Government’s social care reforms are a road to nowhere for disabled people, says peer
Controversial government social care reforms would continue to limit the life chances of disabled people, while benefiting the children of wealthier homeowners, a disabled peer has warned the House of Lords.
Baroness [Jane] Campbell said that plans to fix the social care crisis were “the missing part of the jigsaw” of the government’s health and social care bill.
She told fellow peers that the bill “hardly touches on the desperately needed funding reforms” for working-age disabled people, and instead focuses on inheritance issues.
The crossbench peer, who has campaigned for more than a quarter of a century for disabled people’s right to independent living, said: “Under the reforms, the offspring of some wealthier homeowners will enjoy a more generous inheritance when they die.
“However, for disabled people, the bill takes them nowhere and continues to limit their life chances.”
A key social care measure introduced through the bill introduces a lifetime cap of £86,000 on how much anyone pays for personal care, but only counts their personal contributions, rather than those made by their local authority.
So far, the government appears to have made no other pledges on charging for care, other than allowing slightly more generous means-tested support, and introducing a significant increase in the amount of relevant assets (from £23,250 to £100,000) below which people are eligible to receive some financial support from their local authority.
Baroness Campbell pointed out that working-age disabled people make up more than a third of users of social care and account for more than half of local authority spending on social care.
She said that “persistent underinvestment” by successive governments had led to fewer disabled people having access to the support they need, and councils balancing their books by increasing care charges, which, she said, “effectively wipes out the funding that disabled people receive from the DWP to meet their extra living costs and avoid poverty”.
She told fellow peers: “The bill effectively favours wealthier homeowners over those with more modest assets and lifelong disabilities. That cannot be right.
“We know that government investment in social care for working-age disabled people will pay dividends.
“This bill provides the perfect opportunity to do just that, if – and only if – it is amended.
“It is simply unfair to place some people at greater economic disadvantage because they happen to be disabled.”
Another crossbencher, Baroness [Deborah] Bull, former creative director of the Royal Opera House, also criticised the government’s announcement last month that local authority contributions towards care would no longer be counted towards the cap on a person’s lifetime care costs.
She said: “They are likely to receive care for longer periods and therefore to accrue higher costs.
“They are also more likely to pay care costs that do not contribute to the cap, such as the cost of a personal assistant to enable them to work or enjoy social activities.”
She pointed out that Sir Andrew Dilnot – who chaired a commission on care funding, which was set up by the coalition government and reported in 2011 – had proposed a zero cap on the amount anyone developing an eligible need for social care before the age of 40 needed to pay towards their social care.
This was proposed, she said, “on the basis that they could not be expected to have planned for their needs, nor to have accumulated assets to pay for them”.
She told fellow peers: “If the government continue to reject a zero cap, how will they mitigate the risk of catastrophic care costs on those least able to bear them?”
The junior health and social care minister, Lord Kamall, said the government recognised that its amendment on personal contributions to the cap had been “considered controversial” but he said it was “necessary, fair and responsible”.
He said: “Everybody, no matter where they live in the country, no matter their level of starting wealth, will have the contribution they have to make to the cost of their care capped at £86,000.
“Those with lower levels of wealth will be far less likely to have to spend this amount, thanks to a far more generous means-testing regime that we will introduce.”
He promised that “nobody will be worse off in any circumstances than they are in the current system and many people will be better off”, and he said that the government’s reforms differed from previous proposals because they were “credible, deliverable and affordable”.
The bill, which has already been approved by MPs, passed its second Lords reading on Tuesday and will now proceed to its committee stage.
9 December 2021
Concerns over new ‘Tory disability thinktank’ that claims to be independent
Disabled campaigners have raised concerns about a new disability policy thinktank that describes itself as “independent”, despite strong links to the Conservative party.
The Disability Policy Centre says it is “dedicated to the improvement of public services and policy reform” and wants to “find practical solutions to change the lives of disabled people for good”.
But it describes itself as an “independent thinktank” even though all three of its directors have close ties to the Conservative party.
This week, it refused to disclose the source of its funding, despite several requests for it to do so on social media, and from Disability News Service (DNS).
It also removed the publications page from its website after one disabled campaigner pointed out that the only links on the page were to articles published on the Conservative Home website.
Two of its three directors are either current or former employees of the Conservative party, while the third has donated hundreds of thousands of pounds to the party.
