Contents
Grenfell: Housing managers repeatedly rejected calls to improve safety of disabled residents 3
Labour’s decision to drop Tory DWP appeal reveals impact of scrapping ‘fitness for work’ test 5
Ofsted’s plans to reform inspections ‘will continue to enable discrimination’ 10
Other disability-related stories covered by mainstream media this week 15
Grenfell: Inquiry calls for urgent action to prioritise safety of disabled residents of high-rise flats
The final report of the Grenfell Tower Inquiry has told the government to take urgent action to prioritise the safety of disabled people and other “vulnerable” residents who live in high-rise residential buildings.
The 1,700-page report was published yesterday (Wednesday) and made a series of recommendations to improve the protection of disabled residents, following years of “persistent indifference” among those responsible for their safety at Grenfell Tower.
The report found that “matters affecting the safety of life were ignored, delayed or disregarded” by the Conservative-led government in the years after the Lakanal House fire in 2009, due to a “deregulatory agenda” which was “enthusiastically supported” by ministers.
Concerns that new fire safety guidance did not include advice on evacuating disabled people from high-rise buildings were “simply brushed aside”, the report says, because the coalition government at the time “considered it too difficult to find a solution to the problem”.
The Grenfell Tower fire, which began in the early hours of 14 June 2017, led to the deaths of 72 people, and initial analysis of the final report suggests about 20 of them were disabled.
The inquiry’s chair, Sir Martin Moore-Bick, said the deaths “were all avoidable and that those who lived in the tower were badly failed over a number of years and in a number of different ways by those who were responsible for ensuring the safety of the building and its occupants”.
Those who failed them included successive governments, Kensington and Chelsea Tenant Management Organisation (KCTMO) – which took over management of Kensington and Chelsea council’s housing in 1995 – the council, London Fire Brigade, the construction industry, and a string of companies involved in a refurbishment of Grenfell Tower before the fire.
Sir Martin criticised the “persistent failure to give sufficient importance to the demands of fire safety, particularly the safety of vulnerable people”.
He said KCTMO had “failed to maintain a reasonably accurate record of those residents of the tower who were vulnerable for one reason or another and likely to need help to escape if a fire occurred” (see separate story).
The report’s summary says the council and KCTMO were jointly responsible for the management of fire safety at Grenfell Tower, and the years between 2009 and 2017 “were marked by a persistent indifference to fire safety, particularly the safety of vulnerable people”.
Among the report’s recommendations, it says the definition of a “higher-risk building” should be reviewed “urgently” so it depends partly on whether there are disabled residents who might find it difficult to evacuate in an emergency, rather than just depending on the building’s height.
Guidance on preparing for emergencies should place greater emphasis on the need to identify “vulnerable” people and be consistent with the Equality Act, it says.
The report also recommends a change to guidance around the “stay put” policy – where residents are advised to stay in their flat if there is a fire in another flat in the building, as long as the heat or smoke is not affecting them – so it includes the need for an evaluation of the time disabled residents need to evacuate from a building.
And it repeats recommendations from the inquiry’s first report, in 2019, that owners and managers of high-rise residential buildings should be legally required to prepare a personal emergency evacuation plan (PEEP) for all residents who may find it difficult to “self-evacuate”, and to include current information about those residents and their PEEPs in an information box that can be accessed by firefighters.
The inquiry calls for “further consideration” of the PEEPs recommendations by the government.
The new Labour government appears to have accepted at least part of these recommendations, as it had already announced it would bring forward proposals relating to PEEPs this autumn to “improve the fire safety and evacuation of disabled/vulnerable residents in high-rise and higher-risk residential buildings in England”.
Rushanara Ali, the junior minister for building safety and homelessness, said disabled people would be entitled to “a person-centred risk assessment to identify appropriate equipment and adjustments to aid their fire safety/evacuation, as well as a ‘Residential PEEPs statement’ that records what vulnerable residents should do in the event of a fire”.
She said the government would provide funding next year for social housing providers “to begin this important work”.
