Judge tells DWP to release secret universal credit ‘vulnerable claimants’ report
The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) has been told by a tribunal to release a secret, high-level report that is likely to expose the flaws in the support it provides to “vulnerable” claimants of universal credit.
The information rights tribunal has told DWP that it must release the 2019 report by the former Prime Minister’s Implementation Unit (PMIU), as well as other confidential reports and documents that are also likely to expose flaws within the universal credit system.
Tribunal judge Stephen Cragg, who led the three-person panel, told DWP there was “a strong public interest” in releasing the PMIU report and a DWP paper on the effectiveness of the support it provides through universal credit.
He said this would “allow scrutiny of the quality of the research and report and whether… any progress on the recommendations had been made”.
He also said it was in the public interest for DWP to release documents relating to the “migration” of claimants of legacy benefits like employment and support allowance onto universal credit through DWP’s “Move to Universal Credit” programme, previously known as “managed migration”.
And he said he agreed with information commissioner John Edwards that the public was “entitled to be well informed as to the reasoning behind policy decisions which are likely to shape British society”.
DWP said this week that it was carefully considering the tribunal’s decision.
The tribunal had been hearing DWP appeals against three decisions made by the Information Commissioner’s Office, all of which found last year that the various universal credit documents should be released.
The cases revolved mostly around whether the public interest in releasing the documents outweighed DWP’s arguments that ministers needed to be allowed to consider policy options in private and to receive and consider “free and frank” advice and views from civil servants without the risk of them being seen by the public.
But the information commissioner had criticised DWP’s “generic and superficial arguments regarding the balance of the public interest”.
One of the DWP appeals related to a freedom of information case taken by Disability News Service (DNS), and another to a case taken by Owen Stevens, from Child Poverty Action Group.
But the tribunal’s ruling is a particular success for campaigner John Slater, who has spent years using freedom of information laws to hold DWP to account for its failings, and played a key role in responding to the appeals, providing both written and oral evidence to the tribunal.
He has raised concerns about the impact of the managed migration to universal credit on disabled people receiving out-of-work benefits.
But he has also raised concerns about DWP’s decision to set up a publication scheme that means papers from its universal credit programme board (UCPB) are only considered for release after two years.
Slater has believed, since the scheme was set up, that DWP intended to use it to block or delay important information that was presented to the board, and that DWP and other government departments would use it more widely to block freedom of information requests.
It was only when a tranche of UCPB papers was released in October 2021 that the existence of the PMIU report became known and Slater, DNS and Stevens could request its release under the Freedom of Information Act.
This means the PMIU report is already four years old.
In a written witness statement for the appeal, DNS editor John Pring told the tribunal that the PMIU report was “clearly commissioned to examine serious concerns that could, if not addressed, cause serious harm or even death to claimants in vulnerable situations”.
He added: “These are issues of grave and vital importance, and the public has every right to know how safe the Universal Credit system is.”
Pring provided the tribunal with details of disabled people who had been caused harm by the universal credit system, including a disabled man left needing hospital treatment three times for suicidal thoughts caused by months of failures by universal credit advisers and jobcentres.
Judge Cragg said in his ruling that the documents Slater was seeking “go beyond what is already available in the public domain and provide useful information about the UC programme, which allows for greater transparency into the workings of the programme and greater understanding of the difficulties that are encountered”.
Supporting the release of the documents, he said there were “strong arguments for transparency and accountability for a programme which may affect millions of UK citizens and process billions of pounds”.
The tribunal’s decision is a significant blow for DWP civil servant Neil Couling, who is responsible to parliament for implementation of universal credit and has played a major role in welfare reforms affecting disabled people over the last three decades.
He had argued that releasing the PMIU report and the paper on the effectiveness of universal credit support “in an uncontrolled way… would be likely to lead to public confusion and unfair criticism of the Universal Credit programme”.
19 October 2023
Inquiry hears of ‘morally reprehensible’ plans to build inaccessible footbridge
Allowing Network Rail to build an inaccessible footbridge in north Yorkshire would set “a bad and dangerous precedent” for its plans for other parts of the country, a disabled activist has told a public inquiry.
