Errol Graham: DWP ‘hid key evidence’ from inquiry into starvation death
The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) appears to have hidden crucial evidence from an inquiry into how a disabled man starved to death after having his benefits wrongly stopped, Disability News Service can reveal.
The long-awaited safeguarding review into the death of Errol Graham* is set to be published today (Thursday) by Nottingham City Safeguarding Adults Board, but it is only mildly critical of DWP’s failures and those of local agencies.
The review concludes that despite the “shocking and disturbing” circumstances of Errol Graham’s death in 2018, and significant failures by DWP and local agencies, they had engaged in “significant learning” in the last five years (see separate story).
The conclusions are likely to have been far more critical if the review team had seen documents from his work capability assessment in 2014 which showed he was experiencing significant mental distress, including active suicidal thoughts, three years before his benefits were stopped when he failed to turn up to a work capability assessment.
The board told Disability News Service this morning (Thursday) that it will now review those documents and the actions taken during the safeguarding review, after the documents were passed on by DNS earlier this week.
Errol’s daughter-in-law, Alison Burton, who has fought for justice for her father-in-law since his death, told Disability News Service (DNS) this week that DWP’s actions raise “serious questions” about the department’s honesty and transparency.
It is just the latest example of DWP apparently misleading public bodies and those investigating its activities – including coroners, judges, the National Audit Office and its own independent reviewers – about links between its policies and failings and the deaths of disabled people claiming benefits.
Today’s review describes how DWP decided to re-assess Errol for his eligibility for employment and support allowance (ESA) in the summer of 2017.
Three years earlier, a welfare rights adviser had helped him fill in a limited capability for work questionnaire, in which he said he could not cope with “unexpected changes” which left him feeling “under threat and upset”, and how he felt “anxiety and panic in new situations”.
He also took part in a face-to-face work capability assessment, with the doctor who assessed him describing his “active suicidal thoughts”, “very low mood” and how he was “hearing voices all the time”.
The Atos doctor, and DWP, concluded that he was not fit for any work-related activity, and DWP placed him again in the ESA support group.
The documents from this process – seen by DNS – show DWP was aware of his significant mental distress in 2014.
But it appears that none of this information was shared with the safeguarding review.
When DWP attempted another reassessment in 2017, Errol – whose mental health had deteriorated even further since 2014 – failed to engage with the process and did not turn up to a face-to-face assessment.
DWP made several unsuccessful attempts to contact him by phone and text and through safeguarding visits.
When these safeguarding visits failed, no further efforts were made by DWP to contact him or secure information about the state of his mental health from other agencies, or his friends and family.
Instead, DWP abruptly stopped Errol’s ESA in October 2017, which led to his housing benefit being stopped and his rent no longer being paid.
The following June, his body was found by bailiffs sent to evict him for non-payment of rent.
He was 57 years old and weighed just four-and-a-half stone.
A coroner subsequently found he had starved to death.
Today’s safeguarding report concludes that DWP “was unaware of [Errol’s] significant risk factors when acutely unwell, shutting himself away, disordered thoughts, not eating, not drinking and with suicidal ideation”.
It also claims that DWP “had no detail regarding the nature of [Errol’s] mental health, specifically the risks when in an acute phase of illness”, that the nurse carrying out the assessment process in 2017 only had reports up to 2013, and that the DWP decision-maker “was not aware of how [Errol’s] depression could affect him”.
There is no mention in the safeguarding report of the 2014 work capability assessment documents.
DWP has previously tried to prevent the 2014 documents being passed to the authorities investigating Errol’s death, including at his inquest, and only provided the documents to the high court a few days before a judicial review hearing in January 2021.
Burton said DWP’s apparent failure to hand the 2014 information to the safeguarding review team adds to the “absolute hammering” the department has received over its “honesty, transparency and inequality”.
She said: “The department is still showing it is willing to mislead the public, mislead the courts, and mislead a very serious safeguarding adults board report.
“It’s denying people like my father-in-law the justice he deserves.”
This week, DWP refused to explain why it appears to have failed to share the 2014 information with the safeguarding review; and refused to say if it accepted that the information should have been shared with the safeguarding review.
