Contents
‘Dangerous’ rollout of universal credit ‘poses threat’ to disabled claimants 1
Reforms to disabled students’ support ‘will confuse and dilute our rights’ 4
This is an existential crisis for disabled people, says campaigner after climate change court win 7
Mayor’s stats show failure to enforce his own accessible housing standards 10
Letter from DPOs accuses care cuts council of ‘inhumane’ policies 12
Tory MP brands plan to scrap WCA and allow work coaches to decide fitness for work ‘a crazy idea’ 14
Spring tour for austerity installation on DWP deaths that was inspired by war photographers 17
Other disability-related stories covered by mainstream media this week 18
‘Dangerous’ rollout of universal credit ‘poses threat’ to disabled claimants
The “dangerous” rollout of universal credit to half a million more claimants is a potential threat to the “safety and well-being” of disabled people who currently rely on so-called “legacy” benefits to survive, disability campaigners have warned.
Tens of thousands of disabled people will be affected by Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) plans to “migrate” claimants of certain benefits onto universal credit from this month.
Those receiving only the out-of-work disability benefit employment and support allowance (ESA), as well as claimants on ESA and housing benefit who do not receive tax credits, will not be moved across until 2028, under current government plans.
But many other disabled people, including those receiving both income-based ESA and child tax credit, will be migrated onto universal credit in the coming months as part of what DWP calls “managed migration”.
Many thousands of disabled people who receive income-based jobseeker’s allowance, housing benefit only, and other mainstream benefits, will also be affected.
Campaigners and activists have raised significant concerns about whether disabled people will be able to access the support they need to claim universal credit for the first time, and whether many of them will simply drop out of the social security system entirely.
The government’s announcement of its rollout timetable for 2024 came just days before a new report from the Resolution Foundation concluded that disabled people would on average be “among the biggest losers” from the move to universal credit.
Although many of those moving across from legacy benefits will receive so-called “transitional protection” – so their benefits remain at the same level – that protection will be eroded over time due to inflation, and can even be lost completely if their circumstances change.
The Resolution Foundation said that some single disabled people who received ESA and personal independence payment (PIP) would be about £2,800 per year worse off on universal credit in 2024-25 than on legacy benefits, once any transitional protection has been eroded or lost.
Other single ESA claimants who do not receive PIP would be £1,400 better off on universal credit.
The report says that universal credit’s “creation of winners and losers” was making disabled people “much more likely to be among the poorest, and workers less likely”.
It says that the full roll-out of universal credit will move 550,000 people in families that were previously entitled to ESA into the 10 per cent of people in the country with the lowest incomes, while 890,000 people from working families would move out of this group.
The findings echo figures secured by Disability News Service (DNS) in April 2022 – after three years of pressure on DWP – that showed that of about 1.2 million remaining ESA claimants, an estimated 600,000 would be better off on universal credit, but about 500,000 would eventually be worse off.
In total, the figures showed, about one million ESA claimants would gain from universal credit, while about one million would lose out, once the rollout had been completed.
Disabled activist Gail Ward, a long-standing member of grassroots groups Disabled People Against Cuts and Black Triangle Campaign, and founder of the Hand2MouthProject, which helps and trains those claiming universal credit on how the system works, said many disabled people were “terrified” about the latest rollout.
Some people with mental distress are already “in a panic” before even starting their claim, she said.
Ward said some claimants had told her they were going to let their claim close “rather than jump through hoops”, because of the impact on their mental health.
She said disabled people were facing significant barriers in accessing support to claim universal credit, even those trying to use the DWP-funded Help to Claim service run by Citizen’s Advice.
She added: “Forcing disabled people into work without taking into account the barriers many face will harm disabled people and we may see yet again some fall between the cracks or possibly further fatalities.”
Mikey Erhardt, policy and campaigns officer at Disability Rights UK, said: “For years, disabled people and our organisations have been sounding the alarm about the universal credit system.
“It’s not just a complex maze; it’s a potential threat to our safety and well-being.
“The unspoken agenda of the rollout has been to reduce the number of disabled people receiving the crucial support we rely on.
“At the end of the day, we all want the right support when needed, but this dangerous rollout, if unchecked, will make the UK’s social security system, already one of western Europe’s least generous, even worse.
“We need a new system underpinned by a new ethos of dignity, respect, trust and support, which focuses on supporting disabled people to live the lives we want – with no sanctions, conditionality or caps.”
Under managed migration, a claimant will have three months to make a claim for universal credit – after receiving a DWP migration notice – before their existing legacy benefit claim is terminated, although they can apply for an extension.
