Nurse used benefit assessment info to launch campaign of harassment that left disabled neighbour suicidal
A nurse who carried out benefit assessments on behalf of the government obtained a medical report belonging to his disabled neighbour and then used it to launch a campaign of bullying and harassment that left him suicidal.
Carlo* has told Disability News Service (DNS) that he had fallen out with his downstairs neighbour, who he knew worked as a nurse, after having to complain repeatedly to their landlord, and then the police, about cannabis fumes from his flat that were making his life a misery.
After both the landlord and police issued the nurse with a warning, contractors working in Carlo’s London flat, and neighbours, began asking him about his mental health and why he was not working.
An electrician told him this information had come from the nurse.
Carlo, who was recovering from serious illness and had developed associated mental distress, said: “He had basically said that I don’t work, I sit at home all day, that I’m on benefits, and that I was ‘mental’ and ‘crazy’.
“I know he said these things to the landlord as well.”
He discovered that the nurse worked for US outsourcing giant Maximus and had been sharing deeply personal information about his mental health that had been taken from the 2017 work capability assessment (WCA) carried out by the company after he had applied for universal credit.
Carlo reported his actions to the police – as well as the other harassment he had experienced – and to Maximus.
He was told by the police that the nurse had admitted searching for his details and viewing an assessment report carried out by Maximus in 2017.
Maximus investigated the allegations, suspended the nurse, and eventually admitted to Carlo in an email that there had been an “unacceptable and egregious action taken which is contrary to all policies and the ethos of our organisation”.
Carlo told a senior Maximus executive he felt his “privacy has been totally invaded”, which had “destroyed the little confidence and self esteem I had left”.
Maximus offered Carlo a £200 “consolatory payment” as “full and final settlement of this matter”, although it continues to insist that it was not legally liable for the nurse’s actions.
By the time Maximus had completed its investigation, the nurse had transferred to Ingeus UK, which took over the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) contract for all disability assessments in London, south-east England and East Anglia last September.
Ingeus continued the disciplinary case and sacked the nurse, and he now faces a police investigation.
But DWP and Maximus are still facing questions over how the nurse was able to access the medical details of a claimant he had not assessed himself.
Although Maximus no longer carries out assessments in London, it still has a contract to carry out PIP assessments and WCAs in northern England, as well as carrying out WCAs in Scotland.
Carlo told DNS the experience had been personally “devastating”.
He said: “I feel my privacy has been completely violated.
“I am quite a strong person, but I felt suicidal. I just felt my privacy had been completely violated and nobody was taking me seriously.
“The report he had access to was primarily about my mental health.
“For him to read that and express it to contractors and neighbours, calling me names such as crazy and mental, is completely unbelievable.”
He said the case “opens up a can of worms” relating to the security of deeply personal information shared by disabled benefit claimants with DWP contractors.
He also fears the nurse could have accessed a later assessment report that included a further “very serious” health diagnosis he has not yet even discussed with those close to him.
He said: “These are things I don’t even tell my friends and family. To find that someone can just go in and review it so easily – it’s just unbelievable.”
Carlo lodged a complaint about the nurse’s behaviour with the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC), but the regulator told him: “We’ve considered the fitness to practise concern raised and we’ve decided we won’t be investigating it further at this time.”
The regulator told Carlo it was “not satisfied that we have evidence of a concern that meets our seriousness criteria as outlined in our guidance” and that there was “clear evidence that [the nurse] has addressed the concerns” and that it “can be confident there is no longer any risk to the public”.
It said the evidence suggested the nurse “accessed the customer’s record once (22 January 2024)” and that there was “no evidence” that “any actions were performed by [the nurse] in relation to the record accessed”, while the nurse had been “open and honest about his conduct at the time they occurred and demonstrated sufficient regret and remorse in respect of his actions”.
NMC said there had been “no evidence of previous concerns in relation to [the nurse’s] performance at work” and it claimed the incident “was distressing for both parties involved”, while there was evidence that the nurse “had reflected on this incident and identified things he could do differently in future”.
Carlo replied to NMC: “The letter actually makes [the nurse] sound more of a victim than me when in fact I am the only victim in all of this.
“It was him who deliberately and maliciously searched and accessed my deeply personal medical information, then disclosed it to other people.
“Even though the findings state he accessed my medical information only once, it only takes one time to breach someone’s privacy and cause them considerable distress.
“The only thing that [the nurse] regrets is getting caught and found out by me.”