Instead, a DWP spokesperson said: “This was an incredibly tragic case and our condolences remain with this family.”
Lesley Hutchinson, chair of the board, said: “Following the findings from the coroner’s inquest, the focus of this review was on learning lessons for the future and seeking assurance that the changes agencies reported to the board have been embedded in everyday frontline practice.
“Due to circumstances out of our control, we are yet to confirm whether or not, and how, the information provided on the 9th May [by DNS] was considered.
“In light of this, we will review the document and actions taken at the time of the review.
“The board will provide an update to the family following further consideration when this has been concluded.”
*He is referred to in the report as ‘Billy’
11 May 2023
Errol Graham: DWP criticised by report into disabled man’s starvation death
The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) has been criticised in an official report for the first time for failings that contributed to the death of a disabled man who starved to death after it wrongly stopped his out-of-work benefits.
The much-delayed safeguarding adults review into the death of Errol Graham* is finally set to be published today (Thursday), nearly five years after his body was found by bailiffs who had come to evict him from his flat in a Nottingham tower-block.
There are few recommendations for the agencies that have faced criticism for their role in his death because of the length of time they have had to address their failings – the review was delayed by a judicial review and the pandemic.
But the report still criticises DWP, and it is the latest official publication over the last decade to link the deaths of claimants to the department’s policies and flawed practices, including those relating to the work capability assessment (WCA).
DWP is also facing questions over why it appears to have failed to pass crucial documents to the review, which would have shown that the department knew how unwell Errol had been at the time of his previous assessment in 2014, three years before his benefits were stopped (see separate story).
Errol’s daughter-in-law, Alison Burton, who has fought for justice for her father-in-law since his death, welcomed the publication of the first report to criticise DWP over its actions, although she says she would have liked it to have been more critical.
She said the report shows how DWP “builds these systems quite neglectfully and forgets to put support in place”.
She is still angry and frustrated that DWP insists it has no duty of care to those disabled people who claim benefits through its social security system.
She said: “How long has the department been operating?
“Why on earth have they been operating for so many years without being given strict instructions to comply with certain care laws, including a duty of care?
“Errol is the unfortunate consequence of that.”
Today’s 38-page report, commissioned by Nottingham City Safeguarding Adults Board, focuses on the period between June 2017 and 2018 and describes the “shocking and disturbing” circumstances of Errol Graham’s death.
It describes how DWP decided to re-assess Errol for his employment and support allowance (ESA) in the summer of 2017, three years after deciding he should stay in the ESA support group, for those unable to carry out work-related activity.
Even though Errol had spent two weeks in a mental health hospital after being sectioned in June 2015, his GP was unable to provide more than basic details of his health to DWP, partly – says the report – because the department only asked limited questions.
The report says the ESA113 form the GP was sent “did not request information relating to wider considerations of [Errol’s] mental health such as any barriers to him securing his benefits, risks posed by his mental health when in acute relapse or the impact on his mental health of discontinuing his claim”.
Errol was asked to attend a work capability assessment and when he failed to turn up, DWP made several unsuccessful attempts to contact him, by phone, text and safeguarding visits.
When these visits failed, “no further inquiries were attempted”, says the report.
At the time there was no guidance for DWP staff in this situation, and the report says this was “an omission”, although it says it has since been addressed.
DWP stopped Errol’s ESA in October 2017, which also led to his housing benefit being stopped and his rent not being paid.
The report says DWP guidance allowed the civil servant who made this decision to seek information from other agencies, but the decision-maker decided this was “not warranted”.
The report says: “Decision makers need to understand the potential impact of depression and other mental illnesses, for all claimants and use this knowledge to make reasonable adjustments.”
At the time, the report says, there were no “robust structures to support the DWP Decision Makers to trigger further inquiries of key agencies, in circumstances where there were concerns about a claimant’s vulnerability and an intent to end a claim”.
The report says the “lack of information sharing between agencies was a key issue for what followed”.
The 2014 assessment documents described how Errol could not cope with “unexpected changes” which left him feeling “under threat and upset”, had “active suicidal thoughts”, “very low mood” and was “hearing voices all the time”.