Flick Williams was one of several disabled activists who gave evidence this week to the inquiry, a process that could be crucial in preventing the public body building a string of other inaccessible footbridges across the country.
The inquiry, which began last week and is expected to end tomorrow (Friday), is examining proposals to build a footbridge with steps, rather than ramps, at Copmanthorpe, near York.
Access campaigners have previously warned that the inquiry will be a “line in the sand” for Network Rail’s plans to build other inaccessible footbridges as a cost-saving measure, in breach of its duties under the Equality Act.
Williams, who lives in York, told the inquiry that giving Network Rail permission to build the inaccessible footbridge would set a “bad and dangerous precedent” that would allow it to ignore the requirements of the Equality Act’s public sector equality duty in other parts of the country.
She said this would allow Network Rail “to go ahead with their plans in other locations that will have even greater harms attached where more densely populated communities are divided by rail lines, denying access to an even greater number of disabled and older people and confirming to them their status as second-class citizens”.
She highlighted a freedom of information response obtained by Disability News Service in which Network Rail admitted that it planned to build at least 17 more inaccessible footbridges across England, Scotland and Wales in 2022, 2023 and 2024, but had no idea exactly how many because it was too time-consuming and expensive to find out.
Williams told the inquiry: “This to me speaks volumes about the organisation’s lack of commitment to equality and accessibility.”
She said that if Network Rail was allowed to build the inaccessible footbridge at Copmanthorpe, in place of an existing level crossing, it would build in inaccessibility “for at least 120 years to come” and “probably longer”.
The retired disability equality trainer and access consultant told the inquiry that when she attended a meeting in March with members of Copmanthorpe Parish Council, Network Rail executives “made it very clear that a ramped footbridge was not regarded as value for taxpayer money”.
She said: “It was deeply offensive to be told to my face that my access, my civil and human rights, come at a cost that Network Rail do not believe worth paying, with our money, as we are all taxpayers.”
She also told the inquiry that a diversity impact assessment of the plans, carried out by Network Rail, was “frankly disgraceful” and clearly intended to be used to justify going ahead with a stepped footbridge.
An accessible footbridge would allow wheelchair-users, others with mobility impairments, cyclists and parents with prams to use a footpath between Copmanthorpe and the neighbouring village of Bishopthorpe, she said.
Network Rail has argued that the crossing is not currently used by people with reduced mobility because of rough terrain on either side and that an accessible bridge would cost millions more pounds to build, while the ramps needed would be “visually intrusive”.
But local campaigners eventually hope to secure funding for an accessible “active travel” route between the villages, along the footpath.
Williams said the government’s policy was apparently to “promote active travel” and health and wellbeing by encouraging people to access the countryside.
She said: “This footpath is a means of doing that and to go ahead with a stepped only footbridge precludes forever the development of this path into an active travel route between the villages.”
Another disabled activist, Doug Paulley, who also lives near Copmanthorpe, has previously tested the footpath and believes it could easily be made accessible.
He told the inquiry that it was morally reprehensible and legally wrong to be building inaccessible infrastructure, and that such a plan was fundamentally offensive.
Paulley told the inquiry that accessibility seemed to be treated as an optional extra by Network Rail for such projects.
And he said the public body was clearly not going to follow its moral or legal obligations, so needed to be forced to do so by the inquiry.
Paulley said that Network Rail figures showed that two people had died on the existing level crossing, while there had been multiple near misses, and yet the public body was bringing back a proposal for a stepped footbridge that was previously shelved in 2015 after “significant local opposition” and due to the cost of alternative plans.
He said this suggested Network Rail was treating the local community and disabled people with contempt, and that it did not appear to have done anything to look for potential alternative sources of funding for the extra cost of ramps on a new bridge.
A third disabled activist, Tony Jennings, co-chair of a rail accessibility panel and co-founder of the Campaign for Level Boarding, told the inquiry yesterday (Wednesday) that Network Rail was “prioritising cost and early delivery over accessibility and inclusive design of footbridges, which will have devastating consequences for disabled people”.