5 September 2024
Grenfell: Housing managers repeatedly rejected calls to improve safety of disabled residents
The Grenfell Tower Inquiry’s final report has revealed how opportunities to produce evacuation plans for disabled residents of Grenfell – and other high-rise buildings in the same London borough – were repeatedly rejected by those responsible for their safety.
The report was published yesterday (Wednesday), with the inquiry’s chair, Sir Martin Moore-Bick, describing “a persistent failure to give sufficient importance to the demands of fire safety, particularly the safety of vulnerable people”.
The fire, in the early hours of 14 June 2017, led to the deaths of 72 people, and analysis of the final report suggests about 20 of those who died were disabled.
The report – which reaches nearly 1,700 pages, across seven volumes – raises repeated concerns in volumes one and three about the failure to protect disabled people and others who were particularly vulnerable in such emergencies.
Evidence in volume three of the report provides repeated evidence of how Kensington and Chelsea Tenant Management Organisation (KCTMO) – which took over management of Kensington and Chelsea council’s housing in 1995 – repeatedly failed to ensure the safety of its disabled tenants.
It also details how Kensington and Chelsea council failed to ensure those duties were carried out.
It describes how Robert Black, KCTMO’s chief executive, misled the council’s executive director of housing in 2010 about plans to produce personal emergency evacuation plans (PEEPs) for disabled tenants.
He told her that KCTMO intended to produce PEEPs for its disabled residents, but only two were ever prepared between 2010 and 2017, and neither of those residents lived in Grenfell Tower.
The following year, in 2011, Janice Wray, KCTMO’s head of health and safety, “gave similar assurances that the TMO* intended to identify vulnerable and disabled residents who required PEEPs”.
But the council failed to check on whether those PEEPs were completed. It later admitted to the inquiry that this had been “a failure of oversight on its part”, says the report.
London Fire Brigade (LFB) also asked KCTMO to prepare a list of vulnerable residents that could be easily accessed in an emergency.
But, the report says, KCTMO “did not create a system to collect information about residents with additional needs that could be made available to the LFB in the event of a fire”.
At one point in 2012, Carl Stokes, a former firefighter turned fire safety consultant who had been appointed as KCTMO’s fire risk assessor, advised Wray to lie to LFB and tell them she was not aware of any vulnerable people who might be suitable for a fire brigade initiative to install sprinklers.
The report says: “He did so in order to avoid any questions being asked about why anyone who might qualify had not been identified in the fire risk assessments or received a PEEP.”
It adds: “The truth is that he knew that PEEPs were required for vulnerable residents, that the TMO had produced only two, and that his fire risk assessments had not recommended any additional fire safety measures for vulnerable people.
“His advice amounted to a suggestion that she should lie to the LFB.”
The report says that neither Stokes nor Wray were “able to provide a clear explanation for their failure to ascertain the number of vulnerable people” living in KCTMO properties.
And it concludes that “the fire risk assessments carried out by Mr Stokes that we examined, including those relating to Grenfell Tower, were inaccurate and out of date in relation to the presence of vulnerable persons”.
The report also reveals that KCTMO’s fire safety strategy made provision for PEEPs for its own disabled staff members but “contained no reference to PEEPs for vulnerable residents”.
And it says that no disabled residents were ever told that they could ask to be assessed for a PEEP “and the possibility was not drawn to their attention in any of the literature they were given”.
The report concludes that the Grenfell Tower fire “revealed the importance of ensuring that the responsible person collects sufficient information about any vulnerable occupants to enable PEEPs to be prepared, when appropriate, and, in the event of a fire, appropriate measures to be taken to assist their escape (see separate story).
“The TMO’s failure to collect such information illustrates a basic neglect of its obligations in relation to fire safety.”
*Tenant management organisation
5 September 2024
Labour’s decision to drop Tory DWP appeal reveals impact of scrapping ‘fitness for work’ test
People with mental distress are “significantly more likely” to be affected by plans to scrap the work capability assessment than claimants with physical impairments, documents released after a freedom of information battle have revealed.
The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) has abandoned plans by the last Conservative government to fight an order to release a draft equality impact assessment (EIA) of the proposals, in the first tentative sign of increased transparency from a Labour-run DWP.
