MPs join activists and families in call for public inquiry into years of DWP deaths

MPs have joined disabled activists and bereaved families in calling for a public inquiry into the years of deaths linked to the actions of ministers, senior civil servants and advisers at the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP).

Disability News Service (DNS) has shown how the department spent more than a decade covering up evidence that links its actions with hundreds, and probably thousands, of deaths of disabled social security claimants.

Documents secured through freedom of information requests, inquest reports, and investigations by DNS and bereaved family members show how DWP destroyed incriminating records, failed to share crucial evidence with its own independent reviewers and grieving relatives, and even lied to a coroner.

Much of the evidence is included in the book The Department*, written by DNS editor John Pring and published in August.

Next week, DNS plans to bring together key evidence from the book, as well as important new information secured since The Department went to press, in a detailed explanation of why a public inquiry is needed.

This week, MPs joined the fight to persuade the government to order a public inquiry through an early day motion (EDM) tabled by John McDonnell, the former Labour shadow chancellor, who currently sits as an independent MP and has supported the disabled people’s anti-cuts movement for more than a decade.

He focuses in his EDM on the book’s “shocking evidence” of harm caused by the work capability assessment (WCA).

Among that evidence is research by public health experts from the universities of Liverpool and Oxford, who showed in 2015 that, across England, the reassessment through the WCA of disabled people receiving the old incapacity benefit was associated with an extra 590 suicides between 2010 and 2013.

McDonnell calls in the EDM for the government to set up an independent public inquiry into the role played by ministers, civil servants and advisers “and their culpability for the suffering” identified in Pring’s book.

So far, the EDM has been signed by five other MPs: Labour’s Jon Trickett, Mary Kelly Foy and Ian Lavery, SDLP’s Claire Hanna, and DUP’s Jim Shannon.

McDonnell said on Tuesday, at a vigil outside the Royal Courts of Justice, that it was “difficult to describe the scale of the suffering” caused by the WCA, including “tragically, a large number of disabled people losing their lives”.

Disabled people and allies were taking part in the vigil as a two-day high court hearing began into a case taken by disabled activist and author Ellen Clifford that challenges proposals by the last government to tighten the WCA (see separate stories), which have yet to be ruled out by the new government.

Disabled activist Rick Burgess, who helped persuade the Oxford and Liverpool academics to carry out the 2015 research, said: “A responsible government would actually want to learn what had gone wrong.

“A public inquiry is an ideal way of doing that, a democratic way of doing that, a transparent way of doing that.”

Mark Harrison, from the Reclaiming Our Futures Alliance of disabled people’s organisations, said an inquiry was “essential if we are to understand what has gone so horribly wrong in the DWP that has led to so many unnecessary benefit-related deaths”.

Families whose relatives died due to DWP’s actions are also backing the call for a public inquiry.

Joy Dove, whose daughter Jodey Whiting took her own life in February 2017, 15 days after her employment and support allowance was wrongly stopped by DWP for missing a WCA, has been calling for an inquiry for more than five years.

She said: “We need to find out who was responsible for what happened.

“There have been inquiries into Hillsborough and the Post Office scandal.

“Now we need an inquiry into the deaths caused by DWP, including Jodey’s.”

Alison Burton, whose father-in-law Errol Graham starved to death after DWP wrongly stopped his benefits when he missed a WCA, said the families of those who died are being denied justice.

She believes a public inquiry would learn lessons and provide the transparency necessary to stop the “public misconceptions about people who are on the benefits system” and reduce “the hate created by the previous government”.

Imogen Day, whose sister Philippa’s death was caused by widespread flaws and failings in the personal independence payment assessment system, said an inquiry was “sorely needed” because of the “sheer amount of deaths” and serious harm caused to claimants.

She said: “If we don’t find out how it happened, we are not going to find out how to stop it, how to prevent it ever happening again.”

Dr China Mills, who leads Healing Justice Ldn’s Deaths by Welfare project – which uses a digital timeline to track the slow, accumulated violence caused by the social security system over the last three decades – said: “Thanks to the ongoing investigations of Disability News Service we know there have been hundreds of investigations into serious harm and deaths (internal process reviews), and yet these have never been made public, not even to the families of those who have died.