He said: “Being clinically extremely vulnerable, Covid and lockdown highlighted the importance enjoying the countryside has on our well-being and mental health, and if an inaccessible footbridge is permitted, already marginalised groups would be socially excluded, which is totally unacceptable.
“Disabled people are bored of fighting for their rights to be upheld and I believe an inaccessible footbridge would be a fundamental breach of the public sector equality duty and morally wrong.
“An inaccessible footbridge unreasonably bakes in inaccessibility for generations to come.
“Network Rail should have an ethical and moral obligation to make [the] footbridge inclusive and accessible for everyone.”
Williams had earlier told the inquiry that she accepted that the current unsafe level crossing needed to be replaced but that she could not accept the inaccessible alternative proposed by Network Rail.
She told the inquiry: “The reason we live in such an inaccessible and disabling world is because decisions are made, one at a time, not to include us.
“Infrastructure must be accessible to all or should not be built at all.”
Network Rail had not responded to requests to describe its position by noon today (Thursday).
19 October 2023
Atos ‘is left with blood on its hands’ after DWP calls time on its 20 years of assessments
Two disabled campaigners whose brothers’ deaths were closely linked to the actions of the outsourcing company Atos have welcomed the announcement that its 20 years of carrying out disability assessments for the government will end next year.
From September next year, Atos will no longer deliver disability benefit assessments on behalf of the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP).
DWP announced this week that it had awarded a five-year contract to carry out assessments in south-west England to Serco, which first sought to carry out assessments for personal independence payment (PIP) more than 10 years ago.
Contracts to carry out assessments in other parts of the UK were awarded to private sector providers earlier this year, with Atos again missing out.
Among those welcoming the news was Sarah Carré.
Her brother Stephen took his own life in January 2010 after he was found fit for work, following an Atos work capability assessment (WCA) that failed to seek any evidence from his GP or psychiatrist and ignored what he had told an assessor about his significant mental distress.
A coroner later concluded that his suicide was triggered by the decision to find him fit for work.
Sarah Carré told Disability News Service (DNS): “I’d like to believe that they lost the contract as a result of their bad behaviour, and I’d like to believe that disabled people will be treated with honesty and fairness now, but my cynicism appears to have become ingrained after the last 13 years.
“I’d also like to be a better person and wish the staff losing their jobs all of the best for the future – but I don’t.
“Childish of me, perhaps, but I feel nothing but contempt for anyone complicit in that company.
“I’ll reserve my good wishes for the individuals and families who have suffered the untold damage caused by them.
“A very good riddance from me, and let’s hope that we never have to hear from them again.”
Dave Smith is another whose sibling’s death was closely linked to the actions of Atos.
His brother James Oliver was desperately ill with chronic liver disease caused by alcohol dependency, as well as other health conditions including scoliosis, hypertension and depression, but he was twice denied PIP following Atos assessments.
Shortly before he died in hospital, in April 2019, he told his brother: “I can’t believe it. I am dying, I am going to be dead, and I’m still not sick enough to get PIP.”
Smith said he was “delighted” that Atos would no longer be delivering assessments.
He said the Atos nurse who carried out his brother’s second assessment ignored clear evidence of how much he was struggling in his day-to-day life, despite visiting his “pigsty” of a flat and reading his written evidence.
He said it was as if Atos was set up “to decline people automatically, not to do an honest assessment”.
He told DNS: “It’s good news that they are finally going to go, but you just wonder what’s coming next.”
He wants to see an end to the outsourcing of benefit assessments and for them to be carried out in-house, as they are by the Scottish government’s Social Security Scotland for its new adult disability payment.
This week, Atos failed to respond to requests to comment on losing out in the assessment contract awards, and failed to apologise to the relatives of those who lost their lives because of its actions, and the countless others who were caused harm.
DWP’s decision to award the final contract to Serco will mean an end to 30 years of Atos delivering assessments on DWP’s behalf, which started when the French company Atos Origin took over IT services company SchlumbergerSema – the existing assessment provider – in 2004.