One of the directors is Celia Hensman, former manager of Richmond Park and North Kingston Conservatives, and political editor of the Conservative Disability Group.
Another is Chloe Schendel-Wilson, a freelance political consultant and until recently head of outreach for the Conservative party, who also manages campaigns for Epsom and Ewell Conservative Association.
The third director is Mustafa Tariq Mohammed, whose company Genix Healthcare runs a string of dental clinics, and who donated more than £400,000 to the Conservative party between 2013 and 2019, either personally or through companies he controls.
Pauline Castres, a disabled activist and policy expert on disability, climate and global health, questioned how “a think tank run by people so close to the Conservative party (one still employed by it, one recently employed by it, and another one being a major donor to the Conservative party)” could provide independent advice.
She said: “Policy is constantly infiltrated by politics, even when there isn’t a direct connection.
“Disabled people deserve a truly independent policy think tank that will create real and lasting pressure on policy-makers, and won’t shy away from hard conversations because it rocks the party policy lines.”
She said that a truly independent think tank reviewing existing disability legislation and policy frameworks was “urgently needed, especially after the many warnings the UK government received from the UN… and after the ONS reported that 60 per cent of COVID deaths were disabled people”.
Disabled campaigner and consultant James Lee, one of the first to raise concerns about the independence of the thinktank, said: “Disabled people and our organisations have fought to build relationships with policy makers and legislators in order to share hard truths and have difficult conversations about the devastating impact of the actions (or lack of action) taken by the government.
“My fear is that this think tank will do more harm than good for disabled people by offering the government an alternative to those difficult conversations: sanitised, sugar-coated consultation and participation of disabled people that doesn’t rock the party-political boat.”
Hensman had refused by noon today (Thursday) to answer questions from DNS about the new thinktank, where its funding comes from, and how it can be described as independent when it is so closely connected to the Conservative party.
Genix did not respond to attempts by DNS to contact Mohammed.
9 December 2021
Coffey ‘is damaging disabled people’s trust in DWP’ over ‘unmet needs’ report
Work and pensions secretary Therese Coffey has been accused by a senior MP of damaging disabled people’s trust in her department by failing to publish a report that concluded that claimants of disability benefits had “unmet needs”.
The report, commissioned by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP), was watered down after the department told its authors to delete some of its analysis and reduce the number of times it referred to disabled people’s unmet needs.
A whistleblower told Disability News Service (DNS) last week that DWP had refused to publish the watered-down report, despite promises made to more than 100 disabled benefit claimants who had agreed to be interviewed that it would be published.
Coffey was questioned about the report yesterday (Wednesday) by the chair of the Commons work and pensions committee, Stephen Timms.
But she repeatedly refused to provide direct answers to his questions, instead quoting from past letters she had sent to the committee about the report.
She said it was “not necessary” to publish the report, despite Timms pointing out that government rules stated that it should be published.
When Timms told her that DWP had approved a letter sent to the 120 disabled people who took part in the research, promising that it would be published, she told him: “Well, I’m not aware of that interaction of the department.”
When Timms insisted that the department had cleared the letter, Coffey replied: “Well, I don’t know who in the department cleared that letter. It wasn’t me.”
She then appeared to smirk at Peter Schofield, DWP’s permanent secretary, who was sitting next to her (see 09.18).
Timms pointed out that the report should have been published last Christmas, and he added: “There does seem to have been quite a major outbreak of ministerial rule-breaking last Christmas.
“Do you accept that even senior ministers have to obey government rules?”
When Coffey repeated a previous response, Timms told her that DWP’s own social security advisers had said in a report, published in January, that “DWP officials themselves acknowledge that the department is not trusted by many disabled people”.
He added: “Do you accept that it’s hard to think of a way of handling this NatCen report that is as damaging to the trust of disabled people as the one that you’ve chosen?”
When he asked Coffey about last week’s DNS story and DWP’s request to reduce the number of references in the report to unmet needs, Coffey said: “I’m not aware of the sources of Disability News Service.”
She then refused to say whether the report had been used in preparing this summer’s green paper on disability benefits, telling Timms: “I’m not aware exactly of all the lists of the different works that we did.”
After the evidence session, the whistleblower who spoke to DNS last week – who is close to the team that prepared the report – described Coffey’s evidence as “repetitive, evasive and misleading”.
They said that Coffey had looked “uncomfortable and almost shifty” throughout her evidence on the report and had failed to answer a single question directly.