So far, managed migration has focused on claimants who only receive tax credits, which should have been the easier cases to move to universal credit.
But in its ongoing project that monitors the “managed migration” process, Child Poverty Action Group (CPAG) said that even some claimants on tax credits had struggled with the process.
It said earlier this year: “Through evidence collated as part of our research we know that some claimants have difficulties dealing with unfamiliar demands, uncertainty, stress and change.
“Other claimants will, because of their vulnerabilities, find it difficult to open or understand their migration notice.”
CPAG said, in its February project update, that for the claimants set to be affected by the next stage of the rollout, the “stakes are much higher… as benefits will be their primary, often sole, source of income”.
It added: “Those who do not successfully move to UC may find themselves without any financial support at all – at risk of destitution or threatened with homelessness.
“While many will eventually manage to make a claim for UC, they will have lost their entitlement to transitional protection and had to cope without benefit income in the interim, facing mounting debts or rent arrears.
“Most concerningly, some claimants may fall out of the social security system altogether.
“Situations like this could be avoided but, as things stand, the most vulnerable claimants are at the greatest risk in the face of the DWP’s plans for a sprint finish.”
The National Audit Office (NAO) warned in February that about one in five households on tax credits who received a migration notice did not claim universal credit and had their benefit stopped, although DWP said it expected only four per cent of households on other legacy benefits not to move onto universal credit after a migration notice.
NAO said in February that the migration of tax credit claimants had been “expected to be relatively straightforward”, but that DWP was “likely to face greater challenges as it moves on to claimants of other legacy benefits who are potentially more vulnerable and in need of more support”.
DNS has spoken this week to one self-employed disabled woman who previously received working tax credits and was moved onto universal credit.
Tania Howell, from Wales, received a letter telling her to make a new claim for universal credit earlier this year.
She has been a self-employed artist since 2008, but most years earns only a few hundred pounds a year.
She said: “They are telling me I have to make £1,400 a year. They want to know the ins and outs.
“I worked annually before, but they want it all monthly now.
“It’s hard enough when you have a brain injury. You don’t want some horrible people telling you what to do.”
Her first meeting with a work coach took place last month, and she said she had had to ask three times for a drink of water, which she needed to help with her speech.
Eventually, the work coach replied, and told her: “We don’t usually give people a drink of water because of the risk that they will throw it at us.”
This was just after she had been locked in the jobcentre toilet after the door jammed.
Howell said that universal credit had caused her considerable anxiety.
She said: “What they don’t tell you is that they are going to micro-manage your every move.”
Because she does not use the internet, she does not have to fill in the online universal credit journal, but must instead call DWP every month with all her income details. It usually takes her about an hour to get through to an adviser.
At the beginning of the process, she was receiving three text messages a day from DWP.
She said: “It was just too much. It was starting to make me feel quite ill.”
She fears the migration process will affect many disabled people.
She said: “I am quite tough, it takes quite a bit to rock my boat and upset me, but I think it will upset most disabled people.”
18 April 2024
Reforms to disabled students’ support ‘will confuse and dilute our rights’
The government is threatening to make sweeping changes to the system of support for disabled students in higher education, which would remove many individual payments and transfer further responsibility onto universities.
The plans would mean that many disabled students would no longer be entitled to funding to pay for vital support but would have to rely on their universities addressing the barriers they face.
The potential reforms are contained in a call for evidence on possible changes to the non-medical help (NMH) part of disabled students’ allowance (DSA), which covers support such as British Sign Language interpreters, specialist mentoring and one-to-one study skills for autistic students.
The reforms would only apply to students eligible to receive student finance through Student Finance England, although this includes students from England who study at universities and other higher education providers in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.
Mette Anwar-Westander, chief executive of Disabled Students UK (DSUK), said this week that the continuing failure to improve the experiences of disabled university students was “a predictable consequence of a lack of government oversight”.
Research by DSUK last year found that only 35 per cent of disabled students had the support they needed to access their education on equal terms with non-disabled students.
Anwar-Westander said: “While we welcome the interest from the Department for Education in improving non-medical help provision and the acknowledgement that disabled students are not sufficiently supported by the system as it stands, we must warn against any approach that attempts to ‘pass the buck’.”
In 2021-22, £58.5 million was spent on NMH support for undergraduate DSA recipients.
DSA is a non-means-tested grant which helps students with the additional disability-related costs they face in higher education, such as equipment and travel, and is administered by the Student Loans Company, which determines eligibility and approves the support that can be funded.