Carlo has asked DWP to investigate if the nurse might have carried out assessments while under the influence of cannabis, as he worked from home.
The Metropolitan police are also investigating the nurse for alleged unauthorised access to Carlo’s “personal medical information”, and are in touch with Maximus, and plan to interview the nurse at a police station.
The Nursing and Midwifery Council, which has a history of failing to act on complaints against nurses working for assessment companies, refused to explain why it cleared the nurse, or if it would reopen the investigation, when there was an ongoing police probe.
It also refused to explain how it concluded there was no evidence that the nurse did anything with the information he accessed, despite being told by Carlo that he had shared it with neighbours and strangers.
Instead, an NMC spokesperson said: “While we can’t comment on individual cases, we want to reassure people that we look at every concern that’s raised with us about someone on our register very carefully, in line with decision making guidance that’s published and available on our website.
“Wherever necessary and possible, we will always take appropriate action to protect the public.”
Maximus declined to say if it had taken any action on data privacy as a result of the case or if it was still possible for one of its assessors to access the details of benefit claimants they are not responsible for assessing.
But a Maximus spokesperson said: “We have apologised to [Carlo] for the unacceptable actions of [the nurse] who previously worked for us.
“He is no longer employed by our organisation.
“We take all complaints relating to data security incredibly seriously.
“Upon receiving this complaint, we took immediate action to gather the required information and a formal investigation was launched.
“Our colleagues undertake regular training on information security and data protection, and we have rigorous policies in place to ensure the correct handling of personal information.
“We understand this is subject to an ongoing police investigation, it would therefore be inappropriate for us to comment further.”
Ingeus declined to say if it had taken any action on data privacy as a result of the case, or if it was still possible for its assessors to access information from disabled people they are not responsible for assessing.
But an Ingeus spokesperson said: “As a result of the disciplinary process started by Maximus and completed by Ingeus, [the nurse] no longer works for Ingeus.
“During his time with us, he never carried out any health assessments.
“Doing all we can to protect people’s personal information is absolutely vital to us.
“We have a proactive programme of mandatory training to ensure our staff know and understand our policies and process on information security and data protection.”
He confirmed later that the nurse had been sacked for “breaching data privacy”.
A spokesperson for the Metropolitan police said: “Officers received reports on Sunday 10 November of an individual’s confidential medical information having been accessed without their consent.
“There have been no arrests. Enquiries are ongoing.”
Despite the police investigation, DWP refused to say if it was concerned by the case or if it was taking any action.
A DWP spokesperson said: “We cannot comment on individual cases.
“We take data protection very seriously.
“We ensure all our assessment suppliers are aware of their legal responsibility, including that it is an offence to access or disclose any information obtained which relates to customers, and are required to demonstrate how they have fully met this obligation.”
*Not his real name
6 March 2025
DWP is broken and needs to be scrapped and replaced, say Liberal Democrats
The Liberal Democrats have called for the “completely broken” Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) to be scrapped and replaced with a new department that is “more supportive and inclusive” for benefit claimants.
The call has come from Steve Darling, one of the new intake of disabled MPs at last year’s general election, who speaks for his party on work and pensions issues.
He told Disability News Service (DNS) this week that it was clear that DWP was “completely broken” and could not be fixed.
He told DNS this week: “I’ve now drawn the conclusion that actually the DWP is just completely broken and we need to think about how we reshape our world, and could it be done in a different way that actually is more supportive and inclusive to people who claim benefits.”
Darling said he was clear DWP needed to be scrapped and replaced, and he was now working on “the model we replace it with, and how we can best seek change, because for many years now it has been a broken system”.
He also said he was “sympathetic” to a possible public inquiry into the links between DWP and the deaths of hundreds, and probably thousands, of deaths in the post-2010 austerity years.
But he said he wanted to examine the “full implications” of such an inquiry and “immerse myself more in it and have confidence that it would be bringing the change that we need to see” before deciding whether to call for an inquiry.
Darling said the message from The Department* – the book written by DNS editor John Pring, which exposes the “violent government bureaucracy” within DWP that has led to so many deaths since 2010 – was that the culture within DWP continued to be a concern.
He said: “Clearly what’s portrayed within your book should give major cause for concern.
“One would hope that a public inquiry would result in significant change within that organisation, and hopefully even root and branch change, which I think we need to be seeing within the DWP, because it has been broken for so many years.”