They added: “Let’s be clear. This was a publicly-funded piece of research involving 120 disabled people who, in line with the government’s own rules on publication, were promised (not once, but twice) they would be able to see the findings.
“The secretary of state knows, and has always known, that she should publish the report but hides behind cowardly and fabricated excuses for non-publication.
“The interviews with disabled people included questions about their needs and the extent to which they could meet them, but the government does not want anyone to know what they said.
“It is no coincidence that the report was suppressed at the same time the green paper was published in July.
“The government wants to stifle debate about unmet needs and benefit levels. It is a shameful situation.”
Timms told DNS: “No remotely plausible reason has been provided for not publishing – the protocol [on publishing research and analysis in government] suggests that the only exceptions are if publication would have an impact like threatening national security or destabilising the economy.
“The department accepts that it has a problem in not being trusted by disabled people.
“It should publish the report now, before that trust is damaged even further.”
Meanwhile, freedom of information campaigner John Slater has lodged a complaint with the Information Commissioner’s Office about DWP’s failure to publish the NatCen report, or to release it under the Freedom of Information Act.
He has told the commissioner: “There is considerable weight in the public knowing about the activities of Departments such as the DWP, especially when it relates to disabled people.
“A simple search online reveals the scale of the problems faced by disabled members of society who must interact with the DWP to claim social security benefits such as ESA, PIP, Universal Credit and so on.
“People have starved to death because the DWP terminated their benefits.”
His complaint adds: “The DWP has announced that it wants to make significant changes to health and disability benefits.
“If the DWP has ignored evidence from NatCen which is critical of how it deals with the needs of disabled people and the implications for future spending on benefits, there is a strong public interest in seeing the evidence that has been disregarded.
“I suggest that [the NatCen report] didn’t suit the narrative that the DWP wishes to promote, despite making NatCen amend it.
“The DWP then chose to ignore [the report] and has tried to ‘bury it’ for political reasons.”
9 December 2021
Government ‘ignored DPOs’ in drawing up social care white paper
Some of the few disabled people’s organisations (DPOs) that the government claims took part in the “engagement” process that led up to its social care white paper have suggested that their views and concerns have been ignored.
The Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) listed more than 200 organisations that helped “shape” People at the Heart of Care, when it was published last week.
DHSC says it has worked with representatives from organisations such as local authorities, charities, trade unions, lived experience representative groups and those with “lived experience” of “drawing on care and support”.
But the list appears to include fewer than 10 DPOs, possibly as few as seven.
Of those DPOs that Disability News Service has been able to hear from this week, all of them raised concerns that ministers had failed to listen to what they were told.
Disability North (DN) said it was surprised to have been listed as taking part in the process, as its engagement had been so “light touch”.
Dr Victoria Armstrong, DN’s chief executive, said it had felt as though the government’s agenda had “already been set”.
She said the funding crisis was the white paper’s “elephant in the room”, and there was little point providing support to people to make decisions on their social care if the system continued to be underfunded.
She said: “I certainly welcome the mention of direct payments [in the white paper], but again, social care should be about putting disabled people at the heart of these discussions and DPOs ought to be funded properly to be able to offer that independent advice.
“Our experience to date is that engagement has been about commenting on an already developed agenda, and it is an agenda that hasn’t been co-produced and ignores the need of a much larger funding injection so that the social care system is fit for purpose.”
Another of the DPOs listed by the government is Greater Manchester Coalition of Disabled People (GMCDP).
Its executive council issued a statement distancing itself from the white paper, and expressing support instead for the National Independent Living and Support Service (NILSS) proposals devised by the disabled people’s movement.
GMCDP’s executive council said: “Looking at the white paper it does not appear the government listened to anything they were told and have produced policy proposals that fail to address the crisis in social care or support independent living.
“GMCDP does not endorse the white paper, nor does it reflect any of the issues and recommendations raised by GMCDP.”
Disability Rights UK (DR UK), another DPO listed by the government, also said that ministers had ignored its recommendations.
It attended some consultation meetings, but it had no one-to-one meetings with the government, although it passed on its thoughts in letters.
Fazilet Hadi, DR UK’s head of policy, said: “We did ask [health and social care secretary] Sajid Javid and then [care minister] Gillian Keegan to put disabled people at the heart of engagement and to meet with DPOs, but this wasn’t acted on.”
She said the vision, strategy and initiatives contained within the white paper were “wholly inadequate”.