But the Department for Education (DfE) is now suggesting that, because universities are required to make reasonable adjustments for all disabled students under the Equality Act, it should be their responsibility to provide all NMH support.
Ministers point to a lack of integration between DSA-funded support and the support provided by the student’s university, and they say the administration of NMH “is not working well for some students”, while there are sometimes not enough NMH workers available to support all the students who need that help.
They are also suggesting that there are “significant risks of poor value for money and inefficiencies” within the NMH system.
They even argue that cutting spending on DSA and passing responsibility for addressing barriers to universities would be a more “social model” approach to inequality.
And they say in the call for evidence that there is a “fundamental question as to whether an individual student should have a funding entitlement for more specialist NMH support” or whether it should be a university’s responsibility to provide this support, assisted by DfE funding.
One of the questions DfE asks in its call for evidence is: “How do you think giving [universities] overall responsibility for the whole of a student’s NMH support would affect the provision offered?”
But in the equality impact assessment section of the evidence call, DfE warns of “a risk that students whose [university] does not perform well in supporting them may have worse outcomes than if they had an individual entitlement to more specialist NMH support”.
It also warns that universities with a “significant” number of students with “very high cost NMH support needs” that are greater than the maximum currently available through DSA “could put pressure on [a university’s] budget for other types of NMH support for other students”.
The call for evidence closes on 3 July.
Previous changes to DSA introduced by the Conservative government in the 2016-17 academic year meant that lower levels of NMH support are already no longer covered by DSA and must be provided by universities.
Anwar-Westander said: “The issue with non-medical help provision within the current system is not which body is responsible for it on paper, but the fact that responsible bodies lack accountability.
“We welcome attempts to simplify the administrative process, but only insofar as the body responsible can be held to account.
“As such we look forward to hearing from DfE how they plan to regularly measure whether disabled students have the non-medical help they need and enforce consequences where providers fall short.”
She said last year’s survey of disabled students by DSUK showed they were “similarly insufficiently supported whether they are DSA recipients or not”, despite the reforms introduced in 2016-17, and that “this failure was a predictable consequence of a lack of government oversight”.
She added: “There is currently no body proactively evaluating whether higher education providers are providing disabled students with the support they need.
“As a consequence, it is not uncommon to come across providers with a faulty understanding of their responsibility, as evidenced by the Natasha Abrahart case [and the University of Bristol] and our survey data.”
Bethany Bale, education policy officer for Disability Rights UK, said: “We face disproportionate barriers to accessing higher education and it’s essential that any government proposals reduce this inequality.
“Disabled students already face a postcode lottery when it comes to accessing support at university.
“Examples like the recent case in Bristol highlight the dangerous position that this can leave us in.
“This proposal will only confuse and dilute our rights.
“It’s clear that this proposal does not reflect the needs of disabled people and we urge the government to co-produce effective DSA reform with disabled individuals directly.”
A report in October 2020 by Policy Connect and the Higher Education Commission, co-chaired by Lord [David] Blunkett, said the 2016-17 changes meant the amount of support students with lower-level needs received depended on which university they attended.
Sheffield University Students Union told the commission at the time that the DSA changes had “increased inequality for disabled students across the country as the level of support they receive now depends on the ability or willingness of their institution to fund aspects of their support”.
The commission said many professionals had stated “that some disabled students will always need additional support that cannot be provided solely” by their university.
18 April 2024
This is an existential crisis for disabled people, says campaigner after climate change court win
A disabled campaigner who has helped secure a significant legal victory in the fight against climate change has warned that the government’s failure to take the necessary urgent action will put the lives of countless disabled people at risk.
Doug Paulley is one of two individual claimants who have joined Friends of the Earth in seeking a judicial review of the government’s plan to protect the country from the impacts of climate change.
Last week, a high court judge ruled that there should be a two-day hearing in June into their concerns about the government’s latest National Adaptation Programme, which was published in July 2023.
The judge, Mr Justice Sheldon, said the issues raised by the claimants were “of considerable public importance”.
The other individual claimant is Kevin Jordan, who was made homeless shortly before last Christmas, when his house in Hemsby, Norfolk, was demolished after coastal erosion put it in severe danger of falling into the sea.
Last month, the statutory Climate Change Committee, which advises the UK and devolved governments, said the latest adaptation plan “falls far short of what is required” and that evidence of the UK’s “inadequate response to worsening climate impacts continues to mount”.
The claimants’ case has been boosted by a ruling by the European Court of Human Rights last week that Switzerland’s inadequate efforts to tackle climate change had breached the rights of a group of older women who cannot leave their homes and experience significant negative impacts on their health during heatwaves.