He said the book showed there had also been a “toxic mix” between parts of the media and politicians “of a number of different colours” from the early 1990s onwards that led to the “demonizing of people who are on benefits when evidence clearly portrays that on a number of benefits the levels of fraud are minuscule”.
And, he said, there was “conflation between error and fraud, so that it is almost seen as the same”.
Darling has previously spoken out as a member of the Commons work and pensions committee about his concerns with the government’s Access to Work disability employment scheme.
He said he was “really worried that it is a system that is not performing”, and he pointed to a friend who is owed more than £3,000 by Access to Work for travel costs.
He also highlighted comments made by Sir Stephen Timms, the minister for social security and disability, about Access to Work, in which he suggested major changes to the scheme that would shift the cost of support towards employers and away from DWP.
Darling said he has heard from people who have attended roundtable meetings with ministers, and other sources close to the government, that although they have not used the word “cuts”, ministers appear to be planning “changes to the system where they are relying on employers to do much, much more”.
He said: “I shudder at what that actually means.
“They often describe it as the best kept secret; well, make it bloody well work and then we can actually get people into work because the issue is that we know that we’ve got a real challenge with finding enough people for some of the jobs that we’ve got out there, so we need to make sure that we support employers so they can have a bit more flexibility and then people can get into work.”
As well as the government’s imminent green paper on disability benefits and the “Pandora’s box of challenges that will bring up for the disability community”, Darling said he is also focused on the government’s public authorities (fraud, error and recovery) bill, which will force banks to examine individuals’ accounts for potential breaches of benefit eligibility rules, and then pass that information to DWP.
Darling said that, although those currently in power in the UK government might be “reasonable people”, it was important to look at the recent election of Donald Trump and the subsequent “carnage” being done to government in the US.
This means there will need to be “genuine checks and balances” in the fraud and error bill, he said.
“While this may go through now with reasonable people in power, in ten years’ time, who knows what the politics of the UK will be.
“We need to make sure that there are genuine independent safeguards to protect people from those who have a really dodgy worldview around people with disabilities.”
Darling said he had not come into parliament as a new MP wanting to speak for his party on work and pensions issues, so the appointment last September had been a “bolt from the blue”.
But he said he believed that his personal experience of the benefits system, as a recipient of personal independence payment (PIP), and having disabled friends with similar experiences of benefits and DWP’s creaking Access to Work system, had helped equip him for the role.
6 March 2025
UN calls for ‘corrective measures’ to Tory disability benefit reforms, just as Labour prepares cuts of its own
A report by the United Nations (UN) has called on the UK government to take “corrective measures” to address the impact of cuts to disability benefits introduced under Conservative governments, just as Labour ministers prepare to introduce further such cuts.
The recommendation by the UN’s committee on economic, social and cultural rights (CESCR) comes in its “concluding observations” on the UK’s progress in implementing the International Covenant of Economic, Social and Cultural Rights.
The committee concluded that “welfare reform” measures introduced by Conservative-led governments in 2012 and 2016 had disproportionately affected disabled people, low-income families, and workers in “precarious employment”.
And it says this led to “severe economic hardship, increased reliance on food banks, homelessness, negative impacts on mental health, and the stigmatization of benefit claimants”.
Among its recommendations, it calls for increased spending on social security, and for the government to take “corrective measures” to address the impact of post-2010 welfare reforms on the most disadvantaged groups.
It also calls for the level of disability-related benefits, including personal independence payment (PIP) and employment and support allowance, to be increased so they “adequately cover additional disability-related costs”.
The report was published by the committee just as the government is set to announce new austerity measures that are expected to include significant cuts to social security spending, including disability benefits, at the spring statement on 26 March.
The government’s long-awaited green paper on disability benefits will also be published in the next three weeks, ahead of the spring statement.
The UN committee calls on the government to carry out an independent assessment of the cumulative impact of post-2010 austerity measures on disabled people and other “disadvantaged groups” and to take “all measures necessary” to reverse those impacts in areas such as social security, social care and public transport.
It also calls for wide-ranging action to address disability-related discrimination and inequality across employment, housing, education, and access to sport and culture, and to introduce targeted measures to support disabled women.
The government had failed to comment on the CESCR report by noon today (Thursday).
Last year, another UN human rights committee concluded that the UK government had made “no significant progress” in the more than seven years since it was found guilty of “grave and systematic” violations of the UN disability convention.