The information rights tribunal had been due to hear DWP’s appeal against a ruling by the information commissioner that it should release to Disability News Service (DNS) the draft EIA, and a draft “costing note” which detailed early estimates of how much the Conservative government hoped to save through its plans.
The hearing had been due to take place on Monday (9 September), but DWP decided that it would now release the two documents, “due to the passage of time”.
Under plans outlined by the last Conservative government to scrap the work capability assessment (WCA) – which the new government has yet to abandon – the extra payment for those currently assessed as having limited capability for work and work-related activity (LCWRA) would be awarded instead to anyone who receives both universal credit and personal independence payment (PIP).
This would mean eligibility for the new “health element” of universal credit being decided through the much-criticised PIP assessment.
Those found not eligible for PIP would not receive the health element.
DWP has claimed that those who saw their benefits cut would receive “transitional protection”, but this would be eaten away over time by inflation, and would not apply to new claimants, who would lose out on nearly £400 a month at current benefit rates.
Disabled activists have previously said the “heartless” reforms – the centrepiece of the last government’s Transforming Support white paper – “defy logic” and pose significant risks to sick and disabled people who cannot work.
One concern is that life-changing decisions on whether a disabled person must carry out work-related activity would be taken by jobcentre work coaches, who would almost certainly have no healthcare-related qualifications.
Another of the key concerns, which is confirmed by the EIA now released by DWP, is that scrapping the WCA would also remove regulations 29 and 35 (and its universal credit equivalents).
These regulations provide a vital safety net that protects those who face a “substantial risk” of harm if found “fit for work” or able to carry out work-related activity.
Although ministers have weakened regulations 29 and 35 over the years, they are still believed to have saved countless lives by allowing such claimants to be found eligible for employment and support allowance (ESA) and its universal credit equivalent, even if they fail to reach the necessary number of points through a WCA.
But the draft EIA warns that “men are more likely to be impacted by the change than women, older people are more likely to be impacted than younger people and, because of the exclusion of the ‘risk’ group… claimants with mental health impairments are significantly more likely to be impacted than claimants with physical health impairments”.
It admits that DWP would “need a robust justification to exclude the ‘risk’ group from the new top up and we may need to offer concessions as the Bill goes through Parliament”.
It also claims that the government would mitigate this impact on claimants at risk of harm from being found fit for work or work-related activity “through better access to mental health services and improved employment support, and by the application of conditionality appropriate to their circumstances”.
This “application of conditionality” would be decided by unqualified work coaches who could potentially not even have a single GCSE.
The draft costing note, which is likely to be out-of-date now because of further decisions taken under the last government, suggests that scrapping the WCA would save about £23 million in 2026-27 and £82 million in 2027-28.
DWP has told DNS that the information it has finally released was developed for the previous government at a specific point in time, and was only drawn up for internal policy development.
DWP is still fighting the release of other internal documents, including a secret report that describes the impact of its errors on “vulnerable” benefit claimants, which it admits could have a “negative” impact on its reputation if it was released; and information that would show how many secret internal process reviews were carried out into the deaths of universal credit claimants over the last four years of a Conservative-run DWP.
5 September 2024
Disabled activists and allies defy bureaucrats to ensure delivery of 650 copies of ‘DWP violence’ book to MPs
Disabled activists and allies used negotiation and peaceful direct action to ensure that hundreds of copies of a book about decades of Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) “bureaucratic violence” will reach MPs this week.
Their action ensured that every MP will receive a copy of The Department, which details how DWP’s actions eventually led to the deaths of hundreds, if not thousands, of disabled people in the post-2010 austerity years.
The project was crowdfunded by nearly 350 supporters, who raised almost £7,300.
After meeting outside DWP’s Caxton House offices on Monday, activists – including relatives of two of the disabled benefit claimants who died – carried all 650 copies across Westminster to Portcullis House, where many MPs and the House of Commons Post Office are based.
Although they had been assured weeks in advance – both by the Post Office and Commons security – that they would be allowed to bring in the copies through the security scanners at Portcullis House, managers refused to allow them to bring in the sealed envelopes, each addressed to an individual MP.