But those documents appear not to have been shared with the review team and today’s report concludes instead that DWP “was unaware of [Errol’s] significant risk factors when acutely unwell, shutting himself away, disordered thoughts, not eating, not drinking and with suicidal ideation”.
Today’s report also makes it clear that DWP’s attempts to contact Errol “did not extend to contacting any other agencies or speaking directly to his GP” and that it had made no attempt to inform Nottingham City Homes (NCH) – his landlord – about his “vulnerability due to his mental health”.
DWP also missed a further opportunity to contact housing services about Errol’s history of mental distress when it informed Nottingham City Council’s housing benefit service that his housing benefit had been stopped.
The report says this was “a key factor because NCH had no record that [Errol] had any mental health needs”, which then “drove their interactions with him”.
After his housing benefit was stopped, NCH made repeated attempts to contact Errol from November 2017 onwards, and on one occasion, in February 2018, a manager spoke to him briefly through his front door, when he reported Errol “was upset and shouted and punched the front door”.
Errol’s gas supply had already been cut off by NCH after failed attempts to speak to him about a gas safety check, which left him without hot water or heating through the winter.
In June 2018, Errol’s body was found by bailiffs sent by NCH who had broken down the front door.
He was 57 years old and weighed just four-and-a-half stone.
A coroner subsequently found he had died of starvation.
The review concludes: “Both agencies [DWP and NCH] were following their processes.
“However, the procedural route that had been taken was based on partial information and misconception about [Errol].
“What we now know is that [Errol] was a man in acute mental distress, who had shut himself away from the world.”
It adds: “Had the combined information been known, it should have set DWP and NCH onto a different procedural route.
“This could have mobilised a multi-agency response providing [Errol] with the vital social, physical and mental health support he needed.”
The review is also critical of other agencies for “a series of missed opportunities to share information”, and it concludes: “Had information been shared, this may have revealed the true nature of [Errol’s] mental distress and mobilised the care and treatment he needed.”
The report concludes that these agencies have engaged in “significant learning” since 2018.
It says DWP has made some improvements since Errol’s death, including the recruitment of “advanced customer support senior leaders” to work with local communities and the agencies that provide support to claimants; strengthening staff training on how mental health may impact on the ability to make a claim or provide evidence for a claim review; helping its decision-makers to identify “vulnerable” customers; and strengthening guidance on what steps to take before stopping benefits in cases like Errol’s.
The report makes just five recommendations.
Among those recommendations, it calls for DWP to work with the national network of safeguarding adults boards to produce a “protocol” that would ensure they alert each other to relevant cases.
It also says NCH should strengthen its “checks and balances when taking high impact actions such as cutting off gas supply without consent or seeking eviction”, and that it should improve the information it holds on tenants’ contacts.
And the report calls on the safeguarding adults board to review its own guidance on self-neglect and service-users who fail to engage with services.
DWP refused to say this week if it planned to amend the ESA113 form (and its universal credit equivalent) to ensure that GPs can provide the wider information that would be useful in future cases and potentially save future lives.
Instead, a DWP spokesperson said: “This was an incredibly tragic case and our condolences remain with this family.”
Lesley Hutchinson, the chair of Nottingham City Safeguarding Adults Board, said: “This review looked into the shocking circumstances of a man’s death where the intervention of agencies exacerbated his problems rather than providing support.
“I offer my heartfelt condolences to all who knew and loved [Errol].
“One of the key conclusions of our review is that if agencies had shared information, it may have revealed the extent of [Errol’s] mental ill health and help mobilise the care and treatment he needed.
“Since [Errol’s] death, agencies have put in place changes to how they work, we have an action plan in place and are monitoring this in a bid to reduce the risks of such a tragedy occurring again.”
*He is referred to in the report as ‘Billy’
11 May 2023
Thousands of disabled people lost their vote at local elections, reports suggest
Thousands of people with long-term health conditions are likely to have lost the right to vote in last week’s local elections in England, reports from campaigners suggest.
Scores of people who have compromised or suppressed immune systems contacted the Evusheld for the UK campaign group* after the election to say they had not been able to vote because of the new voter identification laws or had faced other discrimination at the polling station.