She said: “There is no recognition of the need for parity between health care and social care, there is lack of focus on supporting disabled people to live life rather than just exist, no commitment to stop care charges for working-age disabled people and no recognition of the £8 billion per year needed in additional funding.
“The white paper does nothing to tackle the waiting list for care, the millions of people turned away, the care staffing crisis or the inadequate levels of care and support currently being provided.”
Barbara Booton, project manager of the south Yorkshire-based advocacy, information and advice DPO Active Independence, who attended a DHSC round-table event, said: “The key issue of funding was raised by me and others several times, yet there is nothing in the proposals to reflect our concerns were listened to.”
She said that several of the issues she raised, such as the need for care to be person-centred and some of the issues around information and advice, were included in the white paper.
But she added: “The [white] paper said the right words, but I have little faith or evidence that it will be implemented.
“Many disabled people need support throughout their lives yet have to hand over large chunks of benefits they recover for other purposes to pay for essential care. They can never build up savings as non-disabled people can.
“It is deeply unfair and discriminatory and consigns disabled people to a life of restricted income and opportunity.”
The white paper is more than 100 pages long, but says nothing new about how the government plans to ensure adult social care in England is properly funded over the next decade.
Sajid Javid, the health and social care secretary, said last week that the government’s “ten-year vision” for social care “clearly lays out how we will make the system fairer and better to serve everyone, from the millions of people receiving care to those who are providing it”.
In an opinion piece published by the Daily Telegraph on Thursday (2 December), care minister Gillian Keegan said the white paper was “about getting the right balance between personal and public contributions with a charging system which is necessary, fair and responsible”.
She wrote: “We are reforming the system to ensure everyone has the choice, control and support to live independent lives.
“To ensure everyone can access outstanding and personalised care and support.
“And finally to ensure adult social care is fair and accessible to all who need it.”
9 December 2021
Coffey dismisses call for new WCA review, despite claimant deaths evidence
The work and pensions secretary has dismissed the need for a new review into the work capability assessment, despite being told that her own department failed to pass information about its links with claimant deaths to an independent reviewer.
Therese Coffey also appeared to mislead the work and pensions committee yesterday (Wednesday) about evidence that should have been shared with the reviewer in 2013 and 2014.
She had been asked about evidence given to the committee last week by Dr Paul Litchfield, who carried out two independent reviews of the work capability assessment (WCA) in 2013 and 2014, on behalf of DWP.
Litchfield had told MPs on the committee that he believed that DWP had not passed him copies of its secret reviews into benefit-linked deaths, or two prevention of future deaths (PFD) reports sent to DWP by coroners, which called for changes to prevent further deaths and warned of links between the WCA and the suicides of claimants.
Litchfield had suggested that the evidence that DWP prevented him considering could have led to him making further recommendations to improve the assessment.
This may have prevented changes to the WCA that could have saved lives.
But when Labour MP Debbie Abrahams asked her about Litchfield’s evidence, Coffey said: “The coroner is the person responsible for allowing the release of any reports, as far as I’m aware. That certainly wouldn’t be in the department’s gift.”
Coffey should have been aware that PFDs are published on the Courts and Tribunals Judiciary (CTJ) website, because her department was sent a PFD earlier this year, following the high-profile inquest into the death of Philippa Day.
That inquest found systemic flaws in the personal independence payment (PIP) system had caused Philippa Day’s death.
The CTJ website published DWP’s response to the Philippa Day PFD this summer.
Coffey and DWP’s permanent secretary, Peter Schofield, both made it clear that Litchfield’s reviews had taken place before they joined the department.
Coffey told Abrahams: “I don’t know the story or the basis of [Litchfield’s] views that he believes he was not shared information.
“So I don’t know about that. I don’t know why he thinks he wasn’t shared stuff. I don’t know.”
When Abrahams asked Coffey if her responses suggested an organisation that was learning from its failures, she again appeared to mislead the committee, telling MPs: “The coroners’ reports are in the hands of the coroner, they are not in the hands of the department.”
Coffey did not comment on why the many DWP peer reviews that made recommendations about the safety of the WCA were not shared with Litchfield.
Abrahams told Coffey that it appeared as if attempts to provide her with evidence about safeguarding concerns were being “rebuffed”.
But Coffey told her: “I’m not convinced we need more reviews in order to inform our plans.”
Abrahams told her in response: “I don’t really know what to say to that, given that I’ve just said that previous reviews didn’t have all the evidence supplied and you’re saying on that basis, ‘I’m still not prepared to do another review.’
