleased that the EHRC have now said enough is enough and will be undertaking a formal investigation.
“I hope this can be done as a matter of urgency.”
DNS editor John Pring’s book on DWP and how its actions led to countless deaths of disabled people in the post-2010 era – The Department – will be published by Pluto Press in August. Visit the DNS website for a 50 per cent discount
23 May 2024
Council sparks anger over refusal to release details of care cuts agreement with consultancy
Disabled campaigners say they are “horrified” at a council’s lack of transparency after it refused to release documents that would have revealed details of its agreement with a consultancy it is paying to help cut people’s care packages.
Bristol City Council is paying management consultancy Peopletoo more than £1.5 million to review the care packages of at least 190 disabled people with what the council calls “complex” packages of support.
But following a freedom of information request from Disability News Service, the council has refused to release details of its agreement with Peopletoo.
It is also refusing to release details of the financial packages being offered to locum social workers who are being recruited to carry out reviews of care and support packages in the city.
The council’s response, which was a month overdue – itself a breach of the Freedom of Information Act – claimed it was exempt from the duty to release the information because the details requested were “commercially sensitive” and releasing them would “disadvantage the supplier”.
It added: “In all the circumstances of the case, the public interest in maintaining the exemption outweighs the public interest in disclosing the information.”
The council has been at the centre of controversy since early last year over proposals to offer disabled people a “residential or nursing home placement” if a care package that would allow them to remain at home “would substantially exceed the affordability of residential care”.
The concerns about what the council called its Fair and Affordable Care Policy were first raised by the grassroots disabled people’s organisation Bristol Reclaiming Independent Living (BRIL).
The policy was eventually withdrawn, but this year the council brought forward new cuts worth millions of pounds that were also likely to push disabled people into residential care, as it aimed to save nearly £7 million from its funding of adult care and support packages in 2024-25.
As part of its new plans, the council will review the care packages of at least 190 disabled people with complex support needs.
It plans to pay Peopletoo £1,550,000 to carry out these reviews, and there are concerns that freelance social workers could be paid commission if they manage to cut people’s packages.
Peopletoo boasts on its website of how its reviews of council services “typically identify savings in the region of 10-20 per cent of service base budgets”.
It points to one council it has worked with to embed a “Strengths Based Approach” across adult social care, language similar to that used by Bristol City Council when announcing its planned reforms.
Last month, Disability Rights UK (DR UK), Greater Manchester Coalition of Disabled People (GMCDP), Inclusion London and WinVisible all wrote to the council to express their “deep concerns” about its proposed actions.
They said its plans would fail to uphold the rights of disabled people in Bristol to receive the care and support they needed, based on their personal choices, and that the new proposals were “arguably worse” than its “outrageous” Fair and Affordable Care Policy.
Val Stanfield, a member of BRIL, said: “We are horrified by the lack of transparency.
“It begs the question: why? What have they got to hide? Would any transparency validate everything that BRIL and the wider movement is saying?”
Rick Burgess, from GMCDP, said the council’s freedom of information (FOI) response was “disingenuous”.
He said: “Contracting out is a well-trodden tactic to attempt to move information beyond FOI’s reach. It smacks of bad faith.
“Given the attention and distress this issue is causing, a responsible approach would seek to be transparent and avoid both impropriety and the appearance of impropriety; they are failing in both respects.
“I would hope the new Green broom sweeping through the council will abandon this secretive approach and work with disabled people and our organisations.”
WinVisible said it was “a scandal” that the council was refusing to say how much it was paying Peopletoo and locum social workers “to cut the services on which ‘high-need’ disabled people depend for our survival”.
Rensa Gaunt, Inclusion London’s communications manager, said: “We think being ‘fair and affordable’ involves transparency around use of public money, especially if it’s being used to try and force disabled people into institutions.
“‘Strength-based’ reviews seek to take vital care and support away from us, fundamentally attacking our right to independent living in the community.
“This comes at the same time as the national government is trying to cut PIP disability benefit entitlement.
“As disabled people, we are a convenient target for some. But what we need is investment in services that enable us to live good lives, not short-sighted cuts.”