“I don’t believe we’ll find justice from unjust systems, and I don’t think an inquiry alone would deliver justice.

“But it’s an important step for many disabled people and bereaved families as a means to surface currently unseen evidence, to investigate the depth and scale of harm caused by the DWP, and to move us closer to building life-affirming welfare systems.”

Another to call for a public inquiry is Dr Jay Watts, a consultant clinical psychologist and disabled activist, who has played a crucial role in highlighting the impact of DWP’s actions over the last decade.

She believes an inquiry is “essential” and that DWP’s “unrelenting assault on disabled and claimant communities” has damaged hundreds of thousands of lives, “reducing them to a state of hypervigilant anxiety and despair”.

She said the “truth and reconciliation process” of a public inquiry “would begin to heal the deep fissures of distrust and fear between disabled communities and the state”.

DWP had failed to comment on the EDM and the call for a public inquiry by noon today (Thursday).

*The Department: How a Violent Government Bureaucracy Killed Hundreds and Hid the Evidence, John Pring’s book on the years of deaths linked to DWP, is published by Pluto Press 

12 December 2024

Court hears disabled activist’s challenge to ‘cataclysmic’ cuts to out-of-work disability benefits

The high court in London has this week heard a legal challenge that aims to expose how the last Conservative government used a “sham consultation” to try to push through “cataclysmic” cuts to disability benefits of nearly £3 billion over four years.

The plans to tighten the work capability assessment (WCA) were announced in the 2023 autumn budget, and they would see more than 400,000 disabled people losing out on £416 a month by 2028-29, with many claimants facing strict new conditions and the risk of sanctions.

The new Labour government has promised to make the same overall level of savings but has yet to say how it will do this and if it will implement the WCA cuts.

The judicial review case is being taken by disabled activist and author Ellen Clifford, who is challenging the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) over a “rushed and disingenuous” consultation that was held last year before the reforms were announced in the budget.

Before the two-day hearing began on Tuesday, disabled activists and allies from groups including Disabled People Against Cuts (DPAC), Inclusion London, WinVisible, Black Triangle Campaign and Changing Perspectives joined representatives from unions Unite, Equity and PCS in a vigil outside the Royal Courts of Justice in London.

Clifford, who is supported by solicitors from Public Law Project, said before the hearing: “More than 400,000 people will be worse off by £416 a month if the changes proposed in this consultation go ahead.

“And then there is the risk that people will lose even more money if they are sanctioned for not being able to comply with conditions they will now need to fulfil in order to receive their benefits.

“To be blunt, this would be cataclysmic for Deaf and disabled people in the UK and would push many into destitution.”

Clifford believes the true motive of the consultation was to cut spending on disability benefits, rather than trying to get more disabled people into work, while the consultation document failed to provide any “meaningful information about the likely impact of the proposals”.

She said on Tuesday: “I am very glad that we will finally be heard in court today.

“This is a necessary first step in Deaf and disabled people working towards a system that prioritises our lives, rather than cuts or savings.

“Going forwards, we hope there is real co-production in designing a social security system that is a benefit to society and which prevents rather than causes harm.”

John McDonnell, Labour’s former shadow chancellor but currently sitting as an independent MP, who attended the vigil, said he believed the judicial review was “one of the most significant cases for disabled people that I have seen in the last couple of decades”.

He told Disability News Service (DNS): “I think if we are successful, which I think we will be, it could force a whole rethink both in terms of the cuts themselves and also future policy.”

He later told the vigil that The Department*, written by DNS editor John Pring and published in August, had exposed the “brutality” of the work capability assessment and its impact on disabled people, and how it caused many deaths (see separate story).

McDonnell said the last government had been aware of these fatal links and so “you would have expected them to take seriously the discussions and consultations that they had with wider society but also in particular disabled people.

“This legal action demonstrates that they had a complete disregard for consultations, discussions, engagement.

“They had a disregard for the implications of the work capability assessment.”

He said the last government had also shown “a complete disregard for the human suffering that took place and the many lives that were lost”.

Clifford’s case, he said, would “demonstrate just how callous that government measure was, but also their complete disrespect for the very people this policy hurts”.