They wear masks because they are still shielding from COVID-19 and guidance around the new laws that say voters in England must show photographic identification at polling stations meant they were asked to remove those masks to prove their identity.
Some had to engage in distressing arguments with polling station staff – with some being turned away and denied a vote – while some had already decided they could not risk catching Covid and so stayed at home without voting.
Others encountered flexible staff with “common sense” who accompanied them outside so they could compare their face with their photo identification in the fresh air.
Campaigners warned before the elections that thousands of other disabled people were likely to have lost their right to vote because they did not have valid photographic identification.
Mark Oakley, a co-leader of Evusheld for the UK, said they had been contacted by scores of people since the election who had described the barriers to voting they had faced.
But his campaign group only has two or three thousand members, and there are hundreds of thousands of people in England who have compromised or suppressed immune systems which make them more vulnerable to Covid.
Oakley said: “A lot of people have been shielding from the start of Covid and still are, or are living a very restricted life, and to stand in front of someone in an enclosed space, you don’t know if they are Covid-positive or not and to take your mask off is something that a lot of people are just not willing to do because of the increased risk if they contract Covid.”
His group had raised the issue with the Electoral Commission a couple of weeks before the election and told the watchdog it had failed to make reasonable adjustments for immunocompromised people under the Equality Act, and that this was putting people at risk.
Oakley said many people want to be able to vote in person, and should have the right to do so.
He also raised concerns about the lack of early publicity around alternative voting options, such as proxy or postal votes.
He said: “Everybody has got that right to vote. If they want to walk into that polling station they have got a right to do it.
“They shouldn’t be denied it because they have a health issue.”
Oakley, who did not have council elections in his area last week, said: “I would still want to walk into that polling station and put my X on that paper.
“I would feel I had done my bit and that it is going to be counted.
“We were not asking for much. It is such a simple mitigation. Take them outside and allow them to do the ID check outside.”
Evusheld for the UK was told that, although the Electoral Commission wrote the guidance for the new laws, it was down to individual returning officers to decide how they dealt with voters wearing masks.
He said: “It’s farcical and it just seems rolled up in this whole thing of ‘the pandemic is over, and we’ve forgotten about this bunch of people’.”
He said it would have been easy for the Electoral Commission to include advice in its guidance that voters wearing masks could have their identification checked outside the polling station.
He said: “It’s not hard. It could have been done beforehand. It’s as simple as that: it recognises the issue, it deals with the problem, it removes the risk to people and it gives people that option.”
Oakley said there was “a significant proportion of the population” who are immunocompromised or immunosuppressed, although not all of them are still shielding or using masks.
The issue is also likely to have affected hundreds of thousands of disabled people who are clinically extremely vulnerable to Covid, and who might also have been reluctant to remove their masks inside a polling station.
Just a week before the election, Labour MP Andrew Gwynne had been told in a parliamentary answer: “The guidance that the Electoral Commission has given to polling clerks is that face coverings will need to be removed so that identity can be verified.”
An Electoral Commission spokesperson said this week that its guidance had allowed returning officers to make reasonable adjustments “where appropriate and possible”.
She said: “In some instances, it may have been possible for an identity check to be carried out in a space outside the polling station, but that will have depended on specific local circumstances at each polling station.
“For example, whether there were sufficient staff to enable the voting process to continue to be properly managed while one member of staff was outside, or whether there was suitable outside space for the check to be carried out.
“Given the large number of polling stations and the wide variety of locations and venues used, we were unable to make blanket recommendations for all polling stations.
“We review our guidance after each set of polls, and will consider feedback from administrators, voters, charities and other groups in ensuring our guidance is as helpful as possible in supporting the delivery of elections.”
Bethany Bale, policy and campaigns officer for Disability Rights UK, said: “The introduction of voter ID was always going to make voting more difficult.
“That’s why we campaigned against the elections bill and advised the Electoral Commission on how to implement this policy more accessibly, but the experiences faced by disabled voters last week were unacceptable.
“Disabled people already face disproportionate barriers to voting, from inaccessible polling stations to not having access to assistive equipment, and the addition of mandatory photo ID will have disenfranchised thousands of disabled people.