Paulley is better known as a disability rights campaigner, particularly around accessible transport issues, but he told Disability News Service this week that he was an environmental campaigner before he became a disability rights activist.
He has a degree in geophysics, comes from a family of scientists, and previously worked for the Environment Agency, and was involved in the first Climate Camp outside the Drax coal-fired power station in north Yorkshire in 2006.
It was while studying for his degree that it became “massively apparent” to him that human activity was responsible for significant global warming, and the devastation it was causing.
In highlighting the disproportionate impact on disabled people of climate change, he points to the impact of Hurricane Katrina on New Orleans in August 2005, when there were “care homes, nursing homes, where the residents had just been left abandoned to die, and their stinking corpses were pulled out days later”.
Other care home staff “were just utterly overwhelmed at trying to keep their people vaguely safe and healthy and alive. It was devastating.”
But he also highlights the impact of the Covid pandemic on disabled people, who were reliant for survival on care staff putting their lives at risk, while do not resuscitate orders were imposed on some disabled people in parts of the NHS, and people were discharged into care homes from hospital without being tested.
He said: “It just becomes immediately apparent that disabled people are among the minorities that are considered the most expendable in any form of significant catastrophe or emergency. And climate change is an emergency.
“Everybody’s reliant on society for their existence, but you’re made more vulnerable and more reliant on support and assistance if you’re disabled.”
Publicity around his role in the case has so far focused on the fact that extreme summer heat has a significant impact on him because of long-term health conditions that make him susceptible to over-heating, causing him distress and discomfort, but also putting him at increased risk of serious harm.
He said this was true, but he added: “My significant major concern is more that this is a global climate emergency that is causing people to suffer and die now.
“And it is always those who have got the least resources to deal with such who suffer the most, and disabled people are always among the first against the wall.”
It is, he said, an “existential crisis for humanity”, but “particularly an existential crisis for the most dispossessed and disempowered and under-resourced groups, which will include disabled people, both in this country and around the world.
“People with very little resources in Bangladesh or the low-lying areas will suffer and die.
“Disabled people will, too, and disproportionately; it’s been proven that we always do.”
After 14 years of austerity forced on the country by Conservative-led governments, he said his response to the “totally disgraceful” National Adaptation Programme was “a kind of weary knackeredness and unsurprise about their continuing lack of care or action on climate”.
Paulley said there was a clear danger to the lives of disabled people in the UK if the government continued to refuse to take the necessary action and strengthen the plan.
He said: “It’s already happening around the world. I have no doubt whatsoever.
“There are people who are suffering and dying because of climate change now.”
Rowan Smith, from solicitors Leigh Day, which is representing the claimants, said: “Our clients have joined forces to bring this legal claim, because the adverse impacts of climate change are being felt right now, yet they believe the government’s plans to deal with those impacts are woefully inadequate.
“Our clients believe that the government’s adaptation programme leaves the UK unprepared to meet the environmental challenges it is already facing as a result of climate change, in breach of clear legal requirements under both the Human Rights Act 1998 and the Climate Change Act 2008.”
Friends of the Earth campaigner Alison Dilworth said: “We’re delighted the high court has agreed to hear this crucial legal challenge.
“The government’s adaptation programme – which should be a plan to protect us all from the accelerating impacts of the climate crisis – is completely inadequate and puts people’s lives at risk.
“We know the most marginalised communities, including disabled people, are most at risk and largely excluded from planning and preparedness work.
“We hope our legal challenge will lead to a robust new plan that helps safeguard people, property and infrastructure from the consequences of a rapidly warming planet.”
In response to the court’s decision, a government spokesperson said: “Our third National Adaptation Programme sets out a robust five-year plan to strengthen infrastructure, promote a greener economy, and safeguard food production in the face of the climate challenges we face.
“We are investing billions to improve the UK’s climate resilience, including £5.6 billion in flood and coastal schemes, safeguarding future water supplies by accelerating £2.2 billion of investment and driving tree planting and peat restoration through the £750 million Nature for Climate Fund.
“We are unable to comment further whilst legal proceedings are ongoing.”
18 April 2024
Mayor’s stats show failure to enforce his own accessible housing standards
London’s mayor has been failing for years to enforce his own London Plan, which requires 90 per cent of new homes to be accessible and adaptable, and another 10 per cent to be suitable for wheelchair-users.
Analysis by Disability News Service of the mayor’s own data shows that only three local authorities have ever reached the figure of 90 per cent in a year since 2015-16, in relation to homes given planning permission.