The committee on the rights of disabled people said last April that it had even found “signs of regression” – backward steps – in the UK’s progress towards fully realising the rights described in the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.
Disabled campaigners this week called on the government to listen to CESCR and step away from any planned cuts to social security.
Ellen Clifford, a member of the national steering group of Disabled People Against Cuts and award-winning author of The War on Disabled People, said: “It’s tragically ironic that the CESCR report has been published at the same time as the government is boasting about plans to cut the welfare budget.
“CESCR is recommending that more needs to be spent on social security at exactly the same time as the chancellor is set to announce taking billions out of the system, attacking disability benefits and hitting the poorest and most disadvantaged in society to make up for her inability to fix low productivity growth.
“After a decade and a half of austerity and welfare reform, such cuts will devastate our communities in ways we cannot imagine.
“It’s clear this Labour government has no concern for human rights and sees the lives of disabled people as something they see no value in.
“So it’s up to us to make sure we create a problem for them and make it clear they cannot get away with visiting such levels of harm on us without consequence.”
She said DPAC was holding an online campaign planning meeting on Sunday (9 March, 2 to 4pm) “to discuss how we can work together to do that”*.
Fazilet Hadi, head of policy for Disability Rights UK, said: “Just weeks away from the government publishing its proposals to cut billions from the social security budget, leading to millions of disabled people being pushed into even deeper poverty, we have a UN committee putting the spotlight on the grave injustices and inequalities faced by UK citizens, including disabled people.
“In a series of hard-hitting recommendations, the committee asks that the impact of austerity be examined, that social security payments are increased, that poverty and high costs are tackled, that inadequacies in relation to health, housing and education are addressed.
“But is anyone listening?
“The new government is wedded to a financial strategy that gives no priority to investing in public services, to tackling poverty or to embedding disability inclusion.
“Eight months after coming to power, we still have no mention of any concerted strategy to achieve disability equality.”
Carole Ford, from the WOWCampaign, said the UN findings were “particularly concerning at this time, when the government are planning further cuts to the welfare budget”.
She said the government was “likely to choose to ignore the UN, as previous Conservative governments have done”.
Mark Harrison, a member of the Reclaiming Our Futures Alliance (ROFA) steering group, said: “This report is calling for a reappraisal of the Labour government approach.
“Their adoption of planned Tory tax rises and austerity cuts to benefits and services will continue to redistribute wealth from the poor to the rich.
“Rachel Reeves’ spring statement [on 26 March] promises to bring more poverty and misery to poor and disabled people.”
He said that work and pensions secretary Liz Kendall and ministerial colleagues were “continuing to ramp up the Tory – now Labour – culture war on disabled people, labelling us as benefit scroungers and cheats.
“This government, whether they like it or not, were elected because people wanted and demanded change, not to carry on and step up the attacks on our rights and living standards.
“The UN report calls for a cumulative impact assessment of the combined measures and a change of direction in line with the UN conventions signed and ratified by the UK government.
“We are putting Starmer and his government on notice that we will fight them all the way.
“Disabled people and our organisations will not accept more of the same.
“After 14 years, we say enough is enough.”
6 March 2025
Councils now only able to offer the ‘bare minimum’ of adult social care support, MPs are told
Local authorities in England are now only able to provide the “bare minimum” of services to disabled and older people who need support through the adult social care system, MPs were told yesterday (Wednesday).
Three senior local government figures were giving evidence to the Commons health and social care committee as part of its inquiry into the “cost of inaction” on adult social care reform.
Hugh Evans, executive director for adults and communities for Bristol City Council – whose council has come under repeated attack in recent years for its cuts to social care – told the committee that he and his colleagues were having to focus on the council’s financial “survival” every year.
He said his council’s ability to raise revenue through council tax was “not sufficient to meet the increased cost of adult social care”.
Evans said: “That’s certainly happened in Bristol. Spendings outpace local government funding and so we have to make savings.”
The council spent 75 per cent of its revenue on adult and children’s social care in 2023-24, compared with 56 per cent in 2017-18.
He said: “We’re having to emphasise the bare minimum of statutory services in order to be able to fulfil our duties under the Care Act.”
Melanie Williams, president of the Association of Directors of Adult Social Services and executive director of adult social care for Nottinghamshire County Council, said her local authority was focused on “just providing the minimal amount of support in their homes” for older people.
She said: “It may be that… they may take a direct payment and we would be looking at what is the minimum they would require to stay relatively well.