DR UK called for the council’s new leadership to ensure a new culture of transparency.
Mikey Erhardt, DR UK’s policy and campaigns officer, said: “A well-functioning democracy requires transparency and the ability to scrutinise how those in positions of power are making decisions that affect us.
“We all have the right to live in an inclusive society where everyone has a fulfilling life and feels connected and valued.
“We know our lives are not valued equally to others, so the idea of making cuts in secret and hiding away when we rightly ask questions, all in service of a spreadsheet somewhere in College Green [where the council is based], is unacceptable.
“How many more times must we go down this road?”
Peopletoo had not commented by 11am today (Thursday).
A council spokesperson said: “Disclosing the information requested under FOI would mean anyone from anywhere in the world would then have access to it, which would disadvantage the supplier as competitors would have access to it.
“In line with Information Commissioner’s Office guidance, we wouldn’t release any information that would cause financial harm to either the council, its contractor or both, unless it was in the public interest to do so.
“In this case, the public interest is to ensure that the council and other public bodies are consistently able to purchase goods and services at optimal value and that contractors to this council and other public bodies are able to compete fairly and with the confidence their commercial interests are not unreasonably harmed.”
23 May 2024
DWP silent over whether Sunak was wrong to say PIP was being exploited, as fraud falls to zero
The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) has refused to say if the prime minister was wrong to suggest that disability benefits were being misused and exploited, after new official figures showed the level of fraud has fallen to zero.
The DWP figures, released this week, days before Rishi Sunak called a general election, showed that overpayment of personal independence payment (PIP) due to fraud had dropped to 0.0 per cent, a fall from 0.2 per cent the previous year.
The figures were released just a month after Sunak said in a speech – in which he announced cuts to PIP spending and other social security reforms – that he worried about PIP being “misused” and wanted to make it “harder to exploit”.
These comments, and others made by Sunak, including calling for an end to what he called a “sicknote culture”, led to him being accused of whipping up hostility towards disabled people, and demonising and scapegoating claimants of disability benefits.
DWP’s new figures show that the overpayment rate for PIP is now at its “lowest recorded level” of 0.4 per cent (£90 million) in 2023-24, with most of that due to claimant error, usually because the claimant had failed to report an improvement in their support needs.
But they also show that fraud by PIP claimants fell from 0.2 per cent in 2022-23 to 0.0 per cent in 2023-24 (of total spending on PIP of about £21.6 billion), while fraud by disability living allowance claimants was estimated at just 0.1 per cent.
Despite the striking figures, there was no discussion of this fall in the DWP report, or any suggested explanation.
Asked about the figures, a DWP spokesperson said: “I have checked – the stats are correct, with PIP overpayments due to fraud at 0.0 per cent.”
Asked if the department welcomed the PIP fraud figures, why it believed PIP fraud had fallen so low, and whether the prime minister was wrong to demonise disabled people, a spokesperson said: “Our reforms are not about fraud, they are about targeting help at those who need it most and making sure we have a welfare state that is fit for the future.
“We support millions of people every year and are encouraging everyone to have their say and respond to our PIP consultation.”
DWP measures fraud levels by reviewing a sample of more than 13,000 claims to check if there have been any errors by DWP or the claimant, or any fraud.
The total amount of benefit fraud estimated from the reviews was £7.4 billion (2.8 per cent) in 2023-24, compared with £6.3 billion (2.7 per cent) in 2022-23.
The majority of this fraud related to universal credit, at £5.66 billion in 2023-24 (10.9 per cent).
23 May 2024
Baroness Grey-Thompson runs out of time in the Lords as she lists access barriers faced by disabled people
A disabled peer ran out of time during a Lords debate as she attempted to describe all the barriers disabled people face in their daily lives.
Baroness [Tanni] Grey-Thompson told fellow peers that there was not enough time to describe all of the barriers to accessing services that disabled people told her about in the days leading up to the debate.