Accurate data on new home approvals only appears to have been collected so far to 2019-20.
Sadiq Khan’s London Plan requires 90 per cent of new-build homes to be accessible and adaptable (meeting what is known as the M4(2) standard) and the other 10 per cent to be suitable for wheelchair-users (either because they are immediately accessible or because they can be adapted for use by a wheelchair-user, and known as the M4(3) standard).
When preparing their own local plans, London local authorities have to “demonstrate conformity” with the London Plan’s accessible housing requirements.
But concerns about the mayor’s failure to enforce his accessible homes standards emerged from last week’s electoral hustings on disability, at which Conservative candidate Susan Hall, Labour’s Sadiq Khan and Liberal Democrat Rob Blackie all failed to turn up, ahead of next month’s mayoral elections.
Laura Vicinanza, policy and stakeholder engagement manager for Inclusion London, which organised the hustings, said: “In principle, London offers better chances of finding new accessible or adaptable homes as there are higher accessibility standards and targets for new-build homes than the rest of England.
“However, even in London disabled people are struggling to find accessible homes across all tenures and many of us are living in unsuitable accommodation because the supply of accessible homes is not meeting the demand.
“We are extremely concerned that compliance with M4(2) and M4(3) standards has significantly dropped over the years and are urging the mayor of London to thoroughly investigate why new-build approvals and completions are consistently below the targets set out in the London Plan.”
She added: “We do not just need more homes in London, we need the right kind of homes for all, and for this to happen, local authorities have to comply with accessible housing targets.
“However, standards and targets alone are not sufficient.
“We believe councils should go beyond minimum standards and targets and should do so by collecting good quality data about Deaf and disabled people and their needs in their boroughs which is often scarce or non-existent.
“Living in unsuitable accommodation has profound negative implications not just for us disabled people but for society at large.
“Those of us living in unsuitable accommodation are less likely to be in work, are more likely to experience a deterioration in our physical and mental health, are more likely to be admitted to hospital as a result of falls, are more likely to rely on social care and, most importantly, are deprived of our right to live independently.”
The Green Party’s mayoral candidate, Zoe Garbett, did attend last week’s hustings, but her office had not commented on the accessible housing concerns by noon today (Thursday).
The mayor’s figures show that only seven London boroughs managed to ensure that at least 10 per cent of new homes approved in 2019-20 were suitable for wheelchair-users.
In Barking and Dagenham, less than four per cent of about 4,000 new homes met the wheelchair standard in that year, while less than 30 per cent were going to be accessible and adaptable and meet the M4(2) standard.
In Lewisham, only 22 per cent of 843 approvals of new homes were set to be accessible and adaptable, with only about five per cent suitable for wheelchair-users.
And in Newham, only 34 per cent were accessible and adaptable, and just four per cent met the wheelchair standard.
In all, of more than 63,000 new homes approved in 2019-20, only 47 per cent were seen as accessible and adaptable, and another seven per cent were suitable for wheelchair-users.
In 2018-19, 60 per cent of approvals were accessible and adaptable, while nine per cent were suitable for wheelchair-users.
And in 2017-18, just 57 per cent were accessible and adaptable, with only seven per cent of new homes approved suitable for wheelchair-users.
In that year, 1,879 new homes were approved in Havering, but only 24 of them (just over one per cent) were going to be accessible and adaptable, and just two (0.11 per cent) were going to be suitable for wheelchair-users.
The mayor’s data tables also show figures for new homes completed in each year.
Of new homes completed in 2022-23, less than five per cent were suitable for wheelchair-users, and 41 per cent were built to M4(2).
In 2021-22, nine per cent of those completed were suitable for wheelchair-users, while only 49 per cent met the M4(2) standard.
In 2020-21, the figures were eight per cent and 48 per cent; in 2019-20, they were seven per cent and 58 per cent; in 2018-19, they were just under 10 per cent (9.73 per cent) and 62 per cent; and in 2017-18, they were nine per cent and 53 per cent.
The mayor had not commented on the figures by noon today.
18 April 2024
Letter from DPOs accuses care cuts council of ‘inhumane’ policies
Four disabled people’s organisations have written to Bristol’s mayor to call on him to abandon “inhumane and unacceptable” social care policies that are set to breach disabled people’s right to live independently.
Disability Rights UK, Greater Manchester Coalition of Disabled People, Inclusion London and WinVisible all expressed their “deep concerns” about the proposed actions of Bristol City Council.
They have written to both the Labour mayor, Marvin Rees, and the leader of the council’s Green Party – currently its largest party – over plans that would “fail to uphold the rights of Disabled people in Bristol to receive the care and support they need based on personal choice”.