In protest, activists – led by Disabled People Against Cuts and Black Triangle – used the books to block the public entrance to the building for more than an hour.
After negotiations with security and police, House of Commons managers eventually agreed to collect all 650 copies – without charge – and take them to be scanned by their outsourced security contractors, before delivering them to MPs.
Among those who supported the event were Gill Thompson – whose brother David Clapson died in July 2013, three weeks after having his jobseeker’s allowance sanctioned – and her husband Mike.
She said the crowdfunding and action had been “quite an achievement”.
She said: “We have had our obstacles, but we got there in the end.
“That book has given me David back, it’s put him in a human light and given him back his dignity that [DWP] took away from him.”
Another supporting the action was Joy Dove, whose daughter Jodey Whiting took her own life in February 2017, 15 days after she had her out-of-work disability benefits wrongly stopped for missing a work capability assessment.
She said: “These MPs need to see the stories in the book, how each and every family has suffered the life-changing loss of a loved one.
“There needs to be change now there’s a new Labour government.”
She said she was encouraged that her new Labour MP, Chris McDonald, asked to meet her outside Portcullis House, and supported her campaign for justice.
Jodey’s daughter Emma also travelled to London to support her at the action.
She told Disability News Service (DNS) afterwards: “It massively opened my eyes speaking to different people who have also lost their family members.
“I feel like the MPs should read the book as it’s not just my mam’s story.
“There are there so many families in the book and over a decade of evidence is not something to be ignored.
“It was an amazing day, and it made me want to join another and fight more with my amazing nana Joy.”
Among disabled activists who helped take copies of the book – written by DNS editor John Pring – to Portcullis House were actors Cherylee Houston and Lisa Hammond.
Asked why it was important for MPs to read the book, Hammond said: “How do you ever learn anything if you don’t learn from what’s happened before?
“The DWP has been a disaster and absolutely devastating. If the MPs don’t know what has happened historically, how can they work to change what is about to come?”
She said she had enjoyed being part of the protest with other members of her disabled community.
She said it was “important to turn up and have peaceful protests” as “so many of us cannot fight financially, physically or [because of their] mental health”.
Houston, who travelled from Manchester to attend the event, said she was “very glad” to be helping to defend her community by taking part in the protest.
She said delivering the book to MPs was important “so they can see the lived experience of disabled people, what benefits mean to people and what benefit cuts mean to people and what that is in true life experiences”.
She said: “There are so many I know who are on their knees already. How the hell can you put any more pressure on them?”
Asked for her message to the Labour MPs who might now be able to influence the government’s future social security reforms, Houston said: “Talk to us and find out what you need to reinstate. Please don’t cut anything else.”
Another disabled activist who helped take the books to Portcullis House was Carole Vincent, who for 10 years has been part of a group of volunteers who help claimants fill in their benefit forms.
She said: “Delivering the books is essential because there has been an absolute failure by the previous governments to acknowledge that we have a broken system.
“It’s essential reading for them because people have died because the system doesn’t work.
“They need to fix it properly.”
Another disabled activist, Jenny, said it was important that MPs read the book.
She added: “I wanted to be here as part of the fightback – anything that will get the issue out to the public.”
The project has been led by disabled activists, including Black Triangle Campaign and the UK Deaf and Disabled People’s Organisations’ Coalition, and supported by disabled people’s organisations, allies and families of those who have lost their lives, as well as Pluto Press, which has published The Department.
Among the organisations supporting the campaign are Disabled People Against Cuts, Greater Manchester Coalition of Disabled People, Inclusion London, Disability Rights UK, Recovery in the Bin and the radical working-class media organisation The Canary.
John McArdle, co-founder of Black Triangle Campaign, whose idea it was to launch the crowdfunder, said: “The Department provides a casebook of how not to run a social security system.
“The current disability benefit assessment system is making people even sicker.
“Pushing disabled people into work that medical experts say we cannot do won’t address labour shortages and more disability benefit cuts, as the government has planned, are not a common-sense strategy for ‘fixing the foundations’.
“Long term-costs to the economy increase exponentially by failing to provide a stitch in time and save lives.
“There are alternative fiscal policies that could be adopted which won’t lead to more DWP-created avoidable harm and death.