Among the issues she raised were discriminatory and hostile attitudes, physical barriers in the Lords, barriers in education, employment and the built environment, the lack of accessible housing, inaccessible hotels, cinemas and restaurants, and access issues with buses, air travel and trains.
She mentioned this month’s revelations from Disability News Service that showed rail companies were using data from a mystery shopping company that has come from non-disabled people “role-playing” being disabled.
And she told the Lords: “Greater Anglia trains are fantastic for level boarding but, when I asked about accessibility, I was told not to worry because I would be in sight of the café-bar.
“All my dreams for inclusion became as one when I realised that I could see the café-bar, but could not actually buy anything from it.”
She then listed some of the other many barriers disabled people face, including the lack of accessible charging-points for electric vehicles, inaccessible dental chairs, access to wheelchairs, disability hate crime, the barriers faced by disabled people during Covid, and barriers to elected office.
But she eventually admitted defeat, and told peers: “…I have run out of time.”
The junior work and pensions minister Viscount Younger later praised her “verbal marathon”.
But other disabled peers lined up to add to her list.
The Liberal Democrat Baroness [Sal] Brinton, her party’s former president, also raised concerns about the accessibility of the House of Lords, which she said was “getting worse” for disabled people.
She focused on access problems in the transport system, including trains, buses and taxis.
And she highlighted the Supreme Court legal victory won by disabled campaigner Doug Paulley, which should have made it easier for wheelchair-users like herself to gain access to the wheelchair space on buses.
But she told peers: “This week I have twice had to argue with bus drivers who have refused to move buggies.
“I had to intervene yesterday to negotiate for an empty buggy to be folded and ask somebody with a pram to pull it back, let me into the space and then put the pram back in front of me.
“The driver sat there silently…”
She also spoke out about the government’s failure to act on accessible housing.
She said research by Habinteg Housing Association showed that only seven per cent of housing stock meets basic accessibility standards such as having a level entrance.
The Liberal Democrat Lord Addington, who is dyslexic, questioned why so many jobs demand a written English qualification when voice-operated technology is so widely-available on computers.
He said: “Most people do not know it is there, but it is: all you have to do is press a couple of buttons, or voice call them into action, and have it read back.
“We and government agencies are still saying, ‘You’ve got to pass certain tests in a certain way,’ and not, ‘Can you communicate information? Can you pass it on so that somebody knows what you are saying?’
“No, you have to write it down. We all know how absurd that is.
“Does anybody care if you have word-processed by talking or tapping a keyboard?”
The Conservative disabled peer Lord [Chris] Holmes called for a ban on “floating” bus stops, which are “essentially stuck in the middle of the road, with a cycle lane between the bus stop and the pavement”.
He said: “How can a disabled person – any person – effectively, efficiently and, crucially, safely access the bus?
“It is a planning folly: a planning disaster. Can we commit today that buses can only pick up and drop off from the kerbside?”
Disabled Liberal Democrat peer Baroness [Celia] Thomas highlighted the barriers faced by disabled people who try to claim personal independence payment.
She called for the Department for Work and Pensions to change its rules so a medical report from a healthcare professional has to be obtained, at least at the mandatory reconsideration stage of the claim.
She said: “The whole appeals process in itself is long-winded and stressful for a disabled person to go through, let alone being very expensive for the government.”
The Conservative disabled peer Lord [Kevin] Shinkwin spoke of the lack of progress in reducing employment discrimination, and the apparent failure of the government’s Disability Confident scheme.
He also pointed to work by the Disability@Work group of academics who found that “the percentage of the workforce that is disabled is no higher in Disability Confident level one or level three organisations, and only marginally higher in private sector level two organisations, than in non-Disability Confident organisations”.
And he pointed to evidence from the group’s Professor Kim Hoque, from King’s College London, who has told MPs that – despite the government’s claim that there are now many opportunities for disabled people with high support needs to work from home – of the 129,000 jobs listed on the DWP’s own Find a Job service, only 0.51 per cent were fully remote and 2.75 per cent were listed as being hybrid remote.
Lord Shinkwin also criticised the government’s apparent “disdain” shown by its failure to respond to his call for mandatory disability pay gap reporting by bigger businesses.