They say the policies would be a clear breach of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD).
The letter follows the council’s decision to withdraw its controversial draft Fair and Affordable Care Policy, which stated that disabled people could be offered a “residential or nursing home placement” if “a care package to remain at home would substantially exceed the affordability of residential care”.
But after withdrawing the draft policy, the council brought forward new cuts worth millions of pounds that are also likely to push disabled people into residential care.
The grassroots group Bristol Reclaiming Independent Living (BRIL) accused the council last month of trying to bring in the much-criticised policy “through the back door”, as it aimed to save nearly £7 million from its funding of adult care and support packages in 2024-25.
The four disabled people’s organisations (DPOs) have now told the mayor that the new proposals are “arguably worse” than the “outrageous” Fair and Affordable Care Policy.
As part of its new plans, the council will review the care packages of at least 190 disabled people with what the council calls “complex” packages of support.
The letter warns that the under-resourcing of advocacy services in Bristol will mean that the disabled people targeted for review will not be able to access the support necessary to understand or exercise their rights.
The DPOs told the mayor in the letter: “Given this budget, it’s easy to understand why so many Bristolians do not have confidence that you are genuinely committed to working with the local Disabled community to co-produce and improve the provision of care and support.”
And they said they struggled to understand how the council could justify spending £1,550,000 on a consultancy firm to carry out the reviews of care packages when these consultants would be “cutting back provision of services on commission”.
They added: “Bristolians are facing the threat of being pressured into residential homes, which for many of us is a lonely bleak future which goes against our quality of life and breaks up family life.”
They said the policy would “disproportionately affect Disabled women”, as disabled mothers with high physical support needs fear having their children taken if they are forced into a care home.
The letter says: “Cuts in homecare add to dependence on partners, relationship pressures and risk of domestic violence… [while] women who drop out of homecare due to unaffordable charges, are often exploited, including by violent men, who they are forced to rely on for help.”
Rick Burgess, a GMCDP spokesperson, said: “What is happening in Bristol is emblematic of the struggle across the country as social care staggers from crisis to crisis… [while] Westminster parties refuse to acknowledge the reality of gross long-term systemic underfunding and uncollectable care charge debts.
“The urgent need is for transformation to support nationally-funded independent living in line with the UNCRPD.”
Claire Glasman, co-founder of WinVisible, said the council’s cuts and charges hurt disabled people, disabled people of colour, disabled women and family carers who are “already struggling to survive” with low income and high support needs.
She said that government spending on social care was half what it spends “on the military and bombing”, while “council spending on ‘child protection’ – the massive fees paid to the privatised child removal industry which profits from the trauma inflicted on mothers and children, placed in institutions where abuse is rife – is swallowing extra funds for adult social care, and must go instead to supporting families”.
Fazilet Hadi, DR UK’s head of policy, said: “Getting care and support when we need it, in the way we choose and without charge, should be an absolute right, on a par with our entitlement to NHS services.
“Central and local government have had decades to improve social care, as recommended by numerous reports, and yet they have allowed social care to reach crisis point.
“It is not disabled people that should pay for these failings.
“A radical new approach to social care is now needed.
“It should be overseen by a new National Independent Living Service and delivered locally by disabled people-led organisations.
“The current system just doesn’t work and totally lets down disabled citizens of all ages.”
A Bristol City Council spokesperson said: “We understand that the mayor’s office has received this letter and will be responding in due course.”
18 April 2024
Tory MP brands plan to scrap WCA and allow work coaches to decide fitness for work ‘a crazy idea’
A Conservative MP has branded government plans to scrap the work capability assessment (WCA) and hand jobcentre work coaches responsibility for deciding if someone is fit for work “a crazy idea”.
Nigel Mills made the comments as the Commons work and pensions committee was taking evidence from campaigning organisations on the government’s employment plans.
Under plans announced last spring, the WCA will be scrapped and disabled people who cannot work will only be able to qualify for a new health element of universal credit if they also receive personal independence payment (PIP), disability living allowance (DLA), or, in Scotland, adult disability payment (ADP).
But this would leave it to DWP’s over-worked work coaches – who will usually have no health-related qualifications – to decide if a disabled person should carry out work-related activity.
The WCA will not be scrapped until after the next general election and not until 2026 at the earliest, DWP has said.
Mills, a Conservative member of the committee, said yesterday (Wednesday): “My experience of constituents is they don’t generally have a great deal of time or regard for their work capability assessment medical professional.”