The proposed cuts will make it more difficult for disabled people to use the protection of the WCA’s “substantial risk” safety net and will make changes to the assessment’s “getting about” and “mobilising” activities.

Paula Peters, a member of DPAC’s national steering group, said last year’s “inadequate” consultation was “insulting to the thousands of Deaf and disabled people who the changes will harm” and “misrepresented the proposals as a move to support more benefit claimants into employment, without giving us all the information on how we will be affected”.

Andy Mitchell, co-founder of Unite’s Cut Sanctions Not Incomes campaign, said: “The fact that disabled people have been forced to go to court to challenge a misleading consultation on a policy that will have a devastating impact on so many of us is yet more evidence of how our voices, needs and lives are ignored.”

Austin Harney, from PCS, a member of the TUC disabled workers’ committee, said his union – which represents many frontline DWP workers – was pushing for there to be a “major campaign” to address how disabled people are treated in jobcentres and how DWP is “attacking” disabled benefit claimants.

He told the vigil that it was “cowardly and inhumane, not only by the previous government, but this current government’s not showing any sign that they’ll do something about it”.

Claire Glasman, from the disabled women’s organisation WinVisible, said the substantial risk rule helped many of the women in their network who were survivors of violence, including refugees, those who have fled domestic violence, and women who were abused as children.

And Adam Gabsi, chair of Inclusion London, said the proposed changes to the WCA send “a dangerous message that the government is willing to ignore the lived realities of disabled people in favour of reducing costs.

“I strongly urge decision-makers to reconsider these proposed changes and engage meaningfully with disabled people and their representative organisations.”

A DWP spokesperson said: “We can’t comment on live legal proceedings.”

The department claims it has been clear that the WCA is not working, which it says is why it plans to publish a green paper in the spring on reforming the disability benefits system.

It claims that its plans to support more disabled people into work – including through its Get Britain Working white paper – will reduce spending on benefits, and it claims it will work closely with disabled people and their organisations as it develops its proposals.

It also claims that the secret internal process reviews it carries out into deaths linked to its actions allow it to learn how to improve its processes, and it claims it is cooperating with the Commons work and pensions committee’s inquiry into its safeguarding failures, and that it is looking forward to receiving and responding to the committee’s report.

*The Department: How a Violent Government Bureaucracy Killed Hundreds and Hid the Evidence, John Pring’s book on the years of deaths linked to DWP, is published by Pluto Press 

12 December 2024

Activists ask why a Labour government is ‘gleefully’ backing Tory plans to tighten work capability assessment

Disabled activists have questioned why a Labour-run department was in the high court this week defending cuts proposed by the last government which would cause “human suffering” among hundreds of thousands of claimants of out-of-work disability benefits.

They spoke during a vigil outside the Royal Courts of Justice on Tuesday as disabled activist Ellen Clifford and her lawyers from Public Law Project were preparing to challenge the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) over a “rushed and disingenuous” consultation on plans to tighten the work capability assessment (WCA).

The plans were announced in the 2023 autumn budget, and would see more than 400,000 disabled people losing out on £416 a month by 2028-29, with many also facing strict new conditions and the risk of benefit sanctions that could see them lose even more money.

Clifford says the changes would be “cataclysmic for Deaf and disabled people in the UK and would push many into destitution”.

Labour’s work and pensions secretary, Liz Kendall, has promised to make the savings promised by the Conservatives, who pledged to cut spending by £2.8 billion in the four years to 2028-29 by tightening the WCA.

Kendall said the government would make these savings by “bringing forward our own proposals”, but she has yet to rule out the WCA changes.

Tracey Lazard, chief executive of Inclusion London, told Tuesday’s vigil that it was “incomprehensible that the new Labour government is picking up these plans and seemingly running ahead with them in glee”.

She said: “We know this is slash and burn austerity. We know that a punitive welfare regime does not work.

“It does not get people back into jobs. It does the complete opposite.

“It pushes people away from work, it makes people ill, and it makes people poorer.

“We have 15 years of evidence to show that now.”

She added: “This Labour government needs to show us that they are different than the Tories.

“This Labour government needs to pause these plans and start working with us, not against us.”