“We continue to call on the government to withdraw this policy and ask that the Electoral Commission conducts a thorough review of its impact.”
The Electoral Commission spokesperson said it was “too early to draw conclusions” about how many potential voters were affected by the mask issue.
She said: “We will publish a report, looking at evidence about how the elections were run and how voters found taking part, to inform the wider public debate about this new policy.
“We may also identify recommendations for changes to legislation to make improvements for future elections.
“As part of that process, we will take into account voters’ concerns and any evidence about the experience of voters who are immunocompromised.
“We know some voters had concerns about having to remove a face mask in the polling station.
“We are collating this feedback and will consider it after the election, alongside other evidence, as part of our election reporting process.”
She said the commission was “open to feedback and evidence about people’s experience at this year’s polls”.
The commission is also running an accessibility and voter ID survey of voters, which is designed to gather feedback from all disabled voters about their experiences during the election, including registering to vote and voting.
*The group is campaigning for the drug Evusheld, which offers protection from Covid, to be funded in the UK for immunocompromised people
11 May 2023
DWP blocks release of report on impact of its errors on ‘vulnerable’ claimants
The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) is blocking the release of a paper that details the impact of its own errors on disabled people whose deaths are likely to be linked to its failings and policy decisions.
The paper was mentioned during a meeting of its serious case panel last October, which was attended by some of the department’s most senior executives.
The panel was set up to examine the deaths of claimants that have been linked to DWP’s actions.
Last month, Disability News Service (DNS) revealed how extracts from secret internal process reviews completed by DWP between September 2020 and November 2022 showed how a catalogue of errors made by the department were still being linked to the deaths of claimants.
Some of these deaths will have been examined by the serious case panel, and are likely to have been discussed in the paper DWP is now refusing to release on “the impact of errors on vulnerable customers”.
Minutes of the panel’s meeting on 12 October 2022 show that two of the “key areas of concern” detailed in the paper were around the failure of DWP staff “to call customers back” and the impact of “delays or errors” when claimants change addresses.
DNS had submitted a freedom of information request to DWP to ask it to release the paper, but the department has decided that doing so is not sufficiently in the public interest.
As with other documents it has blocked from release under freedom of information laws, DWP is suggesting that allowing the contents of the paper to be read by the public would “inhibit” the “free and frank exchange of views” between ministers and DWP civil servants and would likely “prejudice the effective conduct of public affairs”.
It concludes: “On balance, we are satisfied that the public interest in maintaining the exemption outweighs the public interest in disclosure.”
DNS is appealing the decision.
It is only the latest of many sensitive – and potentially embarrassing – documents that DWP has tried to prevent being released under the Freedom of Information Act.
Last month, DNS reported how the department was refusing to release a document that would show how its controversial plans to scrap the work capability assessment would impact disabled people.
It is still refusing to publish a report into the effectiveness of its support for “vulnerable” claimants of universal credit, more than three-and-a-half years after it was presented to its universal credit programme board.
And it had to be forced by the information commissioner to publish a report that showed how benefit sanctions slow down progress into work and are likely to force claimants to take lower-paying jobs.
DWP has been insisting for years that there are no systemic flaws in the social security system that can be linked to the deaths of disabled people claiming benefits.
The paper submitted to the serious case panel is likely to include fresh evidence of such systemic flaws.
11 May 2023
PIP claimants describe ‘exhausting’ and ‘stressful’ 90-minute waits on DWP phone line
Disabled people have described how “disgraceful” and stressful waiting-times on a benefit enquiry line are now regularly lasting as long as 90 minutes.
The minister for disabled people, Tom Pursglove, admitted last month that the average waiting time for the personal independence payment (PIP) telephone enquiry line in March was 37 minutes.
But claimants have told Disability News Service (DNS) that they are facing “exhausting” waits that are more than twice as long as that, and are also having to cope with malfunctioning software that cuts them off as they try to navigate DWP’s automated voice-response technology.
Courtney Hodgkiss, from Islington, north London, was on hold for about 80 minutes while she waited for a conversation about her PIP claim that lasted just three minutes.