But he added: “The idea that I’m going to trust a work coach and share my biggest issues and concerns and seek their support and want their counselling if they’ve just told me I’m not getting the extra benefit is extraordinarily unlikely, isn’t it?
“It’s just going to destroy the relationship between them and the claimant.
“I just can’t imagine many work coaches are going to fancy this sort of flicking through the file and going, ‘You do get the extra money… you don’t.’
“It seems like a crazy idea.”
Ken Butler, welfare rights and policy adviser for Disability Rights UK, replied: “You said it, really.”
Butler said it would be good to discover the views of work coaches about the government’s proposed reforms.
He said there was already “a great deal of mistrust” of work coaches and assessors among claimants, while work coaches were working “under extreme pressure and don’t have time to actually discuss things properly and form a working relationship”.
Mills suggested that those giving evidence to the committee yesterday might fear that the government’s “well-intended” plans to scrap the WCA “might end up making the situation worse for the people you represent”.
But Butler said: “I wouldn’t say it was well-intended necessarily. One of the most clear outcomes of it… is to save money.
“Scrapping the work capability assessment has always been an aim of many disability organisations, but not scrapping it and having nothing else in its place, and replacing it with something [an assessment for PIP, DLA or ADP] which isn’t intended to be a work benefit and resulting in quite devastating income cuts as well.”
Disability News Service (DNS) is still trying to obtain a copy of the equality impact assessment carried out by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) on the decision to scrap the WCA.
The information commissioner decided late last year that the department should release the assessment because “the public is entitled to scrutinise a decision such as this at an early opportunity”, but DWP has appealed the decision.
DNS has been seeking the information from DWP since March 2023, when the move to scrap the WCA was announced in the spring budget, with details included in the government’s Transforming Support white paper.
Later in yesterday’s evidence session, the mental health charity Mind raised serious concerns about government reforms to tighten the WCA in the years leading to its eventual abolition.
Although ministers no longer plan to scrap the criteria that protects those seen as being at “substantial risk” of harm if found able to carry out work-related activity through the WCA, they still aim to amend this safety net so that it only applies in “exceptional circumstances”, protecting those with “the most severe mental or physical health conditions”.
Nil Güzelgün, interim head of policy and campaigns at the mental health charity Mind, raised concerns about the changes to the substantial risk criteria, and stressed how important the current protections are.
She highlighted the case of a disabled man who was found ineligible to be placed in the limited capability for work-related activity (LCWRA) group of universal credit, following a WCA.
He had both physical impairments and mental distress related to sexual abuse he suffered as a child after being abducted from a bus.
Mind supported him through a mandatory reconsideration of the decision, but DWP told him that although he was too unwell for more intensive work-related activity he could still do “light touch work-related activity”, and suggested that he research new bus routes and test out bus journeys.
A subsequent tribunal appeal was told that this suggestion would re-traumatise him, and the tribunal decided that he should be placed in the LCWRA group on the grounds of “substantial risk”.
Güzelgün said the case highlighted the “lack of understanding of mental health problems” by DWP’s work coaches and its private sector assessors.
She told the committee that the safeguards were “critical for people with mental health problems so they cannot be retraumatised or hospitalised because of activities that are required by the jobcentre or work coaches”.
She told the committee: “To weaken the LCWRA substantial risk regulation would mean that you would push people to engage in work-related activity which will deteriorate their mental health or really put them at risk, and for people with mental health problems that risk is real and they can die and some people have attempted suicide.
“This is a real risk and I think it is really dangerous to introduce these changes.”
She said the substantial risk regulations played “a crucial role” in reducing harm, and the government’s proposed changes reduced that protection.
18 April 2024
Spring tour for austerity installation on DWP deaths that was inspired by war photographers
A spring tour of an award-winning installation is set to expose how the actions of the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) caused “devastating violence” and led to countless deaths of benefit claimants in the austerity years.
The mixed reality installation Museum of Austerity is opening its spring tour this week at Live Theatre, Newcastle, before touring next month to Chatham in Kent, and then Bristol Old Vic in June.
The installation uses verbal testimony of family members and state-of-the-art technology to recreate the circumstances that led to the deaths of disabled claimants of benefits in the post-2010 decade of austerity.
The production uses recorded interviews and ground-breaking “volumetric capture” techniques that have produced high-quality, three-dimensional images.
It focuses on the stories of claimants whose deaths have all previously been linked by Disability News Service (DNS) to flaws in DWP’s assessments, sanctions and safeguarding systems.