Among others supporting Tuesday’s vigil outside the Royal Courts of Justice in London were disabled activists and allies from groups including Disabled People Against Cuts (DPAC), WinVisible, Black Triangle Campaign and Changing Perspectives as well as representatives from the unions Unite, Equity and PCS.

John McArdle, co-founder of Black Triangle, who had travelled from Edinburgh to attend the two-day hearing, said: “All of us have been campaigning now for 15 years against the injustice of the work capability assessment, which is nothing less in most cases than a disability denial factory with its foundations in the American insurance system.

“What we did not expect was for a new government to come in and continue with the Tories’ plans to cut an extra three billion from the support that disabled people need to live with dignity.”

Claire Glasman, from WinVisible, said: “I think Ellen’s judicial review is a point for everyone to focus on to stop the Labour agenda of continuing with the Tory cuts.

“Before they were elected we knew they were going to be tough on welfare and it’s actually worse than we expected.”

The proposed cuts will make it more difficult to use the protection of the WCA’s “substantial risk” safety net and will make changes to the assessment’s “getting about” and “mobilising” activities.

Emma Cotton, a social security adviser with Equity, said: “The government is here today to defend this, and it does so against the mounting evidence of benefit deaths, many of which can be linked to the failure to apply the substantial risk rules, the substantial risk rules that the government propose to make even tougher.”

She said the government was taking these measures even though the UN committee on the rights of persons with disabilities called on the last government in a report earlier this year to take “all legislative, policy and administrative measures to prevent, review and respond to occurrences of ‘unexpected deaths’ and ‘benefit deaths’”.

John McDonnell, Labour’s former shadow chancellor but currently sitting as an independent MP, said he wanted to “educate this government that disabled people will not stand by and witness again the human suffering that the WCA has caused”.

Andy Mitchell, co-founder of Unite’s Cut Sanctions Not Incomes campaign, said the new government “should be looking to end rather than increase conditionality and sanctions, which are proven to move individual claimants further from employment while causing avoidable harm”.

A DWP spokesperson said: “We can’t comment on live legal proceedings.”

The department claims it has been clear that the WCA is not working, which it says is why it plans to publish a green paper in the spring on reforming the disability benefits system.

It claims that its plans to support more disabled people into work – including through its Get Britain Working white paper – will reduce benefits spending, and it claims it will work closely with disabled people and their organisations as it develops its proposals.

It also claims that the secret internal process reviews it carries out into deaths linked to its actions allow it to learn how to improve its processes, and it claims it is cooperating with the Commons work and pensions committee’s inquiry into DWP safeguarding failures, and that it is looking forward to receiving and responding to the committee’s report.

12 December 2024

Lukewarm reception for rail company’s plan to improve passenger assistance

A train company’s “action plan” to improve its much-criticised passenger assistance services has been given a lukewarm reception by disabled campaigners.

The Office of Rail and Road, the rail regulator, has told Northern that its latest plan for improving the assistance it provides disabled passengers is “acceptable”.

The regulator’s concerns about the publicly-owned operator’s performance date back at least five years.

ORR research (PDF), published in July, found that nearly one in five (18 per cent) disabled passengers who booked assistance at a station managed by Northern, and responded to a survey, did not receive any of that assistance.

And only 74 per cent of disabled passengers travelling through Northern stations were met for their assistance in a “reasonable timeframe”.

ORR had written to Northern about its concerns in July, but the regulator said Northern’s initial response failed to provide reassurance that it understood the causes of its poor performance, that it had “robust plans in place to secure improvements”, or that it had made “appropriate progress” against actions it had planned previously.

ORR had previously raised concerns with Northern in 2019 and 2022 and had been promised that action was being taken.

The regulator said in a follow-up letter in September (PDF) that Northern’s previous plans to improve its services had “either not been fully implemented or not been successful in tackling the underlying causes of failed assists”, and it demanded an improvement plan.

Now ORR says Northern has produced an “acceptable action plan” for improvements over the next year.

Among the promises in its plan, Northern says it will work on: reviewing how it staffs assistance at the 10 stations where it receives most assistance requests, including Leeds; setting up a new team to provide support by phone and WhatsApp to passengers who need assistance; and trialling a new process that will allow passengers at unstaffed stations who have not pre-booked assistance to alert train conductors to their presence at that station.