Viscount Younger said the government was “proud that this government have continued to tackle the barriers faced by disabled people”.
He claimed there were now two million more disabled people in work compared to 2010, although similar figures ministers have used have been repeatedly debunked by Disability@Work academics.
He also said: “We have 20 ministers across government committed to championing accessibility and opportunity for disabled people within their departments.”
He claimed the government’s PIP consultation was “not a money-saving exercise”, even though ministers launched it by saying it would rein in the “spiralling” caseload and costs.
He also said the government had doubled funding for the disabled facilities grant, from £220 million in 2015-16 to £625 million this year.
The minister claimed the government was “fully committed to improving transport accessibility, supporting disabled people to have the same access to transport as everyone else”, although he admitted there was “definitely more to do”.
23 May 2024
Government failure on mental health detentions ‘is scandalous’
The government has “fallen short” on its promise to halve the number of people with learning difficulties* and autistic people detained in mental health hospitals, a committee of MPs has warned.
The number of autistic people in such settings is even increasing, according to a report by the Commons women and equalities committee.
One leading disabled activist called the government’s failure an “absolute scandal”.
The report by the committee** calls for the government to “learn from previous failings” and increase support for community-based alternatives to detention in mental health hospitals, and “do more to stop people reaching crisis” that can lead to detention.
It calls on the government to explain why the number of autistic people detained in mental health hospitals is increasing.
In 2019, the NHS Long Term Plan pledged to halve the number of people with a learning difficulty and autistic people in mental health inpatient care by March 2024 compared to 2015 levels.
But the report says the latest figures show 2,045 people in such institutions at the end of March 2024, just a 30 per cent reduction since March 2015.
It says that most of this limited reduction has been driven by a fall in the number of inpatients with a learning difficulty only.
During the same period, the number of autistic people in mental health settings has increased from 1,115 to 1,380, including an increase in the number of women from 390 to about 500 over the last five years.
Only last month, the UN’s committee on the rights of disabled people said in a report that it was “deeply concerned” at evidence of “increasing rates of institutionalisation of disabled people, including disabled people living in secure psychiatric facilities due to a lack of community-based support”, and of “abuse, mistreatment and the increasing use of restraints, restrictive practices and coercive measures” in institutions.
Simone Aspis, campaigns manager for Inclusion London’s Free Our People Now campaign, said the government’s continuing failure was “scandalous”.
She said: “This government still sees people with learning difficulties and autistic people as second-class citizens.”
She also pointed to increasing numbers of young disabled people entering the psychiatric system due to a lack of support in the community.
She said it was a “complete scandal” how much money was still being spent “locking people up in the psychiatric system” when it could instead be spent “moving people out of hospital and into the community”.
She said: “If they really wanted to do it, they would bring in legislation to make it happen.
“People with learning difficulties and autistic people have a right to be living in the community and not locked up in hospital.”
The committee’s report also says that a National Learning Disability Board was established in 2013 to improve the health and wellbeing of people with learning difficulties, and its members included people with learning difficulties, but it was disbanded by the government in 2016.
Now the committee wants the government to set up a replacement body.
It says this new national board should be led by people with a learning difficulty, autistic people, people with parental and caring experience, and health and social care professionals.
Caroline Nokes, the committee’s chair, said: “The government has fallen short on its commitment to halve the number of people with a learning disability and autistic people inappropriately detained in mental health hospitals.
“It must learn from previous failings and increase support for community-based alternatives to detention and do more to stop people reaching crisis in the first instance.”
The report is the third and final publication that has come from the committee’s inquiry into the government’s National Disability Strategy.
The report also focuses on the barriers that people with learning difficulties and autistic people face in accessing healthcare.
It reports that these groups face “significant health inequalities, leading to lower life expectancy and more avoidable deaths than the general population”, while 42 per cent of deaths of people with a learning difficulty (including autistic people with a learning difficulty) were avoidable, compared to 22 per cent of deaths in the general population.
People with learning difficulties can request to be added to the learning disability register, which entitles them to reasonable adjustments, such as support with making decisions and access to an annual health check.