When she finally got through, she was told she had not needed to call because DWP had wrongly told her she needed to repay a PIP overpayment.
She said: “I am a disabled woman with a decent amount of support behind me, emotionally.
“What I don’t have is the ability to spend my entire morning on hold to a service that is barely functional at best.
“I have to work – incidentally as a peer support worker helping vulnerable people in the community to get PIP. If this is my experience, as the ‘expert’, what is theirs?”
She added: “I left that morning of phone hold stamina feeling angry, frustrated, worried, upset (yes, I cried), unappreciated and most importantly like I was being punished.
“I can’t tell you how this phone system is just another cog in the wheels of us being made to feel responsible for our disability and embarrassed for asking for help.
“I’ve no doubt this is intentional and meant to dissuade claimants from being able to speak to a person (who I’ve mostly found to be polite and kind).”
She has a chronic health condition that is triggered by stress, and the experience caused a flare-up of that condition.
She told DNS: “I’d like to dedicate this flare to [former work and pensions secretary] Therese Coffey and the legacy of the PIP phone system she left in place when she went to tell farmers how to do the jobs they’ve been doing their entire life.”
Because of her slow reflexes – she has cerebral palsy and epilepsy – Mary* often spends half an hour just trying to get through the automated security process on the PIP enquiry line.
She then has to wait for as long as 90 minutes to speak to a DWP adviser.
She told DNS: “It’s a real nightmare, and it’s a lottery if you get through to someone who understands what you’re talking about.
“I am now trying to avoid phoning DWP unless it is absolutely necessary.”
Her most recent call took 10 minutes to get through the system, and then another hour waiting for her call to be answered.
Tess, from Bristol, said they had had to take annual leave to use the PIP enquiry line because the waits were so long.
They said their experiences last summer had seen them phone the line several times about an extension for their PIP renewal, and even then most of the time they were waiting close to or more than an hour to speak to someone.
On a couple of occasions she was cut off and “ended up in tears because you just have to rejoin the queue”.
Others responded on Twitter to last week’s DNS story by describing their own “exhausting” waits.
One claimant, tweeting at @LuminousTribe, said: “I can confirm it’s over an hour every time, as well as so much recorded messages and automated voices requiring responses which make it longer and trigger further anxiety and exhaustion.”
Another claimant, tweeting at @Gordon_McGlone, said: “How about 1.5 hours and being cut off.
“Or again for three hours and not getting through? Ridiculous additional unnecessary stress. #PIP is a deeply flawed system.”
Matt Hunt, assistant co-ordinator at Derbyshire Unemployed Workers’ Centres (DUWC), said the impact of the delays causes “incredible stress” for clients as they wait to speak to a DWP call handler.
DUWC is a small welfare rights organization which runs daily advice sessions across Derbyshire, but he said it is “losing valuable time waiting to get through to the DWP on behalf of our clients”.
He said: “Ever since the pandemic, it has become increasingly difficult to get through, and we are now at the point where it is impacting our ability to support, and advocate on behalf of, our clients.”
One DUWC adviser tried four times over a two-week period to get through to PIP alongside a disabled claimant.
Hunt said: “On the first attempt, the client, who has caring responsibilities, had to leave the advice centre after 90 minutes on hold.
“The next attempt was abandoned after one hour as the advisor had a tribunal they needed to attend.
“On the third attempt, they were cut off after finally being put through to the PIP call handling office after 90 minutes of waiting.
“Finally, on the fourth attempt, they were able to speak to a call handler and escalate the case, after another 90 minutes of waiting.”
In all, it took five-and-a-half hours for a 10-minute phone call.
Hunt said: “Our advisors are frustrated and stymied by the amount of time they spend on hold, when as a service, we are busier than we have ever been.
“In some cases, we have had to instruct clients to contact PIP independently rather than assist them ourselves because of the time we know such a call will take.
“Not being able to help every single person at the point they access our service is antithetical to the values of DUWC and we strongly urge the DWP to get a hold of this situation immediately.”
Sir Stephen Timms, the Labour chair of the Commons work and pensions select committee, said he had received “a number of concerns” about telephone waiting-times across DWP, and asked a parliamentary question about the issue in March, before questioning work and pensions secretary Mel Stride at a committee evidence session later that month (PDF, question 176).