Since then, Atos has been responsible for – at various times – assessments for disability living allowance, PIP and, most notoriously, employment and support allowance.
It earned more than £465 million over seven years from delivering work capability assessments (WCAs) before it withdrew from the contract in 2015, following years of negative publicity and multiple links between the actions of the company and its staff and the deaths of disabled claimants.
Atos healthcare professionals were also repeatedly accused of dishonesty in the provision of PIP assessments, following a DNS investigation.
John McArdle, co-founder of Black Triangle, said Atos had “blood on their hands” and had acted as “mercenaries” and as the government’s “dogs of war against disabled people”.
He said: “They are losing the contract, but they are not going to be held to account for the harm they have caused to people.
“They should be a pariah company.
“Those assessors that wilfully lied should be struck off by their respective professions and by no means does the fact that Atos have lost the contract means justice has been delivered.
“In fact, they have got off scot-free and they have grown fat on profits from the sufferings and deaths of the most vulnerable people in society.”
Linda Burnip, co-founder of Disabled People Against Cuts (DPAC), said: “This is very welcome news although whether Serco will be any better remains to be seen.”
She added: “The damage caused to disabled people, and the number of claimants driven to their deaths by the actions and assessments carried out by Atos on behalf of the government, should never be forgotten.”
Paula Peters, another DPAC steering group member, said the end of Atos assessments was “welcome news”, but other companies carrying out assessments were “still denying disabled people financial support and denying disability and causing distress and harm”.
She added: “We’ve a lot of campaigning to continue with.”
Tom Pursglove, the minister for disabled people, announced this week that Serco was the successful bidder for the £338 million contract to carry out WCAs and PIP assessments in south-west England, over the five years from 2024.
This was the last of five contracts to be awarded by DWP, covering assessments in England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.
Under DWP’s new Functional Assessment Service, the successful bidder in each region will carry out both PIP assessments and WCAs, although a Conservative government would eventually phase out WCAs if it won the next general election.
DNS reported two months ago that DWP initially awarded the south-west England contract to Serco after an evaluation of the two bids saw Serco come out ahead of Atos on the scoring system by just three per cent.
Atos disputed the fairness of that decision and took DWP and work and pensions secretary Mel Stride to the high court’s technology and construction court.
That legal process appears now to have been settled – although Atos has declined to explain how this happened – and a relaunched procurement process has led to the award of the contract to Serco.
The five delayed contracts will now all begin in September 2024.
Five-year contracts have already been awarded to Maximus (for the north of England and Scotland*); Capita (for Wales and the Midlands, and for Northern Ireland**); and Ingeus UK for south-east England, London and East Anglia.
Maximus will also work as a “delivery partner” to Capita in Wales and the Midlands.
In all, the five assessment contracts will be worth more than two billion pounds over the five years from 2024 to 2029.
*In Scotland, the Scottish government is now responsible for running its replacement for PIP, adult disability payment, although Maximus may have to manage a small number of ongoing PIP cases, while also carrying out WCAs
**In Northern Ireland, DWP has acted on behalf of the Department for Communities, which will be responsible for managing the service in Northern Ireland
DNS editor John Pring’s book on DWP and how its actions led to countless deaths of disabled benefit claimants in the post-2010 era – The Department – will be published by Pluto Press next August
19 October 2023
Book will expose how DWP’s decades of ‘violent bureaucracy’ led to countless deaths
A new book will expose how decades of “violent” bureaucracy within the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) led eventually to the deaths of hundreds, if not thousands, of disabled people who were claiming benefits.
The Department reveals how the actions of civil servants, politicians and the private sector led to the dehumanisation, destitution and deaths of countless claimants.
But it also tells the stories of 12 of the disabled people who died, interweaving their ordeals with new evidence that exposes the deadly effect of 30 years of “slow violence” perpetrated by DWP.
The book has been written by John Pring, editor of Disability News Service, who has been researching the links between DWP and the deaths for more than a decade. It will be published by Pluto Press next August.