But the report says that about three-quarters of people with a learning difficulty are not registered, and “many struggle to convince their GP and practice staff to add them to the register”.
It also calls for action to address the lengthening waiting-list for an autism diagnosis, and improve the understanding of how autism is presented in women and girls “so that they can receive the support they need before they reach crisis and to prevent misdiagnosis and inappropriate care”.
The report also points to the employment gap for people with a learning difficulty and autistic people, with just 30.8 per cent of people with “severe or specific learning difficulties” and 30.6 per cent of autistic people employed in 2022-23.
It says the government should improve the way its much-criticised Access to Work and Disability Confident schemes support people with learning difficulties and autistic people.
The committee says that people with learning difficulties and autistic people who do not have an education, health and care plan should be exempted from the maths and English skills requirement for apprenticeships.
And it calls on the government to set an employment target for people with learning difficulties and autistic people.
*Although the committee uses the term “learning disability”, Disability News Service continues to use “learning difficulty” as it is the preferred term of the self-advocacy movement
**Inequalities in Healthcare and Employment for People with a Learning Disability and Autistic People
23 May 2024
Low traffic neighbourhoods can often damage disabled people’s independence, MPs are told
A disabled MP has warned that the introduction of low traffic neighbourhoods (LTNs) across England has too often had a damaging impact on disabled people’s independence.
Labour’s Marsha de Cordova told a parliamentary debate this week that many disabled people have faced obstructions caused by bollards and planters, and blocked dropped kerbs, as well as much longer journeys.
Many local authorities have failed to exempt holders of blue parking badges from LTN schemes, she said.
The schemes are traffic-control measures that reduce motorised traffic in a particular area, with the aim of making active travel more comfortable and improving public spaces for pedestrians.
De Cordova was leading a Westminster Hall debate on two parliamentary petitions that have raised concerns about the impact of LTNs.
One of them called for an independent review of their impact and the other called for disabled people with blue parking badges to be exempt from LTN fines.
A survey carried out by the Commons petitions committee found 86 per cent of disabled people who responded saying that LTNs had a “negative” or “very negative” impact on them.
De Cordova told MPs: “The accessibility issues around LTNs show that society is rarely designed with the needs and interests of disabled people in mind, and that often leads to their exclusion.”
She pointed to narrow cycle lanes that are designed for a two-wheel bike and cannot be used by trikes or other non-standard vehicles.
She said that LTNs “can work in certain areas if they are supported by the community”, and she suggested the government makes it compulsory for councils to consult disabled people’s groups before introducing an LTN.
The Liberal Democrat MP Wera Hobhouse said her local council in Bath had been “very brave in introducing a wide range of LTNs”, but she accepted that there were “legitimate concerns”, including those of disabled people.
She stressed the importance of “proper consultation, comprehensive exemptions and more accessible transport options”, as well as “dropped kerbs and no street clutter”.
She added: “LTNs have clear benefits: they improve air quality, increase the number of journeys made by walking and cycling, and show reductions in street crime.”
But Conservative MP Jacob Rees-Mogg insisted that “however much we wish to pretend otherwise, we are a society, a nation and an economy based on the internal combustion engine”.
He said: “Do we really think that we should be telling people how to lead their lives?
“Should we tell them what is good for them and make them do it?”
He added: “The thing that has reduced pollution has been not LTNs, but improvements in the internal combustion engine and, most crucially, the move away from diesel engines.”
Simon Lightwood, Labour’s shadow local transport minister, said LTNs “play an important part in delivering safer streets and cleaner air and in helping encourage people to use active travel to get around”.
He said: “The government’s own review on low-traffic neighbourhoods has found that of the LTNs surveyed, 38 exempted blue badge-holders and 34 did not.
“It is clear that more can be done to ensure that LTNs consider the needs of those with limited mobility.
“Labour’s position on low-traffic neighbourhoods is clear: they are decisions that should continue to be made by local authorities, not be decided by diktat from Whitehall or Westminster.