He added: “I have continued, though, to hear concerns about telephone waiting times and that the ‘average wait’ figures don’t reflect some people’s experiences.
“I will continue to pursue this with DWP.”
For the second consecutive week, a DWP spokesperson refused to answer questions about the delays and problems with the PIP enquiry line.
Instead, it issued the following statement, which did not refer to telephone waiting-times: “Reducing customer journey times for PIP is a priority for the department and we are making constant improvements to our service, including expanding dedicated teams and using telephone and video appointments to make the process faster and to deliver a more efficient, user-centred service.”
*Not her real name
11 May 2023
Daily road closure leaves disabled woman imprisoned in her home
The closure of a road by a council has left a disabled woman imprisoned in her home and unable to attend vital health appointments, in the latest example of pedestrian-friendly policies that are failing to take access needs into account.
Ann Ingle believes Brighton and Hove City Council is discriminating against her and breaching her right to respect for her home and private life under the Human Rights Act.
The council* claims its actions are “proportionate”.
She has lodged a formal complaint about the council’s actions.
For more than 15 years, she has lived in Gardner Street, in the heart of Brighton’s popular shopping and restaurant quarter.
She is unable to use a wheelchair because of a complex series of chronic health conditions, and so needs a car to be able to park directly outside her flat to be able to leave her home.
But a traffic regulation order introduced in January means vehicles are only allowed in the road before 11am and after 5pm every day of the year.
Ingle says Brighton and Hove City Council has so far declined to make reasonable adjustments for her, and as a result she has already had to delay important health appointments.
She told Disability News Service (DNS): “I’ve been left stranded. I just don’t know what I am going to do about this.
“This is such a weird situation to find myself in, and everyday things regarding the care of my health, everything people expect to be able to do such as getting to preventative treatments, scans and assessments, have just stopped.
“I’ve always been responsible for my health and this stops me from doing so.
“The bits of life around finding new pals, seeing new things, being creative, all the things that make my brain, body and emotions work well, they have all been shown the door.
“Because I cannot use wheelchairs like the council expect me to, my world is even smaller than it was.
“It’s a disability issue, it’s about how disabled people can be mobile and get to where we need to.
“It’s not about bikes versus cars or active travel. I feel absolutely battered by the whole thing.
“Why should everyone else be able to do all these things but I can’t? They are trying to make disabled people conform in ways that are not possible.
“There’s a lack of humanity in their decisions.”
She has previously told the council: “I am being placed in the unfavourable position where my place in the community is minimised and I am being made invisible.
“It deprives me of being as much part of this community as everyone else.”
She added: “Disabled people who need personal vehicles as a mobility aid are just as much part of the community as all other citizens. We need to be protected as such.”
The council first closed the road during the pandemic lockdown, but concerns arose about the impact of the closure on disabled people who needed to use the road’s two blue badge spaces.
Those spaces have now been permanently moved to a street about 100 metres away, which Ingle says “might as well be on the other side of the planet”.
She said: “To add insult to injury, the council removed the blue badge spaces completely, so even when the road is open my disability personal assistant can’t legally park up for me so I can use a vehicle.”
The council’s failure to consider her needs, and the removal of the blue badge spaces, she says, means she cannot leave her home at all as it is no longer legal to park outside for the time needed.
This means it is almost impossible to attend GP and hospital medical appointments, and also creates significant barriers in the rest of her life.
She is being supported by the Brighton disabled people’s organisation Possability People, which – alongside another local disabled people’s group, BADGE – submitted evidence and spoke about its concerns to the council.
They told the council that the discriminatory nature of its actions raised a question over its supposed wish to improve access for disabled people in the city, and that no attempt had been made to help Ann and any other disabled residents of Gardner Street.
They told the council: “There are 13,500 disabled people [in the council area] who are reliant on their vehicles or wheelchairs as mobility aids.
“By voting for this closure, you will be voting for a scheme which directly discriminates against these disabled residents, your constituents.”