It will also work on ensuring that all reports of failed assistance are “recorded, investigated and the root cause identified”.

If Northern fails to improve its performance over the next 12 months, ORR may take formal action against the train operator.

Accessible transport campaigner Doug Paulley has experienced a series of failures with passenger assistance on Northern services, including being left locked on a train at Leeds station last year.

He said this week that Northern had “a major, major attitudinal problem towards passenger assistance and certainly towards seeing it as a core part of their job”.

He said the actions promised by Northern to improve its passenger assistance were “a bit wishy-washy”.

He said: “It felt like there was nothing revolutionary in those specific requirements and neither were they particularly specific.

“They were all things that Northern should have been doing anyway.”

He added: “I generally find that the individual staff members, with the odd exception, are really decent people who care about access and who work damn hard, including the guards and station staff, but there is a wider organisational issue.

“To me it stinks of a cultural problem further up.”

Flick Williams, a disability rights campaigner and retired disability equality trainer and access consultant, said: “I welcome the plans for Northern to improve the reliability and consistency of its passenger assistance. But the proof of the pudding comes later.

“A plan is just a plan until we see real improvements to the service offered.”

Northern had failed to comment on the ORR announcement by noon today (Thursday).

Stephanie Tobyn, ORR’s director of strategy, policy and reform, said: “After recent constructive discussions with Northern, we welcome its plan which recognises where it can improve upon its assistance reliability.

“The onus is now on the operator to fulfil what it has set out to achieve. We will monitor its progress over the coming months.”

Meanwhile, ORR has launched a two-month consultation on a new annual assessment that will rate how train companies provide assistance to disabled passengers.

The new assessment will be applied to train operators and Network Rail, and ORR says it will strengthen its ability to hold operators to account for poor performance, highlight good practice to share across the industry, and drive improvements in passenger assistance.

12 December 2024

Rosalie Wilkins: Disabled peer had ‘unwavering belief in justice and equality’

Friends and former colleagues are mourning the loss of a disabled peer and broadcaster who played a key role in fighting for disabled people’s rights in the House of Lords.

Baroness [Rosalie] Wilkins, who died on 1 December, at the age of 78, had become involved in disability politics soon after becoming disabled at university in 1966, campaigning with the Disablement Income Group, and working for the Central Council for the Disabled (which later became RADAR).

She began her career in television in 1972 with a documentary she presented for World in Action on a village for disabled people in the Netherlands.

This led to her presenting ITV’s fortnightly LINK magazine programme from 1975 to 1988.

Jane Campbell and Mike Oliver later wrote in Disability Politics that LINK had been “the vanguard of disability programming in the UK”, “remarkably ahead of its time”, and had “responded to the lead of the emerging disability movement”.

Its first programme featured Vic Finkelstein – one of the pioneers of the disability movement – discussing the social model of disability.

Baroness Wilkins described in Disability Politics how she had introduced LINK’s executive producer Richard Creasey to Finkelstein, a meeting which “very much turned LINK around”, as it originally had been set to be a “very traditional” series.

She later became a freelance television producer and presenter, producing documentaries that highlighted the movement’s development, before working for the National Centre for Independent Living, and then being made a life peer in 1999, where she sat on the Labour benches.

In her maiden speech, on 23 November 1999, Baroness Wilkins focused on the independent living movement, highlighting how centres for independent living had “sprung up around the country” since the 1980s.

She referenced disabled people’s organisations such as the West of England Coalition of Disabled People and Greater Manchester Coalition of Disabled People, and called on her government to promote the “social inclusion of disabled young people leaving care”.

In the post-2010 years, she spoke out frequently on the impact of the coalition government’s austerity cuts, and how they would affect disabled people, including with accessible housing, support for disabled pupils, disability benefits, and on hostile rhetoric about benefit claimants in national newspapers.

Her final speech in the Lords was on 25 June 2015, and it focused on housing for disabled people.

She spoke of the “catastrophic” impact of the shortage of accessible housing, and of how a Conservative government policy to weaken accessible housing standards “put accessible home building at risk” at a time when disabled people were “facing a growing crisis in finding suitable accommodation”.

She said the government’s policy was “economic folly” and that ministers had “decided to favour the short-term profits of private developers, for which not only our generation but future generations will pay the price”.