“Instead, Deaf and disabled people and our organisations call upon the government to sit down with us to co-produce a safe and efficient disability benefit system that provides a genuine safety net to those who need it.”
Author and activist Ellen Clifford, from the UK Deaf and Disabled People’s Organisations’ Coalition, who has helped lead the project, said: “The success of the crowdfunder shows how important it is to people outside the Westminster bubble that our elected politicians finally address the grave injustice of DWP attacks on Deaf and disabled people.
“Across the UK, there is growing concern about the impact of yet more cuts.
“It is apparent that lessons from the past are being deliberately ignored.”
Veruschka Selbach, managing director of Pluto Press, said: “We are very proud to be publishing John’s book.
“It is an exceptional work of investigative journalism that is both heart-breaking and shocking.
“We are also extremely honoured to be participating in this action to ensure that all MPs get a copy of the book. These stories can’t be ignored any longer.”
In a covering letter to MPs sent with the books, McArdle and Clifford say: “It is certain that the new government will be announcing reforms to personal independence payment, benefit sanctions, universal credit and the work capability assessment in the coming months.
“All these areas of DWP policy have been strongly linked to tragic deaths of claimants over the last 15 years, and we believe this will continue to happen if the government does not take the necessary steps to build a new, safer culture within DWP.
“All we ask is that you read this book before deciding your position.”
The Department: How a Violent Government Bureaucracy Killed Hundreds and Hid the Evidence, by DNS editor John Pring, was published by Pluto Press last month
5 September 2024
Ofsted’s plans to reform inspections ‘will continue to enable discrimination’
Disabled campaigners have raised serious concerns about plans by the education watchdog to reform the way it inspects and assesses schools.
Ofsted promised this week to place more “focus and scrutiny” on how schools in England meet the needs of disabled children, following a public consultation that was heavily critical of its current approach.
But although The Alliance for Inclusive Education yesterday (Wednesday) welcomed the proposed changes to the inspection system, it also said Ofsted needed to do far more to address the systemic discrimination faced by disabled children and young people.
It warned that the changes proposed by Ofsted would allow the education system to “continue to enable discriminatory practices that allow schools to exclude disabled children and young people, rather than taking meaningful action to support their inclusion”.
The largest consultation in the education watchdog’s history resulted in widespread criticism of its failure to hold schools and other education and skills providers to account for the quality of their special educational needs and disability (SEND) provision.
Only about half of respondents agreed that Ofsted currently holds providers to account on SEND provision.
Parents said its inspections do not scrutinise SEND closely enough, and that schools that were failing children with SEND should be rated as failing overall.
Ofsted is the Office for Standards in Education, Children’s Services and Skills, and it inspects services that provide education and skills for learners of all ages in England, as well as inspecting and regulating services that care for children and learners.
In its report on the consultation, Ofsted said respondents had called for schools to be praised for “inclusivity” and for measuring disabled children’s progress based on their individual starting points “rather than solely on their academic outcomes”.
Ofsted’s reports on schools should show how they ensure disabled pupils and others with SEND are included in all aspects of school life, the regulator was told.
Nearly three-fifths of respondents (58 per cent) believed that mainstream schools suspend, off-roll or place off-site pupils with SEND as an “unintended consequence” of Ofsted inspections.
Ofsted describes off-rolling as removing a child from a school’s list of pupils without permanently excluding them, “when the removal is primarily in the best interests of the school, rather than in the best interests of the pupil”.
This includes pressuring a parent to remove their child from a school.
Respondents also called on Ofsted to improve how it engages with disabled pupils, their parents and school staff, and to produce more “nuanced and detailed” evaluations of SEND provision.
And they described the current inspection system as “overly politicised, outdated, and ineffective in addressing the needs of children and learners with SEND”.
Many of those who took part in the consultation called on Ofsted to consider the impact of funding restrictions on the availability and quality of specialist support staff, and the level of support and services provided by local authorities.
As a response to the consultation, Ofsted promised to introduce a “report card” from next September that would provide a “more nuanced and detailed” assessment of how schools and other providers are performing.