The Department traces the origins of the violence back to the reforms of the Conservative government of the early 1990s, which led to the introduction of what was known as the “all work test”, designed by the Department of Social Security (DSS) to assess whether disabled people were eligible for out-of-work disability benefits or, instead, were “fit for work”.
Following its introduction in 1995, further reforms led DSS – and its successor, DWP – to refine and reform the all work test until, as The Department describes, “the reckless hostility and discrimination that had built slowly over the previous two decades finally exploded into deadly violence” in the early years of the 2010 coalition government.
Meanwhile, two high-profile projects linking DWP with the deaths of benefit claimants are set to highlight the years of harm caused by the department.
Healing Justice Ldn, which works with marginalised and oppressed communities, has launched a new accessible website to host its Deaths by Welfare timeline.
The timeline, co-produced with disabled people and published in draft format last year, aims to “make visible the slow and bureaucratic violence of the State” and show how DWP spent years attempting to hide its role in the deaths of claimants.
It tracks the slow, accumulated violence caused by the social security system over the last three decades by highlighting hundreds of documents that are mostly publicly available.
Dr China Mills, who leads the Deaths by Welfare project, has described the timeline as “a story alive with resistance”.
She said: “The timeline shows that people are dying because of systems functioning as they were designed to, not only because of individual mistakes.
“We have created the timeline as a community resource and a tool for disability justice – for us all to come together to demand accountability and collectively imagine justice.”
She has led the work on the timeline, with Pring as co-creator and key input from disabled activist Rick Burgess, disabled activist Ellen Clifford, author of The War On Disabled People, disabled artist-activist Dolly Sen, and the much-missed welfare rights expert and researcher Nick Dilworth, who died earlier this year.
It is hoped the timeline will provide a solid database of evidence for researchers, activists and journalists to push for a public inquiry into the deaths.
The website has been launched as part of Healing Justice Ldn’s month-long Rehearsing Freedoms festival of community health, healing, movement-building, arts and culture in London.
Meanwhile, dates have been announced for the award-winning, mixed-reality installation Museum of Austerity, which will be showing for four days in Manchester early next month.
The production uses the verbal testimony of family members and state-of-the-art technology to recreate the circumstances that led to the deaths of disabled claimants in the post-2010 decade of austerity.
The mixed reality production uses recorded interviews with the family members and ground-breaking “volumetric capture” techniques that have produced high-quality, three-dimensional images.
It focuses on the personal stories of disabled claimants, whose deaths have all previously been linked by DNS to flaws in DWP’s assessments, sanctions and safeguarding systems.
The production will have a week-long run at HOME Manchester from 8 to 11 November, followed by a tour in spring 2024, with dates and venues to be announced.
The installation is a co-production of English Touring Theatre, the National Theatre’s Immersive Storytelling Studio, and Trial & Error Studio.
Sacha Wares, director of the installation and founder of Trial & Error Studio, said: “Our aim is to document the human cost of austerity; to show how it has played out behind closed curtains across the nation.
“We have looked for a way to capture the hidden violence. Violence that there is little visual record of, but which must somehow be witnessed.”
Pring, co-editor and specialist advisor on Museum of Austerity, said: “The stories told in Museum of Austerity bring home the awful truth of how so many disabled people were failed by our country’s social security system in their moments of greatest need, and of how politicians, senior civil servants and private sector contractors averted their eyes and let it happen again and again and again.”
Running alongside the production on tour will be a programme of exhibitions and workshops, led by Healing Justice Ldn and local partners.
Museum of Austerity was nominated for Best Digital Innovation at the UK Theatre Awards, previewed at the London Film Festival in 2021 and won International Documentary Festival Amsterdam’s Best Immersive Production in 2021.
19 October 2023
Disability sidelined by Tory and Labour conference speeches, analysis shows
Disabled people were almost completely ignored by both main political parties at their annual conferences this month, analysis by Disability News Service has revealed*.
In Manchester, only three of 21 Conservative ministers mentioned disabled people or disability in their main conference speeches.