“The committee and people watching this will draw their own conclusions, secretary of state. It is a concern.”
Disability News Service (DNS) revealed in 2016 that Professor Malcom Harrington, who carried out three earlier reviews of the WCA for DWP, in 2010, 2011 and 2012, believes that he also was not shown peer reviews that mentioned the WCA, or a PFD sent to DWP in March 2010.
After the meeting, Abrahams, the MP for Oldham East and Saddleworth, said it was “astonishing” that Coffey had “prepared so poorly for the committee” that she had not reviewed the evidence given to the committee the previous week by Litchfield and Paul Gray, who carried out two independent reviews of the PIP assessment system.
She said: “After having said that the government were ‘listening and learning’ from previous mistakes, when presented with such evidence from these independent reviewers, the secretary of state point blank refused to heed their calls for further independent reviews into PIP and work capability assessments, which unfortunately says it all.”
She added: “I will continue to press for the independent reviews into the DWP’s health assessments, as supported by Paul Gray and Dr Litchfield, as well as a full, independent inquiry into the deaths of social security claimants.”
9 December 2021
One step closer in decade-long battle for stronger disability hate crime laws
The decade-long battle for tougher laws on disability hate crime moved a step closer this week after the Law Commission announced a series of measures that would make it easier to secure convictions, if its recommendations are accepted by the government.
Among the recommendations, the commission calls for new standalone “aggravated offences” that cover disability hate crime, to mirror those that currently only apply to racial and religious hostility.
This would mean, if accepted by the government, that an offender could be charged with an offence – such as assault, harassment or criminal damage – that was aggravated by hostility towards a disabled person.
Disabled campaigners have been calling for more than a decade for such a change.
At present, aggravated offences only apply to racial and religious hostility, and a disability hate crime can only be addressed by a court during sentencing, where the sentence can be increased if prosecutors can prove the offence was motivated by disability-related hostility.
The Law Commission’s final report on the issue – Hate Crime Laws – calls for changes to ensure that disabled and LGBT+ victims receive the same protection as those targeted because of their race or religion.
The Law Commission is a statutory, independent body that reviews the law in England and Wales and recommends reforms to the government.
Its 556-page report says the current hate crime regime is “widely seen as unfair and sends a distinctly negative message to victims of hate crimes on the basis of disability, sexual orientation and transgender identity”.
Its recommendations would mean that aggravated offences would also apply to hostility on those three grounds.
Existing offences of stirring up hatred, which again only apply to race and religion, would also be extended to disabled and LGBT+ victims, if the government accepts the Law Commission’s recommendations.
This would mean that comments such as one found on the online forum Reddit – which characterised disabled people as “parasites” and stated that “all parasites should perish” – could in future amount to stirring up hatred.
The report also recommends a change that would make it easier to prove disability hate crime convictions.
The report says the commission believes the law should be changed so that an offender could be found guilty of a disability hate crime offence if they had been “motivated” by “hostility or prejudice” towards disabled people, rather than – at present – only by hostility.
The Law Commission says it made this recommendation – which would also apply to other protected characteristics – because of the “shortcomings” of the existing hostility test.
The report says: “Disability stakeholders argued powerfully that instances of exploitation and abuse of disabled people – founded on a contemptuous disregard for the victim’s dignity and autonomy – were not adequately recognised within the existing hostility test.”
As at present, a conviction for a disability hate crime offence would also be possible if prosecutors could prove the offender “demonstrated” disability-related hostility towards the disabled person.
In the report’s summary document, the commission uses the murder of Bijan Ebrahimi to demonstrate why the law as it stands often fails to secure disability hate crime prosecutions.
Ebrahimi, a disabled Iranian man, was found murdered outside his Bristol flat after years of harassment by his neighbours, including unfounded rumours that he was a paedophile.
One of his neighbours, after hearing he had been filming local children – when he had in fact been filming their anti-social behaviour – beat him to death, dragged him outside with the help of a friend, and then poured white spirit on him and set him alight.
Paramedics arrived at the scene to find his body still in flames.
The Law Commission’s report points out that Ebrahimi’s murderer was not sentenced on the basis that he had committed a hate crime, which would have seen him receive a much longer prison sentence.
The report suggests that its “motivated by prejudice” recommendation might have secured a longer sentence for his murderer because of the “prejudicial targeting” Ebrahimi was subjected to.