She retired from the Lords the following month.

Baroness Wilkins also served as a board member, vice-chair and chair of the London-based disabled people’s organisation Action on Disability (AoD, formerly Hammersmith and Fulham Action on Disability, HAFAD).

Among her other roles were positions on the Central Health Services Council, the BBC General Advisory Council, and the Prince of Wales’ Advisory Group on Disability, and she was president of the College of Occupational Therapists for five years.

Kamran Mallick, chief executive of Disability Rights UK and previously chief executive of AoD for 13 years, described Baroness Wilkins as an “extraordinary advocate, mentor, and friend” who would leave a legacy as a champion for disability rights.

He said she had displayed a “quiet strength” and was “thoughtful, measured, and deliberate in her advocacy”.

He said: “It was this quiet determination that made her such an effective leader.

“She could dismantle opposition with logic, build bridges with empathy, and inspire action with her unwavering belief in justice and equality.”

He said she “had a vision for a world where disabled people were not just included but celebrated – where accessibility was a given, and discrimination was a thing of the past”.

AoD said Baroness Wilkins had been “deeply involved” in local and national campaigns for disabled people and was “passionately dedicated to the work of HAFAD”.

David Buxton, the current chief executive of AoD, said he was “deeply saddened” by the news of her death.

He said: “When I think of Ros, my first memory is of her smile and laughter during the times we spent discussing disability issues and political challenges.

“My last memory of her is of her holding my hands firmly in her home and urging me that Action on Disability must return to its roots as a true disabled people’s organisation.

“She reminded me that at the heart of everything is the voice of disabled people – a voice we must listen to in order to shape a better and stronger future for AoD.”

Cllr Sharon Holder, AoD’s chair, added: “Although I never met Rosalie personally, I have heard so much about the incredible work she did for the local disabled community as a leader and campaigner.

“With great gratitude and honour, we will remember and celebrate Ros’s immense contributions to Deaf and disabled people, both locally and nationally.

“Her determination and energy shaped who we are today, and her legacy continues to inspire us to press on with the hard work needed to achieve true equity and inclusion in society.”

12 December 2024

Advice services run by disabled people under threat due to ‘constant challenge’ of securing funding

Advice services provided by disabled people’s organisations (DPOs) are under significant financial threat, despite a surge in demand for the support they provide, new research has shown.

More than nine in 10 (93 per cent) of the DPOs who took part in a survey reported increased demand for their advice services in the last year, but more than two-fifths said they were at risk of closure.

And of the 29 DPOs that took part in the survey, 17 said it was likely that they would have to cut their services in the next year.

The figures came from a survey of members carried out by the AdviceUK network, which includes 58 DPOs.

One of the DPOs that contributed to a report on the research (PDF) was Equal Lives, whose advisers helped with nearly 900 issues last year, including benefits, social care, workplace accessibility and discrimination.

Sarah Little, advice and membership team manager for Equal Lives, said securing sustainable funding was “a constant challenge”.

She told AdviceUK: “Reduced local authority funding is forcing us to cut key services like welfare benefit form filling and appeal representation.

“The uncertainty of our funding with short-term contracts makes it difficult to plan ahead and doesn’t provide the stability we need to grow and innovate.

“Without reliable funding, our advice service faces a precarious future − potentially leading to staff restructuring or even closure.”

Andrew MacKay, chief executive of Disability Law Service, told AdviceUK’s researchers that legal advice services at his organisation were a “lifeline” but were under threat.

He said: “The lack of long-term funding is a constant strain on our resources and staff.

“Unfunded programmes like our community care and housing helpline risk closure without new support.”

Caroline Collier, from Inclusion Barnet’s Campaign for Disability Justice, told Disability News Service (DNS) this week: “At Inclusion Barnet, we know our local users really appreciate being able to talk to peer advisors who understand the barriers they face.

“More than that, we know that the fraying of the social security safety net – something the Campaign for Disability Justice is desperately concerned about – means skilled, appropriate advice is more important than ever.

“That’s why it’s hugely concerning to hear that 41 per cent of the DPOs surveyed were unsure their advice services would continue.