Education secretary Bridget Phillipson announced this week that the current single-word headline grade for schools will be removed from inspections from this month.
As part of these changes, Ofsted will consult early next year on its new “specific focus” on inclusion in report cards.
It promised to put disabled children and others with special educational needs (SEN) and from disadvantaged backgrounds at “the heart” of its reforms.
But ALLFIE’s chair, Navin Kikabhai, said it was about time Ofsted “seriously engaged” with disabled children and young people and recognised their diversity, and framed their mainstream experiences “within a context of rights and entitlements to inclusive education”.
He also called on Ofsted to introduce measures that would assess its own policies, culture, practices and staff diversity.
He said: “For far too long, disabled children and young people and individuals labelled as having SEN have been framed within a deficit-needs-based system that has all too often led to their systematic exclusion into segregated provision.
“We remain deeply concerned about the harmful approach that persists.
“This is an education system rooted in grouping and ranking children which perpetuates societal inequalities and discrimination.”
He also said ALLFIE was disappointed that Ofsted and the Department for Education had not worked with disabled people’s organisations to develop a system “rooted in the foundation of inclusive education as defined by the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD)”.
He said: “This was a missed opportunity to deliver on the government’s obligation under the UNCRPD to progressively realise the right of disabled people to mainstream education as a human right.”
ALLFIE’s goal of creating an inclusive and equitable educational system for every child is outlined in its Inclusive Education for All manifesto.
Ofsted received more than 20,000 responses to its open online consultation, including more than 4,000 from children, while independent researchers commissioned by Ofsted surveyed another 8,000 parents and members of the public, and more than 7,000 professionals working across education and children’s social care.
Ofsted admitted that last year’s death of head teacher Ruth Perry – who took her own life after learning her primary school was to be branded “inadequate” by Ofsted – was the “catalyst” for the changes.
Sir Martyn Oliver, Ofsted’s chief inspector, said: “This is the beginning of a new chapter for Ofsted as we reset our priorities, refine our practices and rebuild our relationships.
“We want to retain the confidence of the children, parents and carers we work for, and regain the respect of the committed professionals we work with.
“The tragic death of Ruth Perry was a catalyst for this change, but the case for change has been building for years.
“We recognise the growing challenges facing education and social care, particularly since the pandemic. We don’t want to add to this pressure.
“Many of the changes we are introducing are aimed at reducing the pressure on those we inspect.”
5 September 2024
‘Eye-opening’ report calls for action on ‘inconsistent and unpredictable’ bus services for disabled passengers
An “eye-opening” report has called for action to address the “inconsistent, unpredictable and sometimes inaccessible services” that disabled bus passengers have to put up with.
The report is based on research that aimed to understand the main challenges faced by different groups of disabled bus passengers, and how they could be addressed.
The report, by the campaigning charity Bus Users UK, details the experiences of 32 disabled bus passengers across England, Scotland and Wales.
Each of them documented their bus journeys in a two-week diary, while they also took part in interviews with researchers.
The report, Why Are We Waiting?, describes barriers relating to inaccessible bus stops; the design of buses; the attitudes of bus drivers and fellow passengers; and timetables and other audio and visual information.
Among particular barriers the passengers have faced are a lack of seating or shelter at bus stops; obstacles such as high kerbs and bins around bus stops; wheelchair spaces that face away from live information displays; and outdated timetable information.
Data collected by Bus Users UK shows that 4.5 per cent of all bus complaints in 2022-23 were related to disability or accessibility.
One of the disabled passengers who took part in the research, Clara*, described how standing for longer than five minutes means she can feel too tired to complete the rest of her journey.
She told researchers: “If there’s a seat at that stop, I’d probably sit down and stay – if the next one was due in 10 minutes, I’d wait… but if there was no seat and it wasn’t due quite quickly, I’m going home and that’s it, I’m done.
“If I’m going for an appointment, I’m cancelling it. If I was due somewhere, I’ll send my apologies.”
Most of the wheelchair-users who took part said they had been in situations where people with pushchairs or buggies would not willingly give up the space on a bus assigned for wheelchair-users.
Many of those who took part in the research said they had had negative experiences with bus drivers, often because of communication problems.