The commission’s report also calls on the government to establish a new hate crime commissioner, whose job would include countering and preventing hate crime, and to introduce a new Hate Crime Act to bring hate crime laws together into a single statute.
A Home Office spokesperson said: “We are grateful to the Law Commission for the detailed consideration it has given to its review of hate crime laws.
“The government will consider its proposals carefully and respond to the recommendations in due course.”
9 December 2021
DWP’s ‘shocking’ failure to provide universal credit WCA stats
The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) has refused to explain its continuing failure to publish figures that would show how disabled people seeking to claim universal credit are experiencing the work capability assessment (WCA) process.
DWP is refusing to produce statistics to show how many universal credit claimants have been put through the WCA process, how long they have had to wait for a WCA, and what level of benefit they received following their assessment.
The failure to produce any figures comes more than eight years after the government began its lengthy and much-delayed rollout of universal credit, and despite a decade of concerns about the links between the assessment process and the deaths of disabled claimants.
This week, Labour’s shadow minister for disabled people, Vicky Foxcroft, said she was “shocked” by DWP’s failure to produce the figures.
Last week, the minister for disabled people, Chloe Smith, told Foxcroft in a written answer that DWP was “currently unable to provide Universal Credit (UC) WCA statistics as these could only be provided at disproportionate cost”.
But this answer came nearly three years after the then minister for disabled people, Sarah Newton, told Labour’s Stephen Timms that WCA stats for universal credit were “intended for publication in the near future as Official Statistics”.
It is not clear why DWP is still unable to produce the figures.
Foxcroft is also concerned about Smith’s failure to release figures that would show the size of the backlog of claimants waiting for a WCA – Smith said these figures were “unavailable” – and she has raised concerns about the backlog of assessments for personal independence payment.
DWP currently produces statistics for employment and support allowance (ESA) claimants who have been put through the WCA.
But the number of universal credit WCAs is likely to be far higher than those taking place for ESA claimants, as the roll-out of the new working-age benefit slowly nears completion.
Foxcroft told Disability News Service: “I know from my own casework as an MP that many constituents have far too long to wait for their work capability assessments.
“Many disabled people and disabled people’s organisations have also raised this with me, and this is why I tabled a number of questions for the minister on this.
“Quite frankly I was shocked when I saw they didn’t hold this information.
“Their own disability strategy acknowledged the lack of data they hold on disabled people, but I hadn’t thought they wouldn’t hold this.”
She has now been forced to submit a freedom of information request to the department after ministers failed to answer her parliamentary questions.
She added: “The system clearly isn’t working and they need to get a grip on this. These long delays are having a negative effect on people’s lives.”
Ken Butler, welfare rights and policy adviser for Disability Rights UK, said there must be a suspicion that the “disproportionate cost” DWP says would be involved in providing the universal credit WCA figures was actually the “scrutiny of the DWP’s actions and performance” that would result.
He said: “This official suppression of WCA statistics means that concerns over WCA delays remain anecdotal and more difficult to challenge.
“In addition, another concern is that, unlike ESA, universal credit (UC) claimants with a fit note have full work search conditionality for UC until their WCA takes place.
“This in turn may lead to unreasonable work search commitments and possible sanctions.
“It also hides the number of disabled claimants who are eventually found to have a limited capability for work but due to WCA delays have had full work conditionality unnecessarily imposed on them for several months.”
DWP refused yesterday (Wednesday) to say why it was still unable to provide universal credit WCA figures, and why it could not provide figures on the size of the WCA backlog.
But a DWP spokesperson said in a statement: “Our priority is to ensure the millions of people we support each year get the benefits to which they are entitled to as promptly as possible.
“Those waiting for a work capability assessment will receive support through the assessment rate of ESA or the standard rate of universal credit and any additional money owed to them following their assessment will be backdated.”
9 December 2021
Call for urgent inquiry into Met’s ‘systemic failure’ on disability hate crime
Disabled people’s organisations (DPOs) are calling for an urgent inquiry into the “systemic failure” by the Metropolitan police in how it responds to reports of disability hate crime.
A new report says the Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) has been guilty of repeatedly failing disabled people who try to report disability-related hate crime.
Among the concerns raised in the Poor Police Response report are of police officers dismissing allegations of hate crime brought to them by disabled people, or downgrading them to anti-social behaviour.
Some disabled people have reported being mocked by police officers when they tried to report a crime, says the report.