Sacha Wares, director of Museum of Austerity, said: “Inspired by war photographers of the past who used early cameras to capture distant battlefields, Museum of Austerity employs mixed reality technologies to record the invisible, devastating violence of austerity.
“Museum of Austerity is an artwork I wish we hadn’t had to make, but which needs to be seen.”
John Pring*, co-editor of Museum of Austerity and editor of DNS, said: “Museum of Austerity has found an innovative and powerful way to tell these terrible stories in a way that exposes the horror of what happened to so many disabled people during the austerity period.
“This is a ground-breaking piece of work, and I’m relieved that this tour will allow more people to view the exhibition and understand how the actions of the DWP led to widespread poverty, acute distress and even the deaths of countless benefit claimants.
“I hope the audience will think about the harm done, and how no-one associated with these actions has ever been held accountable for what happened and is still happening today.”
The installation is a co-production of English Touring Theatre, the National Theatre’s Immersive Storytelling Studio, and Ware’s Trial & Error Studio.
Alongside the production, there will be a programme of exhibitions and workshops led by Healing Justice LDN (HJL) and local partners.
The first workshop, Rage, Grief and Justice: Disabled People’s Resistance to Austerity, will take place at Live Theatre, Newcastle, tomorrow afternoon (Friday, 19 April).
It will feature a conversation between Dr China Mills, who leads HJL’s Deaths by Welfare project; Imogen Day, whose sister’s death was linked by a coroner to fatal flaws in the disability benefits system; and disabled activist Gail Ward, a long-standing member of grassroots groups Disabled People Against Cuts and Black Triangle Campaign.
The workshop will examine the “resistance and defiance” of disabled people and bereaved families in response to the years of life-threatening social security policies and state austerity.
It will also share information about the online Deaths by Welfare timeline, which tracks the slow, accumulated violence caused by the social security system over the last three decades.
The workshop will also examine how “rage and grief” can help create community-led approaches to social security, health, safety and justice, and honour those who have died because of austerity and welfare reform.
Museum of Austerity is at Live Theatre, Newcastle, from 17 April to 21 April; at No 1 Smithery Studio, The Historic Dockyard, Chatham, from 16 to 18 May, although tickets for the public, which are free, are only available for this leg of the tour on 18 May, and can be booked through the Gulbenkian Arts Centre box office; and at Bristol Old Vic from 12 to 15 June.
*Pring is specialist advisor and co-editor of Museum of Austerity, and co-creator of the Deaths by Welfare timeline. His book on DWP and how its actions led to countless deaths of disabled people in the post-2010 era – The Department – will be published by Pluto Press in August
18 April 2024
Other disability-related stories covered by mainstream media this week
People with learning difficulties are being “locked up” instead of receiving care in the community, according to campaign group Stolen Lives. The organisation has launched a petition urging the Welsh government to take action, and about 150 people attended a protest at the Senedd yesterday (Wednesday) to urge the Welsh government to act: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/czkvl8mmyx8o
Hundreds of thousands fewer disabled people could receive cold weather payments under the Conservatives’ planned post-election disability benefit reforms, according to an internal government report seen by the Observer. The briefing, by civil servants at the Department for Work and Pensions, says that under the plans, new applicants for disability benefits in England and Wales would only qualify for cold weather payments if they passed a much harsher assessment than exists at present: https://www.theguardian.com/society/2024/apr/14/leak-reveals-tory-plan-to-cut-cold-weather-cash-for-disabled-people
The Department for Work and Pensions is forcing a 92-year-old grandmother to pay back more than £7,000 – more than a third of her life savings – after she failed to notify it about a change in her circumstances five years ago when she was in the early stages of dementia: https://www.theguardian.com/society/2024/apr/17/injustice-92-year-old-with-dementia-told-by-dwp-to-repay-7k-in-disability-allowance
An inquest has heard how a man with Down’s syndrome died after choking on a conker that was part of a sensory activity for another resident at his home. Marcus Hanlin was left unsupervised at the time, despite his mother saying he was on a support plan that required him to be supervised at all times when around food due to swallowing issues. At the time of his death in 2022, he was a resident at Cheddar Grove Nursing Home, a specialist nursing home for people with learning difficulties in Bristol: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/ck7l14jnyg8o
A disability campaigner has travelled to London to meet a transport minister to discuss being able to use her electric scooter as a mobility aid. Ella Wakely, from Devon, has faced fines when using her scooter on public roads or public transport, as current laws mean privately-owned e-scooters are illegal to ride on such routes: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-devon-68826853
18 April 2024
News provided by John Pring at www.disabilitynewsservice.com