“What we wouldn’t be able to invest in is necessarily having friendships, being able to get out and about more.
“So, what somebody’s receiving probably is the basic personal care, the bare minimum, rather than what would be needed for an older adult to really enjoy a great quality of life as they age.”
She added: “That’s kind of where we are, there’s a sort of a rationing over time, if you like, because of focusing on the most immediate need.”
David Fothergill, chair of the Local Government Association’s community wellbeing board and a Conservative councillor on Somerset Council, told the committee that adult social care was now “more or less half the budget of local authorities”, and adding children’s social care increased this to “well over 70 per cent of budgets”.
He said this left “very little for the remaining services, which many of your residents and many of my residents as well depend upon, including roads and libraries and things like that”.
Fothergill said that about £24 billion in savings had been taken out of council budgets since 2010, and local government was now facing an estimated funding gap of more than 20 billion pounds in total over the next four years.
He said adult social care was “really, really putting local government under a lot of pressure”.
Last year, he said, 15 local authorities had applied for emergency funding support, and that had risen this year to 34 councils, and “most of them are driven by social care pressure”.
He said his own council had “declared an emergency financial crisis, and that is purely based upon social care pressures”.
Meanwhile, Bristol City Council has finally produced most of the details of a contract it signed last spring with a consultancy that is using locum social workers to carry out up to 1,400 “strength-based reviews” of disabled people’s care packages as a cost-saving measure, at a cost of up to £700,000.
It provided the contract details to Disability News Service in response to a freedom of information request, following intervention from the Information Commissioner’s Office.
The council has been at the centre of controversy for more than two years since it revealed 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 last year the council brought forward new cuts worth millions of pounds that campaigners feared were also likely to push disabled people into residential care.
BRIl is now “very concerned” about the council’s latest plans and this week it issued a statement about the council’s 2025-26 budget, which includes £14.6 million projected savings from adult social care.
The budget includes plans for more reviews of care and support plans that will “support approaches which focus on an individuals’ personal strengths… in order to promote their wellbeing and independence”, and reviews of people who have previously been detained under the Mental Health Act that will result in “the need for less care and therefore reduced costs”.
BRIL said there was “a real risk” that millions of pounds of planned savings would be made by “redefining needs as mere wishes, leaving disabled people without essential support”, an approach that is “alarmingly similar to the Fair and Affordable Care Policy”.
Mark Williams, BRIL’s chair, said: “Every time I have a review, I feel under attack and worried that my care will be revoked or cut back.
“In one review they tried to tell me that being alone for half an hour would make me more ‘independent’.
“I refused. I am not independent on my own. I am independent when I have the right to the support I need.”
6 March 2025
Extra costs evidence from grassroots group provides stark warning to ministers set to cut disability benefits
New research from disabled activists has shown the huge variety of ways in which mental health impairments can cause significant extra daily living costs, just as the government appears set to announce fresh cuts to disability benefits.
The grassroots, user-led mental health group Recovery in the Bin, which carried out the research, warned that they were the group of benefit claimants with “with the highest suicide and starvation rates” so any further cost-cutting of benefits would “cause more suffering and deaths”.
RITB said the evidence it had collected was a warning to ministers that “if you proceed with cuts, you will proceed with deaths”*.
The BBC reported yesterday (Wednesday) that the Treasury had “earmarked several billion pounds in draft spending cuts to welfare and other government departments”.
It is just the latest signal that chancellor Rachel Reeves is about to announce cuts to “welfare spending”, and particularly to disability benefits.
The news reports come despite evidence from the Office for Budget Responsibility that total spending on social security as a proportion of GDP** is predicted not to increase at all next year, and then to stay at the same level for the next four years, and is predicted to be lower this year than it was for every year from 2010-11 to 2015-16.
Last week, Disability News Service (DNS) also revealed how Labour and Conservative ministers sat on research for three years that linked the sharp increase in claims for disability benefits with a deterioration in disabled people’s health, an increase in the financial hardship they were facing, and their need for independence.
That report, Triggers to Claiming Personal Independence Payment, provided strong evidence to explain the need for increased spending on personal independence payment (PIP), and even called on the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) to do more to increase awareness of PIP.
John McDonnell, the suspended Labour MP, has now tabled an early day motion in parliament that welcomes DNS’s efforts in securing the report and expresses concerns that the government “delayed publication of the report for so long” when it “provides strong evidence to explain the need for increased spending” on PIP.