There were just nine mentions of the words “disabled” or “disability” out of 44,000 words, and all but two of those were by work and pensions secretary Mel Stride as he described his controversial reforms to disability benefits and employment support.
In Liverpool, only three of 24 conference speeches by Labour shadow ministers mentioned disability or disabled people – with 10 mentions in a total of 36,000 words – although there were commitments by one shadow minister to the social model of disability, co-production and independent living.
Significant policy areas that were completely ignored by both Conservative ministers and Labour shadow ministers included the accessible housing crisis, the planned closure of nearly 1,000 rail ticket offices, inclusive education, and the treatment of people with learning difficulties and autistic people in inpatient mental health settings.
In Manchester, disability policy was almost completely ignored by a series of Conservative secretaries of state.
Most striking of the omissions were probably in social care, housing and transport, all areas where disabled people have repeatedly called for government action or have raised concerns over government policy.
Health and social care secretary Steve Barclay briefly mentioned last year’s social care funding increase in his speech, but he offered no hint of any government plans to address the acknowledged crisis in adult social care, the longstanding calls for funding reform, or disabled people’s demand for a right to independent living.
Kemi Badenoch, business and trade secretary but also minister for women and equalities, failed to mention disabled people or disability in her main conference speech.
And Mark Harper, the transport secretary, ignored plans to close nearly 1,000 rail ticket offices across England in his speech.
Most of the mentions of disability and disabled people in Liverpool were by Labour’s shadow women and equalities secretary Anneliese Dodds.
She spoke about the party’s commitment to the social model of disability, the principle of co-production and independent living.
She also promised that Labour would “honour our commitments to the UN Convention for the Rights of Disabled People”, but the party later confirmed that the party is currently reneging on its previous pledge to incorporate the convention into UK law.
Dodds also mentioned Labour’s plans to introduce mandatory disability pay gap reporting for larger employers, reforming the Access to Work programme, and acting “to make it simpler to secure reasonable adjustments”.
She also spoke of how a Labour government would act to increase the number of disabled MPs, and reform hate crime law, as part of policies that would also impact other equality groups.
But the only other shadow minister to mention disability or disabled people was Liz Kendall, the new shadow work and pensions secretary, who spoke only in the vaguest terms of Labour’s plans for social security reforms.
Among the areas omitted from the speeches of shadow ministers was social care, with shadow health and social care secretary Wes Streeting promising only to “grip the immediate crisis in social care, starting with the workforce”, and ignoring the issue of care charges.
Labour leader Keir Starmer failed to mention disabled people, or social care, in his main conference speech, just as he did in last year’s conference speech at the same Liverpool venue.
Last year he mentioned “working people” 25 times; this year he used the term 21 times.
*The analysis is taken from versions of the speeches sent out by Conservative and Labour press offices in written form, which may differ slightly from how they were delivered
19 October 2023
Media must be pressured to stop disability discrimination, conference hears
Media organisations must be pressured to stop discriminating against disabled people and turning them into objects of pity, derision or “inspiration porn”, a national conference has heard.
The theme of this week’s annual conference of the disabled people’s organisation Disability Wales* was how to change society by challenging stereotypes in the media.
Rhian Davies, chief executive of Disability Wales*, told the conference that the media often turned disabled people into “objects of pity or derision or as inspirational porn”, which robbed them of control over their lives and overlooked the barriers they face in society.
She also said the media had been “complicit” in accepting the UK government’s narrative that the deaths of disabled people during the Covid pandemic were “inevitable, unavoidable, expendable”.
Even though nearly 60 per cent of Covid-related deaths across the UK were of disabled people – with this reaching 68 per cent in Wales – Davies said there had been “no sense of national scandal” and few questions asked by the media, with “zero coverage” of the high death rate so far during the Covid public inquiry.
She said the challenge in Wales was that so much media content was driven by a UK-wide agenda, although Disability Wales had been involved in initiatives such as the ITV Wales equality and diversity panel and the BBC Cymru Wales Talk Disability initiative, which “are an important starting point but on a much longer journey to ensure a more inclusive society”.