Katya, from Southport, told the researchers she had regularly tried to take the bus but stopped because drivers would make excuses for refusing to let her on board in her powered wheelchair.
She said: “They’d say that I had to have insurance to be in a wheelchair and that I had to be on the road.
“They would say their ramp wasn’t working. They would say there was a pram in the space so I couldn’t get on, all of that.
“And it just became that you couldn’t go anywhere.”
Grant, from Wales, said he was worried about the “floating” bus stops that have been introduced locally.
He is visually-impaired and said the design – where a cycle lane is placed between the bus stop and the pavement – puts people at risk of colliding with cyclists when they exit the bus.
Many of those who took part said audio and visual information on buses tended to be ineffective because of malfunctions, displaying the wrong information, or because it was hard to view for those in the priority and wheelchair spaces.
Ruth, who has a physical impairment, said the unreliability of buses meant she could no longer rely on them for important events such as hospital appointments, so she had to spend more money on taxis.
The report concludes: “Efforts to improve accessibility and inclusion have had to balance the needs of passengers with the demands on operators to deliver commercially viable services.
“The result for disabled passengers has been inconsistent, unpredictable and sometimes inaccessible services as operators and local authorities have at times had to make the difficult decision to run sub-standard services over no service at all.
“This needs to change.”
Among its recommendations, the report calls for collaboration between government, the transport industry, local authorities and disabled people.
But it also calls for the government to set stricter standards, provide greater clarity around existing legislation, and increase funding.
And – among other recommendations – it says local authorities should improve infrastructure and consultation with disabled people, while bus operators should improve engagement and collaboration with disabled bus passengers and staff training.
Claire Walters, chief executive of Bus Users UK, said that, despite recent advances in legislation, staff training and vehicle design, “buses are still far from fully accessible and this research highlights, in their own words, the many challenges facing disabled passengers”.
She said the report demonstrated the importance of the industry working with disabled passengers to overcome the barriers they face.
She said: “What we need now is a sustained commitment, collaboration, and funding to ensure that bus travel offers a genuinely reliable, accessible and environmentally-friendly option for everyone.”
Motability Foundation, which funded the research, described the report as “eye-opening”.
Stephen Brookes, transport policy adviser for Disability Rights UK, welcomed the report, and said: “We are pleased to collaborate with Bus Users UK and in our work we agree with and reinforce the simple but critical fact that it is vital to involve disabled people in the design and procurement stages of bus and service design to try to ensure consistent bus designs across different regions, which otherwise hinders accessibility and independence.”
*The names of passengers who took part in the research are all pseudonyms
5 September 2024
Other disability-related stories covered by mainstream media this week
A vital lifeline for struggling families has been extended until next April. There was growing alarm over whether the Household Support Fund, which was set to end on September 30, would continue. But now the government has confirmed it won’t be scrapped. The fund allows local authorities to distribute cash to those struggling with the cost of energy, food and water. Ministers announced a £421 million extension in England, with a further £79 million for devolved administrations in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland: https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/breaking-vital-household-support-fund-33582232
Almost half of people on universal credit ran out of food in the last month and didn’t have money to buy more, a report has found. The Trussell Trust also found nearly seven in 10 working people receiving the benefit had gone without essentials in the last six months. It estimates that 1.6 million people who claim universal credit have used food banks in the past year, as it warned of a “crisis of hardship” across the UK: https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/bombshell-universal-credit-survey-finds-33582007
Firefighter, disability and Grenfell groups have criticised the existence of a “dangerous postcode lottery” as data revealed an “inconsistent rollout” of emergency evacuation plans for vulnerable people across London. The Guardian submitted freedom of information requests to all London councils on how many personal emergency evacuation plans (PEEPs) had been issued since 2017. Of the 33 London councils, 29 responded. The data found five London councils – Hounslow, Islington, Lewisham, Hackney and Tower Hamlets – had not issued any PEEPs: https://www.theguardian.com/society/article/2024/sep/01/evacuation-plans-vulnerable-london-dangerous-postcode-lottery-grenfell
5 September 2024
News provided by John Pring at www.disabilitynewsservice.com