RITB has now published the results of its own research that shows how those claiming benefits for mental health-related reasons have significant costs that justify them receiving extra support through universal credit, employment and support allowance, and PIP.
They had asked RITB members and followers about their mental health-related costs, because, they said, “the cost of living for people with mental illness/distress is no less pressing than the extra costs for people with physical illness or disability” and “benefits are essential to support a basic, acceptable standard of living”.
In response, they were told of costs to cover taxis, legal advice, extra cleaning products, health services not covered by the NHS, food deliveries, inflated utility bills, advocacy, therapy, cleaners and counselling.
Among those who provided evidence, one said: “Needing to throw out £15 worth of food because voices have changed or ruined it some way.”
Another said: “Wasting money on fresh food and then being too unwell to cook and buying takeaways is the big ongoing one.
“Paying for therapy so I can get therapy that doesn’t harm me.”
A third person who contributed told RITB: “I pay £120 per week to see my (incredible, life changing) autism-informed ex NHS clinical psychologist.
“It eats all of my PIP, leaves absolutely nothing, but her approach, experience and expertise has helped me more in four months than CMHT [community mental health team] has in 13 yrs.”
Another told RITB: “Stress induced psychosis spending on fixing things that don’t actually need fixing! Also heightened vulnerability to scams.”
And another said: “Extra costs because you can’t shop around, can’t access discounts, can’t remember reward cards, get sold bad deals.”
An RITB spokesperson told DNS yesterday (Wednesday): “Mental illness/distress claimants are the most stigmatised claimants, lacking support from the NHS, while professional groups exploit us as they seek power and opportunistically support government policy.
“Our costs are every bit as high as for people with physical disabilities, yet political and media gaslighting are now attempting to say many of us are not even experiencing disability distress or illness.
“We are the group of claimants with the highest suicide and starvation rates, any cost cutting agenda and continued austerity will cause more suffering and deaths.
“This is our warning to ministers: if you proceed with cuts, you will proceed with deaths.”
The Public and Commercial Services Union, which has 46,000 members working within DWP, also spoke out yesterday about the reports of spending cuts.
PCS general secretary Fran Heathcote said: “Cutting civil service jobs will damage public service and cutting disability benefits will condemn people to poverty.
“We’d have hoped we wouldn’t have to explain the damage wreaked by austerity to a Labour government.”
*The following organisations are among those that could be able to offer support if you have been affected by the issues raised in this article: Mind, Papyrus, Rethink, Samaritans, and SOS Silence of Suicide
**Gross domestic product, the size of the country’s economy in a particular year
6 March 2025
Cautious welcome for Arts Council England report that shows striking increase in disabled leaders
Arts Council England (ACE) has reported a significant increase in the number of disabled people in leadership positions within the organisations it is funding, although leading figures in the disability arts world say there is still much more to do.
In its new Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Review, ACE says the proportion of arts organisations funded through its national portfolio programme who have a disabled chair has trebled in four years (from five to 15 per cent).
The proportion of funded arts bodies with a disabled chief executive has also risen, from nine per cent in 2018-19 to 13 per cent in 2022-23, while the proportion with a disabled artistic director rose from eight to 10 per cent, and the proportion of board members identifying as disabled increased from eight to 12 per cent.
ACE also reported significant increases in the proportion of its own staff and council members who identify as disabled people.
The proportion of disabled people in its workforce rose from seven to 12 per cent; the proportion of disabled directors increased from two per cent to 7.6 per cent; and the proportion of managers identifying as disabled more than trebled, from three per cent to 11.3 per cent.
The proportion of ACE area council members identifying as disabled more than quadrupled, rising from six per cent to 25 per cent, although the proportion of disabled national council members remained at seven per cent.
The proportion of disabled applicants who were successful with National Lottery-funded project grants fell from 53 per cent to 35 per cent, but the report suggests that was probably because of a significant increase in the number of applications.
The proportion of audience members identifying as disabled people also increased slightly, increasing from nine per cent in 2018-19 to 10 per cent in 2022-23.
Andrew Miller, a member of ACE’s national council, and chair of its disability advisory committee, says in the report: “Clearly there is still work to be done to improve the representation of disabled people in the sector, and that is something that we will continue to advocate and strive for.
“But for the proportion of disabled people working in our creative and cultural organisations to have doubled in five years is something truly to celebrate.”