Disabled journalist Rachel Charlton-Dailey, a Daily Mirror columnist, editor of the Mirror’s Disabled Britain series, and founder of The Unwritten, said the Conservative government still had a “hold” over the majority of the media, particularly the print media.
She said this means “they are being spurred on to be as hateful as ever towards disabled people”, particularly with stories suggesting they are “work shy or faking it”.
Charlton-Dailey tried earlier this year to convince the Independent Press Standards Organisation (IPSO), which regulates most of the UK’s newspapers and magazines, to introduce guidelines on reporting disability, which she described as “the most frustrating time of my life”.
She was told that IPSO’s editor’s code only applied when a media organisation discriminates against an individual, but not when it attacks a group such as disabled people.
If that changed, she said, “it would absolutely flatten the print media industry because it means they wouldn’t be able to be ableist, racist, xenophobic, homophobic, transphobic… they would be shut down”.
She told the conference: “Working in an industry that actively endangers the lives of my community is exhausting.”
The conference also heard from photo-journalist Natasha Hirst, the first disabled president of the National Union of Journalists (NUJ)**, and a member of the Welsh government’s Disability Rights Taskforce.
She said IPSO was “very, very weak” and “doesn’t want to improve or put greater requirements on publications to make sure that they are reporting fairly and not discriminating against [groups such as] disabled people”.
She told the conference: “When we do our jobs well, journalists can help change society for the better, but when we fail we reinforce inequality and discrimination.
“We need more pressure on media organisations to work in a way that is fair and ethical.”
Hirst said part of the problem was the lack of disabled journalists in senior leadership roles.
She said: “Disabled journalists experience many barriers in their careers, and although there are schemes to get disabled people into journalism, there’s very little support for them to progress their careers in getting to those senior roles where they are able to influence change.
“There are not enough disabled role models, workplaces are not accessible enough, and many disabled journalists tell the union that they experience terrible discrimination at work.”
Dawn Bowden, deputy minister for arts, sport and tourism in the Welsh government, told the conference: “While the media has the power to bring about positive change, it can also perpetuate stereotypes and biases if it’s not handled responsibly.
“It’s crucial for media professionals to approach disability representation with care, accuracy and respect in order to contribute to the building of a more inclusive and equitable society.”
She said the Welsh government recognised the “challenges facing the sector regarding a lack of diversity and inclusion”.
She said one of the priorities of the three-year creative skills action plan drawn up by the Welsh government agency Creative Wales was to improve diverse and inclusive recruitment “with an aim to develop a creative workforce which reflects everyone”.
*Disability Wales is a Disability News Service subscriber
**John Pring, editor of Disability News Service, is an NUJ member
19 October 2023
Other disability-related stories covered by mainstream media this week
A road has been named after the late disability rights campaigner Sir Bert Massie in his home city of Liverpool. He was a leading campaigner for equality and a champion of human rights for disabled people. Sir Bert, who also chaired the former Disability Rights Commission, died in October 2017 at the age of 68. Liverpool City Region mayor Steve Rotheram joined Sir Bert’s widow as they revealed the sign in a new neighbourhood with enhanced access for disabled people: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-england-merseyside-67117407
A review into the “complex and fragmented” social care legal framework for disabled children has opened. The Law Commission will examine how the legal framework – some of which dates back over five decades – can be reformed to improve consistency, clarity and fairness for children and parents. The Department for Education commissioned the review as part of its draft strategy, Stable Homes, Built on Love, in response to the Independent Review of Children’s Social Care: https://www.communitycare.co.uk/2023/10/17/review-into-complex-and-fragmented-social-care-laws-for-disabled-children-begins/
A ban on blue badge parking in parts of York city centre has been overturned by councillors. Disabled parking in pedestrianised areas was banned in 2021 to make way for measures to protect against vehicle-based terror attacks. The then Liberal Democrat and Green-run council said it would enable the construction of anti-terror bollards. However, when Labour took control of the authority in May, its leader said reversing the ban was a “top priority”: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-york-north-yorkshire-67106072
19 October 2023
News provided by John Pring at www.disabilitynewsservice.com