The council has argued that it is “fully aware of the concerns” she has raised but that “having considered the competing considerations carefully” it decided that “to maintain vehicular access for blue badge holders, or indeed any vehicular exemption, would be incompatible with the objectives” of the traffic regulation orders it had imposed on Gardner Street.
It said the benefits of the orders would include improved access for pedestrians and disabled people, which justified their introduction despite the concerns.
It has also argued that the changes will improve air quality and safety.
Ingle argues that there was not much moving traffic on the road before the closure so it will make little difference to air quality.
Geraldine Des Moulins, chief executive of Possability People, told DNS: “After initial consultations, which Possability People were included in, we thought Brighton and Hove City Council understood the importance of Gardner Street remaining accessible, both for the community and for the disabled resident who lives there.
“We were shocked and dismayed to learn of their proposal to close vehicle access to the street for seven days a week, from 11am until 7pm.
“The impact of the closure has had a serious and devastating impact on the disabled resident who lives there which the council have just not acknowledged.
“They have a duty of care to make reasonable adjustments and they haven’t done this.
“We have repeatedly asked to meet with them to see if there is a way forward, other than opening the road at 5pm rather than 7pm, but they have not responded to our requests.
“We understand the benefits a reduction in car use brings, but the ill-thought-out manner in which the council seem to be doing this has raised concerns and fear amongst the disabled community that the city will become completely inaccessible to disabled visitors, and worse still, make disabled residents feel like prisoners in their own homes.”
A Brighton and Hove City Council spokesperson said: “Before agreeing the Gardner Street daytime closure, we considered the equalities implications and were aware that the changes may impact accessibility for some residents.
“As a result the times of the closure were reduced and additional disabled parking bays were installed in Regent Street.
“We are keenly aware of the impact the change has had on one disabled resident of Gardner Street.
“We currently support them in a number of ways. This includes support with leaving their home during the hours when the street is closed.
“We will be contacting the resident again to discuss any further concerns they may have.
“The changes have brought real improvements for people using the road – by creating a safe area to access shops and restaurants.
“We have received a number of positive comments about the closure, including from disabled people.
“As a council we recognise that more can be done to support disabled people better as they are disproportionately impacted.
“We continue to work to improve our approach to accessibility and also how we plan and consult for it.”
Ingle told DNS last night that she had no idea what the council was referring to when it described the support it provides for leaving her home during the hours when the street is closed.
She has not left her home since the road closure was introduced.
*Until last week’s local elections, the council was led by the Green party, although it only held 20 of 54 seats. Labour now has majority control of the council
11 May 2023
Other disability-related stories covered by mainstream media this week
Distress and heartbreak for millions could have been avoided if the government had not missed opportunities to prepare social care for a pandemic, according to an investigation into how the first wave of Covid hit care homes. A review of events in spring 2020, when almost 20,000 care home residents died with Covid in England and Wales, found it was the result of “letting one of our most important public services languish in constant crisis for years”: https://www.theguardian.com/society/2023/may/05/ministers-missed-chances-to-prepare-social-care-for-a-pandemic-review-finds
Disabled people face too many access problems across London, politicians have warned. A London Assembly committee suggested a group should be created to discuss inclusive design in the future. It said the group would help advise on the next London Plan: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-65517081
Many disabled people are facing a “cost-of-breathing crisis” amid higher energy bills, a new television advert has warned. Disabled people who rely on energy to move around, speak and breathe risk losing their independence, health and wellbeing, a disability charity said as it revealed a quarter of the callers to its helpline who rely on medical equipment have had to switch it off to save money. Scope said that while much of the population is looking forward to using less energy as the weather warms up in the summer, many disabled people will not have that option: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/cost-breathing-crisis-disabled-people-b2335265.html
Tube station lifts in London had to be closed more than 500 times last year because there were no “trained staff” available in case they broke down. There was a five-fold annual increase in the amount of time that lifts were taken out of service as a safety precaution, despite being in working order. Disability campaigners described the situation as “unacceptable”: https://www.standard.co.uk/news/transport/london-underground-tube-station-lifts-shut-staff-shortages-b1078777.html
11 May 2023
News provided by John Pring at www.disabilitynewsservice.com