“We’re grateful to AdviceUK for highlighting this situation, but this goes wider even than advice services, important though they undoubtedly are.

“The Campaign for Disability Justice believes that, 20 years on from Improving the Life Chances of Disabled People (PDF)*, we need a new, ambitious strategy to revitalise DPOs, with a coherent plan to ensure they are commissioned to provide the local services disabled people need.”

The AdviceUK report also includes an advance statistic from a forthcoming report** by Disability Rights UK (DR UK) on how the “current funding landscape is structurally inequitable, inaccessible and fails to recognise the unique contributions and needs of DPOs”.

The DR UK figure shows that 90 DPOs between them received only 2.7 per cent of the total value of government contracts awarded to nine disability charities that are not led by disabled people, between April 2022 and March 2023.

Rebecca Tayler Edwards, DR UK’s DPO development manager, told DNS that, as laid out in the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD), decisions affecting disabled people must not be made without the direct participation of disabled people.

She said: “By sidelining DPOs, governments and funding organisations violate the spirit of the UNCRPD and undermine the fundamental rights of disabled people to self-representation and self-determination.

“We demand an equitable distribution of funding to our communities based on the principles of empowerment, self-determination and support at home.

“Current funding models are setting back the full inclusion of disabled people.

“Non-disabled led organisations appropriate our language of empowerment yet do not enable disabled people to have access to decision-makers or people in power.

“In the context of a professionalised sector, organisations not led by disabled people financially benefit from talking about our oppression in the same society in which they are privileged by it.

“As organisations led by and for disabled people, we are coming together to demand funding justice for our sector.”

AdviceUK has released a short film to highlight the role DPOs play in supporting disabled people, and it is calling for improved funding and support for the wider advice sector through its Advice Saves campaign.

Liz Bayram, chief executive of AdviceUK, said: “Deaf and disabled people’s organisations (DDPOs) offer a lifeline, providing essential advice, support and advocacy to enable people to live independent and fulfilling lives.

“Yet our research shows they are at breaking point.

“We are calling for sustainable funding solutions, and support for recruiting, training and retaining skilled staff to ensure the future of these vital services.”

She added: “With a government review underway on supporting disabled people in work, it is vital that its recommendations genuinely meet the needs of Deaf and disabled people and ensure that those who may be unable to work are not forgotten.

“At a time of rising demand and shrinking resources, DDPOs are the last line of support for many.

“We cannot afford to let these lifelines disappear.”

*A white paper, published by the Labour government in January 2005, which set out “an ambitious vision for improving the life chances of disabled people so that by 2025 disabled people have full opportunities and choices to improve their quality of life and will be respected and included as equal members of society”

**The Funding Gap: The Financial Disparity Between Disabled People-Led and Non-Disabled People-Led Charities in the UK, to be published by DR UK next month

12 December 2024

Concern over government’s ‘terrible joke’ appointment of rail access ‘ambassador’

Disabled campaigners have questioned the government’s decision to appoint a senior rail executive as one of its new disability and access ambassadors.

Alison Smith, the accessibility and inclusion lead for the Great British Railways Transition Team, who previously had a similar role at Network Rail, has been appointed as the rail ambassador.

Although the appointment was not announced on the website of the government’s Disability Unit, it was released on social media.

Among those questioning the appointment was Doug Paulley, who has spent years successfully challenging the rail industry over its access failures.

He described her appointment as “a terrible joke”.

He told Disability News Service of an incident that took place several years ago, after he had complained about two Network Rail employees who made abusive comments about him on social media.

He said Smith had asked him to read out the abusive messages in a meeting, and later, after Network Rail agreed to address his concerns, she failed to take any significant action to ensure those measures were carried out.

There are also concerns about comments Smith made in a parliamentary evidence session last year.

Just 12 months ago, she defended Network Rail’s practice of building new inaccessible footbridges, when she was giving evidence to MPs on the Commons transport select committee.

Last year, the public body, which owns and runs most of the country’s rail infrastructure, had admitted it would be building at least 17 inaccessible footbridges across England, Scotland and Wales in 2022, 2023 and 2024.

When asked to justify building inaccessible bridges, Smith told MPs that they were often in locations that could not provide power for a lift, and that ramps “can be very substantial bits of infrastructure not always supported by the community”, so Network Rail made decisions that were “in the best interests of the taxpayer”.