Dr Ju Gosling, artistic director of Together! 2012, a disability arts organisation which receives ACE funding through the national portfolio programme, said questions remained as to whether the figures showed an increase in the employment of disabled people and more opportunities for disabled people to engage with the arts or instead “an increase in disability rates among certain demographics as a result of Covid and an ageing population”.
She said: “Chairs, artistic directors and CEOs all tend to be middle-aged or elderly, and many arts audiences are slanted towards older people too.
“We’ve also seen a lot of people departing the creative arts for economic reasons, including as board members.
“Disabled people are less likely to have access to these alternative employment opportunities, so are more likely to have remained with Arts Council-funded organisations despite flatlined budgets in many areas.
“Disabled people have also been less likely to be invited onto boards in the first place and are less likely to be in employment, so there is a bigger pool of people available to replace departing non-disabled volunteers.
“However, outside of London there was a genuine increase in the funding of disabled-led organisations in the last round [of ACE funding], which was definitely good news.”
Gosling said she would “obviously like to see these figures continue to increase, not least because it would reflect better retention of arts workers as they age”.
But she warned that “the continued slurs on the abilities of disabled workers coming from the US, plus the rise in national insurance and the continuing squeeze on arts organisations’ budgets, makes the future picture less clear”.
And she said cuts to arts training and work opportunities over the last 15 years “means there are already far fewer young people coming up to take over than previously”.
She added: “I’m not at all sure that mainstream organisations will be so keen now as they were 10 years ago to employ a young disabled person in a first or early career job, for the reasons above.
“So we could easily see a fall over the next five to 10 years rather than a continuing increase.”
Trish Wheatley, chief executive of Disability Arts Online, another disability arts organisation which receives ACE funding, said: “It is encouraging to see an increase in disabled people in positions of leadership and in the wider arts workforce.
“This progress should be celebrated because we have more people with lived experience making decisions and creating work.
“However, despite the increases shown in the report, disabled people remain significantly underrepresented, so it is vital that Arts Council England continues to work with the sector to address ableism and remove barriers.”
Sir Nicholas Serota, ACE’s chair, says in the report: “The boardrooms of 2023 were far more diverse than those of 2018, with significantly higher proportions of female, Black, Asian and ethnically diverse, and disabled and LGBTQIA+ members.
“The same shift was also seen in leadership roles across organisations, with a greater proportion of women and Black, Asian and ethnically diverse, and disabled people occupying the roles of chairs, chief executives and artistic directors at the end of the last Portfolio than at its beginning.
“Diversity also grew across the total workforce, in each of the four protected characteristics, race, sex, sexuality and disability, that this report covers.
“These changes are profound, particularly in the context of the range of challenges from the pandemic to the cost-of-living crisis, and we should all take pride in them.”
But he says there is “still much more to do to make sure that our sector is drawing on all available talents and appealing to audience members from all backgrounds”.
And he says that while the proportion of disabled people in the arts workforce “rose significantly”, it still remains below the level of disabled people in the population.
Sir Nicholas also says in the report that there is still work for ACE to do, which was why it established a disability advisory committee and a race advisory committee in 2022 and commissioned an independent review of inclusion within ACE in 2023.
He adds: “Our adoption of our own statement on the social model of disability, and the related policies we have introduced to implement it, are examples of the work we are doing in this area.”
6 March 2025
Other disability-related stories covered by mainstream media this week
A man with learning difficulties was filmed eating out of a bin after being neglected by care home staff, an investigation has found. Workers were also caught sleeping on the job and ignoring the 23-year-old after his concerned mum placed a camera in his room. The ITV News investigation said the man, Connor, is autistic and has bipolar disorder. He was living in a residential home in Coventry run by Lifeways, the UK’s largest provider of supported living for adults with learning difficulties, caring for around 4,000 people: https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/vulnerable-care-home-resident-caught-34788125
An autistic woman with learning difficulties was wrongly locked up in a mental health hospital for 45 years, starting when she was just seven years old, the BBC has learned. The woman, who is believed to be originally from Sierra Leone, was also held on her own in long-term segregation for 25 years: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cly43png991o
Leading disability charities have called on the government to ensure that people will continue to be able to use physical cash in shops. It comes after a government minister said that shops will not be forced to accept cash, despite concerns that millions of disabled people rely on it. Disability Rights UK and RNIB are warning that making card payments the default creates “more barriers” for disabled people: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cp3yz40r2zyo
6 March 2025
News provided by John Pring at www.disabilitynewsservice.com