“Of course, these decisions must be made with proper consultation, and the concerns of each community must be taken on board.”
Guy Opperman, a junior transport minister, said: “We have to accept that low-traffic neighbourhoods can work where they are well designed and where there is, crucially, local support for them.
“But they can also do harm where they are poorly thought through and introduced with insufficient public engagement and support.”
He said the review commissioned by the government – which has so far produced an interim report – “flagged particular concerns over the impact on disabled residents, the high number of penalty charge notices, the cost of the LTN schemes, and even concerns from individual emergency services that delays to crews caught up in LTNs could potentially risk lives”.
He added: “Many disabled residents, as well as groups representing the views of disabled transport users, felt that inadequate consideration had been given to their needs and the impacts of LTN schemes on disabled people.”
And he said that several local authorities had not carried out equality impact assessments on their schemes.
He said the government had addressed these issues through draft guidance, “which sets out clear expectations for comprehensive and in-depth local engagement and full consideration of the needs of all road users in such a scheme”.
He said: “Although it is guidance, we reserve the right to take further action if local authorities do not follow it.”
He also said it was not a “viable solution” for vehicles belonging to blue badge-holders to be automatically exempt from any restrictions and enforcement, as “blue badges are linked to the individual and not the vehicle”.
But he said the draft LTN guidance “makes it clear that local authorities should always consider exemption from restrictions for blue badge-holders, as well as for deliveries and other essential services”.
Responding to his comments, De Cordova was critical of the government’s review, which she said was “not exhaustive and did not include many key stakeholders, such as disabled people”.
And she said it was “a shame” that the government had offered “no solution to ensure that anybody who holds a blue badge is exempt from the schemes”.
She told MPs: “As we have said, low-traffic neighbourhood schemes can work if they are done properly, are led by evidence and are fully inclusive and accessible to us all.”
After the debate, Mike Spenser, the disabled campaigner and musician who started the petition calling for disabled people with blue parking badges to be exempt from LTN fines, said he was glad that “the elephant in the room has finally come out and be seen to be an issue that must be addressed”.
But he said he was not happy that key issues around the impact of LTNs on mental health and the need for local authorities to use the national DVLA database were not addressed thoroughly enough in the debate, and he said he will now be pushing for another debate on the issue.
23 May 2024
Other disability-related stories covered by mainstream media this week
Jersey is to move ahead with allowing assisted suicide for people with a terminal illness after a vote in its parliament. Legislation is expected to be brought before the island’s states assembly by the end of 2025, and an assisted suicide service for residents to be in place by mid-2027: https://www.theguardian.com/society/article/2024/may/22/jersey-approves-plans-assisted-dying-terminally-ill-adult-residents
The NHS’s leading wheelchair provider has been told to urgently improve its complaints system by the health service ombudsman amid concerns disabled people are waiting up to two years for wheelchairs. The parliamentary and health service ombudsman took the unusual step of writing to AJM Healthcare after a sharp rise in complaints from wheelchair-users. Most related to people not receiving new wheelchairs or the correct parts. The waits range from a month to two years, the ombudsman said: https://www.theguardian.com/society/article/2024/may/21/nhss-leading-wheelchair-provider-told-to-improve-as-people-wait-up-to-two-years
BT has significantly delayed plans to force customers to switch from physical copper-based landlines to internet-based services following concerns from “vulnerable” people. The switch was paused at the end of last year after several incidents where telecare devices stopped working. Nearly two million people in the UK use personal alarms which rely on landlines. BT, which is also responsible for EE customers, has now abandoned the timeline of completing the national switchover by the end of 2025, and will instead aim to complete the move by the end of January 2027: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c5119g5z4q5o
Thousands of children in England with “complex needs” are missing out on support as councils fail to meet care plan deadlines, BBC News has found. Councils have a legal time limit of 20 weeks, in most cases, to issue an education, health and care plan, after a parent or school asks for one. BBC News has found eight councils met the deadline in fewer than five per cent of cases, from April to December last year: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-68668602
23 May 2024
News provided by John Pring at www.disabilitynewsservice.com