Paulley said these comments made her an inappropriate choice as the government’s new disability and access ambassador for rail.

He said: “I have absolutely no confidence at all that she will in any way champion disabled people’s rights.”

Sam Jennings, a disabled activist whose website #DisabledByTheRailway highlights the access barriers faced by disabled rail passengers, said: “The comments she made about inaccessible bridges just made me breathe fire.

“I just don’t see how someone who makes comments like that can be an appropriate choice as an access ambassador.”

She added: “It’s disappointing that we keep seeing the same names shuffled around the industry like a revolving door.

“There needs to be wholesale change and reform to the attitudes of everyone in the industry and it’s getting tiresome to see this never taken seriously enough.”

Flick Williams, a disability rights campaigner and retired disability equality trainer and access consultant, also questioned if Smith was “the right pick” for the role.

She said: “She forgets that railways divide communities, and inaccessible bridges impose a disability apartheid.

“The Equality Act is not something you can pick and choose from when it suits and ignore it when it doesn’t.

“If she doesn’t understand the importance of Network Rail being an inclusive, good neighbour to communities, perhaps she is not the right pick.”

In response to the concerns, a Network Rail spokesperson said in a statement: “We are delighted that Alison Smith has been appointed disability and access ambassador, representing the rail industry.

“With her extensive knowledge and experience as Network Rail’s head of customer strategy and now as GBRTT’s accessibility and inclusion lead, Alison will help build on the meaningful improvements in accessibility already seen across the rail sector, an understanding of the challenges faced and the commitment that rail travel should be accessible for everyone.”

There are currently 20 disability and access ambassadors, covering sectors such as advertising, arts and culture, banking, energy, housing, recruitment, retail and tourism.

The roles were created by the Conservative government to “drive improvements to the accessibility and quality of services and facilities in their sector for disabled people, as consumers and employees”.

But only a small number of the ambassadors chosen by the last government publicly self-identified as disabled people, and the Conservative government admitted that it did not even ask them if they were disabled people.

Disability News Service asked the Cabinet Office last year in a freedom of information request how many of its ambassadors identify as disabled people, and how many declined to provide that information when applying for the roles.

It replied: “Thank you for your request regarding the self-identification of the Disability and Access Ambassadors as disabled.

“This information is neither sought nor collected.”

The last government had claimed that its heavily-criticised National Disability Strategy would remove barriers to disabled people’s participation in public life.

Sir Stephen Timms, Labour’s new minister for social security and disability, said in November that he was looking for ambassadors who were “ambitious, passionate and dynamic, with strong networks in their sectors and the ability to reach out to a wide range of organisations to create momentum for change”.

12 December 2024

Other disability-related stories covered by mainstream media this week

Two ministers are to be assigned to the assisted dying bill in a highly unusual move for a private member’s bill where the government is neutral – a sign that it will intensely monitor the details of such a significant change. The bill’s committee will have nine MPs who were opponents of the bill, including its most high-profile Conservative opponent, Danny Kruger, and 11 MPs who were in favour: https://www.theguardian.com/society/2024/dec/11/two-ministers-to-sit-on-assisted-dying-bill-committee

An artificial intelligence system used by the UK government to detect welfare fraud is showing bias according to people’s age, disability, marital status and nationality, the Guardian can reveal. An internal assessment of a machine-learning programme used to vet thousands of claims for universal credit payments across England found it incorrectly selected people from some groups more than others when recommending who to investigate for possible fraud: https://www.theguardian.com/society/2024/dec/06/revealed-bias-found-in-ai-system-used-to-detect-uk-benefits

A disability charity that provides services to people with learning difficulties says it may be forced to stop running at least 60 of those services because of increasing national insurance costs. Mencap is one of a growing number of care organisations warning they will have to axe vital services because of the impact of the budget. Businesses – including charities – currently pay a rate of 13.8 per cent national insurance on employees’ earnings above £9,100 a year, but that will increase to 15 per cent in April 2025, instead starting when wages reach £5,000: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cy09dwlj2x2o

12 December 2024

News provided by John Pring at www.disabilitynewsservice.com

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