And some say that when they try to report a crime, officers prioritise counter-claims made by the alleged offender.
Six DPOs that work with survivors of disability hate crime have told the authors of the report that the police response to such reports was “poor”.
One DPO said: “The police don’t believe the survivors, stop attending calls completely, always saying there is no evidence when they even try to investigate, clients sometimes mocked.”
The report, launched on 3 December, the international day of disabled people, has been sent to the London Assembly’s police and crime committee, along with a call for it to launch an urgent inquiry.
The report has been published by the London Deaf and Disabled People Organisations’ Hate Crime Partnership, a network of 24 disabled people’s organisations that provide support and advocacy around hate crime issues, and which is led by Inclusion London.
Louise Holden, the partnership’s project manager and one of the report’s authors*, told Disability News Service (DNS): “With the London mayor’s police and crime plan consultation going on at the moment, we want this report to be a wake-up call to those in power to do something about the unacceptable way disabled victims are being treated.
“It’s like justice has gone back 20 years in how victims are responded to. With hate crime on the rise year after year, this needs to be addressed as a top priority.
“We know there is a will from the mayor’s office to look at why disabled victims have such a negative experience, but we want to see action.
“Disabled victims can’t wait anymore. They deserve better.”
DNS revealed earlier this year how figures showed that prosecutions of disability hate crime across England and Wales had plunged by nearly half in just two years (from 579 to just 292), even though offences recorded by police forces have been rising sharply.
The fall appears to have been caused by a drastic drop in the number of disability hate crime suspects referred to prosecutors by the police for a charging decision.
Holden said disabled people being failed were often reporting serious crimes such as “county lines” offences, witness intimidation, violent assaults and threats to life.
One DPO told the researchers: “Things seem to have gotten worse over the last six months; we just can’t progress any cases as we do not hear back from the officer in charge, only to find out that the case has been closed due to lack of evidence.”
One report in a London borough in 2016 found 98 per cent of disability hate crime in that borough was going unrecognised or unreported.
The new report says its research also suggests a wider systemic failure by police forces across the UK when responding to disability hate crime.
Among its recommendations is for MPS to reinstate its Disability Hate Crime Matters scheme, which led to the number of disability hate crimes recorded by police increasing by 500 per cent within weeks of its launch in 2016.
It also calls for disability equality training for police officers that would be led by disabled people; for proactive efforts to recruit disabled police officers; and for greater use of the force’s disabled advisers on the MPS disability independent advisory group.
And it says the force should do more to identify disability hate crime hot-spots and repeated incidents.
Superintendent Martin Kirby, lead responsible officer for hate crime in the Met, said: “We take all reports of disability hate crime seriously, however recognise there is more work to be done, specifically to address the lack of confidence in reporting to us.
“We have refreshed our overall approach to tackling hate crime in order to provide better support to victims, to enable a stronger response towards offenders of hate crime and to improve accessibility of our service to Londoners across all communities.
“Following this we have begun to see an increase in the number of disability hate crime reports to the MPS.
“In recent months, the Met has continued to increase its victim referrals to CATCH, an alliance of charities who give specialist help and advice to victims and witnesses of hate crime.
“These include disability charities such as Real, Stay Safe East and Choice in Hackney.
“We are considering the report’s findings and currently assessing the recommendations in order to increase victims’ confidence in the MPS.
“In addition, we will be making contact with the authors of the report for more information in order to address the concerning comments and feedback.
“We continue to dedicate significant resource to investigating cases of disability hate crime brought to our attention and encourage those who may have been a victim or witness to come forward.”
Shaun Bailey, the Conservative chair of the London Assembly’s police and crime committee, said: “The police and crime committee has read the report by the London Deaf and Disabled People Organisations’ Hate Crime Partnership with interest and notes the report’s recommendation for the committee.
“It is absolutely abhorrent that disabled people experience physical assault and verbal abuse.
“It is also concerning that disabled victims of hate crime have reported not being believed or being dismissed, after telling police officers they felt targeted due to their impairment.
“The police and crime committee will be investigating hate crime in London in the new year, following a surge of incidents in 2021.
“Disability hate crime will be looked at as part of this and is a priority for the committee going forward.”
*The other co-author is Lara Conner
9 December 2021
Disability arts organisation’s call for new cultural rights
A leading disability arts organisation has called on the Welsh government to provide new cultural and international rights for disabled people.
Disability Arts Cymru, the leading organisation for disability arts in Wales, spoke out as it launched a new manifesto: Bring Us Our Creative Rights.
The manifesto says that many disabled people who want to develop careers in the arts and creative sector face “multiple barriers”, such as a lack of opportunities in education, a lack of understanding of their access needs, and inaccessible funding portals.
Its key demand is for the Welsh government and other organisations to take steps that would implement parts of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.
The manifesto focuses on two articles of the convention, article 30 and article 32.
Article 30 says governments must take measures to enable disabled people to “have the opportunity to develop and utilize their creative, artistic and intellectual potential, not only for their own benefit, but also for the enrichment of society”.
The manifesto calls for measures that would implement article 30 in Wales, including an obligation on publicly-funded organisations to introduce equality action plans to ensure that access is “standard” for all arts audiences, participants and staff; and the development of a new disabled people’s cultural leaders programme that would support participation in all levels of public life.
Article 32 says that governments must recognise the importance of “international cooperation”.
The manifesto calls for measures to implement article 32 in Wales, including more opportunities for disabled creatives to connect with other countries; and enabling disabled people to take part in international opportunities, for example as leaders, collaborators and presenters.
The manifesto also calls for statutory recognition of British Sign Language; and to make disability equality training mandatory at all levels of the Welsh government and public bodies.
The manifesto, supported by Disability Wales, the Arts Council of Wales (ACW), and ACW’s international agency, Wales Arts International, was launched on 3 December, the international day of disabled people.
Dr Natasha Hirst, DAC’s chair, said: “As we developed our manifesto, it was clear that disabled people are still too easily disregarded when we call for access to arts and culture.
“We are certainly not treated as equals despite decades of legislation and policies that claim to prevent our exclusion.
“Arts and culture are central to all social and political change and we must be equal and visible participants in this.
“That can only happen when we have full access to all of our rights. Disabled people are done with platitudes. Now is the time for action.”
Disabled writer Kaite O’Reilly, who spoke at the launch, said: “The disability community is dynamic, diverse, intersectional, creative and innovative, but we are still overlooked, underdeveloped, under-funded and under-valued.
“Our culture and contribution is unfamiliar to many owing to the historical impact of segregation, institutionalisation, and systemic ableism.”
Phil George, ACW’s chair, said: “At the Arts Council of Wales, we completely support the perspective of the social model of disability, and we strongly affirm that it is our responsibility and the responsibility of the organisations we fund to address the many barriers preventing disabled people achieving creative fulfilment in the arts.
“Supporting this manifesto expresses our commitment to working with disabled people to achieve full inclusion in the making and enjoyment of the arts.
“The whole society will be culturally richer if disabled people have the creative rights which have been so often and so shockingly denied to them.”
A spokesperson for the Welsh government said: “We have a clear commitment to promoting and protecting human rights in Wales and our recent Programme for Government incorporates the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities into its plans for this governmental term.
“We have worked with disability groups throughout the pandemic to understand the impact of coronavirus on their lives and, as a result, we have already taken action to address concerns, including the establishment of a minister-led taskforce including leaders of the disabled people’s movement in Wales. Disability Arts Cymru have joined this also.
“Additionally, earlier this year we published research into strengthening and advancing equality and human rights in Wales.
“The recommendations of this, including those which relate to incorporation of UN conventions, are presently being shared and discussed to consider how they might be integrated into ongoing and future planned work.
“We will consult on any legislative models that emerge, including with those public bodies which may be affected by proposed new duties.”
9 December 2021
News provided by John Pring at www.disabilitynewsservice.com
Other disability-related stories covered by mainstream media this week
Standards collapsed so quickly at a severely short-staffed care home that families were given just 10 hours’ notice of its final closure triggering a desperate scramble to find new homes for traumatised residents, the Guardian has learned: https://www.theguardian.com/society/2021/dec/06/care-home-in-kent-gives-families-10-hours-notice-of-closure
Tory ministers have broken their manifesto yet again by imposing a £70m “stealth cut” on disabled Brits. Thousands will lose out on Personal Independence Payments (PIP) after a pledge to change their assessments was torn up: https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/dwp-tories-break-manifesto-70million-25603434
Reforms aiming to protect mental health patients from unsafe restraint have come into force following the death of a 23-year-old man from Croydon: https://www.yourlocalguardian.co.uk/news/19768244.senis-law-restraint-reforms-mental-health-patients/
